Toon 3/31/05 Terri Schiavo Day

The 'Ten Commandment' cartoon previewed below has been postponed until sometime next week.

Faithmouse.com Under Attack

Must be some problem with my firewall.

Tomorrow's Toon Today

In progress...

Alan Keyes' Renew America

Faithmouse is now a sister site on Alan Keyes' Renew America.

Toon 3/30/05

I'd like to thank De "Nederlandse Prinses" Openbaarde... of Blogs For Terri for showing the most recent Terri Schiavo toon.

One more cartoon for Terri is in the works.

Oh, heck

I've been having a hair pulling fight with today's cartoon, so here's a promotional cartoon drawn two years ago to hold hungry cartoon fanatics at bay.



You can tell this is an older toon because Augustine is 'cat' sized and faith doesn't have any eyelashes. On the back wall are a few oil paintings (I paint much better than I cartoon)-most are role model portraits commissioned by Saludos Hispanos magazine with whom I've had a ten year relationship. Saludos has an online PDF webzine which currently features three of my paintings.

Thanks, Renew America

Good Friday's toon has been posted on the main page of Alan Keyes' Renew America, which is a great honor.
I'd like to thank Daniel at Globe Lens for posting the cartoon as well.

Tomorrow's cartoon will be a completion of the toon shown early last week.

Toon 3/27/05 Easter Sunday

Today's cartoon is a rework of Sunday's Easter toon.

Faithmouse took a vow of silence a few weeks ago, and so far I'm pleasantly surprised at the results. Words can get in the way.
And I don't miss the hand lettering.

Easter Greetings from Madonna & Friend

If there was ever serious consideration given by anyone to Mrs. Ciccone's 'religious' convictions (Kabbalah reinvented as a prosperity cult and as far away from accepted Jewish beliefs as this Minnesota cartoonist is from the Eiffel Tower) this picture, taken at a costume party shortly before Easter weekend as the Pope remains seriously ill and possibly dying, should put open-minded considerations of her 'faith' to bed.

These two are going to be waiting in Purgatory, in these costumes, for a very, very, very long time.

Terri Bleeding From Eyes and Mouth

Discussion thread at Free Republic (over 6,000 views at this writing.)

I'd like to thank Curt at North Western Winds for posting the latest cartoon, as well as Tim at C-Pol.

I emailed a hello to John at Blogotional yesterday and he responded by posting one of my favorite toons. Thanks, John!

I've just noticed that Mark at MarkNicodemo has also posted the Schiavo toon. Holy smokes! I should be embarrassed but I'm appreciative that as many people as possible are seeing the image. Those who've followed faithmouse for the past six years know that as a habit I'll borrow from the headlines to make some sort of reference to Christ. The fact that the few people I've contacted directly have responded so positively to the cartoon has been humbling and encouraging.

Mark Nicodemo also posted a few words about the same Thomas Sowell article I referenced a few days ago (great minds think alike) but the exerpt Mark featured on his own blog is much better than mine and deserves repeating.

'Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and because she is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life to be strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges to be challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge.'

During the past year the disabled and traditional abortion opponents have joined forces with the same impedus that brought blacks and jews together during the Civil Rights movement. In two sentences Sowell explains the why and what, and who we're fighting against.

Toon 3/25/05 Good Friday-Terri Schiavo 4

For a continuing and riveting on the scene report from Texas to the Hospice in Florida, visit the blog of my friend Becki Snow (aka The Question Fairy.)
Please email Becki's friend Jacqueline (who's in daily contact with Becki) and tell her to tell Becki that her week long hunger strike is over. They've both done a great job, and now it's time to celebrate Christ' victory by coming back to life again.
Here's today's cartoon-



Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, this is your son.' Then to the disciple he said, 'This is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed and, so that the scripture should be completely fulfilled, he said: I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine* stood there; so, putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had taken the wine he said, 'It is fulfilled'; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit.

-John 19:25-30 The New Jerusalem Bible

*Vinegar

Thomas Sowell: The Cruel and Unusual Murder of Terri Schiavo

'Terri Schiavo's only crime is that she has become an inconvenience -- and is caught in the merciless machinery of the law. Those who think law is the answer to our problems need to face the reality that law is a crude and blunt instrument.
Make no mistake about it, Terri Schiavo is being killed. She is not being "allowed to die." '


Thomas Sowell is a leading conservative writer and the author of one of my favorite books A Conflict of Visions. He's a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and in 1998 was elected to the American Philosophical Society (philosophical in it's original definition denoting the study of the sciences.) Mr. Sowell's article can be read here.

Toon 3/24/05 Prayer Power

Japanese Cute Free Mouse Blog USA

I've posted my first keyword rich faithmouse page in Japanese as well as an updated Free Web Cartoon page, which includes the new blog sized image.
Pray tell, how can one person work such wonders?
I drink Ovaltine!
I suspect much of the text on the Japanese page will resemble hieroglyphics unless you've activated Japanese encoding for your computer, and some of the cartoons may not make sense unless you've activated Christ in your heart, or, as posted via Kerry at Smoothing Plane -
To those with faith, no explanation is necessary. To those without faith, no explanation is sufficient -Bernadette of Lourdes

Toon 3/23/05 Terri Schiavo 3

Toon 3/22/05 Cheer!

Keeping strong in the faith requires a little spiritual excercise now and then...

Here's an image from the 'Christ on Mars' series begun last year, posted using Blogger's 'Hello' service.  

Toon 3/20/03 Terri Shiavo 2

Toon 3/18/05 Terri Schiavo

Larger image can be viewed by clicking on the cartoon.

I regularly view your cartoons, as they are listed in the cartoon gallery on YouthFire.com, but today's brought me to tears. I have been so disturbed by the Terri Shiavo case, and pray that Congress is able to help her soon. I have a cousin in a very similar state as Terri, a beautiful young girl who was badly injured in a car accident. She too, breathes on her own, as Terri does. After lots of hard work, she is now able to do basic signs to communicate and makes noises to express her joy, or sadness. The thought of someone forcing her parents to stop feeding her, even though her eyes are as big and bright as Terri's, horrifies me.
Thank you for the cartoon, and the comforting fact that we as a Christian community are behind Terri. -emailer Beau

Thank you, Beau. I haven't received much feedback on that cartoon and I began to wonder if I made it too difficult to understand. I'm happy you saw the point, which was that even a starving child from a third world country would possess enough empathy to offer whatever food he or she had to a helpless Terri Schiavo. It's a blessing that you emailed me with that confirmation (I'm working on a new Terri Schiavo 'toon' at the moment by the way, which I hope to have online in a few hours.)
Cases such as that of your cousin versus that of the under reported number of newborns being euthanized in Holland are demarcation lines in the fight for life being waged in the developed world, of which some elements now brazenly declare 'we've decided your unfortunate situation is an inconvenience to us-we're too practical to be burdened with your long term care.' Unending sacrifice for others, the very heart of the Christian message, is the antithesis of a society which views itself in servitude to a doctrine of the 'survival of the fittest.'
On the Terri Schiavo front, the good news seems to be that Congress will be having a special session tomorrow just for her, and that the President is returning to Washington to sign the legislation which they will enact. So, there's good reason to believe she'll get her feeding tube back in a day or two.
Again, thanks for encouraging email. It means a lot!
God bless,
Dan

Toon 3/16-17/05 Conviction & Repentance

This cartoon was inspired by the recent confluence of a suspected murderer on the run and a God referenced woman who shared with her kidnapper The Purpose Driven Life, which led to his eventual surrender.
While this cartoon doesn't directly address the principals in this amazing story, hopefully it advertises the point that even complete monsters who do a great deal of harm can be convicted of their sin by way of the conscience of God; an act which can then lead to repentance.
Of course, Godzilla is a fictional monster. We like him just the way he is. This cartoon should in no way be interpreted as a call for his rehabilitation.

Free Christian web hosting promotion from Crossmap

Faithmouse affiliate Crossmap is running a promotion to give away 10,000 free web hosting accounts valid for one year. The promotion runs through the end of April and each account comes with Cpanel, 70mb hard drive space, 1gb transfer, FTP, emails, and MySQL databases.
I couldn't live without my Cpanel, so I know this is a great deal-especially for newbie Christian bloggers.
God bloggers to be, check it out why don't ya!
Press release
Crossmap Free Hosting Promotion

Among wolves

I received this email this morning from Joseph Ward, creator of Among Wolves...

Hey Dan,
How's it going?
I was wondering why you have links on your site to dissenters, like Demented Christians on the Internet. Doesn't that counteract your inclination to tell things from only one point of view?

This is what I emailed to Joe-

Well...I've been trying to be friendly to everyone, even people who don't like the cartoon. It's always been my opinion that truth is a highly defensible position.
It just so happens thought that I was awake until 6:30 this morning modifying the site in preparation for a re-submission to a number of search engines. I've been trying as of late to reach out to a broader audience, including international visitors who can't read English and who aren't aware of American politics, so I'll take your email as a spirit led confirmation that it's time to remove the 'dissenters' page. That means I can also remove my warning that some of the links aren't child friendly. I suppose I should be doing everything I can to make the cartoon as child and family friendly as possible.
People who google 'faithmouse' will still be able to find these sites. Hopefully some of these fellows who don't like the cartoon will continue to visit and, over the long term, they may change their very negative opinions regarding Christianity.

'Among Wolves' looks great as always!
God bless,
Dan

Toon 3/14/05

Blame George

One million Druse, Christians and Muslims protest peacefully in Lebanon on Monday for an end to Syrian occupation.

Kingdom on Earth

Here it is-
"You're here in my apartment for some reason," she told him, saying he might be destined to be caught and to spread the word of God to fellow prisoners.

He eventually put down the guns police say he took when he overwhelmed sheriff's deputies, putting them on the floor and later under a bed.

When morning came, Nichols was "overwhelmed" when Smith made him pancakes, she said. They watched television news reports about the slaying and the manhunt for Nichols.

"I cannot believe that's me on there," Smith quoted Nichols as saying.

And then he gave up.
No one else was hurt. No one else died. It was an ending no one expected; no one except someone who had incorporated God as their reference point and who had demonstrated compassion towards a kidnapper who had infamously killed four people less than twentyfour hours previous.
God doesn't get anymore awesome than that.

Blessed silence

Like the man who's headstone proclaims He left us in peace I'm planning to post only dialogue-less cartoons for the rest of the month.
The HTML site has a fair amount of visitors from outside the primarily English speaking world (judging from what I see on my Geobytes subscription) so it will be interesting to note whether this approach increases the number of international visitors to the cartoon, which I believe it will.
I'm praying to catch more fish with this wider net. As faithmouse continues to be a work in progress, I'll let you know how it pans out.

Toon 3/12/05

Living with pain

Last night I planted myself in front of the television with a few unfinished cartoons (bad idea usually) when I happened to catch Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Father Benedict Groeschel on EWTN discussing one of his most intimate subjects-pain.
I can't remember ever having seen a cartoon addressing the subject of living with pain. I know a few people who do live with pain, and I myself have a condition which, while not usually painful, is a daily irritation, much like 'Dull' and 'Sharp' in today's toon.
I was inspired by Father Groeschel's advice that while we may not be able to make pain go away, we can affirm that it is we who are in the driver's seat and not it. We don't need to allow pain to dictate our lives.
I thought that was practical and honest advice.
Color version forthcoming.

English Wren in a Minnesota Birdhouse

For those with head bent low bravely Marching through the golden gray tunnel of pre-Spring, here's a photo from our wetland to encourage you-

This California style church(standing on a single stilt) was housing a mouse nesting in a cottonwood fluff bed the last time I peeked. Come spring he'll be politely evicted in anticipation of returning seasonal tenants.

Toon 3/8/05-Oh, Canada

Thanks, Neale News

A tip of the hat to Neale News for their headline Italians outraged after American GI's accidentally shoot hostage. Modeled after our Drudge Report, Neale is the largely conservative voice of our neighbor to the north and not afraid to assume that United States troops weren't intentionally trying to murder a recently released hostage of an ally, in heavy rain, on a heavily checkpointed airport road where many U.S. servicemen have previously been slaughtered by suicide car bombers.
We appreciate the common sense, no matter what il scrivere dei giornale communista dice.

Mind & Media-Free books for blogging

The illustrious Stacy Harp of E-involved and MediaSoul has launched a new service wherein bloggers such as you orI can receive free books in return for reading and posting a review of said material. For cyber pioneers this is a great means of creating hits to your own site and attention to your own writing, and includes the opportunity to interview authors such as Steven W. Wise, author of The Jordan Tracks (his fifth novel.) Authors wishing to create true grassroots momentum for their work may consider availing themselves of Stacy's Mind & Media services as well.

The Passion ...Reloaded!

The biggest non-reported story this past Oscar season was Mel Gibson's obvious artistic collapse following the best picture success of his previous film Braveheart. How else to explain the failure of The Passion of The Christ to garner nominations in any category above cinematography (if nothing else the film should have been recognized for best screenplay based upon an existing work.) Unexplainable, unless you consider Michael Medved's assertion that most Academy members didn't bother watching the film due to simple lack of interest in what was obviously a pro-Christian film. Searing expositions of the price of sin have never proved compelling to those earnestly avoiding a bill.
With this new softer cut of The Passion Mel looks poised to make another 100 million or so, God bless him. Those bewailing the fact that even the presence of a possibly obscene urban anti-host couldn't keep the viewer numbers falling from last year might imagine what the figures might have looked like if a brave and wildly popular independent art film such as The Passion had been given some appropriate due. On the other hand, why should Mel's work serve to increase the amount of ad revenue a major network can ask next year for a 30 second BMW commercial?
Perhaps most telling is that Icon Movies didn't need Oscar any more than 911 remembrances require the speaking services of Ward Churchill, or the government of Iraq desires the emotional support of Sean Penn, or The Left Behind series needs the endorsement of Andy Rooney, or John Kerry benefited from the vote-or-die threats of Puff Daddy, or...you get the picture.

Toon 3/3/05 Judicial Inconsistency

Stand-In

I only have one pic of the Parshalls from last Friday's Culture War or Religious War? segment of the 2005 Faithbuilder Series, which vanity forbids me to display in it's original form (I look like a loon.) Timothy A. Bear was good enough to stand in for me after faith and I lured him into doing so.


The symposium was held at North Heights Lutheran Church in Arden Hills. I witnessed only the second half of the presentation so I can't comment on anything before the milk and cookies. The panel was composed of Janet and Craig Parshall, Julie Madden; Social Justice/Pastoral Minister of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis, and Dan Barker; former evangelical minister who represented a group called Minnesota Atheists.
Mr. Barker's comments were laced with cheap shots at President Bush and the war in Iraq; at one point he stated that secularists were winning all of the important cultural battles so why were Christians still bothering (!) to defend their religious freedoms in court. His argument was the oft repeated deception that governmentally sponsored repression of free speech is free speech itself. Fellow Republicans in attendance must have been pleased to hear Mr. Barker enthusiastically compare the higher ideals of atheism with the Democratic Party, a cultural position the devastated Dems are scrambling like mad to distance themselves from. Anyone who employs The Treaty of Tripoli (created to free American hostages from Muslim pirates and thrown out by Congress three years after it was enacted) as proof that the United States isn't officially a 'Christian Nation' (not the point of those fighting for increasingly denied freedoms in our Republican form of government) succeeds only in begging comparisons to the greater truths of our founding documents, an inevitable and welcome service which unfortunately time and format didn't here allow.
As poor a representative of his cause as was Mr. Barker, he was outshamed by the 'Social Justice' minister of the uber-lib St. Joan of Arc. Enemies of the Catholic church could not have placed a better representative on stage. The totality of her vacuousness was best exemplified, in response to the question posed during closing statements of whether she believed more in the world view represented by the fellow Christians sitting to one side or the Atheist on the other, by her vote after a long and sighful pause...for herself.