Lucas Cats

by on February 23, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The tiger-derived Laohu of San Lucas lived as slaves of the Hankyu until the mountain of the gods erupted and buried their civilization in lava and ashfall. They retreated to the highlands where they fought off crazed survivors and prayed to the sky gods for salvation. We arrived with aid and they welcomed us with open claws. That’s a peaceful greeting by the way. An open display of their natural weapons with an implied promise that they are hiding none. They accepted the food and supplies from our understandably nervous aid workers, but the aid we could give was more limited than we wished to admit. We could save their lives, but we could not cleanse their lands. Then the Chinese arrived and deployed an air purifier network nearly as large as the one we used over the Pacific Ocean on Earth. We wondered why the Chinese went to so much expense until we learned that the cats of Hankyu had been genengineered from ancient Chinese tigers and lions. The Chinese policy that anything that has ever been Chinese IS Chinese is long established, and they certainly consider these cats theirs to lift up into space. Something they have done with regularity ever since, and the Laohu are happy to serve their gods in whatever way they require.

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Goodbye Billy Graham

by on February 22, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Today is the first day in my life in which I do not share this Earth with Billy Graham. I grew up hearing about him and listening to him on television. I learned how he worked with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement. How he refused to accept segregation at his revivals and preached against racism. How he spoke out against Communism as an Evil against mankind. He was a fiery orator and a man of burning convictions.

By the time I was alive, he had retired from practicing politics. He’d long since gone the way of the middle mediator, willing and eager to talk to anyone of any political persuasion. He was on this Earth to speak to Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, black and white, men and women of all ages. And always, in every appearance I remember, he would say that Jesus loves you. All of you. And that Salvation comes through accepting Him into your heart. He has spoken this Gospel in person, through television, and the internet to more people than any other person in history. His ministry says over 2 billion people have heard him speak. That’s amazing to think about.

Today I live in a world he does not. And I think we are all poorer for that. I don’t think this is really the end of an era. He isn’t Methuselah, and I don’t think his death will be the signal of a new catastrophe that will destroy civilization as we know it. But he was a good man who made it his life’s work to help other people through charitable organizations and more. Those live on without him now. So do the rest of us, and it will be our job to keep civilization running along. It is my great hope that Billy Graham’s words are not forgotten as we do this.

Now Billy Graham had a few words to say about the matter of his death. So I’ll let him close this little memorial with his own words.

“Someday, you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” – Billy Graham

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Alex

by on February 21, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Alex was one of those popular girls in school. The ones that did cheerleading, track and field, concert band, and stuff like that. All the girls wanted to be her. The boys wanted…well…you know what boys want. But she changed the day I brought Julie over to her home. She started focusing on the stuff that Julie liked. Guitars, tambourines, and other smaller instruments. She learned to play a real mean fiddle. She could pretty much play anything she wanted to if I’m being honest. I learned to play a lot of the stuff I play now from her. Not that I loved every minute I spent with her. She was real suspicious of my motives, and I don’t blame her. I would have been suspicious of me too in her shoes. But she was willing to deal with me if it made Julie happy. She was willing to deal with a lot if it made Julie happy. Her boyfriend? Not so much. He was beyond suspicious of me, and that led to some…difficulties.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Lucas Cats

by on February 20, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The lion-derived Toshi of San Lucas lost their rule over the Hankou continent when the mountain of the gods exploded and buried much of it with burning lava. They retreated into the highlands, but there was no escape from the ashfall that came every day. They fought and killed over the scarce resources remaining, or over who was faithful to the gods and who had caused the gods to destroy them for their faithlessness. Our relief teams arrived during the worst of the fighting, and they came at us too. They were insane with hunger and a religious war that could see only themselves and the enemy. We sent aid to save their lives, but all we succeeded in doing was to complete the fall of their civilization. Their survivors live now only in scattered camps, sprinkled throughout the ruins of their once-great empire. They shun us and our aid in hopes of proving to the gods of the mountain that they have not lost their faith. And so they continue to fade into obscurity as the worlds pass them by.

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Thank You, Mister President

by on February 19, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Long ago, before hipsters walked around with cell phones twittering in their hands and dinosaurs walked the Earth, merry bands of Europeans came to America in search of a new life. Some sought riches in the New World. Some sought freedom from the Old World. But as often happens, both riches and freedom were curtailed as time went on. We demanded our liberty and freedom be respected, and when it was denied, we rebelled. We fought.

General Washington led us. Through good times and bad, in bloody summers and freezing winters, he gave one inch of his life at a time. And when our freedom was secured, he retired and went home. But out first attempt at governing ourselves failed. America was collapsing, and so General Washington accepted the position of President Washington under a new Constitution. He is the only President to march with the army when it went out into the field, and his mere presence ended the conflict before weapons were fired. He stepped down after two terms, a precedent followed by every President but one until the two-term limit was made part of the Constitution.

Many say that without George Washington we would not exist as a country. That he was one of those cornerstone individuals around whom history rotates. Perhaps that is true. Or perhaps we venerate him too much. Perhaps another General could have led our armies against the British. Perhaps another President could have held us together in our greatest moment of fractured identity as a young nation. Perhaps.

But I know one thing. It was George Washington who did it. And today is the Federal Holiday celebrating his birth. So I say this. Thank you, Mister President, for helping to create the nation I have grown up in. The nation I love.

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