Memorial cars

[vilakins]

While I'm here (and LJ is), this is something else I've been meaning to ask about.

A couple of months ago I was following a car with a man's full name on the rear window and something in a curving line above it which I couldn't read till I got closer. In a very fancy script it said, "In loving memory of". OK, that was weird, but then a couple of weeks ago I saw another car with a much more readable sans-serif "In memory of" followed by another name. Both names were fairly standard English ones FWIW.

Has anyone else seem this sort of thing and/or know anything about it? Is it a new thing or something old which has just surfaced here?

And now I'm off to a barbecue with some people from Greg's work. I hope some of the people I know relatively well are there.

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

True! Of course tourists from here would notice things like clothes, petrol, cars.

I still don't know why our clothes and shoes are so expensive; the clothes are all made in China after all and some of the shoes are. Until I got a full-time job I lived in Crocs.

I also don't know why so many Americans are afraid of a national health service like the UK has, and we have to a lesser extent. The rich probably prefer survival of the richest--I often suspect that of our right-wing governing National party--but surely the majority should realise they'd benefit.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

The majority aren't really good at risk calculation, or maths in general, and they see the fact they will have to output money and like to think they will never really get sick. Plus, the current model-- mandating *private* insurance, actually mandates a profit-making private sector (because anything else is socialism), while single-payer actually can be run nonprofit.

Add to that, huge numbers of Americans are paranoid about government (some for religious reasons, did you know Obama is the Anticrhist?), so they assume bureaucrats would just let them die rather than send them for treatment. After all, "If Stephen Hawking lived under the British National Health System, he'd be dead by now."<--True quote from American wingnut who couldn't be bothered to know the location and nationality of his celebrity example.

In short, many Americans are completely ignorant and proud of it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, man!

I have no other words.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

As for why Americans aren't good at this: when a teacher tried to teach critical thinking to a group of eighth graders, she got in trouble. The parents were complaining because the children were asking questions in church and at home. Authoritarians want obedient children, not smart ones, and America is overrun with a religious and economic authoritarian view.

I get very angry.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's certainly a very conservative society; strange when once it was so go-ahead.