All The News That Is Unfit To Print

     I was gloomily turning a page of a news magazine, reading again of how our country 

will never be a true democracy, as long as the filibuster remains in place for the minority

to rule the majority, when I heard, "Are we ready to go to print?"  That was when I looked

up to see that my little friend, thespian and sometime model, Horatio H. Hamster Esq, had

popped in again.    

                                                       

     I recognized Horatio in his journalist persona, so I set my magazine aside, to respond

to his appearance. With his green eye-shade and an editing pencil parked over his ear, 

he was the image of the hard-bitten, newspaper editor, as seen in the movies of the 

1930's and 1940's. All that was missing was a lighted cigarette dangling from the corner

of his mouth and another one still smoldering on the rim of an ashtray filled with butts.

      "We can go to print as soon as you finish editing the copy", I answered, as I 

picked up a sketch book to try and capture the image of the editor at work.

 Horatio is the editor of the theater page of The Kingdom Weekly Bugle, located 

here in our little kingdom of the animals, and which is published regularly every 

three or four months or so, depending on when the printer, (that would be me, 

 the blogger ), can get around to doing the job. 

     He said that his contributors had submitted several pieces for consideration.

One was a new critique of Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew, from the point

of view of a shrew, but he was thinking that piece might be a bit too esoteric for

the readers.   But he did have a couple of articles which were informative about

conflicting influences in the theater world.  On the positive side of the news was a

story about how he and the other members of the Quadruped Playhouse, were 

beginning rehearsals again, using the safety protocols of masks and vaccines, 

and were now looking forward to performing for audiences who were equally

well protected from being infected or from infecting others.

     On the negative side, is the ongoing story of some of the ex-members of

the theater company, who have been voted out but who continue to deny the

validity of the vote.  Most prominently among those rejects is, of course, Donald

J. Skunk, who always insisted on hogging the best of every production for himself,

and also that family of blind and deaf foxes which follows him around like an

ignorant fan-club of his lies and his denials of the truth.  Their visual and hearing

impairments don't hinder their ability to stay behind the skunk because they just 

follow his stench, wherever he goes. 

      As I was finishing my sketch, Horatio and I agreed that the article about 

Donald Skunk's continuing efforts to spread disinformation and false conspiracies, 

should be the featured story of his page.  When I set my pad aside, he charged off

like a dedicated news editor, to prepare the article for publication. 

     Horatio's brief visit can serve as a reminder that we are now living in an age

of disinformation.  So many of our newspapers, the old, reliable and honest 

sources of truthful information, have succumbed to the onslaught of social media,

and the lack of financial support from their local communities, that it is difficult or

impossible, in a growing number of cities across America, to find truthful, 

written articles about local and national news events.  

    I would just like to say to those of you who happen to be lucky enough to

still have an independent, truthful newspaper, with dedicated editors, in your

community, please do whatever is in your power to help those brave publications

survive.

                                             Eugene P. McNerney

  

The Trump Party

           

        The Republican Party got it's start with Abraham Lincoln, representing all that was 

good and true in America, as he led the fight against slavery and the people who wanted 

to destroy our nation.  What has Lincoln's party become?

                                         

      Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the insurrection which Donald Trump

organized and sent to our nation's capitol building, to overthrow our American democracy

and keep him in power, like some totalitarian dictator, destroying the evidence of his

loss of the election, and perhaps killing off the elected officials who were carrying out 

their sworn, constitutional duties.   The following day, the leaders of the Republican

Party, including Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy said that Trump was fully

responsible for all the destruction, carnage, injuries and deaths which resulted from the

assault on our democracy.  But by the end of the week, they were already tossing

the truth out the window, along with all of the destruction debris from the capitol

building 

     Every day now, Trump continues to defecate on our American flag and the 

United States Constitution, like his insurrectionists who smeared their feces through 

the sacred halls of our nation's capitol building.  And all the while, the Republicans 

continue to help Trump promote the big lie, undermining faith in our honest elections 

and the trust in our truthful, civil servants.  The Republicans prefer to do the bidding 

of the petty tyrant, in order to try and get re-elected, rather than to protect our 

endangered constitutional democracy.   Just as when they refused to acknowledge 

Trump's guilt of treason, during his impeachment trials, they now continue to put 

their own self-interests above the interests of the nation.

    Trump doesn't know the meaning of public service; that is a foreign concept to

him.  Our founding fathers, during the revolutionary war, pledged their lives, their

fortunes and their sacred honor, to our American democracy.  Trump has no honor,

his life is a stream of lies upon lies, and he certainly wouldn't give his money or his 

life for his county.  He was quick to avoid military service, and he only ran for the 

presidency to enrich himself and avoid paying taxes.  He admitted as much during 

a televised, presidential debate, when he said,"That makes me smart!' 

     In an entry of this blog on February 28th of last year, I offered an abbreviated

listing of the damages inflicted on our country during Trump's failed, and corrupt, 

presidential administration.  It was the complicity of the Republican Party, which

enabled Trump's abuse of office, and which failed to speak out against his incitement 

of the cultural, racial and religious hatreds, which fuel the pathetic fools who are

his power base.  In that blog entry I said that the party which had once stood for 

the ultimate in patriotism, courage and self-sacrifice, had become the party of 

irresponsibility, cowardice and greed. Now the ongoing failure of the party to 

repudiate Trump's big lie, only serves to prove that they do not have the best 

interests of American citizens at heart.  They are no longer the Republican Party. 

They have now become the mendacious and unprincipled Trump party, and

they are waving the Confederate flag.

                                                       Eugene P. McNerney

 

Another New Year, and - On The Twelfth Night Of Christmas

 

                                            On The Twelfth Night Of Christmas

                                             An original oil on canvas, 24" X 20" , unframed

                                                              ( click on image to enlarge )

     

     I am wondering what percentage of our regretful countrymen woke up on the 

first of January, ( the month named for Janus the god of new beginnings), sadly

wishing they had been more mindful of the consequences of their New Year's Eve's

overindulgence, in celebrating the end of of the old year.   Unfortunately, we mere 

mortals do not have Janus' ability to see into the future, ( as I mentioned last January

30th, in my blog entry about a painting from my Carnival series ), so the numbers of 

hangover sufferers this year must have been staggering, as usual.

     Who can explain this annual ritual of New Year's Eve celebrations, where it seems we

are permitted to go a bit crazy, with paper hats and horns, drinking too much, making too 

much noise, popping balloons, tossing streamers and confetti, and making ourselves sick?

And who can explain the competition between men to see who can fire off the most guns

and ammunition at midnight?  The combined weight of all the lead they shoot into the air

is probably enough to sink a battleship.    Is it all an inheritance from our pagan 

ancestors, trying to create enough noise and fire to call the sun back, to put an end to 

winter and the old year?  Some of us still do try to keep the old yule-log burning for 

the full, twelve days of Christmastide, as if we want to make certain that the sun is 

returning.

     This holiday period of the twelve days between Christmas and the feast of Epiphany,

falls under the astrological calendar-sign of Capricorn, the goat.  That is one of the 

reasons I'm showing this Twelfth Night Of Christmas painting in this blog entry.

It is from the series I called Mediterranean Fantasies, and like the painting in my last

posting, it is another of those folk-art style pieces, which were made for greeting cards, 

using flattened space, shapes and patterns, for the designs, suggesting images similar

to religious icons .   Shakespeare also set one of his well known comedies on 

Twelfth Night, on the Adriatic coast in the Mediterranean, which is so layered 

and rich in tales of adventure as well as being steeped in religious mythologies.

     The traditional song about the twelve days of Christmas doesn't tell us what 

became of the true love's gifts.  Did that partridge and the other domestic fowls 

end up roasted, in a pear sauce perhaps? And after those milk maids finished 

milking the goats, did they do a bit too much of their own celebrating, with all 

those lords-a-leaping and ladies dancing, and then fail to notice that the goats had 

gone missing, and were busily devouring the noble lady's garden? 

     Some who view this painting will think that I may have been making a reference

to the work of Marc Chagall, and the domestic livestock he painted drifting in the air 

in a love dream-scape with he and his wife.    But goats actually do climb trees. All 

over the middle east and north Africa, where the land has been so overgrazed for 

centuries, the goats can be seen climbing on cars, roofs, and into the trees themselves, 

to get to the fresh green branches and leaves.  

     After we have given ourselves a few days to recover from the holiday's excesses

of over-spending and over-indulging, we can take time to acknowledge the fact that

we can't erase the problems of 2021 through the use of noise and feasting.  Our  

problems are going to continue on into the new year, and it is up to us face up to

to the problems of our own creation, and do our best to provide the remedies.  We

have to start by recognizing the fact that we are killing our planet, and we must take 

the necessary steps to reduce global warming.   And we have to acknowledge and

denounce the great, political fraud created by the lies of Donald Trump and his cabal,

which is undermining our faith in our honest elections and threatening to destroy 

our democracy, just for one man's narcissism and greed, and his refusal to admit he

is a loser.    And we all have to do our civic duty, in our war against the covid 

viruses, by getting vaccinated.    Ignorance is no excuse; if you haven't done it yet, 

get the shot!   

                                                                  Eugene P. McNerney