Since the GOP has chosen to walk the dishonest path every single day of Trump’s Presidency, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Still, somehow, Republicans misconstruing the House investigation as a trial and demanding witnesses then pretending the actual trial in the Senate wasn’t one and refusing to allow any witnesses to appear there, felt like outright criminal acquiescence. The GOP is now the pro-crime and anti-justice party. I never thought I’d see the day. SMH.
There are so may low life losers crawling out of the woodwork these days. Whether it’s James Woods using his twitter account to dishonestly claim to his followers that Democrats “hate America” or Trump just being Trump, it’s pernicious. It’s also in perfect character for the GOP.
Twitter has suspended two of my accounts, one of which was a political account (@SquidPolitical) meant to keep politics off my other account, which was my official Mad Squid Productions™ account (@realMadSquid).
They suspended the political account for “harassment” when I RESPONDED to a NAZI. Apparently, even as a #veteran, @Jack doesn’t want me to defend myself against right wing thugs. Not on Twitter, anyway. You cannot argue the evidence, or anything really, with Twitter once they’ve done this. The account is simply gone.
They suspended my business account and claimed that I REPORTED MYSELF! This is complete horse shit, of course. I reported a #dishonest #Republican who was spreading hateful lies about #Democrats and rather than enforce their own TOS, they simply closed my account.
I have made anti-Twitter MEMEs in the past, but clearly I’m not yet finished. I spent HUNDREDS of man hours building my following on those two accounts. I feel that Twitter, and Jack specifically, owe me financial compensation for taking those hours away from me.
Cory Gardner is a Republican Senator from our great #BlueState of #Colorado. He will be losing his job to John Hickenlooper in November (if the Gods haven’t completely abandoned Humanity by then). He is not new to receiving calls, tweets, letters, and so on from me. Not by any means. Some day soon I may have to gather all of my Cory Gardner materials and place them on a page of their own.
I’ve decided to approach publishing my MEMEs a little differently from now on. The media gallery on the POLITICS tab of this site is becoming unwieldy. I want my newest memes to be front and center, but then to take a backseat as time moves on.
What better medium for that than a reverse chronology blog? So, new MEMEs will be published here as a post, and only my favorites will make it to the gallery mentioned above.
For Christmas this year I decided to try and make at least one gift from scratch. My daughter lent me the perfect idea when she began reading and talking about witches. This is an interest that I believe she picked up from her Anime shows and graphic novels. Wherever it came from though, it was a perfect match for my gift plan because hand made objects are imbued with power in the world of witching.
Also, in order to make a quality gift, I knew I’d have to be into the concept on some level myself. When I began reading up on witchcraft spells, I quickly found my way to the story of the origins of magic runes. Originating from an ancient Norse poem called Hávamál, the tale is one of sacrifice and attainment of knowledge. It is also one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read!
In this story Odin pins his corporeal self to Yggdrasil, the tree of life which contains the nine realms (be prepared for lofty language and imagery). There he hung above the Well of Urd, a repository for all of the knowledge of the entire Universe, for nine days and nights. He refused help, food, and water from all of the other Gods for this entire time. After the ninth night, the Norns recognized his sacrifice (himself to himself!!!) and taught the power and use of the runes to him. Odin then passed this knowledge on to Humanity, teaching it to the first generation of witches himself.
I was blown away by the depth and beauty of the imagery of this story. If you are unfamiliar with it I highly recommend looking it up. Here is one pretty good link to further you along that path: https://norse-mythology.org/tales/odins-discovery-of-the-runes/
I built this box from an idea. I had no blueprints or plans. Also, I chose not to use fasteners of any kind (except to affix the bronze hardware). The wood is basswood, sourced from my local hobby shop, called Hobby Hut Models. They were very helpful and understanding of my staring at their wood selection for what seemed like forever as I measured and remeasured in my head.
Block selection at Hobby Hut Models.
I began by cutting and gluing the frame of the chest together using 90º clamps. I then cut and glued boards around the frame to create the body of the chest. For the floor of the chest I used the thickest pieces of basswood board so that it could hand the abuse of having things tossed into the chest over the a period of years.
Glueing the frame together from sticks and boards.
Next, I used a plate to trace a semi-circle onto slightly thicker boards which I used to create the end caps of the domed lid, as well as two ribs to give it more structural integrity. This I had to do because in order to bend the planks for the rounded top of the lid, I knew I had to use fairly thin sheets of wood. I glued these to sticks to create the frame of the chest’s lid, and then glued boards atop the arched end pieces in what I would call a shingled fashion.
Cutting and glueing end pieces together with sticks and ribs, and then bending thin wooden singles to form a domed lid.
For the consecration, I focused my energy and chanted “Elhaz” as I burned the rune itself into each side of the chest, and onto the end pieces of the lid. When the consecration ceremony was complete I used a weathered gray wood stain to color the box, as well as a clear coat inside the chest. Lastly, I glued a beautiful golden garland around the lower seam of the lid, both to close a small gap and to provide some aesthetic nuance to the chest.
I consecrated and protected the chest with Elhaz, stained it gray, and glued a golden garland around the lower seam of the lid. Finally, I affixed the bronze hinges and latches, and connected the lid to the box via brass chains.
My family watches television directly outside of my office, so my daughter knew that I was working on something in here, but we didn’t let her see what. Instead I pieced together a small gazebo from an old wood burning kit and showed it to her at various stages of completion. We repeatedly told her that she was getting the gazebo for Christmas, which really messed with her because of how much time I spent in here working on such a simple object, not to mention the noise and smells that I created in the process. I even wrapped the gazebo and put it under the tree. It was really great fun!