#6, Death, And Irrational Bigotry

May 22, 2012, I awoke late in the evening and stayed awake for 33 hours straight working on some of the final pages of issue #6, only taking two breaks to eat and use the bathroom.

May 23, 2012 Wednesday was the two-year anniversary of when I officially initiated my graphic novel series. I have made six stories within that time period, each more than thirty pages long, and I am about to begin my introduction story, which takes place before my first issue that I started two years ago. I have three pages of incomplete illustrations left to finish in issue #6 before I start the introduction. I need to think about the setting in which the protagonist Sawaporn is in when the story begins. Number 1 (which will become #2 after the introduction is finished) starts off in Bloomington, IL during the late summer and it is December by issue #6.

In the very near future, I will be drawing T-shirt designs promoting freethought and skepticism. A member of my freethinkers group has come up with many ideas and I will be their artist. I cannot wait to start this.

Unrelated, my dad, Howard Michael Haney (born August 12, 1949), died on May 20, 2012 and his wake was May 24. He had Alzheimer's and his brain deteriorated so much over time that it appears the brain could no longer regulate important body functions, though I am not certain. I am told that his blood pressure dropped rapidly and he died before he arrived at the hospital. To make things worse, during the travel to my father's wake, my mother decided to explain to me that my dad was not only going hell, but deserved it as well, for being an atheist while knowing that I am an atheist too. She also made it a point to randomly explain that homosexuals are abominations. I'm not gay, so I don't understand why she brought this up to me especially during a drive to my dad's wake. Her justification for this nonsense was "because god said so," which is the equivalent of a kindergartener saying "You have to give me your lunch money because I said so." She then explained this conspiracy theory of hers that all evidence that suggests homosexuality is not a simple choice, rather maybe something biological, was invented by "gay scientists" to spread the "homosexual agenda." She then proudly stated, "I will remain a bigot until the day I die an d stand with the lord." She has an irrational, black and white view of reality and wants reality to fit into her view, instead of the other way around. I think it is absolutely sick for a person to worship and love a deity with all of their heart that they simultaneously believe will torture their child infinitely just because their child cares about whether their beliefs are true and bases their beliefs on reason, evidence, and intellectual honesty instead of basing their beliefs on (magical) wishful thinking or willful gullibility (aka: "faith)." Tossing any respect at such a being is worse than worshiping a person that you know will rape your mother tomorrow. Of course, that rapist cannot sexually assault your mother infinitely. Maybe one day in the future she will realize that her needless bigotry based on superstition and ignorance is only destructive, but I honestly think that if she does, she will not care because in her mind her particular version of this misogynistic, genocidal, slavery-condoning, self-contradicting, jealous, megalomaniac, and (fortunately) fictional god and his bipolar, ignorant, intolerant, megalomaniac son will always agree with whatever she thinks.

I will make a parody of this vile conversation in my graphic novel series of her superstition-based bigotry, like I do with all things that I think are despicable. That is the one of the only two positive things that came out of this conversation. The second thing I finally learned was that she cares more about her fantasy than her family or even the real world around her.