My Suspended Campaign

In case you hadn't noticed, my column and cartoons haven't been running in the Mapleton PRESS for a few weeks now. It's complicated. Suffices to say that it was my personal decision to go on hiatus, not an editorial decision on their part. It has been difficult. It is a personal leave of absence, and it is still indefinite. I've gone so far as to change the masthead on this blog.

I always believed in talking about "sex, politics, and religion- not necessarily in that order," and that it is important to speak the truth as you believe it. But this election has superheated. I never minded complaints about me or the occasional hate mail, but it got intense. People feel so passionately about their sides that they become angrier and uglier faster.

While other people may be hypersensitive and wrapped up in rancor, I'm probably culpable too. I'm very passionate about what I believe too, so no doubt my tone became more acidic and less light hearted. I had planned to go "cold turkey," and never post anything here if I couldn't write a weekly column too- but obviously I didn't have enough self control for that.

My dream was that being held to the discipline of writing a weekly column might someday lead to being able to write professionally full time. In my mind, blogging was extra, superfluous, a past time- column writing was the meat, blogging the side dish. If this is all I have, I'm just another prattling voice in the vast blogosphere, that hardly anyone ever bothers to read. In the PRESS, it was farm league, small time, but there were 4,000 readers- even if most of them disagreed with me and several of them thought I should be tried for treason.

If/when I return (after this damn election) I'd have to find a way not just to speak the truth, but to speak the truth in love and with more humor and less venom. But at this point, I don't know if or when that day will ever come.

It is important that my detractors and critics know that "I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party" or Socialist, or Taliban, or Terrorist. I am not a baby killer, a satanist, or a debaucher. I do believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior and I believe that might should not make right, but just the opposite- that right should make might. I believe in small town, agricultural Iowa, I believe in family and treating people with kindness and working hard. I Love America and I do not wish ill for her. Please don't feel sorry for my children or talk about me behind my back or avoid making eye contact with my wife or in-laws. Try following Jesus' advice in Matthew 5 "Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you" (sorry if you ever felt like I persecuted you, could ya please try not to deliberately persecute me, okay? Thanks).

It is important that my fans (if I ever had any) know that no one at Enterprise Publishing and the Mapleton PRESS did this to me. I needed to take a break. After 25 years of dreaming, I finally got the gumption to send out both columns and cartoons to national syndicates and got rejected by every single one. I thought I could withstand that, but it really rattled me- though not as much as neighbors who don't think I can possible be Christian because I'm not as rabidly pro-life and anti-gay and anti-immigrant as they are. Thank you for your encouragement and camaraderie. Keep me in your prayers.

It is important for those readers who disagreed with me a lot of the time but still enjoyed reading my column and cartoons, but who don't hold all kinds of animosity towards me that you should always be willing to talk about anything with anyone, and also be willing to listen to anyone talk about anything. Listening and learning, sharing and discussing- even when you disagree, and trying to find common ground- these are what makes America great and make the give and take of democracy work. Thank you, and please pass it on.

Quotes from an Iowa statesman

"A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends." ~Henry A. Wallace

"A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end." ~Henry A. Wallace

Photography can blow your mind

MORE Lutheran Surrealism

A second helping of surrealist pot-luck Lutheran hot-dish! I've added several new Lutheran surrealist works to this gallery, just in time for Reformation!

Photo of Luther as surrealist Rene Magritte. No special meaning, just kinda weird and cool.

Frau Katie, little deer- obviously based on the Frida Kahlo painting

Indestructible Liturgy, based on Man Ray's "Indestructible Object." I guess while I love the traditional liturgies, I don't have any hang ups about contemporary worship like some Lutherans, but nor do I think we should throw the baby out with the bath water either. Once upon a time what Luther and Bach did was counter-cultural and iconoclastic.

The Holy Spirit upon Erasmus, based on some renaissance painting and one by Rene Magritte.

More Lutheran Surrealism

This year I decided to revisit the theme of Lutheran Surrealism, so here is a whole new batch of weirdness-
Martin Luther as Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. (works for dia de los Muertos too).

C.F.W. Walther with Dali's mustache.

Phillip Melancthon can't sleep, based on one of Salvador Dali's more famous works.

Lutheran Surrealism

Last year, I was surfing the web and stumbled on this blog, http://lutheransurrealism.blogspot.com By this college professor who's into surrealist poetry and philosophy who became a Lutheran. His mind bending writing inspired me to PhotoShop a few of the great Surrealist paintings (that weren't totally lewd). Just in time for Reformation (October 31) Scary, huh?

Yeah, I stayed at school and waited for Parent/Teacher conferences to start, so I was REALLY bored. I promise I'm not on drugs, and I won't be offended if you don't "get it." I have kind of a weired sense of humor.

If you think they're funny, feel free to pass them on. Maybe we can start a cult or something.
Happy Reformation Day.

The persistence of litergy
Just like Salvador Dali's 'Persistence of Memory.' I used the LCMS's new "Lutheran Service Book from CPH because I couldn't find a good picture of the old blue 'Lutheran Worship' or what i was really looking for, the red 'Lutheran Hymnal.'


This is not a beer stein
ala Rene Magritte's famous, "This is not a pipe."

It's the Great Pumpkin, Karl Barth!
Robert L. Short in his book 'The Gospel According to Peanuts' pointed out that "Charlie Brown" may have been a cleverly devised literary device for cartoonist Charles Schultz to inject the ideas of the great twentieth century theologian "Karl (Charles) Barth (Brown)." Since he was one of my heroes, I always secretly hoped that since he was from Minnesota, Schultz was Lutheran, but I think actually he may have belonged to the Church of Christ or something like that. So what if Schultz wasn't a surrealist! Reformation and Halloween are the same day, so I'm allowed to take a little license. I always felt that Linus was more like Kierkegaard, but Barth's hair is kind of crazy like Linus's is in this picture. Really, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's face and head look more like Charlie Brown, but how can you satirize someone who was martyred by the NAZI's, I mean, come on, some things are sacred.

Keep Fighting

I call this "keep fighting." Obviously it's all about adolescent angst. I think someone could use it as a book cover for some teen novel someday.

Some dark images

Merlin's Cave 1
A drawing, a painting, and an intaglio print melded together in photoshop. Spooky for Halloween, huh?
'Merlin' by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smile the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze Note.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest tone,
When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned hood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.



I put a charcoal drawing and a pencil drawing together, but did a lot in photoshop. Frankly I think this final composition is a stronger artwork than either of the two originals. I call this "of two minds." You could think of it as someone who is treacherous and "two-faced," or you could imagine someone with multiple-personality-disorder. Or you could just interpret it your own way. I thought it would be fun to do make something scary for Halloween. Boo!

Opie for Obama

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Done

Well friends, I did it. I saw a poster at city hall advertising early voting, so since I had a few hours between the end of school and parent/teacher conferences I drove to the county courthouse and "got 'er dun."

There was no touch-screen, just a booth and a piece paper. which I sealed in my secrecy affidavit envelope and handed directly to someone in the county recorder's office.

I believe in the secret ballot so I won't tell you how I voted, but let's just say I went with hope rather than fear, ideas rather than ideology, action not anger, real change rather than faux change that would continue the Reaganomics and Bush Jr. foreign policy that got us in the fix we're in.

Agree with me? Get out there and do likewise. Insanely incensed by me? Get out there and balance (cancel) out my vote with yours. Don't care either way? Then sit on your hands, but then don't complain come November 5.

The picture of mental health

Red, Blue, Black, and White oil pastels on paper. I'd been teaching 4th graders about Van Gogh but I can see lots of Picasso, Matisse, and Klee influences here too. Plus, it's pretty obvious that I could use some Prozac or something.

Education, Perceptions, and the Election

I received this as an Email; I didn't do the fact check, but i is enough to cause some thought even if some of the facts are not fully accurate.


What if things were switched around? Think about it...

Would the country's collective point of view be different?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.