Evolved

I was totally finished drawing and editing this picture to post before I realized the the Triceratops doesn't have any horns. Oops :P

But that's what happens when you scribble something in 45 seconds on the back page of a book while sitting in Starbucks, waiting for a bus.

Christmas

NOTE: I realize that the title of this blog promises that there will be cartoons. And as of yet I have not presented anything resembling a cartoon. This is because the inspiration to ramble has hit me at a point in my week when I don't have the time to draw anything.
Cartoons will be coming in the near future. And they will not make any sense.
Just saying.
Now to tonight's rambling.

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Christmas is coming shortly and I've been trying to reconcile my love of the holiday with the reality that it's pretty much total fiction (I'm being generous, this is the season on generosity).
I came up with a lot of long winded philosophical things to say. A lot of them sounded like "Yes Virginia there is a Santa Clause" but with Jesus in place of Santa. I thought a lot about it for much longer than it really deserves. Then I finally said to heck with all that philosophy crap.
I love Christmas! It's fun. I love giving presents. I love decorations. I love baking Christmas cookies. I even love Christmas music. I love the whole damn season!
I really don't care if it's based on something that never happened. So is Star Wars and I enjoy that just fine.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go hang up my Garfield Christmas stocking.

OK. So I did manage to sneak in one cartoon. If you're willing to read this far I suppose I should give you something. But it is a really old one. From my original Flappy the Bat web comic.

Religion, Scence and art.

I'm not a scientist on any sort. I'm an artist (and a poor one at that). That's how I look at the world. However I do read a lot. I try to understand the world. I want to know it. I NEED to know and understand it if I'm going to make it into any kind of art that has any significance to myself or to the rest of the world.

I can't very well just throw some random things together and call it something. It's nothing. It's just a bunch of random thing... But anyway.

How do you understand something? You study it. I study the things I photograph. I try to find out their essence. What they really are. I apply this idea to everything that I see around me. At least I try to. So I study. I read. I learn. Which brings me to Science. Specifically Evolutionary Biology. I'm a far way off from realy understanding this thing. The Chemistry and workings of cells completely baffles me. but still I plow on. Book after book. My shelves get fuller and so does my mind and my imagination. And as I have looked God has become smaller and smaller. My quest to understand to world has brought me to the inevitable conclusion that there is no God. In fact, no supernatural forces at work in the universe at all.

I have found more amazement in a drop of pond water than in any person that supposedly can walk across that pond. The world of religion is cold and dark and limiting. but the world I see around me is fantastic and endless.

Battle cry of the...

I turned on the TV this morning and flipped through the channels looking for something to watch in the background as I did my normal Saturday Morning things like cleaning rat cages and cat boxes.
I turned to the history channel where I found a documentary about the history of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan: a secret history). I've seen this film before and it's fascinating so I left it on, not paying very much attention as I puttered around cleaning.
Then came a part about the Klan resurgence in the 1920s. and I got chills up my spine. The things that they were saying then are the same things that I hears in August watching the "Tea Bag" protesters. Lots of "I want my country Back" and the oppressive Federal government. Only now they aren't wearing hoods and national "news" souses are openly calling for a military coup (newsmax.com)
I'm not going to say that all the protesters are members of the KKK or are racist. But they are using the same battle cry and it's a small step from an angry protest to a violent mob...

Sleepy now. Will put something up later.