Bumper Crop

Bumper stickers appearing on a Toyota Camry that on Tuesday, December 23, 2008, was parked in the parking garage located to the west of The Tattered Cover on West Colfax Avenue in Denver, Colorado.

“Treehugging Dirt Worshipper”

“Walk In Balance”
(letters are in green, text is to the left of a Ying / Yang symbol that includes symmetrical images of paw tracks)

“Life Is The School
Love Is The Lesson”

“ONLY WHEN THE LAST
TREE HAS DIED AND THE LAST RIVER HAS
BEEN POISONED & THE LAST FISH HAS BEEN CAUGHT
WILL WE REALIZE THAT WE CANNOT EAT MONEY”
(the letters in the first lines of text are twice as large as those in the other lines)

“IF YOU WANT TO WEAR FUR
STOP SHAVING”
(the letters in the first line are half as large as those in the second line)

“[3 illegible words] CAPITALISM”
(I could not make out the first three words in my photo of the bumper sticker)

“None But Ourselves
Can Free Our Minds – – Bob Marley”
(an image of Bob Marley’s face appears to the left of the text)

“WORLD PEACE”
(text is superimposed on a green profile of the front range of Colorado Rockies reminiscent of vintage Colorado license plates)

“COSTA RICA”
(text appears below an image of a praying mantis clinging to a branch, superimposed over a full moon)

“BEGIN WITHIN”

“BOB
MARLEY
REVOLUTIONARY”
(the text in the last line is 4 times taller than the text in the other lines, and appears below an image of Bob Marley)

“sustainable
hemp
food.fuel.fiber”
(the text in the second line is 3 times taller than the text in the other lines)

“Support
Family
Planning”

“Let Your Inner Kid
Out To Play”

“EDUCATION
PREVENTS
PRISONS”

A Sign

There is a one-story house located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Ridge Road and Gallup Street in Littleton, Colorado. The house has a patch of artificial turf in the front yard. When a car is in the driveway, it is a silver Toyota Prius. On the first garbage pickup day after Christmas there were three recycle crates on the curb – – one green, one yellow, and one red.  A sign affixed to the front door is large enough to be read from the street:

HIPPIES
—-USE—-
SIDE DOOR

The Best Story from Sunday

Today I was in my parents’ home in Littleton, Colorado. My father gathered my mother, older brother Scott, and I at the kitchen table to read chapters 7 through 10 of the Book of Mormon (See http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/contents), the chapters assigned for the day’s Sunday School lesson we would attend later in the day. Each of us read one chapter out loud; I started out, reading Moroni 7. When I was done, my father said the chapter demonstrated the power of The Book of Mormon. He then shared a story from his service as a missionary for the LDS Church in Southern California in the 1950s. He and his missionary companion visited the home of a young woman named Audrey Pyles. When they arrived Ms. Pyles’ home was noisy and disorderly, and people inside her place were partying. My Dad and his companion left a copy of the Book of Mormon, and said they would return in 3 days. After 3 days they returned. The home of Ms. Pyles was quiet, orderly, and clean. She told them that she had read the Book of Mormon that they had left for her, and that she wanted to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Not As Bad As It Looks?

I took this photo from westbound I-70, running along north Denver, at 6:11 pm on Tuesday, December 23, 2008.  The view is to the northwest.  The text on the sign to the left of the photo identifies a sponsor of the “Clean Colorado” program.

I Am Not An Animal

There is no reason when we shop for groceries that we should feel like a laboratory rat trying to find that piece of cheese at the other end of the maze, right?

“[Supermarkets] are all versed in the science of persuading people to buy things—a science that, thanks to technological advances, is beginning to unlock the innermost secrets of the consumer’s mind . . . [The] area immediately inside the entrance of a supermarket is known as the `decompression zone’. People need to slow down and take stock of the surroundings, even if they are regulars . . . Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, famously employs `greeters’ at the entrance to its stores. Whether or not they boost sales, a friendly welcome is said to cut shoplifting. It is harder to steal from nice people. Immediately to the left in Sainsbury’s is another familiar sight: a `chill zone’ for browsing magazines, books and DVDs, tempting impromptu purchases and slowing customers down. But those on a serious mission will keep walking ahead—and the first thing they come to is the fresh fruit and vegetables section. For shoppers, this makes no sense. Fruit and vegetables can be easily damaged, so they should be bought at the end, not the beginning, of a shopping trip. But psychology is at work here: selecting good wholesome fresh food is an uplifting way to start shopping, and it makes people feel less guilty about reaching for the stodgy stuff later on . . ..” (Christmas Specials – – The science of shopping – – The way the brain buys – – Dec 18th 2008 | BASINGSTOKE, ENGLAND – – From The Economist print edition – – Retailers are making breakthroughs in understanding their customers’ minds. Here is what they know about you [http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12792420])