The "He Doesn't Own You" Project
Welcome! If you're here, you likely found a postcard or sticker with our site address on it. Some of these are floating around the congressional office buildings in Washington, DC. We hope you find our anecdotes helpful in these weird, weird times.
Campaign 1: Don't Buy the Rhetoric
Our first postcard campaign contained a simple message of empowerment mailed to every member of the US Senate and US House of Representatives, with a peel-off waterproof sticker in case they like the message enough to stick it on a car bumper or water bottle. I mean, who doesn't love a good sticker?
We were mystified, as political outsiders, that fear, obedience and speculation seemed to be ruling the day in DC. So we created a nice postcard to remind our elected representatives that whatever self-proclaimed authority figure they/you/we find looming about in a domineering way does not own us and never will.
November 2024. He Doesn't Own You. He Never Will. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
Campaign 2: Advice from Crows
Saw the most wonderful thing the morning after the election. Came to the local lake to walk around it at sunrise. A cloud of crows flew over my head and several were chasing a large hawk. One of the crows actually tussled with it, flying upside down, all talons. It was silent, with none of that hollering crows like to do sometimes. The hawk flew off high into a tree and the crows flew on. Business as usual. The hawk likely will try it again. He'll get the same treatment.
Nice example for the weeks and months to come. Take on the bullies, don’t crow about it too loudly, and carry on. Then do it again as needed.
January 2025. See that Predator? We can take him. We do it all the time. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
Campaign 3: Nettles, Slug slime and Biology
an·ti·dote /ˈan(t)əˌdōt/ noun
a medicine taken or given to counteract a particular poison.
This particular sticker is a bit mysterious on its face. I was plodding around at night on a remote private island in the Pacific Northwest with a bunch of biology students and teachers. A student fell into deep nettles and came out with stings all over her legs. We offered water and other useless remedies. One teacher said, "In nature, the antidote is found next to the poison." In this particular situation, she suggested that slug slime would neutralize the nettle stings. We found a large slug, rubbed it with a stick so it gave up some slime, rubbed the slime on the student's legs and the result was immediate relief. We did have to round up more slugs, an easy thing to do in this part of the world, thanked each one for its unwilling sacrifice, and the lesson was profound. The Antidote Grows Next to the Poison, indeed.
In the man-made world, I leave it to you to find the poison/antidote pairings around you. Leave out the slugs; they've given enough to science for a while.
March 2025. The Antidote grows next to the Poison Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
Campaign 4: He Will Always Betray You. Count on it.
We started this whole sticker and postcard project to lend a little encouragement to our members of congress, and try to leave named leaders out of it. We know they're stressed and likely struggling with moral and administrative concerns and nobody needs scolding or being yelled at or loathing the people who put them in office. But one thing that's purely consistent in the current president's actions is that everybody gets betrayed, and we honestly pity those who wistfully believe their loyalty gives them immunity. It's a one-way deal. And it's really just a matter of time. We racked our brains, and the brains of well-informed friends, to find an example of any individual who hasn't seen the underside of the bus, so to speak. We couldn't find any, except three of his five children. So most of our elected officials, we believe, would be better off following the ideals that got them into public service in the first place, and that starts with simply accepting that they will be betrayed by this current president and come up with a backup career just in case.
Start your own sticky protest. I was in DC last week for what I thought was the last time, and I did manage to stick some of the He will always betray you stickers on the historic lamp posts around Dupont Circle. The color makes it blend in nicely so it doesn't seem too much like vandalism. Regarding the 2x2 inch stickers we adhere to the postcards we send to all the members of Congress, we're trying out 1.5x1.5 inch ones which we think might be more tasteful, inexpensive, easier to stick in a notebook or car window, and most importantly faster to stick to the postcard. Each campaign involves 541 postcards which each get an address label, a stamp, and a peel-off sticker glue-sticked on to the card. This last component is messy and very time-consuming so we thought a smaller sticker might go faster. We offer pdfs of both sizes below.
April 2025 He will always betray you. Count on it. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510, Printable 1.5x1.5 Sticker page pdf for Avery 22805
Campaign 5: Eat Fake Bait and You Get Rubber Worm Guts.
rise to the bait: To respond to someone's provoking actions or words in the way that they intended. Likened to a fish attempting to eat the bait on a hook.
Bullies love to bait. Why? Because it totally works. The remedy is simple: Ignore it.
That juicy worm dangling on the hook is actually made of rubber. Don't fall for the juicy-looking rubber worm, even if everyone else seems to. It's not even juicy, and it will just clog up your guts if you eat it. And you don't want your classmates to call you "Rubber Worm Guts." You'd never live it down.
April 2025 (coming soon) Ignore the Bait. That Juicy Rubber Worm is Fake. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
How you can print your own stickers
Avery 2x2 inch waterproof greaseproof label forms, here seen on Amazon, can survive on car bumpers, street posts, and pretty much anywhere else. They resist wept tears, eternal rain, donut grease, and they have gone through the car wash without fading. I uploaded the artwork (in this example, an Adobe Photoshop file) into the Avery website which created a pdf for printing the sheets of labels, which I then had laser-printed by uploading to Office Depot's printing portal. I brought the Avery label blanks to the store and they printed the pdf onto my label blanks. Each entry above has a link to the pdf you can print.