All the blog that’s fit to print.

Many years ago, back when my family lived in North Texas, we spent a day at the Six Flags theme park in suburban Dallas, and when we returned to the car to go home, discovered that someone had pasted a gaudy bumper sticker on the back bumper of my mother’s car — I think it was orange letters on white background — SIX FLAGS OVER TEXAS.

Odd for a number of reasons. Even ca. 1967, who would think that slapping unsolicited stickers on your customers’ cars is a good idea? How does pissing people off contribute to brand loyalty? Pissed off, indeed, was my mother. On the other hand, maybe it was a band of AstroWorld employees out to generate ill-will against their nemesis, Six Flags. Of course, AstroWorld would disavow an knowledge of the Bumper Disinformation Squad if any of its members were killed or captured…

Perhaps it’s from my mother, then, that I acquired an aversion to putting like messages on the back of my vehicles. Never have, never will. But I’m always on the lookout for one that will amuse me on someone else’s car. (It would be very, very hard to top CAT: THE OTHER OTHER WHITE MEAT.)

I walk about a half a mile through my west suburban neighborhood most workday mornings and afternoons, to the train station and back, and not long ago I noticed something new pasted on a neighbor’s car. Car? No, it’s important to know that this vehicle is a Ford Explorer SUV. And it wasn’t a conventional bumper sticker, either. As befitting an SUV the size of a Jovian moon, big bold letters were pasted on the back window.

Roughly, it says: SO YOU THINK MY SUV CONTRIBUTES TO TERRORISM? “BITE ME” DON’T QUESTION MY LOYALTY

Prickly bastard, eh? You can make a decent case on either side of the SUV-supports-terrorism pickle, though I happen to believe that oil money to the contemptible House of Saud will indeed buy some terror in the USA. But by God, don’t suggest that to this oaf. As if his loyalty — which I do not question — somehow changes the facts of the matter, and means he can’t be a dupe, in some little way. It’s a fallacy big enough to drive a Ford Explorer through.