Monday November 28th 2016, 1:07 am
My wife Wendy and I are thinking about creating a line of t-shirts. The idea is she comes up with the concepts and I do my best to illustrate them, then put them on fabric for those who feel like walking around with such things on their clothing. Our first time doing that was successful, ended up being used for a suit lining, and a vest back design. Her idea was brilliant. And it was a fun challenge to try and capture it as an image (see below). Anyway, T-shirts! Yes? Yes!
Friday November 11th 2016, 11:17 pm
I should be happy this week because The Sandman: Overture tpb came out this week– with a pleasant round Hugo Award tag, but…
Still spinning a bit from this week’s chaos, the upheaval many are feeling from such a large idealistic change the country is going through. It’s been highly emotional, stressful even.
My shock is less potent now, but some deeper anger and cynicism is poking at my ribs inside.
I see that on the winning side of this election that many are upset over the protests taking place. Granted there are some stupid things happening during this, but to be upset that they are occurring at all mystifies me. People have the right to protest anything they wish. And I find the position of railing against the protestors a bit hypocritical when many of Trump’s supporters alluded to doing the same thing if he lost. I mean Joe Walsh even said he’d get his “musket”. The protestors are just like many of the people who voted for Trump, they want to be listened to. Like all of us do. And they have valid concerns.
I’ve heard from some people and have read some things about how this event wasn’t about the dark attitudes it appears to be. And this wasn’t about a rejection of diversity in the country, that it was really only a rejection of Hillary Clinton. I’ve had some time to reflect on that. And in some ways some of that perspective can hold true. And certainly Hillary was far from a perfect choice, but at least she wasn’t rampantly making bigoted hateful statements. Regardless of what Trump’s policies are to run the country, the fact remains a man who made hateful horrible statements was elected. And that is the thing I can’t really reconcile. The Presidency Of The United States isn’t just about making policies, it is an office of symbolism. It’s a representation that goes beyond governing a nation. It’s about saying what we are as a people.
I’m really wanting to be optimistic, I truly am. But seeing verified hate crime and hateful behavior on the national news toward people of different ethnicities or cultural backgrounds happen even in schools, connecting the apparent reasons this election went in Trump’s favor, makes optimism hard to buy into. I mean kids are now doing this stuff, this is what we are showing them, teaching them. My optimism that this can’t really be a rearing up of bigotry or corporate power falters when I see just who is on Trump’s cabinet appointee lists. Hard not to falter when I see actual interview footage of one of those possible appointees saying “everyone will have to BOW DOWN to Trump.” That really happened. It looks and feels and behaves like fascism. Yes that’s a loaded term, I understand fully what it means. And I actually feel strange saying it. But I’m familiar enough with world history to recognize the patterns. Some of these incidents I’m seeing are bold. And some not as blatant. These sort of adverse societal impacts often are not overnight. But it does take flight when boosted by some popular public figure or authority speaking in ways that incite those negative ideals. And Trump has yet to say to America that this kind of behavior isn’t acceptable. That his statements were just “talk”, trying to gain publicity any way possible (even that would be gross). But when asked if he went too far with his “rhetoric” (hate speech), he says “No, I won.” This so far tells me that a lot of the statements and attitudes he promoted are really him. I mean, what else is there to infer from it at this point.
This is the stuff that many Americans are afraid of. We don’t want hate to escalate further, and it needs to stop entirely. If Trump really doesn’t want people to be angry or bitter then he needs to speak out against the hateful stuff being slung around at this moment. It would go a long way.
But right now I don’t think we’re going to get that. It’d be admission that he lit this fire from the fuel. Would his ego allow that?
I hope I’m wrong, and he’ll tell people to knock it off. Soon. Now.
Wednesday November 09th 2016, 12:13 pm
It feels like a strange haze has set in. Like a psychic hangover that weakens the blood.
It’s been forever since posting a blog, but my mind just hasn’t been into it. Maybe that will change, I hope. Not that many probably care much what I write about on here. But it’s like talking to yourself in someways, like journaling stuff that others can read. And maybe there is some sort of energy feedback that somehow bolsters soul growth.
Anyway, election. Over.
In all honesty, I’m not being an alarmist, but being as real as I can be when I say we now have corporate fascist racist sexist bullies about to start running the country very shortly. Regardless of the reasons they were voted in, the fact remains they ran on a platform of bigotry in pretty much all of its forms. And was supported for that by votes going to them. This is such a massive step backwards. This was a metaphysical event. That is the best way I can describe it. We clearly are not the society a lot of us thought we were. How could we be at this point?
Example A: (revised, KKK did not march in NC) But swastikas with Trump’s name next to it, along with racial slurs have been seen tagging buildings. We can expect more of this?
A disease has been growing and we’re at stage 3 about to go into stage 4.
A lot of people feel like this will only be four years of time, but this in reality will affect the nation, and most likely the world, for possibly decades. I’m having a hard time being able to convey the gravity of this, words fail me at the moment.
But I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, we are facing a very rough long ride. And at this point it doesn’t matter what Trump does. It has more to do with what his election signifies, about the heart and soul of American and world society.
This isn’t whining over the loss. This isn’t sour grapes. This is getting ready.
We’re going to have to use all of our creativity to pull our dreams of better things into reality. This is our best tool to transform the dark into the light.