Mister Gregory LaRocque has put up an Ebay auction of some art. The Funds raised are going to Typhoon victims in the Philippines, the homeland of Mr. LaRocque's family. Greg LaRocque is a comic artist who worked a lot on the 80's doing work on Flash, Spiderman, Heroes for Hire and several other books for a long period of time and lately has been doing mostly his own stuff. He's a friend of mine who's a local to my area and I felt I should try to put this out there. I don't know how much he intends to raise he seems hopeful so if anyone wants to bid on some really cool art done by him and some of his buddies here is a link to his Ebay account and the event thingy on Facebook.

4340"Ebay of Greg LaRocque

Unfortunately its damn impossible to post a link from Facebook that doesn't just go back to the main page so instead, if you're interested, search for 'Greg LaRocque' and add him and it outta be on his page somewhere.

I felt if anywhere, this would be a good enough place to post this. If you want to you can repost these links or if you just don't give a crap feel free to spit at me on the street (or if you feel I am just a guilty minded American, that's fine too, I am open to criticism ).

Something I posted on [link] generally about Omega Red (as I have been coincidentally having a lot of discussions about him as of late) and I felt that if anyone reads this, it would be a good thing to debate or talk about. Though I doubt anyone'll read it, I felt this was the best place to post it to get a response.

"I just feel like Marvel sometimes does a very poor job of truly creating a character. Especially the stuff that came out in the 90's. The general idea was to just make people who were crazy and evil with a cool look and interesting powers, but gave them no real motivation, in depth back story or character and if anything that bothers me more than anything in comics. The reason Batman characters can all essentially be mob lords but are all among the best villains in comics is because they all have so much character and personality. They have gimmicks yeah, but the gimmick is only one facet of their persona. Marvel took the other route and made guys with cool ass abilities and interesting concepts but they were just a hollow outer coating that, though tasty, was kind of sadly lacking that chocolate filling which made the candy worth eating. I love Marvel but I have to admit, a lot of their stories have been pretty poorly written over the years (with the exception of the Jack Kirby years and such which were some of the best). DC isn't much different 9 time out of 10 but it seems like they understand that strong characterization makes the story interesting more than cool looking shit."

A social revolution has indeed struck in an area which sorely needs it. If there is nothing I can do then at least I can let it be known that genuinely brave people have tried and deserve credit for standing up and not taking the injustice the world has showered them with. Join the bandwagon if you can, because at the moment I know of little else I can do to help but hope is indeed one of the few things this cruel, beastly world can't rip from our hands and hearts. I may not be the correct person to have ideals of any kind and I may not be important at all but hope is important even to a devout cynic like me and the more I see something like this happen I hope more than anything to see something, anything, change for the better in this tiny dank world at the edge of nothingness. That may mean nothing but even if it all turns out bad I can't be any further disappointed than I already am. The world will still turn tomorrow if with a few less handfuls of people and a couple less glimmers of hope.

This was brought to my attention by (whom realistically you've probably seen her Journal here [link] )

I know it might seem redundant or stupid to post something a far more popular deviant has posted already but I figure I might as well try to spread it around further if at all possible. Give her as much support as you can, even though it is most likely very little and hope for the best because if you can't hope for that, then whats the point of going on living? Good luck.

I know it's probably redundant as over Deviant Art there are much better artist, all of which have some semblance of internet popularity whom have already gotten the word out and brought the point to a more precise head but I felt it would be the right thing to do to at least.
I personally don't know Endling (met once or twice in passing when End-Zone Chat was still around) but, I have always been a huge fan of his work. Of course if you read this you probably already know the situation but if not I send you to this link: End-Raiser Project

He is in genuine need so he is auctioning his original art and many are taking commission to help out as can be seen in his girls Journal: Zombiesmiles' Journal

Anyway, this will undoubtedly seem to be a veil attempt to bandwagon but really it's a way for me to express my personal agenda instead(AWESOME!) as I am a huge attest and proponent to the American Health Care System along with it's insane greed, price gouging and genuine hatred for the people for whom they're designed to serve. You see, American Health care is specifically designed to deny people care and/or force them to pay out of pocket, huge amounts of cash for simple, life saving, procedures or medications. For some reason when Canada, the UK and even Cuba decided that taking care of it's citizens should be a priority of it's government, our government (more specifically Richard Nixon, His friends and Henry Kaiser) decided it should be placed into the hands of private organizations to provide us financial aid for medicines and surgery, all in a ploy to make people pay monthly for a service which might or might not even be applicable when you really need it (due to a group of people finding some kind of loophole to deny you). Then even if you get funding, you generally still have to pay a huge extra dividend. Suffice to say, many people are left wanting by this method.
I find this system to be generally pathetic in a country that spends around $515-$644 Billion on military expenses annually (As much as The Netherlands, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, Italy, Brazil, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Russia, and China combined or more). Admittedly I don't think I can compare from personal experience the suffering and lack of medical care in many other countries of the world, or the systems for which they dispense it but, I feel when a country reaches a certain wealth it has certain responsibilities to the people who helped make it that way. One of which is taking care of the sick and injured of their respective societies. I say 'wealth' because it's the only way modern society has to view it's nations. Not by the merit of it's peoples actions or the amount of good it does for the world or the people inside of it, but how much money it hordes from the needy masses.

Anyway, I feel myself going into another rant altogether so I will stop. For now though I wish Endling (A.k.a. Sean Healey) all the best. Good luck.

I walked you to the threshold, But I couldn't go further.
I am not a religious man. I am not a spiritual man, I do not understand these things.
What I do however, understand is the nature of faith, and of belief.
You see, belief and religion are completely different concepts. Religion sets up a dogma, it sets up rules and regulations. Religion is a monarchy, or an oligarchy or even a dictatorship. Religion is politics. politics have no place in belief.

belief is instead a thing that you hold to yourself. It is a selfish and relentless thing that you hold on to and grow up with and evolve to fit your needs. Faith is a force of nature. When humans claim to have lost their instincts, they actually were lieing. We are animals, we have instincts. You see, the instincts that we claim to shake off are instead transformed into faith and belief. These things that we know instinctively to be true or false, regardless of others or the outside world. Faith is indeed a power of nature. Belief is a thing which flows like the wind and crumbles like the earth and burns like the lava and drowns like the seas.

This is what I need to talk about. My own faith made me believe a person would be there, if I needed them. It made me believe in this persons goodness and take advantage of their kindness. I had faith in little but in a few, and he was one of them. It's hard to stress enough, how sanity can often turn a man insane with cynicism, how reality can crush a soul with it's own stupidity and lack of vision. The truth is, my faith is ever questioned. I spend my life trying to find good in this world, but I believed that I could not. I had faith in faithlessness. I couldn't bring myself to accept a world with nothing but black, tar filled spit on it's sidewalks. The world became more like a wax museum, or a mannequin warehouse. You know for awhile I thought life was bad, I thought it was hard, I thought it wasn't worth it. I thought I had nothing to loose.

I had things to loose. I lost it through my own stupidity. My faith made me blind to the world around me, cutting me off, bit by bit into a boxed in world. The universe showed me there were things in this world that really did matter, and I just didn't see it till I lost my ability to appreciate it. I don't know if I am really changed. I know I have been changed, but I don't know if I can will myself to change. To appreciate the things I have randomly stumbled apoun in my existence. I lost my ability to appreciate a person who was for lack of batter articulation, good. He was something I couldn't label the rest of the world as, he was something I didn't know existed. he was good. He cared for more people than I even realized. He actually did things for people without question, he helped those in need, or even those who weren't in need. There was rarely a time when he hated and even if he did, he knew how to forgive. Above all else he wasn't a rock, but has damn near close. He was something I can only describe as human. Not the fake selfish, animalistic, desperate, kind of human that we all claim to be. He was really, truly, honestly, Human in every sense of the word, and I just didn't realize it. I didn't see it. I failed to appreciate it in any way. I took advantage.

Now I sit there and look at a 2' by 6' box I helped carry to a long black car, then to the side of a paved road. I watched his family cry over that box. I watched his friends break down over that box. I watched at least a hundred people stare into that box. I couldn't find an answer to any of it. I could find no words worth saying that made a difference. All I could do was walk the man in the box to the threshold, and say "I'll see you later."

And then I cried out of desperation.