Today I spotted a Ford Expedition bearing Gandhi’s classic quote on its bumper:
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
For anyone not familiar with the Expedition, this is a 5500-pound vehicle with a fuel economy (MPG) in the mid-teens. (for comparison, a Honda Civic weighs half as much and has double the fuel economy.)
After India achieved independence and Hindus and Muslims decided to start fighting each other, Gandhi said, “Everybody is eager to garland my photos and statues, but nobody wants to follow my advice.” Seems rather appropriate here.
A Mercedes may cost its owner a lot of money, but I’ll bet it has more moderate fuel economy than the Expedition and can be made using considerably less than 5500 pounds of steel.
Not a bumper sticker, but the combination of car and message apply here. The car was (is, it may still be running around for all I know), an older model boxy square economy car of some sort, red in color. It isn’t in terrible shape, but has old worn paint, and one of the taillights has been duct taped on (a nice fairly subtle taping job, but still), and the red part of the taillight is a piece of flexible red plastic.
The license plates say “spoild” (Spoiled, I’m pretty sure). Every time I saw that car, (and it was still tooling around Anchorage when I left), I always thought “well whoever is “spoiling” you isn’t doing a very good job”.