Exodus, and - Outward Bound

         

                                                               Outward Bound,  an original acrylic painting

                                                               28" X 22", on stretched canvas

                                                                       ( click on image to enlarge )

     As I am writing this, over five hundred thousand refugees have fled from Ukraine, and

the ongoing flood of people trying to get over the borders makes it likely that that number

will soon pass the million mark.  Families are being torn apart as they flee, in hopes of 

finding safety from the Russian's attacks and bombings. They separate at the borders; 

the women and children don't know where they will be going, as the men stay behind to 

try and defend their country.   Nearly five hundred men, women and children have 

already been killed, in addition to the thousands who have been injured.  

     What great sin have the people of Ukraine committed to deserve such an assault from 

their brutal neighbor?  They have planted a tree of democratic freedom, and they have 

been enjoying its fruitful rewards.  That has angered Vladimir Putin, who, like a vengeful, 

supreme deity, seems determined to eliminate all such subversive knowledge from the 

country, before freedom should possibly drift over the border and take root in Russia.   

     This kind of behavior is par for the course, for a sociopathic, murderous thug like 

the ex-KGB agent Putin.  He has enriched himself more than the fabled wealth of royal 

Czars, all at the expense of the Russian people, while as he was murdering anyone who 

opposed him.  He is always quick to take advantage of those who are weak and 

defenseless, and he sticks his knife into any conflict around the globe, anytime he can 

profit from other people's tragedies.  He is the reincarnation of Joseph Stalin in every 

way, except for the black mustache.  

     At this point in time, it should be perfectly clear to everyone, that Putin is the true

personification of a thoroughly evil, human being.  However, that does not take into

account Putin's fellow sociopaths, such as Donald Trump, who, as his family has 

warned us, is someone who thinks only of himself.  When Putin and Trump had their

summit talks, the photographs showed them smiling at each other like a pair of Mafia,

crime bosses, having a meeting to divide territories.  And now, even in the face of the

fact that Putin is blatantly committing war crimes, and causing the loss of lives and

untold suffering, Trump is still calling Putin very smart, savvy and a genius!   

     Wouldn't it be nice if Trump could be trapped in Ukraine right now, with the 

encircling army, firing closer to him with every passing minute?  What would he be

saying about his pal Putin then? 

 

      The painting was a recent commission which vaguely fit in with today's posting,

perhaps symbolizing the way people have always had to flee from persecutions of 

all kinds, by any means possible, often by ship, across the oceans, to an unknown 

land and an unknown fate.      

                                                  Eugene P. McNerney

 

                                                         

     

 

 

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

    

 

Thoughts On Christmas, and - Mystic Dawn Of Christmas

 

                                                           Mystic Dawn Of Christmas  

                                                            an original Acrylic Painting

                                                           16" X 25" , on a stretched canvas

                                                                 ( click on image to enlarge )

     

     Now that the party is all over, except for the disposal of the shredded, wrapping paper, 

and the rush to return the gifts which were the wrong size, or the wrong color, or simply 

too wrong altogether, perhaps it's time to pause for a moment and think about the early

origin of our yearly quest for a lasting peace.

     Some years ago, I did a number of folk-art style, paintings, to use as cover art, for 

a series of holiday, greeting cards.  Some of those pieces have been previously been 

posted to this blog, during a past Christmas season.  ( Silent Night, Glad Tidings Of 

Great Joy, The Great Day Is Near, Behold The Glorious Dawn )  I called this series

Mediterranean Fantasies, because I was trying to capture something of a feel of the

land and long history of the place where the mythologies of western civilization began.

It is those mythologies which evolved into what we call our religions.  Religions have 

always been appropriated by our tribal leaders, kings, pharaohs, emperors and  the

succeeding dictators of all our history, to help control their people, by promoting the 

idea that they alone have the true god on their side, and that other people are evil 

non-believers, and therefore they are sub-humans, perhaps even unworthy of life 

or liberty or the right to keep their own land.

     Here and there, over the centuries, some rebel reformers have come along and

spoken out against the powerful establishment, and it often cost them their lives.  

One such reformer was a man named Jesus, who received the standard Roman 

death-sentence - crucifixion.   His followers established a new religion in his name,

but it soon became part of the establishment, and the core of his message is mostly

ignored.  There are millions of people in this country who call themselves Christians, 

but a large percentage of them find ways of rationalizing that their religious belief is 

compatible with racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia and most any other form

of hatred or fear and mistrust.  Perhaps all believers should be required to recite the 

golden-rule every day.  That might make them think a little more like Jesus. We will 

never have peace until we all pledge to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

     Since this is usually the time of year when we make our New Year's resolutions,

may I suggest that we make a start by at least trying to be a little bit kinder to our

friends and strangers alike.  Strangers can sometimes turn out to be our best friends,

and we can never have too many friends.

                                                       Eugene P. McNerney

    

    

A Thanksgiving Memory, and - A Light In The Stable

                                                A Light In The Stable

                                                An original oil on canvas, 18" X 24"

                                                       ( click on image to enlarge )

         The American tradition of  celebrating the harvest season, on the annual holiday 

that we call Thanksgiving, is here again.  Most of us who have grown up in this tradition, 

have probably accumulated mixed memories of their past celebrations of this holiday, 

a day which is intended to strengthen family ties, as we give thanks for being together, 

enjoying the food which sustains us.  Too often these days, the memories have become 

nothing more than boring, family dinners followed by televised football games.  And 

for some of us, the celebration has sometimes resembled a comical ode to gluttony.   

I recall that Truman Capote wrote a story of his memorable Thanksgiving, but that 

was a tale of a lonely and melancholy childhood. 

      The memory I most often recall, when I think of Thanksgiving, is of an 

unexpectedly eventful day, way back when I was still in college.  I was home for the 

holiday, and we were all  invited to dinner at the farm house of an aunt and uncle, 

who lived about an hour from town.  Their lakeside home, with the surrounding, 

autumn woodlands, was an idyllic, story-book setting for a traditional Thanksgiving 

celebration.  That day was crisp and cold, but there was a warm, cozy fire in the 

fireplace, and our host added a fresh log to the fire whenever the flames were 

burning low.

     Along about mid-day, we all sat down to a wonderful holiday feast, with a 

turkey and all the trimmings.  And then as we sat savoring all of the flavors of our 

well-filled, dinner plates, we noticed that some beautiful, big, fluffy snow-clusters, 

had started falling outside, drifting softly past the windows, and somehow perfecting

the image of the ideal Thanksgiving scene. 

     By the time we had finished our meal, and began to question whether to have 

desert immediately or save it for later on, we could see that the snow storm had 

increased in intensity, painting the fields white, and continuing to fall so heavily 

that it was becoming difficult for us to see the distant trees.  It was getting dark

but we could see that our cars were already covered with a fairly thick blanket 

of snow.   So, there was an immediate change of our plans for the evening.  Six

of us wanted to try and risk driving back to town that night.  Deserts would be 

wrapped up and sent home with us, as we were leaving.

    After two of the cars were cleaned off and warmed up, we set off from the 

farm, with windshield wipers already fighting a loosing battle against the buildup 

of the accumulating, icy crystals.  The snow was already deep and it was getting 

deeper by the minute, as we forged our way slowly to the main road toward town.  

Once we were on to the more, heavily traveled roadway, we began to see that 

driving conditions were getting seriously hazardous.  A number of motorists had 

slid off into the roadside ditch and become hopelessly stuck, where they had 

abandoned their cars.  Such scenes became more and more frequent as we 

crawled our way forward through the blinding snow storm.  And then one of 

our cars did a scary spin-out.

    A hasty decision was made to park one of the cars at the roadside, and for 

all of us to go the rest of the way to the city in one car.  A set of tire-chains was

applied to the rear wheels of the heavier car, and then with the added weight of

all six of us together, we set out again, through the blinding snow.  It was still very

slippery going, but perhaps we had better traction, because we continued to

pass many stuck cars whose owners had given up and abandoned them in

the drifts.

     After a long, slow and tense slog through the storm we reached the city,

but the streets were still treacherous going.  Motorists had turned the snow into

icy mounds of slush which had traffic in a tangle of fender-bender encounters.

One of our tire chains came off, and someone snatched it and absconded with

it before our intrepid driver could get back and retrieve it, but we did manage 

to make it home without further incident.

     The next morning, the blizzard was gone and the sun was beginning to peek 

through, but the city looked like a deep icy, snow-draped scene from David 

Lean's film of Dr. Zhivago.  After the snow plows had worked on the major 

roadways for a while, the car which had been left behind was dug out of the

drifts and retrieved without damage.

     Over the decades that have passed since that event, and the dozens of 

Thanksgiving holidays which have come and gone, I don't believe that I have 

ever experienced a sudden snow storm of such intensity, and of such deep

accumulation, in such a short period of time, as the one we experienced

that night.

      For the three of us who now still remain, from that adventure so long

ago, any mention of a Thanksgiving celebration always calls to mind that

famous snow to remember.  It remains forever intertwined with our thoughts 

of the family gathered around a Thanksgiving table.

     The painting above is one I had shown in a previous entry, in this blog,

about a decade ago, but I was reminded of it when I was writing this entry,

so I decided that it might be a good accompaniment for this memory tale.

The idea of lantern light in a barn on a cold winter evening, still has a mystery

and traditional symbolism for the holiday season.

 

 

 

     

    

 

Horatio's Scary Tales Of Halloween

 

 

 

     This morning, I was so thoroughly engrossed in another frightening book, 

about how close Donald Trump came to destroying our American democracy, 

that I didn't notice Horatio's arrival until he spoke. 

      "Happy Halloween!", he said.  So I looked up from my scary reading 

to see my little friend, thespian and sometime model, posed like a rather macabre, 

funereal apparition, resembling that of the ghost of an Abe Lincoln-est undertaker.  

As I was admiring his holiday spirit, I said that I didn't realize that he was such an 

avid enthusiast for the day-of-the-dead celebrations.  But he said that, quite to the 

contrary, the celebration was such a long tradition in his family that his middle name 

was practically Halloween, especially so considering the fact that some of his early

ancestors had come in close contact with witch trials and night terrors.  That was 

such an intriguing opening, that I asked him to tell me more, as I set aside my terror

reading to pick up a sketchbook and begin a quick study of Horatio Halloween Hamster.

       Horatio's tales involved stories passed down from an distant ancestor of his, who 

was living frugally in Salem, at the time of the witch trials.  He had an apartment in the 

attic of the humble home of an old woman of Salem, who lived there with many cats 

she had saved from being drowned by the gatophobic villagers.  Her rescued felines  

included a one eyed cat, a tailless cat, and most incriminating of all, a number of coal, 

black cats.  To the villagers, that was a sure sign that she was conducting satanic 

rituals and casting spells.   If anyone had a fall and broke a bone, or became suddenly 

ill , they knew who to blame. And if a perfectly good milk-cow suddenly died of no 

apparent cause, they knew who to blame.  So, they put the old woman on trial for 

witchcraft, and they used the torturous, dunking-chair to try and get her to confess,  

but the dunking boom broke as they were lowering her into the water.  Naturally 

the villagers saw this as a sign from God, but they didn't know whether it was 

a sign that she was innocent or guilty.  So they took a vote and a majority voted

 that the sign meant she was innocent, and they set her free. Even so, some of 

them decided to burn her house down, so she had to flee from the village to 

save her life.

      That fire also meant that Horatio's ancestor had to find a new home in a hurry, 

and so he took refuge in the attic of the humble home of an old woman, who 

raised goats and made cheese from their milk.  But during this period of such witch-

hunting hysteria and capraphobia, the woman's goats, with their nearly Satanic,

pointed horns, called suspicion on her as well.   Evidence began to mount up

against her.  A man who died unexpectedly was known to have eaten some of

the woman's cheese, just two weeks before his death, and another woman

testified that the large, dark furred, goat from the herd, had visited her in the night,

and spoken to her, urging her to participate in Satanic worship.  So, the goat lady

could see the hand writing on the wall.  She and all her goats disappeared one

night, without a trace of them left behind.  Some of the villagers declared that

this was the proof that she had been in league with the Devil himself. And then

the woman who had testified against her, quickly tried to take possession of the 

vacated property, only to discover that some religious zealot had already set 

it on fire. 

     At that point in the narration, I said that Horatio's ancestor had been fortunate

to have escaped two such arsonist attacks, and I asked what had become of

him after he fled the second blaze.  Horatio replied that the story from then on,

recorded that the lucky escapee had fled to a colony farther to the south, 

where he had taken up safe residence above a tavern, which was frequented 

by a much less religious and much more tolerant class of people.  According

to the family history, he had flourished there, successfully raising a family and

enjoying a lively, nocturnal lifestyle, above the music and laughter of the tavern's 

regular patrons.

     As I was putting some finishing touches on my drawing, I asked Horatio

whether he was planing to go out for tricks-or-treating later on in the evening.

He replied that he and some of his fellow thespians from the Quadruped 

Playhouse were planning to make the rounds of some welcoming homes, to 

receive some expected treats.  So I asked him if he might be expected to 

perform tricks for receiving the treats, he said that he could always do a

recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, since his costume as Abe 

Lincoln was apropos.  

     As Horatio was setting off for his night of frightful fun, I cautioned him

to be wary of all the ghosts and ghouls in the streets.  In response, he said

that we need to be more afraid of those who refuse to wear covid masks,

than we are of those wearing Halloween masks.

     Horatio's reference to The Gettysburg Address was a reminder of

that famous speech, which so many of us were required to memorize

or recite when we were in school.  The idealistic theme of a "government of,

by, and for the people", still remains our goal, but many politicians who

retain power, prefer a government by a select group, primarily for the 

benefit of their group.  Many of our Republican state legislatures are

busily crafting laws which restrict the voting rights of those they deem to

be of the wrong racial, ethnic or religious heritage.  While at the same

time they are imposing their own religious views on all of the women

in their states, telling them what they are not allowed to do with their 

own bodies, for their own physical and mental health.  We don't have

to look very hard to see who is in league with the Devil on this day-of-

the-dead.  All we have to do is look at our Republican legislators.  

     So enjoy your Halloween, if you can.  It's a very ignorant and scary 

world out there!

Trick or Treat?

                                                        Eugene P. McNerney