Oh goodee...now we have this Huckabee character to deal with. The radical Christians have a new golden boy who thinks women should stay at home having babies and gays are inherently immoral and unnatural. And OF COURSE he feels this way--he used to be a Pastor. So this is all we need, another Bible-thumping moron running the White House...because it's just worked out so well these last seven years.

I know, I know...not all Christians feel this way and some of you guys out there are Christians...but JESUSfuckingCHRIST! Why can't these guys just stay in church to spout their hatred and ignorance...why can't they stay out of politics. Why do these guys insist on getting into the government so that they can OFFICIALLY inflict their prejudices on my life. It's bad enough having a lay minister in the WH...do we really NEED an ACTUAL minister there???? ARRRRRGGGGHHH!

*sigh*

Sorry...I keep harping about this. But I just saw an article in which Huckabee said that allowing gays into the military would mean the government was supporting a "lifestyle" ('cause homosexuality isn't real...like global warming) that is "abhorent, unnatural and inherently sinful".

You know what's "natural" Mr. Huckabee? Incest, murdering the children of a handy female, rape and all sorts of other acts that I think most people would consider to be "naughty". Oh, and homosexuality is natural too, just like heterosexuality and racial hatred. If the "natrural" world is your example, you'd better examine that world a bit more closely before you toss around phrases like that.

We're screwed...and not in the "lifestyle" way.

I've been catching up a bit on the replies to this journal and have begun to realize that I have fallen into a classic "No-win Scenario", ie, the discussion of politics. As with religion there seems to be no neutral ground on this topic.

However, people seem to have gotten the wrong idea about where I stand on the subject--I don't think that I'm a "Liberal knee-jerk reactionary", however, I AM a liberal. I place a great deal of importance on the rights (as well as the responsibilities) of the individual and freedom of choice.

I will admit to being an unabashed "Bush" hater! Well, OK, I don't "hate" him, but I do have a profound dislike for this egotistical, homophobic, sanctimonious, ignorant, bombastic, stubborn, provential and pin-headed asshole. He has misused the power of his office, cloaking his actions in secrecy, lies and blind patriotic propeganda. I know, I know--same old same-o... But I still think Bush has done more to undermine basic liberty and harmony in this country...hell, in the whole world, that any President in modern histroy...maybe in all time.

OTHRWISE, I tend to be fairly moderate in my political views. Common sense and human rights should trump any specific political agenda. Extreme conservatives and extreme liberals are the ones screwing everything up--we need a Moderate Party! They wouldn't stint on the military, they wouldn't mind a bit of socialism when it's for the greater good and they would be careful with money and would restructure the tax system! That would be lovely, wouldn't it?

Oh--one other thought. I also believe PROFOUNDLY in the separation of church and state! But more than that--I believe not only in freedom OF religion, but in freedom FROM religion! I honestly feel that the sooner religion goes away entirely, the better off the world will be!

Isn't it nice to know that after 7 years of war mongering, good ol' Bush is ready to secure his legacy in the annals of history by devoting an ENTIRE day to...peace.

No doubt his destabilizing influence over the Middle East was just a ploy to drive the Palestinians and Isrealies to the conference table...

I guess I've been misunderestimating him!

I just read a news article that is just so unbelievably fucked up that it almost makes me want to take a Republican view of Islam.

While reviewing the SENTENCE of a woman who was the VICTIM of a gang rape, a Saudi judge decided to INCREASE her sentence to 6 months in prison and 200 lashes. LASHES! For being the victim of a gang rape! Apparently her "crime" was that she was in a car with a male who was not her relative. And I guess that offense is sufficiently heinous that being forcibly raped by seven men wasn't enough of a punishment in and of itself...

Of course, I guess I can't be TOO critical of Saudi justice...after all, they are our ALLIES in the "war on terror".

We're expected to accept Islamic ways and traditions as we would Jewish ways and Christian ways in our enlightened society...but barbarism is barbarism. I'm difficult to offend, but I'm offended as a human being by this kind of injustice and cruelty.

It was a sad weekend at my house. We lost our "problem child", Gryphon. He was a Keeshhound who had troubles right from the start...blind in one eye and with a thyroid imbalance, he had to take medication and he never really matured beyond puppydom. We still loved him...especially Bel and Edmund who spent the most time with him. Also, he was born one year--to the very day--after Bel's mom died, so in that way he was especially significant.

The vet believes that he had a tumor on his petuitary gland that lead to his having a stroke. He advised us that the best thing we could do for him was to put him out of his misery...and so we did.

I sat with him while the drug was administered. It isn't the first time I've had to do that...but it doesn't get easier.

He was a good boy, even though his elevators didn't visit the penthouse very often. He is missed.

Once again Halloween has come and gone and I did less for it this year than ever! :P

I mean, I LOVE Halloween, and yet I never get into it anymore! I just don't seem to have time, or I just don't have anywhere to go to celebrate it. I have great memories of Halloween as a kid--remember the scene in "ET" where all the kids swarm into the coldesac in their costumes? I LIVED that. I grew up in the burbs, and my Halloweens were just like that when I was a kid. I remember going Trick-or-Treating with my best friends, seeing really elaborate house decorations and trying to work up the nerve to go up to the scarier ones...

These same friends and I used to built haunted house displays in his garage...weeks before Halloween. We used to sit up on Saturday nights and watch monster movies.

When I worked at Sun Sportswear, I used to build a paper-sculpture mask the night before to wear on Halloween. It was a challenge, but I don't have the energy for it anymore. :P

Next year I want to really decorate my house, build a cool costume and do Halloween the way it SHOULD be done! I wanna have a party, I wanna scare all the neighborhood kids and I wanna enjoy Halloween again the way I used to!

I saw "Reverend" Fred Phelps on the news again last night. His "church" seems to have been dealt a bit of a blow by the courts who amazingly seemed to think he and his followers were somehow out of line for picketing the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. Appearently the family wasn't consolled by his insistance that their beloved son and brother and husband was "going to Hell" for fighting in support of a country that allows the existance of homosexuals. The court inexplicably decided that picketing the funeral of the soldier was "inflicting cruelty" and underlined the decision by awarding the family 13 million dollars in damages.

Of course, I'd like to know where these "pliant" judges were when this scumbag was picketing AIDs funerals.

I'm not a particularly vindictive person. I believe that most people have good in them and that given the opportunity that good will win out. BUT, there are a few people in this world who seem to exist for no other reason than to spread hate, fear, needless cruelty and (in Fred's case) outright stupidity to everyone they touch. Osama bin Laden is one of these. Charles Manson is another. These are people who the world will be a better place when they are dead--and I don't say that lightly. I may be an atheist, but I believe that life is precious, al the more because I am unconvinced of the immortality of the soul.

Fred Phelps Sr. is one of those people...in my opinion, one of the very worst. The total amount of pure, unadulterated evil in the world will drop significantly the day that mother-fucker drops dead!

If there WAS a god, this piece of shit would already be roasting in the Hell he is so fond of insisting everyone else is going to.

Has anybody seen commercials for the Beowulf movie? I've seen several...and they bothered me but I couldn't figure out why ubtil I started to realize the characters LOOKED computer generated--even in scenes that didn't NEED CG figures. Is the whole thing just done with CGI? Is there nothing real in it?

I guess the problem I have with it is that it LOOKS CGI. I don't mind when CGI stuff is used in movies...even if it's overused a bit (LOTR), but if it's just taken to the point where EVERYTHING is CG...and not even very good CG...

WTF?

The redoubtible 2, Ranting Gryphon extraordinaire, has asked me to think about doing a little segment on his show giving advice and tips about creating furry art. This is, of course, very exciting--BUT I am having a small problem with it: I'm not really sure what people need to know, especially that I can convey in words and in a few minutes. Usually when I am advising someone about drawing, I am doing it visually...

SO, my request is--what advice or tips would any of you out there like to get from me? Anyone? Hello? Bueller?

If you have any thoughts about this, please let me know.

*Hugs*
Da Pup

I saw the last couple of minutes of a show called "In the Life" the other day (it's a show about GBLT issues) and Harvey Firestein was reading a couple of letters and such, but in conclusion he said something that made me think. He said: "Equal Rights means that if straight people can do it, then gay people can do it." That statement really works well, for instance--plug different things into it: "If white people can do it, black people can do it." Or, "If men can do it, women can do it." See how that works?

It made me realize that in the issue of equality, "seperate but equal" is NOT equality, it's compromise with intolerance. So as far as gay marriage goes--fuck the religious bigots and the ignorant traditionalists: If straight people can do it then gay people have the right to do it too!

Thanks Harvey! I'm glad you're there to keep me on the 'Gay and Wobbly'!

So...at a Q&A session with J.K. Rowling, author of the unprecedentedly successful "Harry Potter" books, someone asked whether Prof. Dumbledore had ever had a girlfriend. J.K. replied that she had always imagined Dumbledore as gay! Even to the point that when a line of dialog in one of the screenplays referred to an old girlfriend in his life, she scratched it out and wrote: "Dumbledore is gay!" in the margin.

Of course, the Right immediately denounced this as further evidence of the depravity of Rowling's "Wizarding World"...but since they didn't like them anyway because magic is too unChristian, no big loss. I WAS, however, annoyed that gay activists chimed in to say that they wished she had made it more obvious and even a plot point in the books. I disagree. I think that this way is perfect!

She has shown that his sexual orientation had NOTHING to do with his motives and actions. She has shown that just because someone is gay, doesn't mean they can't be a "normal" member of their society. After all, if she HAD made it a plot point, people's perceptions of him AT THE TIME would have been colored by the revelation. Now, all the people who loved Dumbledore's character, but would be upset by his sexual orientation have to look at their own motives if they change their minds about him now. They will have to admit themselves hypocrites if they now turn against the series.

People can be gay WITHOUT being, predators, or pedaphiles, or even activists--and by announcing that a beloved character happened to be gay all along, she has shown that gay people can be good and even special without it having to be all about their gayness.

Also, I applaud her for making this statement. With two movies yet to be made and millions of dollars in toy and accessories sales on the line, it was a brave thing to do. She could have just kept it secret.

When I was growing up, I believed in UFOs. I even saw one once--it was just a dot of light way up in the night sky that seemed to be traveling faster than something that high up should have been, and then it changed directions instantly...and then seemed to stop or vanish.

I spent a terrified evening once thinking that I was seeing "Men in Black" on the edges of my peripheral vision after reading an article about them in a cheesy UFO magazine. (This was in the late 70s--long before MIB became the pop duo of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.)

But now I know a bit more about these things. I understand more about the true distances involved and the limitations physical laws impose on our universe.

I DO believe there is life on other worlds, lots of it, probably all through the universe. (I mean, the universe is so incredibly vast, how could there not be?) I even believe that there are civilizations out there much further advanced than we are. But I think the odds of one of them being close enough to us to make visiting our planet logistically plausible is remote in the extreme. So while I do believe in life, and even "intelligent" life on other worlds, I honestly do not believe this planet has ever been visited by sentient aliens in advanced spacecraft.

But I love Star Trek and Star Wars anyway!!!

Today on "Astronomy Pic of the Day" (located at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ in case you're interested), they feature a two-part photo of a tiny section of sky. It's sort of a before/after image showing a supernova popping up where there was only darkness three months earlier.

I find this kind of thing really amazing. This event happened nearly 5 billion years ago. It has taken the light that long to travel here, and yet it's such a massive explosion that it's still pretty damn bright after the light has traveling this far.

This is the kind of thing that really makes me think about our place in such a fantastically vast universe...and how silly the notion that an anthropomorphic god-figure created it entirely for our benefit truly is. Now, for you Christians, Jews and Muslims out there--I'm not putting forth an argument against there being a God. I'm only saying that I find certain narrow interpretations of the human-centric purpose of the universe to be, well, laughable.

PS: Speaking of laughable--I am going to post the #0 issue of Rocketship Rodents on this site. For anyone who never picked up the issue of FN Magazine it was in, but DOES have the latest issue of the RSR comic, it explains the first encounter with a certain character that is a major part of that story. It'll be up...one page a day, starting as soon as I get it organized.

*Hugs*
^0^

Hooray, hooray!

I just got off the phone with Nexxus. He called to extend an olive branch, we chatted about how sorry we were that everything went so fucking crazy and we ended the conversation as friends again having decided to let bygones be bygones!

The Drama War is over! Let us all rejoice that the evil scourge of unnecessary drama has once again been defeated by civil discussion. This whole mess was badly handled and I certainly share a good deal of the blame for that. But now the swords have been beaten into plowshares and we are once again all one big happy furry family.

Anyway, the lesson to be learned from all of this is to talk to each other, instead of through third parties and through emails. Maybe that's all it ever really takes is one person talking to another and being willing to give another person the benefit of a doubt. I still think communication is the best way to resolve things...but often it's just a matter of HOW one communicates.

John Lennon said it best: Give peace a chance.

My last journal posting and its accompanying forum of name-calling and back-biting has been removed. In the spirit of believing that misunderstandings can be resolved by communicating, I thought it would help to talk about it all...but it didn't.

FurNation will get along without me, and I will manage without them. Fandom should be big enough for all of us.

*Wow, apparently even COMPLAINING about drama creates drama! We're doomed.

America is a great country. We have our problems, of course--whenever you collect this many humans in one "place" and give them the freedom and leisure to speak their minds and act on their own, conflicts will arise.

I made an observation in my last journal entry that I thought was interesting and perhaps ironic, if not humorous. I am fairly liberal in my views on society and I am proud of that. I am also NOT a Christian (although I was raised as one), because I simply found it irreconcilable with my own common sense.

But I'm not interested in destroying or casting doubt on other people's faiths. And I don't mean to offend people needlessly.

So unless I have something specifically outrageous to talk about, I think I will leave religion out of this journal.

A disturbing revelation occurred to me while I was watching a History Channel documentary about the Book of Revelations. It's about the so-called "Rapture"--which, by the way, is NOT a concept put forth by the Bible. It was actually documented by a Reverend in the 1800s (I think it was) who had decided to plot the End Times out on an elaborate graph. While he was working on it, his daughter had a "vision" (I call them dreams) that Jesus would return to spirit the Faithful away bodily BEFORE he officially Returned to oversee Judgment. He included it on his chart and coined the term for it.

Anyway, the point is that all the world's true Christians will be wafted away on clouds or something to Heaven and the rest of us get left to hash out the actual end of the world. Then I think about Bush--a self proclaimed Evangelical Christian--starting a destabilizing set of conflicts and wars in the Middle East with a group of equally devote and psychotic fundamentalist conservatives, except with a diametrically opposed concept--that THEY are the chosen and beloved of God. Basically he started a war with with what he seems to consider enemies of his faith. They already want to kill us and he's made sure that they believe we really want to destroy them all too, thus creating a new cold war enemy--only it's more like a hot war! (Please remember that while Iraq was sympathetic to Al qaeda, it didn't actually have ANYTHING to do with the attacks on the WTC...that's a whole other, actually justified war.)

ANYWAY, the point I'm trying to get to is that Bush and his fundamentalist ilk have a vested interest in fermenting difficulties with Islamic extremists rather than resolving them. Why, because they believe that they are working toward God's stated goal of a global conflict between good and evil that will result in the "End Times", and thus the Rapture and Judgment days.

This strikes me as INCREDIBLY selfish on the part of fundamentalist Christians! They work toward starting Armageddon because they believe they will be scooped up and all of us left behind will have war and famine and pestilence, etc to deal with.

Well, thanks a whole hell of a fucking LOT! You bastards!

Good thing it's all bullshit. If they do actually ever bring about the end of the world, they'll be really annoyed when they end up in the middle of the carnage with the rest of us. But, you know--I CAN WAIT to see the looks on their faces.

In the meantime...can we maybe put people in the White House from now on who AREN'T consciously or subconsciously trying to destroy the fucking world??? Is that too much to ask?

*sigh* I must be one the rag... Do gay guys get that?

I know what you're thinking! I was just as amazed to learn, as I'm sure everyone else in this country was, that the Islamic Republic of Iran has somehow solved the problem of homosexuality that still plagues our own, miserable, decadent United States!

"We do not have homosexuals in Iran," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadineja explained to a rapt audience at Columbia University. "I don't know who told you that we do, but there ARE NO homosexuals in Iran."

And then...they LAUGHED! Why? Because even the most moronic Right-wing Christian homo-phobe knows that this statement is complete and utter bullshit! Either he believes it and is just a clueless ultra-conservative idiot, or he's just doing what the US Armed Forces does and is pretending not to believe in homosexuality (sort of the same way he doesn't believe in the Holocaust), because if he doesn't admit it's there, then it...isn't...there... Yeah.

I'm reminded of the old comedy series Soap, when Jodie (the world's first openly gay TV character) went to see the mother of his baby (because even openly gay characters on American TV have to have sex with girls), and she gaped at him in open-mouthed wonder and declared with angelic conviction, "We don't have Homos in Texas!"

It was a funny line in 1980-81...and it's STILL just as funny today!

As I am slowly embarking on a career in gay sex comics (furry and otherwise), or as a "pornographer", I thought it might be a good idea to look up the actual meaning of the word "pornography". It's interesting that I discovered different definitions according to which source I checked.

The first one I found was in my desk dictionary, which simply defined the term as "art or writings intended to arouse sexual desire." Ok, fair enough--I find that to be a sufficient definition. But when I went to Dictionary.com I got something completely different--"obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit."

This bothered me. More than just defining the term, it actually seemed more intended to pronounce judgment on the idea itself!

Obscene. Little or no artistic merit.

While it's true that I have seen pornographic work that sucked like the business end of a glory hole--I disagree completely that all such work is automatically obscene, or that it has little artistic merit!

Art is, by it's very nature, intended to arouse passions--whether sexual, angry, pity, or whatever. If it doesn't engage your emotions on SOME level--it isn't art! It's Bob Ross's "happy little trees". THAT isn't art.

I was going to deny the term "porn", but instead, I think I should embrace it and take it away from the conservative voices trying to castrate art by saying that anything sexually oriented has little artistic value. Sex is, I believe, the very CORE of art!

Here we are on the sixth anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, and it seems to me, that everything is worse than ever. Thanks for THAT Mr. President.

The images of the planes crashing into the buildings are the ones I remember most, more than the actual collapse of the towers. I remember watching it on TV, I remember feeling for the victims and imagining the fear of the people on the planes watching their deaths soaring toward them through the skies of New York and it just makes me despise religious fanatics all the more.

Think of all the things ever done by fanatical religious sects--of ANY creed. Does ANYTHING positive come to mind? Have religious fanaticism ever done anything but cause pain, suffering and death?

Bin Laden wants a "Caravan of Martyrs" to mark this occasion--and I wish they would. Like the lemmings they are, I wish the whole bunch of them would jump off a cliff and save all of us the evil of their continued existence. And all the Reverend Phelps and the Oral Roberts and the other ignorant, extreme, intolerant and hypocritical religious assholes out there can join them!

My post-con depression is in full swing because I went to RainFurrest over the weekend and had a pretty dang good time! True, most of my time was spent drawing badges and sketches as fast as I could without letting them suck too much, and today my hand is aching and claw-like, cramping up from the strain, but that's what I enjoy doing at cons--so I had a good time!

I do need to organize myself better though in future. I still managed to end up trying to finish work the week OF the con and never even had the chance to make prints (I ended up selling the display prints right out of the book).

Next year, I am going to be AGOH at Rocket City Fur meet and a AGOH along with Chris Sawyer at Rainfurrest--and by GUM, I am going to make those cons really good experiences! I am going to make plenty of paintings to show, I am going to have prints made and organized--and will even have new pieces available, and I am going to have my con shirt and my scarf finished and I am going to be a total con-STUD!

LOL Hey...it could happen...

It's a bit on the late side...especially since RainFurrest is this weekend, and I'm still trying to pull together art for it, but I just bought what I hope will be my new Con Shirt!

It's just a plain white short-sleeve button up shirt (my size--not easy to find these days!) It was on the 40%off rack, so I couldn't resist it!

Anyway, my plan is to take the fabric markers I picked up a while back and draw furry stuff all over it! Not sure what yet...and like I said, I may not have time to do it for this con, but since I will be at two cons (at least) next year, I think it's a good investment!

Now I just need to decide on the appropriate decorations! For instance: maybe I should start off with two lines of rosette spots down the front in the snow leopard style! But I also want to draw characters (from Rocketship Rodents or Fur & Fury perhaps...) real big on the back.

Yeah! ^0^

Ever have one of those days when you are doing OK, feeling pretty good, but everyone around you is miserable and you just can't maintain a decent mood because of all the bad vibes and frustrating grumpiness of others? That's the day I'm having.

*sigh*

It never fails. Last week was totally miserable because of my hives problem, but things have been a lot better the last few days. I got my big box of goodies from Dark Horse (I trade Magic cards for graphic novels with a guy that works there), I've made a bit more progress on the commissions, I'm having to do a new cover for Aeacus--at breakneck emergency speed because of a printing deadline, but it's actually going smoothly...

But now everything sucks because of someone else's crappy day!

So, it seems that I either have crappy days because of my own problem, or crappy days because of someone else's!

But I can't give up...or the Republican Conservatives win! Must...keep...making...porn........

I am thinking of doing a couple of portfolios for sale through RV and to take to cons next year. I've got several ideas I'm toying around with--such as a Piraptor Folio, maybe a Prof Chronofur Folio, or even non-"franchise" related themes, such as historical images or flight-related for the 2008 RainFurrest, which has Flight as its theme. I want to finish my "Universally Monstrous" folio which shows furry versions of classic monsters...

Anyway--my question is this: Do people buy portfolios these days? If I spend time and energy creating a series of portfolios (say with 15-20 images each and probably yiffy in nature), is this something that you, as furry art consumers, still want?

Any opinions or advice greatly appreciated!

*Hugs!*
Da Pup

Karma is a bitch. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems like the scales of life always have to be IMMEDIATELY balanced. I can't just have great things happen, knowing that I will have to pay it off with bad things happening later--no, it has to be paid off right freakin' now! I have ZERO credit with Karma.

Here's the good bit: I've been invited to be the Artist Guest of Honor at a con next year. (I guess I can say that it's Rcket City Fur Meet, since 2 the Ranting Gryphon mentioned it on his last show.) This is good...so apparently there HAD to be bad. I started having a series of extremely uncomfortable and even painful allergic reactions out of the frickin' blue! Random bits of me keep itching like fire, or swelling up...or BOTH! Last night my back was suddenly covered in swollen patches and itched like hell! This was AFTER I took the steroids the doctor prescribed to stop allergic reactions.

Even as I jot this down, my upper lip is half swollen to double it's normal size on one side. I guess I need to limit the amount of good things that happen to me, so I don't DIE!

(I AM terribly excited and honored about being the AGOH at RCFM next year...but don't tell the vindictive gods I said so!!)