Happy Easter.
Christian Easter is the celebration of belief that Jesus arose from the dead after being executed on Good Friday. "All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures." - Apr 3, 2010/ Heather McDougall/ The Guardian Please give to Children's Leukemia Research Association: PMB 369 Donation Center, 6632 Telegraph Road/ Bloomfield, MI, 48301/ And: 585 Stewart Avenue #18/ Garden City, New York 11530/ 516-222-1944.
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Today is Good Friday:
"Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover." - Wikipedia Please donate to Refugee Resettlement Program, Catholic Charities: 851 W. Lake Street, Suite 500/ Chicago, Illinois 60661/ 312-655-7856. Trump's hair engages Kim Jong Un's hair in an aerial hair fight over Seoul, South Korea. (a collaborative toon/ a version posted earlier)
Please give to Make-A-Wish Foundation: 4742 N. 24th Street, Suite 400/ Phoenix, Arizona, 85016/ 800-722-9497. ((edited: 4/13 and 5/14, 1/25, 4/19/18)
The historical treatment of the expanse of a varied Russian people -- peasants, enslaved serfs, from Ukraine to Siberia, to southern Muslim regions, to Asian areas in the southeast -- by the Czars was horrific, tragic. As a nation, by policy, by design, no one suffered greater casualties from war, totalitarian brutality, orchestrated famine, than the Russian people in the 20th Century. In a Homeric resistance to the Nazi invasion and then pursuit of the Nazis into eastern Europe to help achieve an Allied victory, more than 20 million Soviet people died in World War 2. 20 million people, (Ukrainians, Georgians, Russians, etc.) -- a conservative estimate given various sources (upto 35 million by some estimates) -- died by enslavement in Siberia, gulag imprisonment, famine, purges, execution, during Stalin’s reign, from the mid-20s until 1953. As a people, maybe half or more decimated by design in the most efficient of factory methods, Hitler’s murder of 6 million European Jews, via a Final Solution -- the intended extermination of a people, a culture, a religion -- was reflected in part by a mass murder of Soviet Jews, an indeterminate number, maybe 1-2 million Jewish people were killed by order of Joseph Stalin.* By many American's perspective, and by some Russian's -- dissidents, civil right workers -- Putin is a thug, a killer, but he is popular with Russians in general because he is seen as strong, effective, and within the context of historical Russia, from the Czars through the leaders of the Soviet Union, he is a relatively benign leader, even benevolent, despite Chechnya, Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia… If the murder of a single innocent, guilty only by the act of free speech -- freedom of ideas, belief -- is understood to be wrong by all socio-cultural-legal standards, wrong for all nations, and if inviolable human rights are imperfectly-absolute by rigorous application for all nations, the world will be a better place. - Some sources: Wikipedia, World Heritage Encyclopedia, International Business Times (from Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev), HistoryofRussia.org *Please see Carbuncle Moon blog: 1/27/16 Primarily, because of famine as a result of forced collectivization, the forced movement of people from cities to farms, lack of farming knowledge, equipment, some historians believe that Mao Zedong's policies of The Cultural Revolution killed as many as 45*-65** million Chinese. The worst mass murderers in history were Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and King Leopold of Belgium, whose treatment of the Congolese people resulted in the murder of millions. *Arifa Akbar/ Independent **Lee Edwards, Phd. Please support the Office of the United Nations High Commission For Human Rights: Palais Wilson, 52 rue des Paquis/ Ch-1201/ Geneva, Switzerland “As a Jew I think there might be somethin about the name Whitefish, but I, uh, just can’t put my finger on it.”
Happy Passover (4/10 - 4/18). Please see carbuncle moon blog of 4/22/16. Please give to the Jewish World Service: 45 West 36th Street, 11th Floor/ New York, New York 10018/ 212-792-2900 “Juan was a Vietnam vet who never told any stories of any kind about anything ever. His ex-wife, though, in a moment of hysterical spite once said this about him: ‘The bastard woulda never’ve gotten off that freakin bar stool if he hadn’t been drafted’ -- which was a clue of sorts to somethin but to what no one ever knew.” caption changed on 3/30/18
Please support the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California: 39 Drumm Street/ San Francisco, California 94111/ 415-621-2493 Today is Palm Sunday...
"Palm Sunday commemorates the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-9), when palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest on Holy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday. It thus marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent." - Wikipedia “An explosion at St George's Coptic church in Tanta,” Egypt, “killed 29 people. Hours later, a blast outside St Mark's Coptic Church in Alexandria left 16 dead.” The “Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the explosions, the latest in a series of attacks targeting the Christian minority in the country. “President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ordered military deployments across Egypt." "The government announced three days of mourning. “In Alexandria, Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Church, had been attending Mass inside” St. Mark’s “but was not hurt, state media reported. “Four police officers, including one policewoman, were among those killed, the interior ministry said. The suicide bomber blew himself up after they stopped him from entering the church.” - BBC The murder of innocents in a Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple... To the Coptic community, to the Egyptian people: I'm sorry for your loss, the suffering... Please give to the Egyptian Red Crescent Society: Abd El Razak El Sanhouri Street/ Nasr City- Cairo- Egypt/ +20 2 23492133 - 23492124 - 23492106/ erc@egyptianrc.org/ P.O.B: 7516 “I tried to buy a full-size sex doll last month -- Delightful Debby -- but they were out of stock at Real Plastic Sex, Inc. -- I figured all those TV producers in Burbank California married them all.”
Stockholm: A terrorist “drove a stolen beer truck into a crowd of people in a popular shopping district in Stockholm on Friday afternoon and then rammed it into a department store, killing four people and injuring 15 others in an attack that unleashed bloodshed on the streets of another European capital.” The murderer has been arrested. - New York Times/Christina Anderson and Martin Selsoe Sorenson 4/9: I'm sorry for the terror, the loss of life, the innocent that suffered... Please give to the Svenska Röda Korset (Swedish Red Cross): Box 17563/ SE-118 91/ Stockholm, Sweden /46 8 4524600/ info@redcross.se 4/4: “The town of Khan Sheikoun in Idlib (Syria) was targeted by chemical weapon attacks killing at least 72 people, including at least 11 children, and injuring 560. This morning’s attack has been the largest chemical attack since the East Ghouta attack of August" 2013.
“Yesterday," (4/3) "reports from the ground indicated that (Syrian) government forces dropped a barrel bomb containing toxic chemical agent on civilian areas in the town of Hbeit in the southern Idlib countryside. A couple of hours later, a barrel bomb with chemical agents was dropped in Al-Latamneh in the northern Hama countryside…” “Hospitals in the surrounding area received patients who suffered symptoms indicative of" "a category of toxic gases which includes sarin. According to SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society) doctors,” “symptoms seen in patients included constricted (or ‘pinpoint’) pupils, foaming at the mouth, and the loss of consciousness, slow heart rate, slow breathing, vomiting, muscles spasms and other neurological symptoms consistent with nerve agents.” Following the attack, Syrian forces targeted the main hospital in Khan Sheikhoun, and two offices of the White Helmets (a rescue crew) by air strikes. - Syrian American Medical Society "The Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 prohibits the 'use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, material or devices.' Syria is party to the Geneva Gas Protocol and is legally bound to its provisions." - UCLA Law Review added: 4/7: "The United States launched a military strike Thursday (4/6) on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians earlier in the week. "On President Donald Trump's orders, US warships launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the airbase that was home to the warplanes that carried out the chemical attacks, US officials said." - CNN Please see Carbuncle Moon blog of 4/2... Please give to the Syrian American Medical Society: 1012 14th Street NW, Suite 1500/ Washington DC 20005/ info@sms-usa.net/ 202-930-7802 “Chewin tobacco dribbled down from the corner of the mare’s mouth. She wiped up the spittle with a fetlock and, uh, tossed in a neigh-sigh aside: 'We’re free, over twenty-one, and at least you can vote,' she whinnied. The large huss then puckered up her lips, opened wide and presented me with a look into the chaw morass of mouth and
teeth before spitting a stream of tobacco juice into her glass. I smiled wide; then chuckled: 'Hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth.'* The mare guffawed; then laughed out loud -- a real horse laugh -- and rebutted: 'Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.'” ** * proverb from the public domain ** a song by Willie Nelson Please give to the American Cancer Society: 1552 Shoup Court/ Decatur, Georgia, 30033/ 800-227-2345, 404-327-9200 |
A carbuncle is a roiled mass of skin or a beautiful gem. The incredible gem is pictured in the logo below and at the bottom of the short story section...
Kevin O'Kendley is the owner of Carbuncle Moon, and the author of all original material -- cartoons, blogs, shorts, essays, articles -- on the website (there has been a very limited editorial input in some of my work). All quoted sources are noted. I am responsible for all posts. The only blogs not time-dated are those advertising nonprofits. All nonprofits are vetted, investigated, though after the summer of 2018 my vetting has lapsed: (6/1/21).
Kevin O'Kendley: P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496, and 200 P Street, A-32, Sacramento, California, 95814, ksokendley@outlook.com. Technical help is provided by an evolving computer genius, my son, Conor O'Kendley: A good kid with a great heart who can be reached at P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496. (Conor is in the Navy now, a swabby) Photography provided by a visual artist, my daughter, Caitlin O'Kendley: a young woman with a beautiful soul. (Caitlin is in college now, a media-journalism student) If your nonprofit is advertised on this site and you wish to have it removed please contact me at the above listed snail-mail or email address or use the contact form on the website. If you download a blog, cartoon, a short story -- or for any other reason -- and wish to donate $ to this site, its author and technical support personnel, please send donations to above listed addresses payable to Kevin O'Kendley. My family and I could use the dinero. All cartoons, blogs, and short stories are for sale. Categories |