Just Upgraded To 2.51

I just upgraded the blog to wordpress 2.51. Looks like a lot of cool new features. The site will look bad while I’m playing around with updating the theme. Pardon our dust as they say. Thanks.

UPDATE: All done. Now I have to get used to the new interface.

I Carry A Purse

After 4 years of injury and recovery(I broke my back in 2003, long story, I’ll fill you in later), 2007 marked my big comeback to the workplace. I’d like to say that I was cartooning fulltime, but alas, I mostly do graphic design and web stuff, and everything in between. Much like a master carpenter, I bring my own tools to work, consisting of a laptop, and all of the necessary software to complete the task at hand.

When I started, I quickly realized that the work I was expected to do, wasn’t going to get done without the proper software. Shocker, the company wasn’t willing to buy any software, and said that MS Paint was on all of the PCs. Now, any graphic artist worth his salt will tell you, MS Paint is COMPLETE CRAPOLA, and not an art program, so I decided to just bring in my own stuff.  I know, I know, but I wanted the gig, ya know?

Anyway, just like any other person who carries a laptop, I have a laptop bag. There is a big difference between a laptop bag, and a purse. A laptop bag is something that many professionals in today’s world simply can’t do without, while a purse is something that women carry their makeup in. In the last few weeks, I think I may have crossed that fine line between the two.

If I was to take an inventory of my wife’s purse, I’d find makeup, her wallet, gum, aspirin, pens, a cell phone, and other similar odds & ends. Seems pretty typical, right? Well, if I was to take an inventory of my laptop bag tonight,  I’d of course find a laptop, work docs, and a pen or two, but it’s the other stuff in there that makes me worry.

Upon further inspection, I find things like gum, aspirin, a camera, deodorant (because you never want to let them see you sweat), and other similar odds & ends. Essentially, I think that my once very professional laptop bag has become little more than a glorified ladies’ purse! So I started to think, and I bet that all of those stuffy business types carrying those laptop bags, and briefcases too for that matter, are really just big sissy-men carrying purses! I mean, really, what’s the difference? I gotta say tho, I can see why women lug those things around. The convenience of having everything you need right at your fingertips is unquestionable. When you see me wearing eye shadow, then you can really start to worry.

Intelligent Design In The Classroom

I was once of the opinion that if religion were to be allowed in schools, then ALL religions must be included. For example, if a group of young Christians wanted to meet after school for a prayer group, the school would also have to allow the Jewish kids, the Muslim kids, the Satanic kids, and any other religious group of kids to have their own club. I believed that in the spirit of fairness, the rule should be all or none. That of course would be the only way to avoid lawsuits, and even worse, the media. It would be a perfect solution for all, and no group could complain about another getting special treatment. How wonderful, right?

As I see more and more division, and violence in the world caused by religious zealotry, I have to take a stand and label myself a flip-flopper on this issue. I don’t want the influence of religion anywhere near an American public school. I don’t want on cent of my tax dollars to go toward the inclusion of all religions, or ANY religions at all. Religion has absolutely no place in the public school system. No prayer rooms, no foot baths, no chapels, no nativity scenes, nothing. If a religious parent wants their child to receive religious instruction in school, then they need to pull their child from the public system and find a nice private school, where their children can receive religious indoctrination on a daily basis.

This brings me to the subject of Intelligent Design(ID). There are many who believe that ID IS a science, and belongs in the classroom next to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. This is, of course, insane. Intelligent Design is little more than a clever way to get God in the classroom by the far-right. The Intelligent Design movement is often disguised as Agnostic in nature, but let me be very clear about this, it is not. ID is backed and supported by far-right Christian activists.

Before you can accept Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, you must first accept that there’s an intelligent being that designed everything. The intelligent being that ID activists are referring to is God. That creates a problem. The existence of "God" isn’t scientific, it’s based in blind faith. It’s unprovable, thereby rendering the entire "theory" unscientific.

So, if Intelligent Design isn’t science, what is it? Well, it’s obviously religion, and religion doesn’t belong in the American public school system. ID has become political, and elections are won and lost on the issue. As we approach the 2008 election cycle, this debate is sure to pop up eventually, either on the local or national levels. When you hear "Intelligent Design" on the talking head shows, please remember that whatever anyone says, it’s not based in science, it’s religion. The Constitution provides us with a separation of Church and State. ID is instead, a combination of the two, and must be considered UN-Constitutional.

Remember, if it relies on "God" to make it true, it just isn’t science, and it has no place in school.

Anti-Atheist Letter To The Editor

Hey Alice Shannon from Soldata, SCREW YOU!!!!!

Seriously, the bigotry thrown at Atheists is just silly. Believers and their imaginary friends should really just calm down. At the very least, they should learn gooder grammer, because if Alice Shannon is any indication, believers have the bad learning.

In closing, Alice Shannon, why don’t YOU get off of MY country!?!?! Take that.

The Atheist Factor

An interesting (but short) interview between Bill O’Reilly and world famous Atheist Richard Dawkins. Regular readers (both of you) know that I’m a big O’Reilly fan, but I have to say that I wish Bill would’ve given Mr. Dawkins a couple more minutes. The subject of Atheism in the world is very interesting, and misunderstood, and it felt like Bill wasn’t taking it too seriously. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

 

Here’s a portrait of O’Reilly I did. Have a look.

Godless? Me?

Just wanted to make mention that I’m included i the latest Carnival of the Godless over at the Neural Gourmet. Check it out. You know you wanna.

Remembering Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain was a great influence in my life. Today, April 8th, is the day that he was reported dead, and the media went nuts. MTV actually stopped what they were doing and went to Kurt Loder, live in the studio, for the entire day. It was unheard of for MTV, but Cobain was really the biggest thing to happen to popular music since the Beatles. If you ask me, nobody’s even come close since.

Here’s a recent portrait I did. Hope ya like it. 

Here’s a great little youtube vid some guy put together. Enjoy!

I still get a little choked up when I watch that Unplugged performance.

Chocolate Jesus And Other Delicious Things

Cruising around the blogosphere I caught a post from local blogger CrabLaw about that chocolate Jesus. He actually got into a bit of a "blogger duel" with somebody I never heard of over whether or not the Chocolate Jesus was offensive or not. I couldn’t help but chime in. Here’s what I said:

As an artist, and an atheist, I can see the true intent of the artist in question. The true intent of the artist is *shocker* to offend!

What a great way to get some recognition in the art world! Hang Jesus’ chocolate ding-a-ling in a NYC hotel! Brilliant!

Remember "Piss-Christ"? The exact same thing.

As to this quote-"The self-appointed privilege of some artists to "make you think" assumes an arrogant, one-way door model of communication in which the observer of the art is, I guess, supposed to absorb the artist’s gentle rain flowing down from Mount Olympus, and never question or object when it smells like urine.", yeah you’re right! Artists ARE arrogant!

It’s been my experience that the large majority of the artistic community is little more than a group of spoiled, arrogant, punks. It’s all part of the romanticized stereotype of the starving artist.

In art schools, it is often taught that the artists’ role in the world is to question the norm, and to be provocative. To a "real" artist, watercolor birds are NOT art. Chocolate Jesus, definitely is.

Was it right for the artist to knowingly create such an offensive piece? Well sure it was. Freedom of speech, etc. In America, you have the right to be a douche-bag if you so choose.

Was it right for the hotel to display it? Well it probably was a bad business decision, but it’s well within their right to display whatever art they want. I bet they’ll be hanging those watercolor birds from now on though.

In conclusion:
Anyone who thinks that this was not designed to offend, isn’t being honest.

Anyone who is truly offended by it, well that’s too bad. Stay at another hotel.

And anyone who threatens the artists’ or the hotel managements’ life, is either a religious zealot, or a redneck.

Me? I say God is imaginary so what’s the difference? ;-D

 

The whole thing got me thinking. All of these religious types are WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY to sensitive. I mean, you hang a chocolate Jesus and the Christians go ape-sh*t. You print a cartoon of Allah and the Muslims firebomb the whole damn city. It’s ponderous, man.

Anyway, everyone involved decided to take down CJ (chocolate Jesus). I’m wondering what they’re gonna do with him now? I mean, that thing could be broken up and given to an orphanage for Easter. Those kids NEVER get any candy, they’d LOVE it! I can see it now, smiling faces, sticky chocolate covered fingers, what fun! I’m guessing that none of them would want to eat CJ’s chocolate penis tho. Maybe they could save that piece for one of those creepy, kid-touching priests. They love Easter too!

Hi, I’m Charlie. I’m an Atheist.

I use to say that “an Atheist doesn’t believe in God, and an Agnostic is to scared to admit it.” Well, that’s not entirely true. An Agnostic, as far as I understand, is actually someone who believes that there is “something” responsible for the way everything is, just not a personified “God”.

I use to consider myself an Agnostic, but I think it was because I was afraid to go all the way and be honest with myself. The fact is, there ain’t no God. That’s not what I “believe”, it’s what I know to be fact. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Mormons are no more legitimate than Scientologists. Every one of those religions is as delusional as the last.

*EDIT: Upon further reflection, i’m now of the opinion that Scientology is on a whole other level of delusion than the other mainstream religions. Those Scientologists are just daffy. EDIT*

My father was the son of a Baptist minister, and my mother was the daughter of a strict Italian Catholic man. Both of my folks did the Sunday thing religiously (pun intended). Along the way tho, something happened.

For my mom, I think it had to do with the fact that her dad, whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting, divorced her mom, my grandmother, while she was very young. So much for being a devout Catholic, huh? Divorce is a big NO-NO to the Catholics. I think that was pretty much the end of my mom’s Sundays in church.

My dad on the other hand, came from a wonderful, loving, home. His parents, my grandparents, were very much in love, and couldn’t have been nicer people. They were very Baptist, and didn’t even share the same bedroom. It was nuts I tell ya.

Anyway, my dad went to ‘Nam. He got married before he left, and came back and got a divorce. I think that the whole thing was the end of my dad’s religious days. For a loooong while at least.

Religion was never really a big deal in my house growing up. My parents never really talked about it at all. No Jesus figurines, or anything on the walls. We certainly didn’t go to church, ever. Don’t ask me why, it’s just how it was. I always just assumed that God must be real, just like Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy, it was just never pushed on me, but growing up in the very religious south, Angleton County, Texas to be exact, I heard everyone else talk about God all the time. He was everywhere.

I can remember that around the age of 5 or 6, I began to question God, and religion in general. In fact, I specifically remember sitting on the living room floor, and asking my mom “if dinosaurs were real, how could there be an Adam and Eve?” Mom didn’t really have an answer. She just said that she wondered the same thing before, but it was understood that God was still real. I wasn’t so sure.

Thru my high school years, I had a rather fun fascination with Jesus. The image, the artwork, the stories, everything about him. I saw Jesus as the embodiment of all religions. I started going to thrift stores and collecting anything with Jesus on it I could find. You wouldn’t blieve some of the tacky junk I found. Turned out Jesus was HUGE! He was everywhere, man!

I’m not sure what the fascination was, but I think I was trying to process the lie that was Christianity. I began to notice that Christians, didn’t believe that non-Christians would go to Heaven. I sorta thought that was shitty, so I began looking into other religions for the first time. Turns out that all of the other religions thought the same thing! I recognized a huge hypocrisy, and I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

Why do all of these people, believe different things? Why do they all think that THEIR God is better than everyone else’s? Then it occurred to me- it was all bullshit. The whole thing was 100% rubbish. They were ALL wrong. I had learned a great truth that day. There is no God. Religion is a lie.

I knew that day that I was officially an Atheist, but I was afraid to admit it. Like I said, my parents weren’t exactly practicing their faiths, but it was always assumed that there was a God, and that we were a Christian family. In other words, years of religious indoctrination had created a fear in me to actually admit that I didn’t believe in a false God. I can only imagine what someone from a very religious family must have to go through when and if they come to the same realization I did.

It’s time for me to just give up pretending that there might be “Something” that created the Earth and people. I know that there is no personification of Man that created ANYTHING at all. There is no God.

Hi, I’m Charlie. I’m an Atheist. Don’t hate.

My Neighbor Died Today

My neighbor died today. His name was Mr. Jack. He was a nice guy.

I used to see Mr. Jack outside all the time. We’d wave and be pleasant to each other. I never got to know him too much beyond that, but he was a good neighbor. Over the past few months, I noticed that he was never outside anymore, and there was a lot more family visiting him and his wife Mrs. Jack. I mentioned to my wife that I thought maybe Mr. Jack wasn’t doing well. As it turns out, I was right.

Me and my wife were outside this morning when they carried his body out of the house. It was just coincidence that we were out there. I’ve never seen what happens when you die. I was honestly a little shook up by the sight of two guys in black suits pushing the gurney.

I can be a real a-hole sometimes, and I do enjoy busting balls whenever possible, but when somebody dies, I typically have nothing to say. I think it’s best to just keep quiet. Maybe it’s because I’m immature, or I’m afraid I’ll say something stupid and p*ss somebody off in their time of need. I don’t know. I don’t seem to handle the knowledge of mortality very well.

The last time I saw Mr. Jack was about a week ago. He was in a wheelchair and using a respirator. I know he was a smoker. I don’t know if that’s what took his life though. The whole thing reminded me of my Great Grandmother. We called her “Nanny”.

Nan was a HEAVY smoker and ended up with emphysema before she died. She would take off her oxygen mask when she needed a smoke. Even as a young kid, I knew she was killing herself. It was sorta hard to watch her. When she died, I cried for a few days. Writing about it now, I still get a little upset about it. She was a crazy old lady, and I miss her.

Mr. Jack was a nice man. He marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade every year. He used to be a firefighter. He was a great neighbor. Goodbye Mr. Jack. I hardly knew you, but you’ll be missed.