Reef

Reef, 3 x 5 in, Watercolor and Litho gum on glazed white cardboard.

The gum solution is used in lithography to coat aluminum printing plates in order to prevent oxidation after development. The gum is traditionally Gum Arabic but is now only about 5% real gum with the balance being synthetic starches and mysterious chemicals. Mixed with watercolors; the gum makes the paint more viscous and changes the way it blends and scoots around on the cardboard.

windmill

I am still fooling around with sizes and resolutions for posting
scans of artwork on the web; don't have much experience there.
This is just a little watercolor doodle, about 4 X 5.5 inches on unidentified paper.
Thought I had better put something up or everyone would think I am dead
or something worse, like turned Democrat.

Buggety Boo

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this unusual looking insect on the back porch . I have never seen one like this before. What is it called? Maybe there is an entymologist amoung us who can say what it is.

And no, I did not squish it.

a little late but needed none the less...

Cut and Paste from Crunchy Con on Beliefnet

via Morning Coffee

Let's pray for peace on Friday
Thursday August 14, 2008

posted by Rod Dreher @12:26pm

One of Mark Shea's readers, an active-duty soldier, asks that Catholics devote this Friday, the Feast of the Assumption in the Roman Catholic church, to praying for world peace. The reader writes:

What is apparently going on in Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia, and what it about to go on in the Persian Gulf in blockading Iran could indeed lead to a World War One, or more accurately WW-III type conflagration. Although I don't see any evidence of the conspiracy theory "neocon manipulation" leading to the current situation, it is clear that events are unfolding that may be frighteningly irreversible. Call it Lucifer's due diligence.

Through Mark, the reader asks for prayers for world peace this Friday, through the intercession of the Virgin, with special emphasis on the Caucasus and the Middle East. I think it's a great idea. This Friday is the same Marian feast for the Orthodox (we call it the Dormition, and there are some theological differences with Catholics in our understanding of the event in the life of Christ's mother that it commemorates), and if anything we have even more reason to pray for peace, given that the Caucasus war involves hostilities between two Orthodox Christian countries.

I would like to invite all our readers -- Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and non-Christian -- to join together tomorrow to pray, in whatever way you pray, for the peace of the world. Please pass this on to your prayer chains, post to your blogs, get the word out some kind of way. I think our soldiers in the war zones -- I'm thinking of you especially, Another Believer -- would particularly appreciate it.

Author of Popular Blog Stricken

Readers, some of you are familiar with the Blog Glory To God For All Things authored by Fr. Stephen Freeman. Father Stephen is Rector of St. Anne's Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, TN, Dean of the OCA's Appalachian Deanery, and is a precious friend, mentor and spiritual father to many.

Fr. Stephen had scheduled a vist to St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, Ky to assist in celebrating the vigil service for the Eve of Feast of the Transfiguration, however, his visit was canceled because he has been stricken suddenly with E-Coli food poisoning and is hospitalized.

This can be a serious illness. Remember Fr. Stephen in your prayers.

You emulated the Merciful One,
and received from Him the grace of healing,
Passion-bearer and healer Panteleimon;
by your prayers, heal our spiritual diseases
and continually drive away the temptations
of the enemy from those who cry out in faith
"Save us, O Lord."

El dolor del widget

You may have noticed the Spanish language Word of the Day widget sidebar. It was working fine and now it is not. The source website is up and running. I deleted and re-embeded the widget and still no words. The demo widget on the originating website isn't working either. Maybe they ran out of words. By the time I get this note up, the thing may be running.

How many words are their in the Spanish Language anyway?
In English?

Click on the widget title for the link to the Spanish teaching/translating website. I love the computer-generated voice thingey that pronounces the words for you. Sounds like Ricardo Montalban after a 3 martini lunch,

who by the way, was a Mexican, not a Spaniard, and is now deceased, God rest him. 1-2009

W. goes to Washington

Golly Gee, Beaver! This man makes
Bill Clinton look like a Rhodes Scholar!

AND NOW

June 2008

The view along Marktstrasse in downtown Remagen as it is now. The Ludendorff bridge is long gone and the town remains a beautiful village on the banks of the Rhine. Many of the old buildings still stand and the town is a pleasant place to pass an afternoon in a bistro overlooking the river as you watch the cruise ships pass by.

THEN

March 7, 1945

Soldiers of the 9th armored Infantry rush through the town of Remagen on the west bank of the Rhine river as they dash to seize the Ludendorff railway bridge; the last intact bridge over the Rhine. Capture of the bridge and the establishment of a bridgehead on the east bank of the river was a significant achievement enabling the subsequent encirclement of the Ruhr valley and capture of approximately 300,000 German soldiers. The war was almost over.

What is wrong with this picture?

I just noticed something in the picture posted yesterday that I hadn't notice before; something is significantly not as it should be in that photo. Can you spot it? Those of you with military service under your belt will get it right away.

Happy Birthday, Papa

Somewhere in Germany, 1945

Robert Lloyd Mize
July 5, 1922 - March 11, 1988

Europa and The Second Amendment

As you can surmise from the photographs recently posted I was given a week in Germany on a “business trip”. I spent one day at the world’s largest printing trade show, DRUPA, in Dusseldorf, and the rest of the week goofing around and doing what Ugly Americans do best, that is, gawking, murdering the language, and taking lots of snap-shots.

We landed in Frankfurt and made our way up the Rhine valley, visiting Rudesheim, Remagen, Coln, Dusseldorf, Minden, Rothensburg, and Heidelberg before heading back to Frankfurt just in time to catch the plane back to the promised land. One week isn’t enough time to do anything but get a vague sample of what a Country really is like, but first impressions are important and mine were very positive. I found Germany to be absolutely beautiful, clean, well maintained, friendly, and yes, the beer is better. The money is prettier than ours and worth more too. I guess the almighty super-power greenback isn’t what it used to be.

One of the striking differences from the USA that I noticed is the attitude towards energy conservation. Instead of whining about their God given right to be wasteful, Europe has apparently gotten on the Green bandwagon a long time ago and shows a great deal of progress in the effort to reduce the consumption of energy and natural resources.

The photo is one of those high-tech electricity generating windmill which is still somewhat of a rarity in the US. In the highlands of central Germany we passed miles and miles of these windmill farms stretching as far as the eye could see. They produce electricity without creating any pollution by using one of the cheapest and most renewable natural resources I can think of: wind. The downside is the intrusion on agricultural land, the tremendous expense of erecting these monsters, and the constant noise pollution of the gentle whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of the rotating blades. Visual pollution is another issue. Once you get used to seeing these things I would not really say that they harm the visual beauty of the country side. Just different, not ugly. Kinda like some conceptual art installation piece on a very large scale that doesn’t ever go away.

Conservation measures are common-place. Gasoline is very expensive and small efficient automobiles are the norm. There are still lots of big black BMWs and SAABs roaring down the autobahn at 160 Kilometers per hour, but I guess that is for the well heeled elite that can afford to do so. Bicycles abound, and, gee whiz, it looked like people actually walked a lot in the cities! Instead of driving they take advantage of the well developed train system, and the electric trams in the cities and then walk some. Novel idea. Must be why we saw very few pudgy folks out and about. Maybe all the fat ones stay home.

The hotel corridors were usually pitch black when you went up to your room. The lights came on with motion activated switches or you had to turn them on yourself. We found early on that the lights in the rooms would not stay on longer than one minute unless you inserted your electronic door key-card in the main light switch by the door. Without it the lights will not work. Unless your are just plain dullwitted, you won’t walk out and leave the lights on behind you!

Toilets were all water-saver models, much like the water-saver models mandated for all new construction in the US. The only difference is that they seem to work. Most toilets even had a “big flush” button and a “little flush” button. We figured that out real quick. I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, you know.

Looks like the good old U.S. of A. could take some energy conservation lessons from Europeans. I hope so.

Oh, and about that Second Amendment thing, They aint got one.

Auf Wiedersehen.

In the Dom

Cologne

Rothenberg

We aint in kansas any more, is we?

Hidden Heidelberg

Guten tag, mein freud

Eine tasse cafe? Ja, sehr gut!

UFO

Unidentified Flowering Object

Blackberry Winter

Oh my goodness!
What a difference a year can make
Dry, shriveled buds have been supplanted by
opulent blossoms and the promise of a
bumper crop of plain old wild blackberries;
ever so good for cannin' , pie makin',
and eatin' on vanilla ice cream
after supper sitting on the backporch
watching the sun go down
Everything
is green
and growing
The grass is rubbing
the cow's bellies as they graze.
The crickets and cicadas
sing their songs of joy.
Life is good.

Somewhere in France

Epitaphios

The noble Joseph, when he had taken

down Your most pure Body from the Tree,

wrapped it in fine linen and anointed it

with spices, and placed it in a new tomb.

Favorites Quiz

Here is an interesting Quiz from blog MORNING COFFEE.

Here goes:

A) FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER:

Sleep, work, church, did I say work?

B) FOUR PEOPLE WHO ENCOURAGED MY FAITH ALONG THE WAY:

Thomas Merton, an anonymous 14th century monk, Ronald Reagan,
and a young Episcopal Curate.

C) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:

Ice cream, rice, peanut butter, sweet 'taters.

D) FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:

Piney woods on a crisp fall day, sleeping in a grand hotel,
The good ship lollipop (complete with cute, happy music)
and of course, the right-hand line to the way out.

E) FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:

Apocalypse Now, Last of the Mohicans, Any Clint Eastwood cowboy
movie, The shootist (John Wayne's last movie, I think)

F) FOUR THINGS I LIKE ABOUT THE ORTHODOX CHURCH:

Continuity, Acapella hymnody, the primacy of prayer,
and a proper respect for the holy mysteries.

G) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE HOBBIES:

Net Surfing (maybe thats not a hobby, just a time-waster), art,
shooting, reading the Old Testament.

Charleton Heston
1924 - 2008

Vechnaya Pamyat!

Sky

An imaginary sky over imaginary mountains.

Picture for Chris

I luv Amerika!

The Legislature of the Commonwealth of Ky is in the process of passing legislation making cruelty to a dog or cat a felony crime instead of a misdemeanor as it is now. Hmm.

No one seems to be able to explain why the bill specifies dogs and cats. Someone from some society or such was quoted in the paper mumbling platitudes about how much we love our pets. Thats good to know. If I stab my dog with a pointey stick I can be thrown in the gaol, but if I slap a possum to death with a tire iron its not cruel?

I guess this makes sense in a nation where the very people who leave bequests to dog pounds and humane societies are loath to walk across the street to help a sticken derelict.

What part of "Waterboarding is torture" do you not understand?

Did you know?

George W. Bush


is


a


reptilian


shape


shifter.