Like last week, I'm inflicting a cartoon on you before I go on to the main feature. Just another arrogant artist preening himself right in your faces... or perhaps I tossed it up top all by itself so we can just ignore it and get on with things down here.
As it says in the title, this is National Religious Freedom Day in the United States. If I wasn't already on some "watch list" I'm pretty sure I've made the cut after the long hours I've spent the last couple of weeks digging through online translations of the Qur'an and the zillions of hadiths followed by a quick trip to whitehouse.gov to see if they have this year's proclamation by the President posted.
Not yet-- I guess. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place. Maybe by the time this diary is posted there will be some news. If you're of a mind to do so you can hit that link and read through the archived proclamations of yesteryear.
Frankly, this is the first I'd ever heard of Religious Freedom Day.
I've been led to believe that the emphasis should be placed on civil liberties and not on diversity. I wonder how realistic it is to celebrate a Religious Freedom Day when many civil liberties have been squashed and restricted. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I'd also like to hear what's for dinner.
I just finished off a plate of experiment. The experiment was to take a crepe, cover it in shredded Edam, cover it with another crepe, cover that with pizza sauce, sliced leeks, more Edam, Parmesan and a bit of Blue, then sprinkle a few sliced black olives over the top and bake it on an oiled cookie sheet until bubbly, fold it in half and broil until crisp, turn over and broil the other side until also crisp.
It was pretty tasty.
In other Marko-centric news, I've been encouraged by the relatively minor Facebook success of that cartoon I posted at you folks last week. This morning one more person shared it, bringing the current total up to 24 shares. It was kinda thrilling to have people I didn't know sharing my cartoon. Most of the 24 shares I can't even see who did the sharing and on a few shares where I can, I can't like or comment on them. It's a bit odd because I could read the comments other people were posting. It was a frustrating bit of lurking. I got one great comment on that other cartoon from someone who said that the provocation of Charlie Hebdo was just more of the West rubbing salt in the wounds they'd caused with 300 years of oppressive colonialism and genocidal wars-- I thought, "even if Facebook would allow me to argue with that-- I couldn't." Still, I am encouraged to create more of these little comics. I've also been playing around, fiddling with the dynamics of various ways of posting and sharing over on Facebook. I've little way of knowing what works and what doesn't, but it's still interesting to see who seems to notice what I merely share as opposed to what I post myself. I dunno, I guess I'm just a playful kitten at heart although I should be taking this stuff seriously. I'm supposed to be a professional! I seem to have given up on my cartooning sometime after I moved to Europe. I've had a few weird and discouraging instances of bad timing in my career-- and the odd moments of tremendous good fortune. Mostly I've sort of ended up where I started...
I am enjoying drawing with my brushes again. Brush and ink, it's the only way to fly!
Speaking of flying straight into the fiery pit-- I noticed at the newsstand today that a Czech magazine or two has stories about Charlie Hebdo on their covers.
And the controversial Muhammad covers of Charlie reproduced in full color inside. I don't think the terrorists in Paris got what they were after.
Is the reproducing of these controversial pictures just more provocation? Does this cycle ever break down? get a punctured tire perhaps?
I got a haircut today. That's another bit of circular endeavor for you. It just keeps growing out again. I'm not making any progress with it at all!
Sort of like my spiritual journey in search of a label. I keep coming back to the same old labels. This excellent diary about Humanism and Hearing may just have convinced me that the Humanist label would be a pretty good fit. I'm sure it will look utterly ridiculous stuck to all this fur. A humanist werelynx?
Perhaps I should rather be a lycanthropist.
9:42 PM PT: Be sure to check out elenacarlena's great index of Religious Freedom Day related diaries here: http://www.dailykos.com/...
