As The World Burns, Burning Man Returns.

                                                   Burning Man 5  -  original mixed media                                       

      The annual festival known a Burning Man has returned again.  I have never been to the

the festival, and I will not be going this year, although I'm sure the various creations on view

will be interesting to see.  I am mentioning it, because the name Burning Man always reminds

me of the most important problem our world faces today, and that problem is global warming.

But how many reminders do we need?  Every day the news journals bring us fresh reports of

extreme weather events, related to the changing climate of the Earth.  Excessive rains in one

part of the country bring disastrous flooding, while prolonged drought in other parts of the

country create the conditions for raging wild fires, destroying hundreds of homes and killing

people.  I heard a report recently, that said there are two hundred fires burning in the north

western section of our country; smoke from those fires and the fires in Canada are polluting

the air we breath and creating health hazards.

     The wildfires that ravaged Europe this summer forced over two hundred and sixty thousand

people to evacuate their homes in France and Spain, along with additional thousands of 

people in Greece.  And when these people were allowed to return home, many found only 

ashes where their houses once stood, just as has happened in so many communities in this 

country. 

     This past month of July was the hottest on record in our contiguous forty eight states, and 

the heat is continuing to build, as we continue to burn fossil fuels.  Mountain glaciers are 

melting at an alarming pace, and now we see the results in Nepal where whole villages and 

thousands of people have been swept away by a melting glacial flood.  In our own Glacial 

National Park, the ice is melting so rapidly that soon there will be no glaciers in the park which 

was named for them.  The great ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting faster than 

they are are able to rebuild, causing the ocean levels to rise, and threatening to submerge low 

lying countries and cities around the globe.  

     So who is responsible for this growing, global disaster?  To some extent, we are all partly 

responsible for allowing ourselves to become dependent on fossil fuels to create electricity

and for transportation.  But the problem becomes more exacerbated now that an egomaniac 

like Donald Trump in in control.  Trump does not accept the truth of science and the worming 

climate, just as he does not accept the truth of fair elections.  His only concern is maximizing

his profits from burning fossil fuels.  He is very actively destroying the efforts made by the

previous administration, to make the country more reliant on renewable energy.  If ever there

was a man who deserved to burn in hell, it is Donald J. Trump.  

                                                                                    Eugene P. McNerney    

          

                                                         

Happy Birthday America - and - On A Shady Summer Porch

                                                      On A Shady Summer Porch

                                                      An original oil on canvas,  18" X  24"

    

     Back in the days before TV, and video games, and home air-conditioning, the refuge

from summer heat was the front porch.  In cities and towns across the country, on afternoons

when it was too hot to play ball, children would gather on porches to play board games for 

hours.  And in the evenings after dinner, the adults could take a little time to sit in their porch-

swings and try to catch a bit of a breeze.  The front porch was the place where neighbor ladies

could talk about the weather and share a bit of gossip.   And the porch was the welcoming 

place for arriving guests to be greeted and invited inside.

     Now our changing lifestyles and the costs of home construction have eliminated front

porches in newer neighborhoods; when you drive up to one of these houses, you are not

welcomed by a porch, you are greeted by by the blank face of a garage door, or two, or three

of them.

     I have been eye witness to these changes, as well as many great, historic events.  The 

American citizens who are in their upper eighties, have witnessed a full one third of the

 entire history of our country since it's founding in 1776. But that is just a blink of an eye,

in the long span of human evolution. Modern technology has changed our American lifestyles 

in a myriad of ways, but people are still the same as we were two hundred and fifty years ago 

or even two thousand years ago. 

     Most notably unchanged, is our human willingness to engage in populist movements which

give support to lying, narcissistic frauds, who only seek public office to benefit themselves, 

rather than to work to help the people who elect them.  The MAGA mob which put Donald 

Trump in the presidential office, would have been the same people who gave support to 

Adolph Hitler or Julius Caesar.  

     So what has Trump been doing as president, besides working to destroy our democracy 

and turn our country into a fascist state?  Well, he's been putting his name on everything he 

sees, including our money and our federal buildings.  He's torn down the East room of the 

White House to build a room for parties, which is larger than the house itself.  He turned the 

White House and its grounds into a sports arena, to accommodate the lowest form of bloody, 

fighting for profit, and sold it for mass entertainment. ( Does anyone else hear echoes of the 

old Roman Colosseum? )  That ugly event, I believe, was billed as a part of Trump's idea of 

celebrating our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. And now he's spending untold

billions of US taxpayer dollars on more bombs and weapons to use in a war he started and 

can never win. 

      It took us two hundred and fifty years to find the worst possible president but we finally

did it.  So, happy birthday, America.

                                                                       Eugene P. McNerney

 

P. S.  I found the painting in storage recently.  It was a quick oil study of an old philodendron

        in a crumbling, old terracotta pot, waiting on our porch, to be transplanted.  I don't

        remember the fate of the plant. 

  

   

         

  

      

 

 

 

Trump Jesus - and - Murillo's Vision

      Evidently there are absolutely no limits to Donald Trump's ego and his unlimited,

narcissistic thirst for self aggrandizement.  Posting an image of himself as the pope

was not enough for him; now he sees himself as Jesus healing the sick, an image which

is sickening in itself, for anyone to view, and is totally the reverse of what he is doing

with his presidential power. 

 

      The idea of Trump healing the sick is a cruel joke on the people of the whole

world.  It was Trump who dissolved USAID, the American foreign aid program

which provided funding to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, worldwide. 

For the AIDS prevention program alone, that now leaves twenty million people,

including five hundred thousand children, at risk, without adequate HIV treatment

and services.  And that is just one part of the total destruction to the health and

humanitarian services around the globe, which Trump single-handedly destroyed.

   

      Murillo's thoughtful concept of Jesus healing the sick, can serve as an antidote

for the nausea inducing image of "Trump-Jesus".  

 

                               "Christ Healing The Paralytic At The Pool Of Bethesda",  1670

                                  Bartolome Esteban Murillo,  1617 - 1682
 

Wreckage Of War - and - "The Dead Sea"

 

                                     

                                       The Dead Sea, ( 1940 - 41) by Paul Nash ( 1917 - 1941) 

 

     In !940, Paul Nash imagined having all of the warplanes which had been shot down

in the war over England, along with their crews, being raked together and tossed into

 a sea of death.

 

     In 2026, we don't have to use our imaginations to see the death and destruction which

is happening on The Persian Gulf; we see the burning oil tankers and the exploding 

war base installations around it's shores, as we watch it happening, on our television

screens. 

     Donald Trump has been spending a billion dollars of national treasure every day

for the past thirty days, to fund an illegal war without a plan to win it, and without a

plan on how to get out of it.

     Now everyday, the people who voted to give the presidency of our country to a

man who is a total fraud, a convicted felon, a rapist and a probable pedophile, are

watching the price of gasoline rise higher every day, and they wonder how this 

could have happened.  Maybe some of them are finally beginning to realize that

so-called "alternative facts" are simply more of Trumps lies, that he dreams up

to obscure the truth of his blunders and failures.

     The truth right now is that he has dragged us and the whole world into a

rising high-tide from which there may be no escape any time soon.  And now,

how many of our young military personnel will die in the struggle to get us

out out of this oil-soaked, bloody gulf's waters?   

                                                                           Eugene P. McNerney 

 

Donald Trump's Poisenous Mind - and - The Scream

    

                                                   The Scream,  by Edvard Munch,  Pastel, 1895 

                                              

 

          Edvard Munch is probably the most famous Norwegian artist, and his painting

series which he called The Scream, are some of the most iconic and recognizable art 

images in the world.  This version, of the series of at least five, was painted two years 

after the mixed-media original, but it sold at auction for a record price which still 

stands as the fourth highest ever paid for an artwork.    

     So, why am I talking about this image today?  This figure, who is so terrified of

of the sound of what is happening in the world around him, is a good description of

how so many of us feel when we get up in the morning and hear about Trump's latest 

outrageous decision.  Every day he awards us with some new destructive disaster.   

That bloody, shrieking atmosphere which is hovering over the frightened figure in

 the painting is especially relevant to Trump's latest assault on the American people;

he has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency.  From now on there will be no

restrictions on the amount of poisons our industries release into the air we breath and

into the water we drink.  The buildup of mercury and lead in the environment will

continue to increase, poisoning the brains and nervous systems of our children, and

shortening our lives.   And the reason Trump has made this decision is simply to 

increase prophets for the carbon fuel industries, which support him so extensively

with donations to his election campaigns. 

      Even now as I write this, I am hearing that Trump has pushed The United States

into a war with Iran, without having congressional approval, as required by our 

constitution.  But of course Trump has never worried about doing things which are

unconstitutional or illegal or unethical before, so this has been expected and 

approved by his MAGA cult Republicans.

     So, now the bombs and missiles are falling, and there is nothing that innocent

citizens can do but cover our ears and hope that we can survive another three years

of Trump.

                                                  Eugene P. McNerney 

    

Trump's Gestapo - and - Truth In Art

 

                                                       World War II political cartoon

 

                                          "....She jumped on us and hit us violently...."

 

          Ninety three Lauriston Street in Paris France is the address of the infamous

building used as a headquarters of the Gestapo, during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

That was where the members of the French Resistance who had been caught, were

taken to be tortured and killed by criminal collaborators.   In the above cartoon, the

woman who was being "interrogated" has been beaten to death so viciously that even

her chair has been shattered.  And then, immediately after her murder, the killers 

begin creating the false narrative for her official cause of death, in which the victim is

responsible for her own death, thereby absolving themselves of guilt for the crime

of murder, and giving themselves permission to continue the killings as usual.

     That false narrative of the responsibility for her death is remarkably similar to 

what is happening now in Minneapolis.  A gestapo like force of gun-happy, masked, 

helmeted and booted recruits of the Department Of Homeland Security, in greater

numbers than the local police force, has invaded that community.  They were so

poorly trained that they have already killed two ICE protesters and injured other

citizens.  Immediately after the killings, the head of the DHS began the false narrative

that it was the victims who were attacking the gunmen, even though the video 

recordings of the assaults, clearly prove that she is lying.  This woman is totally

unqualified to be the head of such an important department.  She was only given

that cabinet position because she was willing to worship at the feet of Trump.  She

will no doubt continue to follow Trump's lead, and lie as long as he continues to

lie, and since he never stops lying, their lies will go on denying the facts and the truth.

     The saddest part of the whole story, is that the whole MAGA cult continues to

support Trump in his claims that all of the other "different" kinds of people are the 

source of all of our problems in this country.  His followers continue to accept all of 

his lies as truth, as if they are living in an alternate universe, where white is black 

and black is white.  They are the same people who would have supported Adolph 

Hitler's lies, no matter how inhumane were the results.  

                                                                          Eugene P. McNerney 

  

What Is There To Celebrate? - and - Will The Flowers Grow Again Some Day?

 

                                                  Will The Flowers Grow Again Some Day?

                                                  An original acrylic painting

 

 

     As the final hour and minutes of the year 2025 counted down in my city, celebratory gunfire

erupted, and it increased in volume and intensity as the midnight hour drew near.  No doubt

the revelers were being fueled by some of the traditional alcoholic drinks which are most often

served on the last night of the year.   The sporadic gunfire was expected to last for several 

hours or more.  But what is the point of the celebration?  Do they feel like they are killing off

some of the bad luck or evil spirits or demons which have troubled them during the past twelve

months, or is it just an opportunity for them to show off the heavy fire-power of their weapons? 

     In the meantime, in Ukraine, parents put their children to bed that night, not knowing 

whether they would all be killed in their beds, by a Russian drone crashing into their building.

 And there will be no bright-light sign of hope for changes in the world, on sunrise of the first 

day of the new year, because the same people will still be in charge of world events in the 

year 2026, who where there in 2025, trampling on human rights and creating death and

destruction around the globe.

     The majority of people in the world live in countries which are ruled by powerful 

autocracies, dictatorships or military regimes.  The people who are more fortunate, live in 

countries where democracy flourishes.  But democracies are fragile, and the autocrats are 

always trying to destroy them, in order to gain increasing power for themselves.  Vladimir 

Putin, the autocrat/dictator of Russia, is a notorious mass-murderer who does not allow

freedom of speech or any objections to his iron-fisted rule;  anyone who objects is killed.

But Putin wasn't satisfied with owning just Russia; his greed for power is unlimited.  He

decided that he wanted to own Ukraine as well.  So he invaded that fragile democracy

with the intention of annexing all that land into Russia.  It is estimated that one hundred 

an forty thousand Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the Russian invasion began,

and there have been over fifty three thousand civilian casualties with over fifteen thousand

 deaths, including women and children.  But Putin doesn't care how many Ukrainian people

he kills in his conquest, or how many young Russian men he sends to get killed, just to

satisfy his greed.

      The Ukrainians have put up a stubborn resistance to Putin's invasion, despite being

overwhelmingly outnumbered and lacking in the proper weapons to fight back and

recover lost territory.  They were doing better when our president Biden was supplying

them with an increased supply of weapons.  And they might even be able to win, if 

Donald Trump would do the right thing by applying strict sanctions on Russia and

giving Ukraine weapons which would match those that the Russians are using against 

them.  That is what should be done, but it is not, because Trump is also an autocrat.  It

doesn't occur to him that Ukraine is an innocent democracy being invaded by a ruthless

tyrant; he places blame for the fighting on both sides, because he places no value on 

democracy.  He tried to overthrow our own democracy by force, and he would have 

been convicted of that treasonous crime, if his endless court delays had not prevented 

that trial from happening.

      Trump wont take any proper action against his pal Putin, because they are like

two-birds-of-a-feather.  Trump admires Putin because he sees him as powerful.  He 

simply overlooks the bloody history of Putin and any other villainous dictators or 

kings who have enough wealth and power to impress him.  His idea of ending the

war, would simply be to give Ukraine to Putin, without letting the Ukrainian people 

have any say in there own future.  The idea that the fate of the Ukrainians may rest

 in the hands of someone like Trump, is a sad thought for everyone to ponder.

     In the meantime, while Putin continues to kill Ukrainians, Trump has been busily

trying to destroy our democracy from the inside.  He is working hard to try and 

eliminate the freedom of speech, while like all typical dictators or kings, he is putting 

his name and image on everything from federal buildings and monuments to coins.  

He's trying to eliminate our two-party political system by making it more difficult 

for Democrats to be elected, by gerrymandering some Democratic districts out of

existence, and also eliminating some voting rights.  To give comfort to his racist

base of support, he is busily trying to remove our founders declaration that all men 

are created equal.  So, now it has become easier for a new generation of Republicans

 to go around comparing major-league, black athletes to monkeys playing ball at the

zoo, and also saying how much they "love" Hitler and his idea or removing unwanted 

people from the nation.  To give comfort to his right-wing religious base, Trump is

continuing to support the elimination of a woman's right to chose her own best health

options, and also progressing in his efforts to eliminate equal rights for the LGBT 

community.  He is also trying to eliminate any progress we have made in our efforts

to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, which if left to increase, will make our 

planet uninhabitable for human beings.  He is more interested in personal profit

than he is in what will happen in the future.  

     So what does all this say about our education system, that we were so willing

to elect such a known, lying fraudster and convicted felon, to the highest office in

the country, simply because of his impossible promise that he would reduce the 

cost of living,on his first day in office?  How stupid have we become? 

     So, as I was saying, when I heard all of crazy gunfire starting, what do we have

to celebrate about the new year?

                                                         Eugene P. McNerney 

Killing The Messengers - and - Burning Man Number 4

        

                                                           Burning Man Four, original mixed media

                                                          8.5" X 11" , unframed    

                                

     Dictators, kings, emperors and autocrats do not like to be contradicted by anyone 

or have their decisions proved wrong.  Their minds are made up with inaccurate or 

incomplete factual knowledge and an excess of personal prejudices and hatreds, and

they do not allow anyone to question their intelligence or their ability to rule.  But of 

course, inevitably and sometimes even frequently, they do receive factual messages 

which often contain enough truth to make these egocentric men feel uneasy about 

maintaining their grip on power, or even angry enough to punish the individuals who 

simply delivered the true but unwelcome messages.    

     History is full of stories, going back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, about the

 messengers who were killed by the tyrants who received their messages, simply because

the tyrants didn't like to hear the bad-news truth which was delivered to them in the 

messages.

     Donald Trump is a fascist autocrat who continues his drive to destroy American

democracy, first by an armed insurrection and now by whittling away our constitutional

rights.  The latest part of our Bill Of Rights he is destroying is the freedom of speech.

Our founding fathers made the freedom of the press the first priority of our constitutional

rights.  But crooks like Trump, and Nixon before him, do their best to eliminate any news

source with journalists who tell the truth about the administration.  Nixon used to 

repeatedly tell his secretary of state, "The press is the enemy!", because the newspapers

were exposing his crimes.  Trump has de-funded Public Television, because its news

reporting was fair and balanced and a truthful examination of his administration.  And he

is laying outrageous lawsuits on the most truthful newspapers we have, in an attempt to

stop them from telling the American public the truth about his crimes.  And he is now 

directing his FCC chairman to try and revoke the broadcast licenses of the TV networks

which have late evening talk shows featuring comedians, who use comedy to reveal

Trumps  crimes and failures.  Trump doesn't like his ignorance to be exposed every night

 for the amusement and benefit of the American public. 

    Trump is also continuing to fire anyone in our government who tells the truth about

anything in contradiction to Trump's stupid decisions questioning the truth of science, 

and the scientists who advance our health care and protection of our daily lives.  

Perhaps the most crucial of these firings, as far as the future of our survival on this 

planet, is his firing of the scientists who were monitoring the ever increasing rise in the 

percentage of the poisoning, greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.  They were fired 

because they were telling the truth about the growing danger to the planet, and he can't 

stand the truth of the science and the factual information because it contradicts his 

ignorant declarations that global warming is a hoax.  I believe he also even plans to 

turn off the satellites which provide the actual, growing measurements of carbon in the 

atmosphere: he is killing the innocent messengers because they are delivering messages 

he doesn't want to hear.   

     The 2025 Burning Man Festival has just wrapped up on Labor Day.  As I have said

before in previous posts to this blog, I have never attended that festival, but the annual 

publicity which that name, Burning Man, brings to the public, is an important reminder 

that we could all end up as burning men, if we don't do something to drastically  reduce 

our use of carbon fuels.  And since Trump is doing everything he can to kill the sensible,

progressive climate legislation of the Biden administration, the fire is coming ever closer 

to all of us, every day.

 

                                                               Eugene P. McNerney    

 

                                                                     

A Republican Motto - and - The Parable Of The Good Samaritan, In Paintings By Rembrandt, Giordano, Moreau, Roosendael, Bodinier and Etty

                                                             Autore Luca Giordano

                                                       Gustave Moreau   1865

                                                          Nicolaes Roosendael   1665

                                                    Guillaume Bodinier    1826

                                    

                                                    William Etty

                                                     Rembrandt

     Since before the start of the Twentieth Century, the motto of the Republican 

Party has been, "The business of government is business!"  The unspoken half of that 

motto is, "People are expendable."  Republicans have exploited the natural resources

of the Earth without regard to the environmental harm they have done to the planet 

or the people who live on it.  For them it has always been profit before people.

     In recent weeks, the Trump administration has cut funding for vital research into 

finding cures for cancer, as well as further cuts for health and education services 

for the American people.  And now the Republican Congress is preparing to pass 

a bill which will ensure that new drastic cuts in healthcare will be put in place in order 

to provide more tax cuts for Trump and his billionaire supporters.  Trump is the 

personification of the philosophy which says that greed is good and empathy for 

others is a sign of weakness.  He thinks only of himself; he is as devoid of empathy

as a sociopath murderer. 

     Now is the time when we should be remembering the story of The Good Samaritan,

which has been handed down to us by the Gospel of St. Luke, in a book called The

Holy Bible.  That is a book which Trump claims to love, but he has never read it, and

he only sells copies of it for his personal profit.  But for the past five hundred years or

more, this story of the compassionate man who had empathy for a suffering stranger, 

has resonated strongly with artists, and many of them painted moving images of the

humanitarian who provided life-giving care for a fellow human being.  (A half dozen

of these paintings are shown above.)

     The story in the Saint Luke Gospel is the tale of a lone traveler who was attacked

on the road, by robbers who severely wounded him and stripped him of everything he

owned, including his clothes, and then left him for dead, lying bleeding by the side of

the road.  As the suffering man was lying there, cold and bloodied, two self-righteous

religious men passed him by without offering him any comfort or assistance.  The first

one was a priest and the second was a Levite but neither one stopped to help because 

it did not profit them to provide him with any aid.  But then the Good Samaritan came

along the road and he rescued the stranger, dressing his wounds and clothing him.  He 

then took the man to an inn, to be fed and cared for by the innkeeper until the man was 

recovered, and the Good Samaritan paid for the man's stay at the inn.

     The story was another of the parables intended to show the importance of always 

treating other people the way we would want them to treat us.  That is generally called

the golden rule.  Right now, a majority of our Republican Congress members who call

themselves Christians, do not see any profit for themselves in following the golden rule.

They proudly wear their little gold crosses and proclaim their true faith, while at the 

same time they they are voting to take away healthcare for millions of Americans and

close rural hospitals all across the country, just to make the super-rich even wealthier.

     Trump doesn't allow any Good Samaritans in the US Congress. 

                                                                                Eugene P. McNerney

Pope Trump - and - A Comparative Image By Francis Bacon

                                      Portrait of Donald Trump, As Pope Of The World's Catholics

                                             Photo Of One of Trump's Tantrums

                    Francis Bacon's  Study After Velazquez's Portrait Of Pope Innocent X

     Catholics around the world have been mourning the death of Pope Francis, and

celebrating the installation of Pope Leo XIV.  It seems difficult to believe that anyone 

who holds the highest political office of any powerful nation at this time, would

want to mock the head of this religion's membership of approximately one and a 

half billion people, but one president was just stupid enough to do it.

     Donald Trump was in attendance at the funeral services for Pope Francis, and after 

he returned to this country, an AI portrait of Donald Trump, dressed as the Pope, was 

released to the world.  Why would he chose to thumb his nose at the religious beliefs 

of so many people? This is just further proof that Trump's gargantuan ego far outweighs 

his very minuscule intelligence quotient.  When he was asked about the portrait, he 

pretended to know nothing about it, but I have not heard him issue any kind of statement  

denouncing this image as the disgusting mockery of a religious faith that it is.  He sees

this image as no different than his other portraits, dressed as comic book heroes, which 

he prints and sells on his worthless trading cards.

     In the early 1950's, a British artist by the name of Francis Bacon, who became known 

for painting twisted and distorted images of human figures and faces, painted a series of 

paintings based on Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X.  The paintings became 

known as his "Screaming Popes" series.  Bacon claimed that the paintings were simply

his reaction to the colors in the Velazquez work; art critics praised the work for capturing

"raw emotion" in paint.  If Bacon were still alive today, he would have a ready made 

model for a raw emotion screamer in Donald Trump.  The photo of Trump caught

having one of his tantrum screams, is an almost perfect match for that of the Screaming

Pope painting, and it is a much more honest image of Trump, than that of a saintly and

revered leader of a religious faith.  

     I don't know how the Catholics are feeling now, about such a repulsive image as 

that of "Pope Trump". but I should think that it is stirring up plenty of "raw emotion"

for many of them.  

                                                                   Eugene P. McNerney 

  

The MAGA Cult's Gifts to America - and - Goya's Vision

 

                                                   Francisco Goya, one of his "Dark" paintings

                                                   Wall mural from residence                                       

     The report on the first quarter of the year is in, and the Trump administration has taken

our economy into a nose dive; the economy has stopped growing and is now shrinking.

Economists are saying that if the second quarter is as bad as the first, the country will be 

in a recession.  Under the Biden administration, our economy was showing renewed 

growth and was the envy of the world; but now Donald Trump, the leader of the MAGA 

cult, and his totally inept cabinet are destroying all of the policies which were truly making 

America great again, while at the same time they are removing the personal protections 

for our health and welfare.  Trump's cabinet members were not chosen because of 

extraordinary training or experience or ability; they were chosen simply because of 

their lap-dog loyalty to Trump.  His cabinet meetings are nothing but an opportunity 

for each of these sycophant toadies to worship Trump with love and lavish praises.

     Goya's darkly satirical view of cults, as seen in the wall mural above, clearly shows

his low opinion of the intelligence of the human race, and our willingness to worship at 

the feet of whatever false profit comes along with an empty promise to cure all of our 

problems.

     We should all remember that cult leaders are just con-artists, selling another brand 

of snake oil.  Cults have been with us since the beginnings of civilization; they can be 

religious or political or a combination of both.  Political cult leaders often rely on 

portraying themselves as being like a savior: the only person in the world who has the 

ability to give his followers all that they need or desire.  Popular cult leaders such as 

Trump, often speak to their followers for hours without ever saying anything sensible 

or even logical, but filled with repeated doses of hatred and lies about those "others" 

who are the cause of all of the country's problems.  He promotes xenophobia and

homophobia and any other kind of racist phobia which amplifys the fears of

the MAGA followers.  Hitler did the same thing at his rallies, blaming his countries 

financial and social problems on the "wrong" kind of people, who he said were 

poisoning society.  Nazism and Magaism are two sides of one coin.  

     We should all be familiar with the great cataclysm of World War Two, which

resulted when Hitler gained complete control of his country, and caused the deaths 

of many millions, and massive destruction around the globe.  Then in the end, 

when he was faced with giving up control of the lives of millions of people, he 

blamed his losses on his countrymen and shot himself.  That is a familiar pattern 

with cult leaders.  When Jim Jones was faced with the prospect of giving up 

control of  the followers in his Peoples Temple, he had them all drink poisoned 

Cool Aid, and shot himself.   And when David Karesh was being forced to 

give up control of his followers, in the Branch Davidian cult compound, he 

shot and burned them to death, and killed himself.

     Like Hitler, Trump has no interest in public service, he is a fascist who only 

wanted the presidency for self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement.  Now we hear 

that he is planning for a military parade for his birthday, which will cost the tax-payers 

about a hundred million dollars.  Perhaps he is jealous of the Chinese premier, who 

gets to celebrate his power by reviewing military parades with thousands  of troops, 

tanks, missiles and rockets, rolling past him in the grand public square in Beijing.   

     It should have been obvious to any rationally thinking person, that the fascist 

Trump was lying when he promised to reduce the price of groceries and reduce 

inflation as soon as he was elected president.  It should have been equally obvious

that he was lying when he said that he would end Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 

day one of his presidency.   It should be obvious to everyone by now, that 

everything Trump says is a lie and he is incapable of telling the truth about anything.

And yet his cult of followers voted for him because they think those "other" kinds

of people are getting too big of a slice of the American pie.  It will be interesting 

to see how many of the MAGA followers begin to realize that Trump is not

working for them, when they begin to see ever higher prices on everything they

buy, and rows of empty shelves when they go shopping. 

     So what has the MAGA cult given us?  Our government which was designed 

to serve for the good of the people, is now being chopped off piece by piece, 

until it serves only Donald Trump and his billionaire pals.  What a gift!

                                                         Eugene P. McNerney

A Hope For Spring

 

                                                Hibiscus blossom, with original ballerina painting  

     The weather during January, here in the center of our country's forty eight, contiguous 

states, has been colder than in the city of Anchorage Alaska.  But here in our snowy, 

deep freeze, I sometimes get little reminders of Percy B. Shelley's famous line, "If winter

comes, can spring be far behind?"

     There is a hibiscus tree here, which was started from a cutting brought back from 

Arizona, over half a century ago.  It is in a large pot, and is heavier than a person of my 

age should be carrying around, but last fall, I dutifully brought it back inside for the winter 

again.  It doesn't receive proper sun-light in the house, but it still offers up it's little, 

cheerful flowers. Hibiscus blossoms are a bit like the ballerinas of the flower world, with 

the delicate pleats of the petals, and also, their one-day life-span, is a reminder of 

the relatively short careers of most ballerinas.

    The colors of the blossoms of this hibiscus variety reminded  me of a little painting 

of mine, called Topaz Ballerina, so I set one in front of the painting, a took the picture

for this blog posting.      

     The older we grow, the more rapidly the seasons come and go, often before we

we are able to take full advantage of the opportunities of the warm months.  But

some little blossoms in the winter are a reminder that hope still springs eternal.

                                                              Eugene P. McNerney

Climate Clataclysm - and - Burning Man 3

                                                          Burning Man 3,  original mixed media

                                                         10" X  8", unframed

 

     Los Angeles has been burning for days now.  Eighty thousand people have been 

required to evacuate from their homes.  Entire sections of the city have been reduced

to ashes, including schools, churches, grocery stores, pharmacies, service stations,

and all business related buildings, along with over twelve thousand houses.  The home

owners who escaped the fast moving fires, often fled with nothing more than the clothes

on their backs.  Those who were not able to escape in time, perished in the flames!

     In this blog, on August thirty first, and again on November twenty fourth of last year, 

I spoke about the looming peril of the climate crisis, for all of humanity, and I speculated

on our almost suicidal denial of what is coming for us.  We continue to buy gas guzzling

vehicles and continue to burn coal in our power plants.  But the most disturbing, of all of  

the offenders, are the people who have the power to make significant changes, but prefer 

to put profit ahead of what is best for our country and for the world. 

     The Biden administration made significant efforts in moving us toward renewable 

energy and electronic vehicles, but those efforts my well be erased by the greedy 

motivations of the expected Trump disasters.  President Biden removed much or our

nation's coastline from environmentally hazardous, off-shore oil drilling, but Trump has

already vowed to let big oil exploit those and other areas as much as they want, all

in the name of profit, and in continuing denial of global warming.  It's going to be

business as usual forTrump: drill baby drill, and burn baby burn!  

     We are all familiar with the way Trump handles national climate disasters.  Who 

can forget the images of him opening a carton of paper towels, and tossing a few rolls

to a crowed of hurricane victims, and then later on he withheld their hurricane relief

funds, which were approved by congress!

   After this new disaster in Los Angeles, the question now again is, are we going to

be able to fight the profiteers and save our planet, or are we all going to end up 

walking into the final fires.

                                                Eugene P. McNerney

 

 

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