Bumper Stickers Versus Location

Bumper Stickers

     Bumper stickers are used all across the country to promote messages. Typically, the messages state beliefs on religion and politics, or the organization/ affiliations that are important to the owner of the vehicle. This being said it was interesting to examine the similarities and differences between two different communities within one town. In order to get two communities that varied I observed the Walmart parking lot and a Colorado State University student parking lot. One of the similarities that I noticed was that both locations had bumper stickers promoting more democratic/ liberal views. This makes since, due to the growth of the progressive activist population in the state of Colorado. Another similarity that I found was the willingness to promote Colorado as a state. Many vehicles displayed the mountains of Colorado and the “I love Colorado” stickers. However, even though these two locations are both inside Fort Collins boundaries, the content of the bumper stickers were more dissimilar than alike. When looking at the demographic of the Walmart customers, it was important to understand that it consisted of more families than the overwhelming population of students of the campus parking lot. Instead of the Walmart customers having Colorado State University stickers, they had “Parents of Colorado State University Student”, or “Colorado State University Alumni” stickers. Along with that, the customers of Walmart had the generic family sticker set which was not present on the campus grounds as well as stickers relating to the schools/ sports in which their children attend and participate in. Opposite of that, the student vehicles contained stickers that were more humorous. These stickers included Band-Aids on dents of the cars, the student’s favorite bands, and the promotion for Marijuana. All in all, a community that consists of families tends to have bumper stickers that present themselves as an organization, whereas a community of students tends to have stickers that promote themselves as individuals.

Summary of Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

     In this open letter, Nathan Brown, a UC Davis Assistant Professor voices his opinion on the Chancellor’s actions. The actions that he chooses to discuss deals with her involvement in the student’s safety. Brown believed that Katehi’s response of bringing violence to a campus protest makes her unfit to fulfill her position. He states that she spoke the right words in stating that she is promoting a safe campus, but that her actions say otherwise. Overall, he uses repetition in hopes to get her to resign from the occupation in order to protect the student body from harms way.