Conner's Blog

Driving on I35 yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker stating “Guns Cause Violence just Like Flies Cause Garbage”.  This is one of those irritating statements that does nothing but create arguments (as opposed to stimulating debate).  The point I believe the speaker, who appears to be  Zink Mitchell, wanted to make is that guns are not the cause of violence just as flies are not the cause of garbage. Though true in spirit, this analogy is a fallacy.

Let’s look at this statement closer.  I will agree that flies don’t create garbage, they are attracted to the smell in their search for dead organic material to lay their eggs on.  Knowing this, we can determine that garbage must first exist for flies to appear.  Additionally, it also seems that flies are one of the organisms that are responsible for breaking down garbage, or making it disappear.  Some would say that flies make garbage worse, but if you understand the process, you would know they actually help remove garbage from the ecosystem.

Let’s compare the second part of the analogy to the first.  We have determined that flies are attacked by garbage, and are not the cause of garbage.  For the analogy to work guns must be attracted to violence.  If this was true, it would seem to follow that guns would appear anytime a fist fight broke out, or any other violent activity.  I think we must all agree this is not the case.

Once again I hate statements like this, they don’t add anything to what is a very important debate.  Though I don’t believe that banning guns is the answer to violent crime, I can not see how one can argue that strict controls on hand guns and automatic weapons are a bad thing.  I have no problem with my neighbor being able to go to Cabela’s and buy a shotgun or rifle for hunting.  I do have a problem with my neighbor being able to go out and purchase a sub machine gun or assault rifle.  If he really feels the need to fire a sub machine gun or assault rifle, he should join the military. I would guess most of the men and woman in uniform would rather carrying a shotgun any day.

Oh and to make a correct analogy on guns, how about “Guns cause violence like cameras cause memories”.

Does anyone know where this sign originated?   Was it mandated by some health department somewhere or did some restaurant decide that it would be good marketing to put the sign up?

I hate this sign, always have and always will.  As an employee it was insulting, as a customer it worries me.  If your employees can’t remember to wash their hands after using the restroom, what else are they forgetting to do?

If I was the marketing director of a large food service chain, one of the first things I would do would be to eliminate the use of this sign from all restrooms.  I would then “accidentally” leak a memo which would state, “We feel our team members are smart enough and have sufficient training to feel comfortable removing this sign from our restrooms.”  I would also consider sending thank you notes to the employees mothers thanking them for defraying the cost of training their sons and daughters.

thank you to sandrino for the photo.

I’ve never been a fan of Best Buy.  Yes, I consider Minnesota my second home after Montana, but just because a company is native to MN doesn’t mean I don’t consider it somewhat evil.  I do have to admit though, that Best Buy usually seems to know what they are doing.  If nothing else choosing to sell Ubuntu score them a point or two less on the evil scale.

Still, even considering them evil, I hate seeing local companies do something incredibly dumb.  Best Buy is opening a store in the Mall of America this week.  Considering that the Mall is less than four miles from Best Buy’s corporate headquarters, it surprised me they didn’t already have a location there.  They seem pretty excited about it, more marketing for a new store than you usually see from Best Buy.  They open on Thursday(8/7), and are giving away some prizes to the first few guests.  On Friday they are having a ribbon cutting ceremony.  Seems like a good idea, it’s going to be pretty crazy I’m sure.  Oddly though, as a celebrity, they brought in Magic Johnson.

Now I would be pretty stoked myself if I got to meet Magic Johnson.  Then again I grew up in Montana where basketball is pretty much the sport of choice for most school.  In Minnesota, at least in my experience, the choice of sports is hockey, football, baseball,  and basketball, in that order.  I can say that nearly all my friends love hockey, spend the NFL season following the Vikes, and at least casually follow the Twins.  Not one of them cares one bit about the Timberwolves.

So why would Best Buy bring in an out of town star who played the states least popular sport?  It seems kind of pointless if you are trying to get people around the Metro excited about the store.  Bring in Gordie Howe or Harmon Killebrew if you are trying get people excited.

Of course maybe they are not trying to get people excited, I’m sure they will be packed all weekend.  It is the Mall of America, where you get trampled just walking of the restroom on weekends.  If that is the case though, then why bother with a celebrity at all?