Dr. Omed was making his homeward commute one day last week, and spotted a black ribbon sticker on the back of the SUV in front of him. It wasn't one of those great honking tanks I dream of keying in the dead of night, but still, it was an SUV. The driver of the SSUV (Slightly Slimmer Utility Vehicle) may have attached a different meaning to the rear end of his or her car when he or she slapped the magnetic symbol on it than I did when I spray painted black ribbons on bridge abutments with a cardboard stencil, but... Some of my black ribbons survive around town; you just have to know where to look. Yellow is not this driver's color. Whatever the driver intends by it, it signifies a different meaning than that of the yellow ribbon, which I decode as: Support the troops=support the war=support Bush / No yellow ribbon=you're no patriot=you support the terrorists=traitor. It was a lot easier to smugly slap one of those yellow suckers on your bumper back when patriotism was a thousand or so US lives and a few hundred billion dollars cheaper, and Bush hadn't proclaimed victory at least once for every soldier killed.
