Art For Heart's Sake

When the news bums us out, which is a daily occurrence lately, we like to take solace in the arts. Whether an image created by the sure hand of a painter or the sounds resulting from divine inspiration of a music composer, these are transcendent experiences which briefly but thankfully distract us from the frenetic madness around us.

Which is why we're sharing some of our favorite art with you today. Specifically, movie poster art from Ghana. The small theaters there are forced to paint their own movie posters, often with only a very vague idea what the movie is about or how human anatomy is supposed to work. Still, we'd happily watch ANY of these movies if they gave us half of what the posters promise...

Can't you just feel your stress melting away as you reflect on these images and the theatrical delights they offer? What a balm the "willing suspension of disbelief" can be when applied to entertainment rather than the news and politics.

And to round out today's enthusiastic endorsement of escapism, we'll share a few musical numbers which we swear we actually love and listen to on a regular basis (and you can too)!

From the Vault: The M-Word

(originally published 5/8/15)

Rather than dwell on the unpleasantness of current news, Hope n' Change would like to take this opportunity to reflect on Mother's Day (the most sacred of all Hallmark holidays). And who better exemplifies all things maternal than Hillary Clinton?

Sure, she once denigrated women who do things like staying home and baking cookies for their families. And she humiliated her young daughter during the White House years by dragging her around as a prop to pose with her cheating, DNA-spewing dog of a husband. And she underpays her female staffers who may themselves be moms.

But Hillary has a soft, sentimental motherly side, too! 

Although you'll just have to take her word for it since - by her own proud declaration - she decided to go into her private server and erase every email and computer document related to her daughter's wedding, the birth of her first grandchild, and her own mother's final months of life and memorial service.

Come to think of it, Hillary doesn't exemplify anything good about Mother's Day. But maybe our current first lady does...

Then again, maybe not.

Still, Hope n' Change thinks the world of most mothers and wishes them all the best this Sunday.  And while their love and lessons last forever, sadly, our mothers themselves are here for all too short a time. Be sure to hug 'em if you got 'em.

BONUS: One Bad Mutha (from the HnC vault)

Visitors Day

Owing to language which President Trump forced to be inserted into a Covid relief bill, the agencies that monitor reports and investigations of UFOs are supposed to offer a report detailing all they know by June 1st.

And there's at least a possibility that we could hear some cool, scary, mind-blowing stuff...although if we do, it will surely be no more than 1% of the real story. In drips and drabs, military and intelligence agencies have already affirmed the existence of some weird kind of flying objects in our skies that not only far transcend any technology known on Earth, they seem to violate the laws of physics as we (perhaps primitively) understand them.

If we had to guess - and it's only a guess - our instinct is that a lot more of this stuff is real than we've been previously told. And that while extraterrestrials may visit from time to time, they seemingly don't want to interact with us much (let alone conquer us) because as a species we're comparatively stupid and boring.  Seriously, would you want to cross half a galaxy just to spend time getting lectured by Greta Thunberg?

But if there were a huge social upheaval coming when New Neighbors arrive and the government wanted to prepare us for it psychologically, what would that look like? Well, we imagine there would be preemptive policies like:

• Destroying the notion of borders, national sovereignty, and even property ownership. 

• Efforts would be made to erase and rewrite our national history. Hey, why fight to protect what's yours when you don't even know or believe in what you're fighting for?

• Muddle the accepted definitions of what "people" are. Male? Female? Whales? Dolphins? Who needs labels to self-identify as "human?" Or humanoid?

• Prepping for the Big Meet-and-Greet would take trillions of dollars, but it's money that would never realistically ever have to be paid back. Seen any budget proposals like that lately?

• In case of a complete social upheaval, pretty much no one will be showing up for their shifts at McDonalds, meaning the government would need to create plans to feed, clothe, and house everyone from cradle to grave...and supply them with an income even though there are no jobs to go to. And gosh, Biden is pushing all of this right now. Probably coincidentally.

• If Intergalactic visitors show up, we probably don't want to piss them off by implying that they can't do whatever the hell they want. Maybe it would be a good idea to undercut the citizenry's respect for police authority. 

• Just in case Cosmic Tourists would bring Cosmic coronaviruses with them, it would probably be smart to first condition the public to wear a mask or two at all times, indoors and out, for the rest of their lives.

And so on and so on. Mind you, we're not saying any of this is actually happening. We're just saying that, with Joe "Mumbles" Biden sitting in the Oval Office, stranger things have already happened.

It's okay - they're just here to do the jobs that Earthlings won't.