Reason and Empathy

"All they will get is a piece of bread of a day. Just enough to appease our allies."

They were (mostly) happily married for 77 years.

But this makes a shocking amount of sense.

Better to let sleeping dogs lie, you know.

Rosalynn was legitimately furious when he left the navy to run the peanut farm in Georgia. She didn’t want to leave Hawaii.

Uhhh. How'd that happen?

Anger from the Left: How dare you keep track of how many days are left. Do you think that makes it better. Do you think all this will just stop at the end of their term. Are you fucking stupid. What do you have to say for yourself.

It would fucking suck to live in the Marvel Universe as a non-superhero. You can identify with the protagonists, you can fantasize about being Tony Stark or whoever, but if you think about the civilians in those movies, the randos killed by the robot or sucked into the portal, it's hard to see the existence of superheroes as a net positive. They mostly seem to clean up problems that wouldn't have occurred in the first place without their egos and mistakes. Superman has a different emphasis though. The fantasy isn't just about having superpowers yourself, but about what if the natural disaster equivalent only did property damage, what if military aggression could be stopped in its tracks without a single civilian casualty, what if the evillest people in the world actually got their comeuppance.

Superman (2025) saves people.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

Firstly, I fucking love it.  I so rarely get attacked for my faith that it’s a-mazing that some idiot thinks to do so.  I actually get to use my Bible for this one!

Numbers 5:20-22, 27-28, “God performs abortions”

(20) But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— (21) here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the LORD cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. (22) May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.” “ ‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.” 

 (27)If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. (28) If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

Exodus 21:22-25 “Killing an unborn is not the same as killing a person, and the punishment is akin to property damage”

(22) If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. (23)And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, (24) Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, (25) Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Psalm 33:6 “Life begins at first breath”

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host.

Genesis 2:7 “Life begins at breath, Vol 2.”

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Isaiah 42:5 “Vol 3.”

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:

Job 34: 14-15 “God’s breath is what separates us from dust, a.k.a. Vol 4″

(14) If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, (15) all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

Job 33:4 “Vol 5″

The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

In the Bible, you are not a person until you’re halfway outside of your mother.  Then you’re only partially a person until you’re all the way out

You might notice that these are all old-testament quotes. Which is because the New Testament, you know,

The New and Everlasting Covenant, which shall be shed for You and for All so that sin may be forgiven 

Doesn’t really talk about abortion or life in the same way, and to the extent that it does the different apostles step on each other all the fucking time.

It would be better for the unholy to never have been born (Matthew 26:24)

Jesus Christ was a “thing” until He was born, as per Gabriel’s words (Luke 1:35)

John the Baptist being special explicitly because God made him Holy while a fetus (Luke 1:15).  That word simultaneously means “after birth” and also “third trimester”, because ancient languages were Like That.

The Apostles’ Creed (4th Century) and Didache (Which I can promise that you haven’t read) expand more considerations to the young, and to the unborn to varying degrees.

“How can you possibly be pro-abortion and Catholic at the same time!?” is a reflection on how little of the Bible you’ve read.  It’s a reflection on your own ignorance in regards to your own religious teachings and the writings of God Himself.

But nah.  You didn’t want to actually figure out what the religious underpinnings of my belief were.  You’ve a log in your eye, and you keep it there with pride.

No problem. I will call the local Amazon distribution warehouse to let them know that the delivery driver who delivered to us at 10 AM dropped her license and it is safe she can come get it.

Eight hours of trying off and on and now on the next day, I have determined that attempting to talk to a real fucking person who gives a shit there is less possible than an actual fucking unicorn appearing in our parking lot and taking me on a magical adventure. If I am directed to an AI customer service agent one more time I am going to SCREAM.