March For Life / ~Jewels~of~the~Jungle~ Cartoon

Click cartoon for larger image. Grande.

For ~Jewels~of~the~Jungle~ A great gallery by Jewel of the 33rd annual March For Life in Washington, D.C. The thumbnail images I included in the cartoon are representative of the 'age' of the March, or in the words of Jewel herself-

"First thing I noticed about the crowds was how many high-school and college age girls there were. They were thick as porridge (I think we should use that expression more often, don’t you?) around us. Made me laugh when I remembered how Planned Parenthood likes to stereotype us as grey-faced old men. "

Someone has listed faithmouse at Comixpedia. Thanks! Thanks also to Laer for showing a Terri Schiavo toon in this post at Cheat Seeking Missiles. Amberxo has posted a number of faithmouse pro-life toons on the gurl.com message board. Blessings to Q for posting a recent Neverborn toon on his Interesting To Catholics. Christian News In Maine posted a recent ACLU toon in its January 7th thru January 13th issue.

Stop The ACLU / Clothed Minded

Click cartoon to view larger image. Largest.

A revision of the cartoon posted yesterday for the Sunday Funnies at StopThe ACLU.

Cartoon in Progress

For Jewel at ~Jewels~of~the~Jungle~ Swoopy and Neverborn to be added.

What About MY Rights?

Jewel's March For Life {gallery}

This little girl’s tiny voice rang out clear and loud as a bell. While the adults around her prayed, she alone cried out “Roe V Wade Has Got to Go! Roe V Wade Has Got To Go!” -Jewel at ~Jewels~of~the~Jungle~

~Jewels~of~the~Jungle~ places you in the heart of the March with her must-see photo gallery.

The photo above was taken at the barricade in front of the Supreme Court. The barricade, the man praying, the children with their mouths open, the marble steps, all invoke a communion rail. I don't know if Jewel was thinking the same when she took the photo, but this is the sort of art a person can create when they are in tune with the emotional weight of their subject.

Thanks, Jewel.

More March For Life photos, and cartoon #2 in progress

Click image for larger size.

Second of a set of four cartoons.

Here a few more photos from the National March For Life-

A particularly colorful crew. Click to view larger image.

A message in the sand. Click for larger image.

The March in Washington and local complimenting marches have become something of the Great American Catholic pilgrimmage, a public expression of faith for which U.S. Christians have a real hunger. As we stood before the grandstand Chris and I couldn't help but feel that we were in St. Peter's Square again in the pilgrimmage year of 2000.

One of the questions posed at the Blogs4Life conference was how to engage neutral forces reachable through cyberspace in the pro-life movement. I would say that posting and distributing photographs such as these is a good way to help generate positive press at the grass roots level by truthfully depicting the marchers for who they are; an increasingly young group of people engaged in a reverent pilgrimmage for life. Three cheers, Right To Life!

More photos from the March tomorrow.

Blogs4Life, March For Life, and a new cartoon

Click image for larger size. Largest.

First of a set of four cartoons establishing a few significant changes I'm making to faithmouse. A new banner for the cartoon is in progress but not quite ready to post. You can view it here.

Chris and I arrived the night before the successful and well attended Blogs4Life conference via Midwest Airlines, which smoozes its customers with classical music, real Corinthian leather seats and warm chocolate chip cookies. Viva Midwest Airlines! Any additional Weight Watchers points accumulated from the cookies were heartily walked off the next day.

The Family Research Council building is only a few blocks away from the MCI center, and has a marvelous frieze above the doorway proclaiming Faith and Family. Inside, the good people of the FRC were kind enough to allow the use of a table to display cartoons and sign autographs, which got moved a time or two as I constantly managed to get in the way. The conference was full and began with a greeting from FRC fellow Charmaine Yoest before the playing of the infamous 'No lights, no sirens' Cristin Gilbert 911 tape.

Charmaine Yoest, listening to the Cristin Gilbert 911 tape.

Other speakers included workaholics Tim from Pro-Life Blogs and Peter from March Together, the latter who can be seen in the doctored photograph below sitting with the wonderful La Shawn Barber (s'kay; I have an artistic license).

Here's another image salvaged from a poor digital photograph which features Jonathan and Deborah Flora, the husband and wife team behind the A Distant Thunder partial-birth abortion DVD, for whom I designed a promotional image a few months back. I've photoshopped a bit of my original illustration onto the wall behind them.

The Flora's were exceeding positive and kind, as were the fellow bloggers I was fortunate enough to speak with, including the Stem Cell Extremist, Augs from Realitycheck (dot) ie (still traveling the U.S. before returning to her base of Ireland), Galen of Pro-Life With Christ, Paul at Freelanders, Fr. Johannes Jacobse at Orthodoxy Today, reporter Natalie Harris from Patrick Henry University, a UPI reporter who's name escapes me, and others who's names and blogs I'm sorry to have lost track of. God bless all!

At the end of the conference Chris and I lagged while packing up and therefore lost track of the famous bloggers who had left before us to join the march. We had a grand time as a squad of two, marching around in the rain amongst a sea of college aged kids and distributing cartoons to all who noticed and commented on our 'Neverborn' postage stamp sign.

Marching past the Nation Archives. Met Father Tom Carleton www.fetal-pain.com sign guy on this corner, an important site which would make for a great Neverborn cartoon. Soon after taking this photo the rain started. Click to view larger image.
Chris with the Capitol in the distance. This area was to the direct east of the main stage. You can see a few fellow marchers behind Chris perhaps looking at our sign, which attracted a number of appreciative comments. Click to view larger image.
Shy protestor letting his shirt do the talking.
In Italian -I want to live. Other marchers in this area were from Poland and Russia.
Franciscans of the Renewal, New York State.

Thanks to cartoon sponsor Elizabeth at Daily Inklings for linking to this post. More pics from the March and toon #2 of the current series tomorrow....

I'm here...

just up to something.

Blogging by T.V.

Following a long day at the Blogs4life conference and the March For Life, Chris is soaking her toes in the tub and I'm blogging via a television internet service from our hotel room. The web area presented by 'Hotel TV' is the size of a business card and can only be navigated by the tab key on a mini wireless keyboard. It's a limited and time consuming process but oddly entertaining; comparable to drawing with your 'wrong' hand or playing Pong. As options are limited I'll wait until our return to the Twin Cities to make a full report on our excursion to the nation's capitol. Suffice to report for now that it was exceedingly successful.

Haloscan won't allow me to log on to moderate comments, so I'll post those on our return as well. Future 'Hotel TV' bloggers may wish to keep that limitation in mind.

One of the more useful things I was able to do (other than pretend to be a celebrity) was to take photographs of the many magnificent sights all along the 'Mall' (the expanse between and including the Supreme Court and the Lincoln Memorial) which should help make for some dandy future cartoons. I also have photographs from both the conference and the March, which I'll post as well.

Thanks to all the 'sponsor bloggers' who donated both funds and prayers for our trip. Thanks also to all the great folks Chris and I met at the Family Research Council. It was truly a day without cynicism.

God bless!

Stop The ACLU / Maryland Marriage Lawsuit

Click image for larger size.

For the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU.

Blogs4Life / Promotional Cartoon, Updated

Click image for larger size. Biggie size me.

Updated listing all the participants in the 1st annual Blogs4Life conference.

Thanks kindly to Viam Pacis for adding faithmouse to the blogroll. Moderator Aerostar at the British Sterling Times forum has posted the previous Blogs4Life blogroll toon as an example of a collection of pro-life sites. Pretty cool!

It was a late delivery, but Stop The ACLU may post my latest Aclu Ferret toon. Otherwise, I'll be posting sometime from Washington. See you there!

Blogs4Life / Daily Inklings

Click image for larger size. Biggie size me.

For Elizabeth at Daily Inklings.

Blogs4Life / The Waffling Anglican

Click image for larger size. Biggie size me.

For Mike the Geek at The Waffling Anglican. The 'A womb of my own!' protestor was inspired by a picture on NOW's 2004 March For Women's Lives, a protest Mike suggested as a theme for his cartoon. The Black Neverborn in this cartoon holds an Anglican Rosary.

Thanks to Natalie Jost for the additional post of her toon on her 10ft-2ft. Stacy Harp has logged a number of posts promoting both Blogs4Life and this cartoon; sorry I haven't acknowledged them all but here's the latest. By the way, Stacy's toon appears on the Italian pro-life site The Telescope. Thanks to Lennie on Cross Blogging for the post of his toon including previous versions. Thanks to Shirl for adding a faithmouse link to her The Other Side. Thanks also for all the comments I haven't responded to as of yet. They're appreciated!

Blogs4Life / Daily Inklings, In Progress

For Elizabeth at Daily Inklings

Blogs4Life / The Waffling Anglican, In Progess #2

For Mike the Geek at The Waffling Anglican

Blogs4Life / The Waffling Anglican, In Progress

Ran across this comment posted recently on Misunderestimated Germans-

I only follow the mainstream press to find out what the official party line is on a particular issue. No issue is simple straightforward enough to be summarized by the sort of newsbytes that these people turn out.
Most of my info comes from websites, many of them rather liberal & left-wing, but also from conservative sites like yours, which I ran across on the Faithmouse site. I figure that the real story is hiding out there in the no-man's land between the various viewpoints.

I feel pretty good about being a conduit. I visit sites on the left now and then for opposing viewpoints, but to be honest it's usually an unpleasant activity. Normally there's some ongoing and embedded insult against Christianity and the intelligence of Midwesterners, and as an added bonus you don't have to scroll very far to find the profanity, which is by route aimed at President Bush or one of his close associates. It got old around 2003.

I'm happy to be associated with the extremists because I know what some term the 'Far Right' is actually the great American middleground. Every current moderate conservative position has been touted during the past decade by the left as the height of intolerance and selfishness. Our nation has an innate conservative sensibility born from hard work and the pride of resultant accomplishment, a sensibility which can be traced philosophically back to the great Edmund Burke, who recognized that the French were throwing out the baby with the bathwater for the sake of revolution.

The American definition of personal responsibility can't be separated from our nation's historical relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Many Americans owe Christ big time, myself included. Like many, Christ saved me from a destruction of my own doing. The liberty I would wish to extend to the individual (inside the womb and out) is best moderated by personal responsibility, not the dictates of a nanny state. This is why a government purged of the individual and personal faith of its citizens can only become a monster, making decisions and non-decisions on every aspect of human life without regard to right and wrong. The warning cry against 'theocracy' is only the ongoing attempt of the left to frighten citizens away from the very personification of our values-the person of Christ Himself.

Blogs4Life / Natalie Jost

Click cartoon to view larger image. Largest size.
For web designer extraordinare Natalie Jost.

Blogs4Life Promotional Cartoon #2

Variation of the previous cartoon. Additional sizes linked below-Larger size (400 pixels wide) A little larger (550 pixels wide)

Dig Faith's new 'prayer' eyes. Thanks, Lord!

Please feel free to post any of these images on your site to help promote the Blogs4life conference.

I needed to complete these two 'general' promotional cartoons before finishing the remaining three sponsor toons. Thanks for your patience.

Blogs4Life Promotional Cartoon #1

Here are a few additional sizes as well-Larger size (400 pixels wide) A little larger (550 pixels wide)

Blogs4Life

Promo cartoon in progress.

Stop The ACLU / Pile On

Click cartoon for larger image. Super Size Me.

Faithmouse appears regularly on the Sunday Funnies post at Stop The ACLU, which following a December algorithm tweak has been progressively making its way back into the TTLB Top Ten.

Didn't nearly have enough ferrets or moles available for the usual suspects so I settled for a sampling of mainly the worst offenders as documented by Progress For America.

Thanks to big guy Chad at 4 The Little Guy for adding faithmouse to his blogroll.

Faithmouse has received a few visits from Cardinal Hayes Catholic High School in the Bronx (I attended O.L.P.H. in the Sunset Park neighborhood) and which just happens to have a cartooning club. Now that's hip. I imagine I'm one of the few editorial cartoonists on the net who doesn't mind posting cartoons in progress, a process which I hope is as helpful to other cartoonists as it's proved itself to be for myself. There's something peculiarly informative about seeing drawings backlit and surrounded by text.....

For Michael at The Waffling Anglican.

A new Blogs4Life promo cartoon, also in progress.

Stop The ACLU / Pile On, In Progress

For the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU.

Blogs4Life / Natalie Jost, In Progress #2

Blogs4Life sponsor cartoon in progress, for web designer Natalie Jost.

Blogs4Life / Cross Blogging

Click cartoon above for larger image. Largest.

There!

The domains Catholiccartoon.com and Prolifecartoons.com have been added to the family of faithmouse redirects.

Thanks to conservative agnostic and faithmouse fan CT at Severe Writer's Block for including a link to an older Martin Luther King cartoon in his post regarding Dome Village entitled Left Wing Compassion. Missed this nice mention from last month on FRANKTalk as well. Thanks, Frank!

Blogs4Life / Cross Blogging, In Progress #2

Toon still in progress for Lennie at Cross Blogging.

Blogs4Life / Natalie Jost, In Progress

Toon in progress, for web designer Natalie Jost.

Go Stephen Go!

After twelve years of Canadian cultural folly and corruption, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives look set to prevail in the special election on January 23. As of this writing the Tories are leading by 10 points in public opinion polls, a significant turnaround from last November and a gap which could widen even further lest the marvelously stead Mr. Harper blurts out something dreadful to derail his own campaign, which is about as likely to happen as Samuel Alito skipping into his confirmation hearing dressed as a beautiful, beautiful butterfly. The possibility of sanity officially returning to our neighbor to our north is tantamount to the return of Rip Van Winkle from the Adirondacks.

Long time-no see, good neighbor!

Blogs4Life / Holycoast

Click cartoon above to view larger image. Super size me.

For Rick Moore at Holycoast. Thanks, Rick!

I hope to have both Lennie's toon for Cross Blogging and Natalie's for Natalie Jost completed and posted late this evening/Thursday morning.

I received this question last week from David-

Is support for abortion heresy? I am being told by my friend that support is not heresy, and that it is not taught in the Magisterium. He wants "proof" that the Magisterium teaches support for abortion as heresy. I have tried to give him many things like "The Twelve Step Program" by Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, but my friend's response was that the Bishop was just one Bishop, that Rome had not ratified the letter and it was not enough to "change the teaching of the Magisterium". So are there any other Bishops that agree with Bishop Gracida? Are there any other Bishops that have written or said that support for abortion is indeed heresy? What are some good things I could give him to show that indeed support for abortion is heresy? Was it right for my friend to say Bishop Gracida was trying to change the teaching of the Magisterium?

Peace in Christ God save the Unborn!
David Messick

Here's my reply-

Thanks for the question, David.

Support for abortion is most certainly heresy. Heresy is refutation or denial of an essential point of faith. The Magisterium as I understand it is simply the living church, which I suppose can be said to be the the total of current authority embodying the tradition of the church. I know that there were Bulls by certain Popes against abortion in the past, and more recently (in the past fifty years) there's been a series of writings from Papal authority specifically condemning abortion. There isn't any need to declare abortion specifically as being heretical (although that might already be true, sorry I don't know the answer to that question) ...it just is. Whatever one or another Bishop might declare about abortion is nonsense if the statement is at odds with established church teaching.
I've discovered a very good site recently by a Catholic clinical laboratory tech in molecular biology called 'Mary Meet Dolly'. Under 'Catholic Teaching' on her site she has a list of relevant writings on the subject of abortion and links back to the original documents on the Vatican site. You may also be interested in this page at New Advent on abortion- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm

My answer is far from definitive. If you the more knowledgeable visitor have any additional information or corrections to my answer please feel free to leave your comments.

I highly recommend Rebecca Taylor's Mary Meets Dolly (A Catholic's Guide to Genetics, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology). If you wish to speak knowledgeably on this essential though highly intimidating field of research, Rebecca's site is a great resource. I'm flattered that she chose to add my link to her site; which I take as God's way of sowing a seed for future cartoons on the subject. Of particular relevant is Rebecca's Clone The Truth campaign. Please, check it out!

Thanks to Alexa in Singapore for posting the recent Pro Life Blogs toon on her always relevant Birth Story (must be because she's more than half a day ahead of the rest of us). Eaglet has helped to propagate the Blogs4Life message by posting the original promo toon on his Adam's Thoughts. Good work, and thanks!

Blogs4Life / Cross Blogging, In Progress

For Illinios blogger Lennie at Crossblogging.

Justice Sunday / Thanks For The Light, And A Poem

Click cartoon above for larger image. Even larger.

From two photos taken by Family Research Council event blogger Stacy Harp at Justice Sunday. Cartoon delayed from the promised post time; thanks for stopping back.

Just noticed that the cartoon is #1 in Google under Christian editorial. Pretty nifty.

Thanks to Mike at the Violence Worker for the kind email and post of yesterday's cartoon. There are a number of rightfully recognized 'stars' in the blogosphere and many, many more adjunct bloggers such as Air Force Veteran and defense industry employee Mike (who's blog could just as aptly be named The Peace Activist) whose perspective reflects those of most moderate Americans but who suffer the label 'extremist' and do so rather well.

And now for the poem-

I'm a Conservative Extremist. Who Are You?

I'm a Conservative Extremist! Who are you?
Are you--a Conservative Extremist--Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd banish us--you know!

How dreary--to be--Markos Moulitsas!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell one's name--the livelong day--
To an admiring Blog!

-hat tip, Emily Dickinson

Stop The ACLU / Smile, It's Justice Sunday

Stacy Harp has arrived in Philadelphia as an event blogger for Justice Sunday and has posted a few camera pics of the inside of a swanky Philly hotel room on her Mind and Media site. My experience with photographs on blogs is that they are usually too dark, so I've taken the liberty of lightening one of Stacy's camera pics in Photoshop (the same procedure which USA Today claimed caused Condi's cat eyes a few months ago) and labeled the shot for easy reference.


Click for bigger picture
I've decided to put the 'Pledge Allegiance To The New Quebec' Stop The ACLU toon on simmer and post the one below instead. The pledge toon had just too much detail to finish in time; as usual my eyes proved bigger than my clock. Thanks to Air Force Vet The Violence Worker for inspiring the toon.

Thanks to Possum at D Dot's Rants for adding the updating feed. GOP Christian has added a link as well as the cartoon itself to their news page. Thanks to Catholic Family Campaign which has also added the toon. Honors, all.

Elizabeth at Daily Inklings has come onboard as a sponsor. Thanks, Elizabeth! Thanks also to Michael at The Waffling Anglican for doing the same. I'll be placing all of these donor cartoons into a booklet which I'll make available at the conference and foist upon anyone who may or may not seem interested. Concerned Women For America (the same group which had the bloody pro-choice protestor a few days ago) has offered its facilities as a rest stop along the march route, so I'll try to drop off a few copies there as well.

Blogs4Life / Holycoast, In Progress

For Rick at Holycoast.

Stop The ACLU / Pledge Allegiance To The New Quebec, In Progress

For the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU.

Blogs4Life / Prolifeblogs

For Pro Life Blogs, one of the co-organizers of the Blogs4Life conference.

Blogs4Life / Prolifeblogs Toon, In Progress

I'm failing trackbacks. That's equal to failing recess. Like dancing, everyone seems able to do it but me. I've decided to abandon the process and wait to be struck with my moment of trackback epiphany (however, I need to give the good Mr. Yoest one more try).

The above is a sponsor toon for Tim at Prolifeblogs, which will be followed by a sponsor toon for Rick at Holycoast. Then we'll have a toon for the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU. Monday will start with the first of two more sponsor toons, for rare female web designer Natalie at Natalie Jost and Lennie at Cross Blogging.

Cheers to our sponsors! These designs are a lot of fun and remind me of my 'T-Shirt' days in Lake Havasu City during the 1980's when I designed hundreds of shirts for the local businesses and the tourist trade. If you made a fool of yourself on a boat on Lake Havasu in the summer, or ran over something with your R.V. near London Bridge in the winter, you were probably doing so wearing one of my 'Spanky's Silkscreening' designs.

I've decided to follow the lead of my friend Jean at Catholic Fire (which has a great new look) and enable comment moderation. I apologize for the inconvenience, especially to past posters. I've lucked out (shouldn't that be lucked in?) with excellent commentators, but Jean's experience reminds me that I should do what I can to make the site more child friendly, something I've neglected for the sake of being accessible. The popular media refuses to acknowledge the possible presence of children at all audiences. I'm guilty of that as well, especially by way of my linking to people who curse at the cartoon; I'll get my wheels back on the right track.