Aly Welch's Blog

She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by—
And never knew.

Shel Silverstein, Masks

Be kind. Be yourself.Be honest. No, be quiet.Be as it suits me.me (who is absolutely not on his level, but may have been the dumbass try-hard that always volunteered in school. Didn’t get eaten by aliens, just checked out.)

There’s this video by a sad beige woman about raising sad beige kids instead of letting t...

We’ve got to keep the young-uns out of the forest. Otherwise, ain’t nothin’ gonna stop it from happening again. That’s why it’s up to us adults to shoulder the sins of the past.” – Artur Braus, Attack on Titan

I meant to post a follow up to my post about Attack on Titan awhile ago, but reality got in the way. I don’t even know where to begin unpacking the nonsense of the past seven months….hence the lack of posts.

Anyway, my son was surprised I now consider Attack on Titan one of my top three sh...

We’ve got to keep the young-uns out of the forest. Otherwise, ain’t nothin’ gonna stop it from happening again. That’s why it’s up to us adults to shoulder the sins of the past.” – Artur Braus, Attack on Titan

I meant to post a follow up to my post about Attack on Titan awhile ago, but reality got in the way. I don’t even know where to begin unpacking the nonsense of the past seven months….hence the lack of posts.

Anyway, my son was surprised I now consider Attack on Titan one of my top three sh...

I’m not going to repeat anything RFK Jr said about autism, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment. I saw someone say that fixating on his language was petty, but his language dehumanizes people. Crimes against humanity always begin with dehumanizing language. It’s happened to the autistic community before. We don’t want to see it happen again. Nothing this administration has said or, more importantly, done indicates the good intentions some wish to infer. If someone’s worried about environmental ...

“This world is a cruel place…but it’s also very beautiful.”

– Mikasa, Attack on Titan

I spent the last part of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 watching Attack on Titan with my son. I’m glad he talked me into watching. As I said before, I’d seen parts of the first horrific episode, but I’ve grown squeamish in my old age. Attack on Titan is a violent show, but it’s hard to craft such a stunning condemnation of war, hate, and violence without depicting war, hate, and violence in all its horror. In a...

“I ate the whole world, and I’ll eat it forever.”

– Marina

My annual write ups are my favorite posts because I get to focus on things that I love instead of the things that vex me. As always, everything may not have come out in 2024, but that’s when I experienced it. Case in point, anime series like Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures.

One son still does modern kenpo karate and is on track to becoming a full black belt like me next year. He often joins me for food, hik...

“This world is a cruel place…but it’s also very beautiful.”

– Mikasa, Attack on Titan

“I ate the whole world, and I’ll eat it forever.”

– Marina

My annual write ups are my favorite posts because I get to focus on things that I love instead of the things that vex me. As always, everything may not have come out in 2024, but that’s when I experienced it. Case in point, anime series like Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures.

One son still does modern kenpo karate and is on ...

“I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.”

– Coretta Scott King

I don’t want to talk about the United Health CEO or the man who killed him. The media wants to talk about little else, least of all the health insurance stories people try to share. When chi...

“Humanity has been stripped from the virtual world: deliberately, maliciously. The goal is to make humans less human. Less imaginative and more callous; more desperate and less kind. Less demanding of authority, but ruthlessly demanding of ordinary people who hold neither leverage nor power. Memes and mantras replace contemplation and compassion, rendering humans indistinguishable from bots.”

– Sarah Kendzior

On the eve of the election, one of my sons noted “We’re either cooked today or cooked ...

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the ...