Political Rant- Warning

For some reason people supported this guy from the beginning.
When he was running for the nomination I was made about some new lie every week up until he said it was okay to commit a crime on a US military base for the soul purpose of intimidating military personell that had a different religious belief than himself.  That was enough to have me steaming until he won the nomination.
Then there was him throwing the constitution and the laws of our contry in our face by choosing a VP from the same state.  When it was pointed out that he was too ignorant to properly choose a running mate, said running mate just changed his residence ON PAPER, while continuing to live here in Dallas.  Then somehow the whole presidential race was about who was a better Christian.  Nevermind anytime he was asked about national defense all he could do was same the exact same line over and over again “The US military should not be used for nation building”  Anytime he was asked about domestic policy he brought out some line about “compassionate conservatism”.  Less than a year into his presidency he had violated both claims.
Oh yeah then the whole election thing.  I thought the republican ideals were based on states rights, then he went to the supreme court to settle the election, when it was still being heard by the Florida supremecourt, nevermind that there were already laws on the books to deal with just such an issue, and it was ignored.

But still folks supported him. 

I felt like I was the only person in my world that had any idea who this man was.

He lied to us, and at least NPR was reporting the truth.  They interveiwed the weapons inspectors that said over and over again that there were no WMDs.  I still don’t understand how congress, both dems and gop can claim today that they didn’t know.
And still people supported him.  He was getting his highest approval ratings ever.   People actually elected him in 2004 (note I did not say re-elected).

And so now we sit here today with him still in office.  And I am still confused as to why.
Who have supported this guy?
Here in Texas they still proudly proclaim their support with the big “w” stickers on their SUVs and big trucks.  But who are these people really?  Why do they support him, despite the lies, the violating of the consititution that we supposedly hold so dearly, and the loss of the respect of the rest of the world?

What has happend to us as a nation?  Why isn’t this man being impeached?  They put Clinton through an impeachment trial because of an extra maritial affair.  But bush has caused the deaths of thousand, but in to such a deep national debt, that I wonder how my great grandchildren will ever dig us out of it, and has managed to chip away at the American Middle class to the point that it is an endangers species. 

But people still support him.  Granted only 1/3 of thecountry, where it had been 2/3.  But who are these people?  Why do they support him?

I honestly want to know.  What am I missing that they see in this man?

Some claim it is his Christian values.  But I have yet to see one drop of Christian value come from this guy.  So that can’t be it at all.  He represents bigotry (I don’t care how many generations have gotten away with calling it family values, bigotry has always been bigotry), murder, lying, refusing to help the sick, poor and elderly. 

Why is he supported?
Why isn’t he facing justice for what he has done to our country?

Stewing

Late last week I worked on the poster idea I had, but made the mistake of accidently eating something with soy in it Saturday morning.  The resulting migrain didn’t go away until Tuesday afternoon.

But once it did, I spent several hours revamping my website.  I was so stoked about the design.  Then I discovered that I can’t see the dang thin in firefox, which is my primary web browser. I have explorer, but the dang thing crashes at random intervals.

Then while uploading the images (once I found the file they were in) my ftp site decided I needed to re-enter my password halfway through.  I don’t know my password.  James programed that in for me.  But I figured he didn’t want me waking him at midnight to ask what my password is.  Going to have to try and figure this all out on my own, or just hang on for about 20 hours until James can fix it for me.

I really need to figure out how my computer works on my own someday.  If James should ever be unavailable, I would be completely lost the next time explorer or something else crashed.  Still haven’t figured out how to get my AOL instant messanger working again after James downloaded an upgrade.  Actually most of my computer issues seemed to be related him downloading upgrades.  I never had an issue with explorer until he decided it needed upgrading.

But on a nicer note, he did upload my music to his mp3 player so that I could borrow it for awhile.  Actually it is the only way I have access to my own music.  He ripped all my CDs onto his computer and then promptly lost the CDs.  I forgot how much I like Ella Fitzgerald, it has been so long since I got to listen to her music.

I have to admit that having the music playing in my ear this evening probably contributed to me actually getting a website design together that I rather like.

Well I guess I should get some sleep it is nearly 2 am here.

Workshops

This past weekend I participated in a workshop. It was supposed to be for watercolor, but was actually the use of acrylic as watercolor.

At the end of each of the three days I was amazed and disgusted with the ego of the artist giving the workshop. I really wasn’t that intrested in gossip about these women that have taken his workshops several times a year for the last 20 years. I wasn’t interested in his very ego-centric veiw of his trips to Bali and Cambodia. I was bored and agrivated most of the workshop. Mainly because he talked about himself. Somehow he believed that him being given a peice of fabric by a buddist monk meant that he himself was the most special person in the world and that this never happened to anyone else. He also seemed to believe that he was completely responsible for one of his former workshop participants getting 5 children’s books published (he did not put her in contact with any publisher, just had her in a workshop one time). He also thought that my attempt to stiffle a yawn was his story bringing me to tears.

Needless to say the ego trip really irritated me. And these women that keep taking his workshop are like a cult. It just weirded me out.

While he talked I drew in my sketchbook and I did come up with a nifty design for a poster contest that I was invited to participate in.

Also after the last day of the workshop, James took me for my weekly bookstore fix and then dinner. And the whole time I could only think about how I would like to run a journey drawing workshop. Something sort of along the lines of the spiritual side of creativity and shaking up one’s creativity.

Then I sat down today to start working on the poster design and I found myself usikng some of the techniques taught in the workshop to make the background of the painting. And I am not wanting to go get some raw canvas to see if I can get canvas to work like watercolor paper with the washes and such.

So here I am 3 days after this workshop that I was afraid I had wasted my money on, and am thinking that it just might have been a nifty idea to go afterall. I just needed to let it all stew in my head a bit. Still not happy with the cult of Artist as God thing. But I think that all the stuff that managed to wiggle into my head and is now just starting to emerge just might have made the whole thing worth it.

Wonder what I can do to work on keeping an open mind in the future.

Do people really want to put the artist up on a pedestal like that?

I have dealt with a few cases of fan-itis and it just creeped me out. It is nice when folks like my art, but being creative doesn’t make me any different than the next person. My art is just a much more obvious in your face sort of creativity than say the guy that manages to pull his sales team out of the dumps and motivates them to do something amazing.

I guess I just believe that all of us have a seed of creativity and we just need to spend some time nurturing it to get it to bloom. I have been lucky to have had a grandmother that started nurturing my creative seed at a very young age. Okay she was probably just trying to keep me out of trouble so that she could paint, but boy did I luck out with her method of keeping me busy.