Yes.

Lest We Forget On Remembrance Day

Willie and Joe by Bill Mauldin

“In the deep fall, the body awakes,”

— Robert Bly, from “A Home in Dark Grass,” The Light Around the Body (HarperPerennial, 1991)

Magenta?

These were coveted precious artifacts for us kids; they were talismans in the truest sense like the root ancient Greek verb TELEIN, "to initiate into the mysteries." They validated and confirmed some of the hollow absurdity, stale lies, and frayed seams we were starting to notice about the adult world.

So we mounted them everywhere, carving our territory with heiroglyphs. We pasted Wacky Pack stickers where we'd always see them: on school books, desks, nights side tables, lamps, walls next to our beds. They served as wards that would stay blindness and ignorance from descending on us, save us from becoming like the sullen violent adults that surrounded us. The Storied stickers were a comfort, but also like a rallying call of transgression that poked the fake world in its eye.

We're a whole generation raised simultaneously under two religions: Consumerism and Anti-Consumerism. Wacky Pack and their spiritual cousin, Mad Magazine both in their own way, stood shoulder to shoulder with the stories of Jack London, John Fitzgerald, Roald Dahl and Mark Twain, that didn't talk down to us like we were imbeciles.

They felt special, like a secret visual language, intended for us, acknowledging our minds.

WACKY PACK WHIZ BANG

VISIONS OF VINTAGE WACKINESS

Topps Wacky Packages Series 16

Circa 1976

The Mighty Tardigrade is defined by his endurance. He persists, the Avatar of resilience. Tardigrade cannot be felled; The Tardigrade carries on.

I'm at the very functional end of the autism spectrum and I find randomness or change difficult and agitating. Sometimes, I do just have to say no.

What's tiring in the extreme is having to explain over and over to people who question every single time. It invalidates and devalues me. I find with cognitive, neurological, psychological and emotional disorders and conditions, people say they understand, that they are accepting and oppose stigma, but then do this "what's going on" confused, impatient, or disbelieving routine any time you show signs of a symptom or trait.

Worse, when you explain, they chime in again with their flaccid facile two cents on both the condition and my diagnosis. I've reached the point, I usually just want to reply with violence. Some ways I can flex, other ways not so much. And more stress = more rigid, less resilient. That's not complicated to remember.

have a nice day :)

I wish I owned any property because I really need this wall somewhere in my yard.

Damn it!

Never gonna find that talking fish.

Remember kids, the best way to embody important values like equality, inclusion and diversity is to maintain a prioritizing hyper focus favouring your arbitrary demographic based identity group.

Always loudly demonstrate your beliefs in individual human rights, person-first ethos, anti-nationalism, anti-communism, anti-ideologism , anti-elitism, anti-classism, by shaming and castigating others for failing to conform to this enlightenment which only we possess, and has forced us to always protectively act solely in the vested interests of our group in the name of justice for all.

Think of it as being part of an eternal elite Hive granting you purpose, clarity and a badge of untouchable authority. It is essential, if we are to prevail in having our truth dominate, that you see, think and act solely through the lens of our unified group's needs, feelings, grievances and agenda. If you ever doubt, remember that is your internalized misogyny. There is only being with us, or being oppressors and we won't tolerate them. Don't worry if it sounds confusing, we have it very clearly defined for you in our discourse that no one is allowed to debate.

Be proud, aggressive and fierce about it: devalue, discredit and dismiss dissent it is the hate from out-group voices who don't want us to get our way, they are distracting noise. Opposition shouldn't be allowed to be heard, it could confuse people. If they oppose us then they are by our definition, oppressors. Whatever their needs, or any challenge or question, always be swift in calling out opposition and use anything you can to silence it. Make our voice loud and overpowering, denounce them as haters, anything it takes. That is how you will have freedom to carve out entitled space and privilege for our group. Then you just continue to self-promote us under the banner of inclusive justice and equality that no one can argue against.

I know it sounds deceitful, hypocritical and impossible to pull off, but trust us, we've been doing it for decades, no one has stopped us yet and most wouldn't dare try. Demands and shaming, always repeat what works.