NaNoWriMo 2012

Night--pitch black.  A container ship in the harbor with lots of lights. Bobbi Grizzard and Richard Pierce playing Scrabble at Coffee Care.

I just crossed the 50,000 word "finish" line for my 2012 novel.  It's not finished. But considering I had zero words on November 1, I feel completely successful!

Today's Milk

Hot, hot, hot. And humid.

  

This cartoon was inspired by the pie chart graph of the CNMI budget that appeared last week in the newspaper (the Tribune, I think).  In that real chart, the governor's office and "administration costs" took a disproportionately large chunk of the budget--bigger than CHC!  This humorous version exaggerates the reality to make a point.  The CNMI budget does not serve the interests of the people!

Marianas Milk

Still and quiet night.

 

Headline news last week reported that the Nutrition Assistance Program had $420,000 in "excess" food stamp money leftover. Governor Fitial said he wanted to transfer that money to his account to hire more people to work at NAP rather than give it out in food stamps.  This after food stamps have been cut and cut and recipients are receiving a fraction of what they would receive, and far less than the needy in our neighboring Guam.

The cartoon plays on Queen Antoinette, who said, when told that the poor had not bread, "let them eat cake."  I wrote "let them drink milk" because of the Governor's past comments to Senators to drink milk. The little people just comment on crumbs as that is all that the poor get, and the guillotine, which was created and used in France and is strongly associated in my memory with the use of guillotine. 

Election Day Milk

Overcast, muggy but breezy.

Today is election day in the CNMI, although there has been early voting and of course absentee voting.  Most people still head to the polls today.  There have been reports or rumors about pressure on government workers to vote for Fitial's candidates (new Republicans and some so-called independents).  I do not know whether the reports are true. I do know that each vote is a little rebellion, no matter who you choose, because democracy is all about power in the hands of the people.  And the very concept of democracy, and thus voting, is rebellious against power and the power elite.

So this cartoon is intended to show that rebellion, and encourage everyone to ...

Go vote.

Sunny and hot-but occasional cool breezes.

This cartoon attempts to highlight the misdirected priorities of our current administration.  Unseating a successful and popular (and honest) delegate in the US House of Representatives seems to be far more important than the task of governing or addressing the serious problems of crime, crumbling economy, and ruined infrastructure. While daily reports confirm that government spending is out of control, budgeting is based on magical thinking, crimes go unsolved and the people suffer, huge ads supporting Acha Demapan in Republican red and letters to the editor in her support take precedence.

The little guys comment that casinos still seem to be a priority-and they are as yet another attempt to ramrod casinos down the throats of Saipan voters has been recently raised. We'll see a lot more of that after the election (unless the people vote more intelligently than they have in the past--and there's little reason to think they will).

The people are not the priority of the administration.  Nor are they the priority of the voters--who vote their individual fortunes and pockets, not for hte public good.