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Happy 200th Birthday!

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Our Dear Mr. Darwin would be a very spry (I’m sure) 200 years old this Feb. 12.

The man did so much for us. Aside from the claims of the idiots on the godder side of history, people of reason don’t worship him. But we do give a boatload of credit to a guy who worked so tirelessly, throughout his life, to understand and explain this most beautiful and fruitful idea: that all living things are interrelated. Man, how cool is that?

Here’s a painting of him done by premier natural history illustrator Carl Buell.

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Lest we forget: This is also the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. And bravo for that, too!

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PS: The above image is COPYRIGHTED. If you snake it from my site, after my friend Mr. Buell was so kind as to allow me to post it, I’ll hunt you down and feed you to the invertebrates. AFTER I superglue hungry ferrets to your knees.

If you want a copy of the painting — which is fully life-sized — for your own Darwin Day celebratory use, contact Carl Buell directly at Carl [at] olduvaigeorge [dot] com.

At least one college I know of is printing out the full portrait and mounting it on a cutout backing so that students can pose with it for pictures.

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Molly Ivins Remembered

mollyivins.jpgMolly Ivins died two years ago today.

If you don’t know  who she was, go HERE to read some of her delightful quotes.

“I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”

She was a Texan — a Texas liberal! — with a loud mouth, a wickedly cynical pen, and a sense of humor and justice and love that made her … special.

She knew, and gently despised, the idiot George W. Bush (whom she called “Shrub”), and all the people he surrounded himself with.

Continue reading “Molly Ivins Remembered”

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The Goodness of Atheism

atheism.jpgI got one of those Nigerian email scams. I’d guess it was about number 50, or maybe it was 75.

I’ve been thinking for several days about two very different views of atheism. One is from the godder side, where atheists are consciously evil, and want to hurt people and destroy things. The other …

Well, read the email first.

DEAR BELOVED IN CHRIST,

Yeah, the whole thing is in capital letters. I’ll spare you by translating it into something less shouty. I’m leaving in the typographical errors and misspellings, but I’m fixing the weird line breaks and large number of extra spaces sprinkled throughout.

Continue reading “The Goodness of Atheism”

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Code Blue!!!!!!

I’m chuckling, but in a grim way.

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I get these emails from something called Worldview Weekend, a Christianist organization that sees a plot to murder God – and white people – in every shadow. I signed up in  a weak moment a year or so back, just to keep tabs on what they’re selling.

Some of the lines from this week’s plate of steaming neo-con Jesus (I confess I added all the exclamation marks, just because it seems funnier that way):

Liberals to Spend $1 Trillion And Can Not Say it Will Produce One Job!!!

Uh, hello? How many net jobs were created by the several trillion that Bush spent?

Distracting and Destroying the Middle Class, by Brannon Howse

Continue reading “Code Blue!!!!!!”

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Misty-Eyed on MLK Day

Came across this online this morning, and it brought a tear to my eye.

Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk.

Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run.

Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly.

Damn. Here’s to a big step toward ending the inhumanity of racism.

Congratulations, President Obama. And congratulations, America.

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DesignerQuick

dq-logo.jpgHey, take a look at this: DesignerQuick.

It’s not something new I’m doing — it’s more like something I’ve BEEN doing, but have finally gotten around to building and posting the website.

Take a look at the site and see samples of my work. Everything from brochures to billboards to blogs, I’ve had a hand in it all, in both print and web media.

Got any pressing design needs? Hit me up.

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Vulpes Rising

keys.jpgI woke up this morning with the picture of JJ Danesworth in my head. And a realization … Well:

JJ was (or is – he might still be alive) a man I knew in Texas. He was the father of some high school friends and he had osteomyelitis.

If you don’t know what that is, I don’t either. But in his case … Hold your arms out in front of you, palms down, and imagine some godlike trickster comes along and softens then rehardens your bones, meanwhile bending your forearms sharply upwards at a point about four-fifths of the way from elbow to wrist, subtracting three or four inches of length while he was at it.

Continue reading “Vulpes Rising”

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Still Life With Red Envelope

Had a weird moment just now.  repo.jpg

I’m looking out at the critters on the deck – numerous  doves, starlings, blue jays, cardinals, pine siskins, goldfinches, black capped chickadees, tufted titmouses, even the occasional woodpecker (plus the inevitable gray and red squirrels) – and thinking about how tough their lives must ordinarily be.

And I’m comparing them to me.

For instance, lucky human that I am, here I am inside a temperature-controlled, rain- and snow-proof house. The thermometer outside my office window reads 22 degrees, but the one inside reads 75 (I keep my work area a lot hotter than the rest of the house, because I sit for long periods).

I’m wearing soft, clean, comfortable, fairly new clothes, including nicely form-fitting shoes. I’m freshly showered. I can turn a faucet and have fresh water gush out, at two different useful temperatures. I had gingerbread eggnog French toast this morning, with maple syrup and cinnamon, and with orange juice and coffee served alongside. In fact, I’m so well-fed I’m overweight.

Continue reading “Still Life With Red Envelope”