During the war 1939-1945, the UK government issued a poster asking "Is your journey really necessary?" This is answered today by a bumper sticker issued with all copies of the Guardian. See below. It's the word 'absolutely' that bothers me. Few things are absolutely necessary to our lives, and certainly not many journeys, except the last one in a box. [attachmentid=5695] [attachmentid=5694]
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Nov 18 2006, 06:24 AM) [snapback]351358[/snapback]</div> Seems like a pretty cool ad campaign and I'd love to have one of the Guardian's bumper stickers for my Prius, do you know how I could get one? I went to the their web site and didn't see anything about it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Nov 18 2006, 10:02 AM) [snapback]351374[/snapback]</div> I suppose you could print one from my scan but I don't know what the copyright position is on this. Alternatively write to the editor of the Guardian at [email protected]
I'm not really familiar w/ "The Guardian" at all, but my first impression of the bumper sticker was that it was a bit more metaphorical than literal...perhaps the sticker was delivered in the context of 'do you need to take that drive and waste gas'...I just don't know. There is no frame of reference, no point of context to refer to....and because of that I saw it more as a metaphor. Can anyone clarify the context?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Nov 18 2006, 03:24 AM) [snapback]351358[/snapback]</div> And at the start of the present war, the shrub called on Americans to keep spending money, and, presumably, to keep driving their cars and burning gas. Victory gardens and gas rationing would cut into corporate profits.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 22 2006, 11:21 AM) [snapback]353027[/snapback]</div> Ugh, those "America, open for business" bags and stickers where repugnant...and -- oddly enough, since this *is* a war over resources, after all, and we're extremely vulnerable to disruptions in our drug (I mean, oil) supply -- we never did receive the "it's patriotic to conserve" message. I got the feeling that our public servants actually had no confidence in our ability to deal with events of this nature...didn't want to "scare" us (like seeing the towers come down wouldn't have that effect)...and so we were told to "just keep living our lives." When it's that very "lifestyle" that's getting us into trouble in the first place. People are lots smarter and more adaptable to change than those in charge give us credit for. I think a conservation message would have brought us together...whereas the 'continue to consume' message just perpetuated the behaviour which got us into trouble in the first place. As an aside, I remember my Mom telling me how, during WWII, she used an eyebrow pencil to get the effect of seamed hosiery...just by drawing a vertical line down the back of her legs (silk and nylon were strategic materials back then). American ingenuity. Where has it gone? And why is it no longer noble to make do with less???
