Thanks, Batman

Prompt: Hero

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Dear Wednesday,

Do people still have heroes? And I do not mean comic superheroes, those tiny-waisted muscle men and women who have remarkably similar histories of tragedy, misunderstanding, and injustice and similarly remarkable and predictable current obsessions and similarly pyrotechnic, technicolour battles against villainy. Sorry (not sorry), I supposed you’ve guessed by now that I’m not a fan.

Perhaps superheroes are popular because there are so few real human heroes in our midst. Remember when politicians like John F. Kennedy or Nelson Mandela or Tommy Douglas or Lester Pearson or Winston Churchill or Ghandi innovated and inspired? How about Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts, and those who devote their heart and soul to a pursuit despite tremendous obstacles, like Jackie Robinson or Jesse Owens, Terry Fox, Martin Luther King Jr., Oskar Schindler, Rosa Parks or Harriet Tubman? What happened to the kind of courage that left us breathless?

There are many unsung heroes, of course: Many of the “greatest generation” who endured the Great Depression and World War II, doing their duty with honour and without complaint even in the darkest of times. There are people who quietly and selflessly dedicate their lives to caring for the less fortunate, people who protest and even vote under dangerous circumstances, people who commit invisible yet meaningful heroic acts in their daily lives, like standing up to a bully or speaking up for the marginalized.

I think current political systems that value money, possessions, and personal power above all else create a wasteland in which it is hard for heroes to act or, when they do, to be recognized. Adversity is often a breeding ground for heroes, but the adversity most of us face today is dulled by distractions, drugs, ignorance, or hopelessness. In this atmosphere true heroes are desperately needed— who will step up?

On a lighter note and related to today’s prompt, “hero”, may I present a few of my favourite cartoons?

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Peace and love,

~~FP

Personalized Greetings

Prompt: Jargon

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Hello Wednesday,

It is twenty minutes past four in the afternoon, and time to turn on some indoor lights.

What a short day you were, Wednesday.

This isn’t helped by the Fall Backward clock adjustment out of Daylight Savings Time, which makes it a little lighter a little earlier while I am still asleep. I’m one of the millions in favour of DST ATT, Daylight Savings, All The Time. Who doesn’t love daylight? And savings?

My doctor recently recommended a “happy light”, which I expose my eyeballs to for twenty minutes a day with the intention of elevating my mood from dark winter blahs to bright happy bloops.

How did our primitive ancestors survive without Daylight Savings or happy lights? Do we tend to invent solutions for problems that we create? In other words, what is stopping me from going outside and staring in the direction of the sun for twenty minutes?

Commerce, that’s what. My purchase of the happy light provided income or other benefits to researchers, inventors, manufacturers, factory workers, doctors, and governments (by way of sales tax) all over the world.

Plus, there’s a chance I may graduate from blahs to bloops.

In celebration of this transformation, and in very tenuous connection to the prompt, “jargon”, may I present a few of my favourite cartoons?

 

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Peace and gloves,

~~FP

Gather Round

Prompt: Google it

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Oh dear Wednesday,

When you look out a window and see the tops of trees and think only about trees for a moment, it’s hard to be upset with what’s going on in the world. The problem is that we can’t look at trees forever, all the time, and are instead bombarded with news of great injustice, which we attempt to mitigate in our small ways or big ways, but which stress us so much that we need the visions of trees to calm us down again.

Balance, that’s what life is about. So sure, I can hug and scratch Rosie the therapy dog for half and hour, and feel like Anne of Green Gables. Afterward, when I turn on my device or switch on the news I am faced with IT again. For the moment, IT is personified into the image of one person, who is ignorance, malice, greed, and egoism with two arms and two legs, fake hair, and a fake tan.

Please go and gaze at treetops if you can’t take either IT anymore, or criticism of IT’s personification. I won’t rant, or swear, or write graffiti, or stick pins in anything. I’ll just submit for your enjoyment/ dismay/ venting a few of my favourite cartoons and one angry quotation. Warning: Serious cussing ahead.

Donald Trump is also a coward. For all of his tough talk and bluster, the president of the United States is a punk ass bitch. And this has also been apparent for as long as we’ve known who he is. He slipped out of draft duty because of… bone spurs. Bone spurs don’t even get you on the NFL injury report, but he used it to stay the fuck away from actually having to fight. We know his history of bullying and insulting women. And, since he’s been in office, we’ve seen him cower to Kim Jong Un and literally get Deeboed by Vladimir Putin — two men who, for all of their faults, would definitely whoop Trump’s ass.

We’ve had racist presidents before. We’ve had malignant misogynists in office before. But never has our president been such a fucking wimp.

—Damon Young, Just Remember That Your Punk-Ass President Would Never, Ever, Ever Call LeBron James Dumb to His Face, in The Root, published August 4, 2018.

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Sincere wishes for peace and love from someone who is actually quite calm and gentle,

~~FP