Stardust in Action

The White House Hannukah photo Bush, Cheney, and Abramoff don't want you to see

Quantum Quilt

Quantum Nomads

Don't Tell Tehran

Mythical Richard

My friend Richard asked me to make a picture of his head on Michelangelo's David and try to match up the skin tone. I ended up cheating and using the color gradient instead. I'm still having trouble matching textures. I've read some instructional material on it, but none of it is much help, and a lot of it is made for later versions of Photoshop. Anyone out there know how to do this?

Nocturnal Guardian

Focus on the Family: I Wish I Knew How to Quit You

An Open Letter to the Powers That Shouldn't Be
Kevin E. Cleary
5:02 AM EST
Saturday, January 21, 2006 C.E.

Dear James Dobson, et al.:

Please sir, don’t make me go see Brokeback Mountain. Your organization and its ilk have gone mad with power and need to be stopped. It is your divisive comments and actions that may force me to burgeon the Box Office.

Sir, please quickly disband your army of ignorant followers and surrender for the good of the nation, possibly even the world. The Culture Wars have exacted their tolls on all of us, and many of us in the reasonable minority think it’s time for your megachurches to take a break. A long break. Longer than my irrational sentences and fragments expressing my irritation that I almost have to fork over my meager earnings (When exactly do the poor and the meek get to inherit the earth?) to Hollywood to help curtail your dangerous agendas.

Sir, many of us have been turning our cheeks for most of this decade and are growing tired of it. You got all three branches of government, Fox News, your President, NASCAR, and several fabulous parting gifts, like Hillary Clinton. You’ve had a good run. You’ve managed to kill the last vestiges of the Great Society, unions, widespread international goodwill toward America, higher wages, universal health coverage, the economy, our civil liberties, and more. Please go back to being entertaining instead of frightening. I promise we’ll make Traficant donate his toupee’ to the effort.

You even got The Passion, so why do we still have to endure your hateful sermons on Brokeback Mount?

First of all, boycotting almost any film is an exercise in futility. It merely adds to the mystique and appeal of the film. Besides, the family values charade has grown tired and repetitive. The shock and indignation you express at the film’s critical acclaim only serve to accelerate and embolden it. The fact that this only angers you further speaks to frightening levels of ignorance from people who claim to be responsible stewards of our country.

I have not yet seen the film in question. It probably deserves the praise it has received, but it is not a film I would normally pay to see. For that matter, I still haven’t seen The English Patient.

But this should be your last fool’s errand. Demanding that Hollywood not love a movie about closeted homosexual cowboys is like asking France to fight a war without capitulating. It is stupid and a waste of time to expect otherwise.

The more scorn you heap on this film, the more it reminds reasonable people that the reason the protagonists in the film are “in the closet” is because of organizations like yours and people like you. Indeed, reasonable people have noticed that you like to stuff all sorts of people and ideas into closets. We are told to “watch what we say” while you pass discriminatory laws and ride roughshod over all opposition.

Sir, you exhaust our tolerance by preaching intolerance and hatred. A yellow ribbon you bought at Wal-Mart or Target doesn’t absolve your efforts to dissolve our civil liberties any more than a bumper sticker makes you an actual Christian.

My entire life I have been made sick by the ways organizations like yours poison the well for people of true faith. Your attempts to make God in your trademarked, corporate, misguided and judgmental image may earn you a place in the hell you would create for the rest of us.

I beg you to please give us back the reins of authority before I am forced to draw a line in the sand. If you persist in trying to make manifest your hypocritical bloviations I will be obligated to spend money I can’t afford on tickets for this movie that I don’t really have any interest in seeing. In fact, I will be forced to purchase every version of this film in its various digital incarnations, up to and including the Director’s Cut. Do you have any idea how much the Director’s Cut of a movie costs?

Since, until this point, I have avoided endangering my immortal soul, I place this burden squarely in your hands. If you care at all about the good of the world, our beleaguered nation, my immortal soul and the souls of countless people who feel the way I do, you will act quickly to disband your forces.

There is still time to repent your licentious greed and acts of persecution. Start off by liquidating your assets and giving them away to actual poor and disenfranchised people. Remember, it is easier for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Salvation may yet be attainable for you: send your check or money order to Kevin E. Cleary...

Star-Eyed Lover

Original photo by Mary Mihevic. There is a picture of the Helix Nebula, popularly known as "The Eye of God" which, after some modifications, comprises her eyes. The hardest part of making this was recopying her glasses and placing them back over her new eyes. I thought it was worth the effort, but then again, I'm biased. -kev

Moses Cleveland Knows What's Up

Greetings from Indonesia