Trump-caricature

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Fiat Lux!-After Doré

This was done in 1995.(also posted in GuidetoHisWord. http://obi4b.wordpress.com

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Morse-caricature

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Artist Abroad- Paris ’95

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Glenn Beck and Fox News

On Wednesday, Fox News announced that it was through with Glenn Beck’s daily cable-TV show. He shot to prominence in January 2009 when the American nation was coming to grips with the economic collapse that recalled the Great Depression of ’29. He found the more he painted the gloomy scenario there would be takers. He knew the news the way he twisted was ‘truth, nothing but truth.’ But how long one is going to stick to truth as dressed up as in this case? Viewers reach a stage were the truth looks tame and lacking in vigor. They do not need flakes but full-fiber on their plates. Similar to those who watch the pornographic material. At first it is for kicks and then it takes control over you and the act cannot be real unless it is made more kinky and perverted. Glenn Back realized a higher truth was needed in order to keep his viewers happy. He was like a host who painted news pictures but these didn’t grab the viewers anymore. So he hit upon all sorts of conspiracy theories to keep the loonies raving sane and send angry letters to their representatives at the Capitol Hill. But as the recession began to ease, Beck’s apocalyptic forecasts and ominous conspiracies became less persuasive, and his audience began to drift away. Beck responded with Truth as never before presented by a twit for the twits who know truth when told. Truth With Inner Twists- for ratings of Beck wasn’t what sounded right to his bosses.
He was convinced at least on the prime time the American left was in cahoots with an emerging caliphate in the Middle East. It all seems so plausible that I must tell the truth. Fox News shall henceforth only stick to facts and add some comic relief for which any one with the gift of the gab may apply. (ack: Dan Milbank)
benny

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Announcement:The Representational Man

The second volume of the RM is on sale. This bumper book of anecdotes is a must for all those who are interested in history, role of man in shaping it. While the first book dealt with personalities who impacted the physical world, focus of the second is on men and their ideas. Both books have plenty of portraits drawn by the author. Check it out http://www.lulu.com/content/10524943 These are available as pocket books or download version
benny

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Collateral Damage-a fable

Tainted Money©
The plume from Fukushima nuclear pant became alarmingly dense and lethal. The Ancient of the Days was in council and He had 5 nano sceonds to decide. The angel representing Japan kowtowed before God and said,’ Don’t let it fall on Japan. Already they had been hurt in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.To afflict them once again would be double jeopardy and illegal.’
‘It’s true.’God was sure that Japan should be spared from it.
One angel who acted as the devil’s disciple said,’ But nuclear leak creates a cloud and it must break on somewhere.’
God created a tornado out of it. Instantly the angel representing the USA complained, ‘ No Lord,’ said he,’ our land has become a dustbowl already. Send it somewhere else.’
God thought and said, ‘Great.’ He converted all that pestilential nuclear cloud into rain and it had to go somewhere.
The Council quickly concluded:’There must be someone who cannot resist a bargain and shall do anything to get it all free’.
Meanwhile on the earth a man suddenly woke up and said ‘Free!’
Much of the day he thought over it and went to a giant tree and cut it down. Sure enough he found a hoard of gold coins. Hauling it home he went into business.
‘Goldstein & Co, Bankers.The Corporate heads were from all across the globe. Isidor the President and his CEO a Turk knew they held all the aces.
There was a credit crunch going on. And the gold held by the Banking house was like water from a bottomless well. The Bank was sure that they could charge interest as high as he could go. They specialized in financing wars wherever it occurred across the globe. People saw how lavishly the bankers lived and none asked their source. None drew a parallel with the countries and the money they had at their disposal to decimate the population before time. No country ever thought of peace but money and power that war brought to it.
benny

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News on the March-a forgotten war?

‘The war in Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a forgotten conflict because of events in Libya and across the Middle East, David Miliband has warned.

The former foreign secretary told the BBC more effort was needed to find a political solution before British and US troops are withdrawn in 2014′.(April,13-BBC news.uk)
How forgotten a war could be? I wanted to find out answer to this myself. So I unearthed the address of my schoolmates, the Ghazni brothers, who came in the eighties to do Engineering. They had scholarship and were in affluent circumstances. Their bulging wallet made all the boys root for them. Moe the Gregarious never lacked friends. Unlike Mohammed, his twin brother Ummer the Moaner just brought motherly instincts out of any girl. Ummer had his harem of weepers who comforted the fatherless boy while Moe threw money around despite a terrible tragedy.
Under occupation he lost many of his relatives. His father and his grandfather were lined up against a mud wall by the Soviet Army for retaliation. They were picked at random and shot. As sop to the outrage the Americans sent many helter-skelter on special grants to study. The twins were beneficiaries of that impersonal windfall. Moe celebrated life in honor of the dead. Ummer felt the loss of his dear ones with all the intensity his sensitive nature could bear. They both felt their loss last time I met them at the turnstile of our adult lives. Ten years ago they had moved over to their hometown in order to add their expertise for the village once again under seige. Five years ago Moe was killed by Taliban because he refused to be cowed down. He despite threats sent his daughter to College and for it he was executed with a bullet at close range. Ummer lost his family impersonally by a drone attack. They were on their way to attend a wedding. It was all a mistake, the news said so. I could get Ummer and asked if the Afghan War was a forgotten war. ‘How can I ever forget the death of my brother, my right hand? How can I forget loss of my wife. My heart is ripped apart?’ Later he said,’ I am part of a growing army of dead,-and the dead never changes opinions’.
For once he was dry eyed and said in the end,’The dead can only think of what made them dead’. No war can be forgotten by those who are in the line of fire. Thinking it over Ummer had run out of tears and it must yet rankle deep within.
benny

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Brahma’s Elephant©

Jai Paramartha, the mystic was once the guest of a rich zamindar who was a favorite of the king. One day an old man in shabby clothes and with strange manners boldly entered the quarters of JP, disregarding the servants who mistook him for a mad man. The servants wanted to know if he needed help.
Gampa Guru shook his head. For he knew the stranger indeed.
He would have recognized Mahirshi Shunya in shabby clothes or not. There was he out of the blue and he without any preamble tugged the mystic by shoulder and said, “I am onto Cosmic matters!”
Maharshi wanted to know his views about reality of the matter.
The younger man began. “ Brahma once went visiting. At some place he stopped over. He tied his elephant to a tree but when he thought he would continue his journey he could not find what tree it was. He called for Shiva. The god of destruction produced a seed and said that it was from the tree to which the animal was tied. Brahma was incredulous but Shiva assured that he would soon find it. Shiva held the seed out. In a trice it was swallowed up. There was his elephant!
Something of that seed disagreed with the animal and he broke wind. A Big Bang it was. The seed came out in cataclysmic force. In its wake came energy making every form visible! Not only that of elephant, but also many universes! The animal was still tied to the tree from which stars pulsated with energy.
Old Maharshi shook his head and violently and barked,’Impossible!’
JP queried,’Why not?’
The old man snapped,’I never break wind and the elephant of Brahma would neither.’
benny

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Illustration-Captain Black Hand

From the forthcoming book The Adventures of Captain Black Hand

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