Dear Year Of The Fire Horse. There May Be A Hitch In My Giddy-Up. #POTUS #Venezuela

                  I woke up at 3AM today feeling like there was something I needed to remember. Not that I had forgotten anything in particular, it just occurred to me I needed to remember an unnamed…something.

I had another birthday a few days ago, so the cerebral files are no less overwhelming. Counting spent calendars was a little like counting sheep, so I probably dozed at some point between 3:00 and 5:30AM. Unsure if I’d awakened with the apparently vital memory secured in the front pocket of my consciousness, I checked in on the latest global news and learned that POTUS sent US troops to invade Venezuela and kidnap their leader and his wife, as POTUS is financially beholding to his big oil donors and would like to control Venezuelan oil interests to enrich himself as well as his oil baron supporters.

This set me to wondering about possible consequences, like how US government’s actions in one foreign nation might affect the actions of others and what might be the cascading effects of imperialist aggression ping-ponging between other countries. How might this invasion of Venezuela by the US lead other nations to feel justified in their adversarial behavior toward the objects of their desire and sense of entitlement, inspiring escalation toward military or economic conquest? What about Russia and Ukraine? China and Taiwan? Cuba? Etc.?

Add to these seeds of unrest the traumatized children of immigrants in the US who have been separated from their parents because of I.C.E.’s random targeting of brown people suspected of being here illegally. As these children grow up without their parents, will their scarred psyches compel them to seek out gang affiliations and act out with the same kind of violence that wounded them so deeply? White supremacists behave as if they’re so exceptional and highly, divinely favored that they’re immune from consequences of the Law of The Seed—you reap what you sow—and exempt from expectations to adhere to the Golden Rule.

I also feel as though this current administration has thrown our nation’s international relations’ skirt over its head, blinding a nation with their firepower charms only to rape them of their national resources, while more righteous nations look on in disgust, and still others gain encouragement and a sense of justification to behave even more shamelessly.

True, it wouldn’t be the first time, but unlike insatiably greedy authoritarian-minded powerbrokers, most of us regular folks receive the disquiet of conviction and a sense of responsibility and accountability for our selfish choices, and understand that in order to walk in integrity, we are to repent and change our ways, no longer persist in that behavior and make reparations when possible.

To brazenly continue along the same old well-trodden path of imperialism in this day and age is obscene. It’s gross. Shameless. Like the contents of the Epstein files. I haven’t forgotten about those, have you?

All the same, I’d like to take a moment to wish you a blessed year of the fire horse. I was in a mood this morning, so I picked up some media I have not worked in for a long time and made a couple of quick drawings inspired by the new year. I see things I’d like to adjust and correct on them, but I shot them with a good spray of perma-fix already, so they are what they are. Can’t be over here sweating everything.

Stay engaged with your joy, friends.

Half of drawing inspired by Jojo Ackerman's artwork from Ten Thousand Waves Tattoo in Sherman Oaks, CA

                   Fat charcoal is great for immediacy, crappy for erasures. I'd forgotten about that.