Burning Man 2 - and - Turning Up The Heat

 

                                                         Burning Man 2 

                                                        Original mixed media,  8" X 10", unframed

      On August thirty first of this year, I posted some comments related to the yearly

festival called Burning Man.  I used the name of that festival as a reminder of the fact

our planet is in a climate crisis, due to global warming, caused by our continued burning

of fossil fuels.  The year 2023 was the hottest on record, and 2024 is already set to

break that record.  The overheated, turbulent air and oceans, are creating ever more

intense and numerous storms and hurricanes around the globe, with massive flooding,

as well as droughts and out of control wild fires, killing people and destroying property 

and vital infrastructure.  Heat related deaths are increasing every year.

     The Biden administration has passed some significant legislation to help increase our

reliance on renewable green energy, and reduce our use of oil and coal, despite constant

Republican opposition.  But on November 5th, a misinformed and ignorant block of

voters, swept away progress, and returned an insurrectionist, convicted felon to the

office of the president of our nation.  He is already busily appointing his anti-science,

anti-truth vandals to head all of the important branches of the administration.  The

man he has put in place of policy for energy production, is an oil man, who uses

environmentally dangerous method of extracting oil from the land, and he is a man 

who puts personal profit ahead of what is best for the nation and the world.  He denies 

global warming, as do the rest of the Trump cabal, despite the mountain of scientific

proof of the oncoming disaster.  He is determined to turn up the heat.  Burn

baby burn!

     The scientists tell us that we are approaching the tipping point, beyond which

we will not be able to prevent our planet from becoming uninhabitable. It looks

like we may well destroy ourselves, but it wont be the bomb that gets us, it will be

our own human greed. 

                                                     Eugene P. McNerney

 

 

 

A Felon For President - and - When will we ever learn?

  

                                                             A Felon For President

                                                             mixed media, 8 X 10"

     During the glory days of news papers in America, the political artists were great 

commentators on the stupidities of the people we trust to govern our nation.  The above

cartoon, is one from about thirty five or so years ago, which I have adapted to a different

Republican running for high office, than the crook in the original version.  All I had to do 

was change politicians, from the old, crooked Republican who was running for the 

Senate, to our best known, Republican felon today, who is now running for president.

     Forty years ago, this cartoon would probably have gained more laughs than it will now.

We have become tiresomely accustomed to the knowledge that the members of the 

Republican party tend to be more interested in their own financial rewards than they are 

concerned about the general welfare of the people or the country.   So now we don't need 

more humorous reminders of their repeatedly blatant, criminal behavior.  Sadist of all, 

in this pervasive cultural decline of honesty in political campaigns, is the realization that

such a large segment of the population, is accepting lies as some kind of alternative truth.

Recently, at a Trump political rally, I noticed that a number of people were proudly waving

signs declaring that they were proud to be voting for a felon.

    When our respect for truth and justice in America has fallen this low, how long will

it take us to climb out of such a mass attack on our democracy?   Is recovery from this

much intentional ignorance even possible? 

                                                                                Eugene P. McNerney

Burning Man

 

                                                            Burning Man,  mixed media 

                                                             8 X 10" unframed

     The annual festival called Burning Man is happening now, and the culmination of the 

event, the burning of a giant effigy of a man, is probably taking place as I am writing this.

I don't know much about Burning Man, other than the brief history I've read, and the 

mentions in the news.  I have never attended the week long event, which takes place in 

one of the most inhospitable dry lake-beds in America, but it seems to attract world wide 

attention.  It began in 1986, at a California beach party, burning a wooden figure of a man

in celebration of the summer solstice, like some kind of salute to a pagan ritual.  Since 

then it has evolved into the extraordinary event it has become.  I've always thought 

of it as the ultimate celebration of personal self expression, but I understand that they

are much more high minded than that now.

     But of course the thing that gets my attention about the name Burning Man, is how

it fits with climate change.  Our summers are getting hotter and longer every year, and

more people are dying of heat than ever before.  If something is not done soon, to 

reduce our carbon emissions, all of us on this planet could perish.  And yet we have 

these right-wing politicians taking contributions from big oil and coal interests, and 

putting business profit ahead of the health of the people and our planet.  We have

all heard their mottoes,  "Drill baby drill!", and "Burn baby burn!"  Keep those

profits rolling in for big business.

     Man is truly the only deliberately,  self-destructive animal.  Can we change 

before it is too late?  Or, are we all going to be burning men?

                                                              Eugene P. McNerney

Leaping Forward Or Backward - and - The Old Love Letters

  

                                                 The Old Love Letters,  an original acrylic painting

                                                  10" X 13", unframed

                                                                            (click on image to enlarge)

     February the 29th is, as we all know, the day called leap day.  It is the day which

is added to the shortest month, once every four years, to help keep our calendar in

pace with the Earth's orbit around the sun.  Leap day is also the day which became

known as the day when women in our society could turn the tables on men, by offering

their own proposals of marriage.   That is an idea which is becoming more sensible, as

it is now often the woman in the relationship, who has the financial power.  When I was

young, there was a popular, daily comic-strip, running in most of our newspapers, called

Li'l Abner, written and illustrated by Al Capp.  The setting for the strip, was the fictional

backwoods, community of Dogpatch, where everyone seemed to take pride in being 

as ignorant as possible.  One of the continuing story lines in the comic-strip, was the 

Sadie Hawkins Day race.  That was the day when the ugliest gal in town was entitled 

to marry any available bachelor she could run fast enough to catch.  That story became

popular fun in colleges and high-schools, with girls inviting boys to Sadie Hawkins Day

parties and dances.  

     Love can be fleeting, whether a love-match begins through a role reversal or through 

more traditional arrangements.  As Shakespeare said, "The course of true love never

runs smooth."  I first posted a color variation of the little painting above, back in the

month of February in 2017, to coordinate with some of my thoughts about Valentine's

Day.  The younger generations today, who are so consumed with social media, probably

consider the idea of exchanging love letters, as an ancient or ridiculously quaint form

of communication.  Perhaps even the idea of painting the souvenirs of a failed romance

is too quaint to be worthy of interest.

     Valentine's day in 2017 closely followed the disastrous take-over of The White House

by a criminally fraudulent business man, who would go on to become the worst president 

in American history.   He began his time in office with typical lies, saying that his election

was the greatest landslide in history, and that his inauguration events were attended by  

the greatest crowds of people ever seen.  In truth of course, he lost the popular vote

and his inaugural events were poorly attended.  He then went on to choose a team

of people for his administration who were stupid enough, in many cases, to have felt 

right at home in Al Capp's fictional Dogpatch.  Before he ended his reign of ignorance, 

with that final attempt to overthrow the government, Trump had succeeded in setting 

back our individual civil and human rights, by a half century or more.  Now he is 

trying to leap forward to capture the White House again, so that he would have the 

power to pardon himself of all of his crimes, before his criminal convictions begin 

to accumulate and destroy his facade of the perfect business man. 

     The election season is already well underway, and the Supreme Court is now

delaying deliberations on decisions which are preventing Trump's trials from 

proceeding.  November will soon be here.  Let us hope that some of Trump's

followers will finally see the sociopath for what he is, instead of as a victim of 

some invisible political conspiracy .

     If I could leap forward to next February, I hope that I would find that we

have retained an administration of genuine, public servants, who love people,

and that we successfully avoided reinstalling the tyrant who loves only himself. 

                                                       Eugene P. McNerney

 

                                               

Janus Carnival Reprise

 

                                                     Janus, 

                                                    An original acrylics painting,on stretched canvas 

                                                    36" X 24" , unframed

                                                                          ( click on image to enlarge )

          Janus was the Roman god of two faces.  He had the ability to see into the 

future as well as the ability to look back into the past.  He was also the god of new 

beginnings, and he is the god for whom the first month of our calendar is named.

       Exactly three years ago, in January of 2021, I posted this painting of a carnival

attendee, fully costumed as Janus.  That was a month when the human carnival was

never more clearly on view for all to see, even for those who still refused to see the 

truth and act responsibly.  The covid  pandemic was in the process of killing millions

of people, and yet so many thoughtless dolts were partying on, endangering the lives of

of others besides themselves.  And then, on January the sixth, Donald Trump attempted

to overthrow the democratic government of the United States, by having his organized

militias attack the capitol building, injuring and killing it's defenders, in an attempt to

remove or kill the vice president and stop the electoral process, so that he could 

retain power.  

     How have we changed, in the three years since I last talked about Janus?  

Unfortunately,  the human carnival continues unabated, as so many of us remain blind 

to the future and unwilling to admit the mistakes of our past.  Donald Trump is still 

front and center in the news headlines.  He holds fascist political rallies, where he 

spouts quotations from Adolf Hitler, while at the same time he is attending his many 

trials for his criminal actions, trials he still continues to lose.  He compares his trials to 

the sufferings of Christ, as if he is being punished for the crimes of other people, 

and as if he is fighting for the right of his followers to be as blindly indoctrinated as 

they want to be. 

     Who are all of these MAGA idiots who have destroyed the Republican Party

and replaced it with the Trump Party?  They are an odd coalition of right-wing

extremists.   A major portion of them are the Evangelical Christians, who want to

turn our democracy into a theocracy, where they can take away our freedom of 

choice in every aspect of our daily lives, from what we are allowed to see and read

to what control we have over our own bodies and relationships.  They are willing to 

blindly overlook Trump's criminal and immoral behavior, and give him their support, 

because he packed the Supreme Court with religious conservatives who overturned 

women's rights to determine their own futures.  

     The other major portion of the MAGA tribe, consists of all of those who hate 

or fear everyone who they see as somehow too different from themselves to be

 worthy of the full rights of citizenship in this country.  These Trump fans are the 

racists, the xenophobes, the homophobes, and every other kind of phobic based 

personalities, who take comfort in Trump's promise that, with him, they will be 

able to take control, and somehow eliminate all of these wrong "others", 

who they see as the root of our national problems.

     Oddly enough, in one of Trump's recent, fascist speeches, somewhere 

between his favorite Hitler quotes, he attempted to reference some very

famous quotations, about remembering history, in order to avoid repeating it, 

but he mangled the words, of course.  He had three choices:  Edmund Burke 

said "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." ; George 

Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to 

repeat it." ; and Winston Churchill said "Those who fail to learn from history 

are doomed to repeat it."  Although Trump didn't get the words out correctly, 

hearing them spoken by him might have had caused a more thoughtful audience 

to consider what a disaster Trump has been for the nation, and what a continuing 

disaster he would be if he should regain a position of power.  But Trump's 

followers do not have have the wise vision of a Janus.

      And so, the carnival continues.

                                                                     Eugene P. McNerney

 

 

 

The Bitter Landscapes

                      

     This week's guest artist is Old Man Winter.  His work is dominated by the cooler

colors of the palette, and he relies heavily on white, which he often applies with broad,

heavy brushstrokes.   Sometimes the surprise exhibitions of his impressive talents can

be a bit too much to take in, all at once.   His landscapes can often be sparkling and

beautiful, but they can also sometimes be stark and unforgiving.

     A couple of mornings ago, I looked out the window to discover a scene which

resembled the winter landscapes from David Lean's well known film of Dr. Zhivago. 

Tons of heavy, wet snow had blanketed our area during the night.  My front hedge

was nearly flattened, the evergreens were mounds of white, and the birch tree was 

pulled down nearly to the ground, by the weight of the snow.  I am still in the process

of digging out.

     I was fortunate that I did not lose power; many others were not so lucky.  The

utility linemen are still working to restore power and heat to the thousands of homes

which were trapped in the icy cold.  Fortunately for those families, the linemen 

seem to have been making good progress, because in the coming days ahead,

the daytime time temperatures here, will be in the single digits, and our nights will

drop well below zero.

     All of this is a reminder of the many thousands of people who are trapped in

the grip of Old Man Winter, without any relief in sight.  Vladimir Putin continues

to pound the civilians of Ukraine mercilessly, with hundreds of missiles and drones,

killing people and destroying their homes,  as he uses winter as an aid, to try 

and bend the Ukrainians to his will.   And at the same time in Gaza, the innocent

thousands of Palestinians, who are paying the price for the crimes of others, are

huddled shivering in makeshift shelters and tents, wondering if the next bomb to 

strike will be the one that gets them.

    Somehow, it is difficult to see the beauty in a fresh snowfall, when we know

that the winter is an added torture and painful burden, for so many people who

are less fortunate than ourselves.   The year 2024 is not starting out well.  Let's

hope it ends better than it is starting.

                                                            Eugene P. McNerney

    

New Year Wishes - and - A Christmas Morning Visitor

 

                                                            A Christmas Morning Visitor 

                                                            An original acrylic painting on canvas panel

                                                           9" X 12", unframed

                                                                            ( click on image to enlarge )

     For at least another week or more, people are going to continue to wish each other a

happy new year.  This annual ritual is intended to say that we have put all of the problems 

of the old year behind us, and that the year ahead will be a better one for all of us.  But

of course, when we exchange these greetings, we are deliberately pretending to have a 

temporary ignorance of all the ongoing disasters and tragedies which we see in the news 

everyday.  We know that a change in the calendar does nothing to change world events. 

     Wars and death go on without letup. Global warming increases, while we continue to 

cut down our rain forests and burn our fossil fuels.  Countless numbers of species have

gone extinct, and our own survival is still in question.  So what is it that makes us all so

willing to participate in this yearly charade of global harmony, and wish each other another

happy new year?  

     Maybe the answer is simply the word hope.  There is a line from a poem by Alexander

Pope, which says "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." Hope is the only thing we 

have left to cling to, when everything else is gone.  There is a poem by Emily Dickinson 

which carries that message.  I will print it here.

                    Hope is the thing with feathers

                    That perches in the soul,

                    And sings the tune without the words,

                    And never stops at all.

 

                    And sweetest in the gale is heard;

                    And sore must be the storm 

                    That could abash the little bird 

                    That kept so many warm.

                     I've heard it in the chillest land, 

                     And on the strangest sea;

                     Yet never in extremity,

                     It asked a crumb of me.

     Others convey the same message in simpler terms.  In the Rogers and

Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, nurse Nellie sings that she is stuck 

like a dope, with a thing called hope, and she can't get it out of her heart. 

     I tend to become very discouraged about the state of the world today,

but I too have to be optimistic, because without hope there is nothing left 

for us.  So let me offer my heartfelt hopes that all who read this, will have

a healthy and rewarding new year ahead.

                                             Eugene P. McNerney 

P.S.    When you have the winter blues, chickadees and other song birds, 

visiting a bird-feeder outside your breakfast room window, on cold, 

snowy mornings, can be a real day-brightener.  Chickadees are such 

spirited little, aerial acrobats, that they spread good cheer.  

      A bird-feeder stocked with sunflower seeds, can be a good

inexpensive anti-depressant.  That is a prescription I can recommend.