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.

Happy Halloween and Milk

It rained a lot today but now is hot and muggy again, although past midnight.

 

This cartoon just evolved from a doodle and was finished before I knew it.  My subconscious must have been drawing from those old Nixon masks I remember, and an unpublished Milk cartoon where my little guys referred to the governor as a "master of disguise."  We can only hope that Fitial's corrupt regime does not spawn a cadre of similar-thinking, similar-acting children.

Marianas Milk-Anti-Corruption

Hot and humid and still.

 

I wanted to depict the tools that are being used to aid and carry out corruption.  I couldn't really think how to visualize them, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed important to just convey that these kinds of things are tools--emergency declarations are a tool to overcome procurement regulations and to provide the governor with power to take over and do things.  He uses those not for natural disasters and true emergencies, but for "emergencies" created by bad management.  

The ice epidemic isn't just a phenomenon occurring independently--it must be supported and managed as part of the government. I come to this conclusion from the tip of the iceberg that has been revealed--the governor's chauffeur dealing ice out of the governor's own car, customs officials being a ring of operators, a congressman admitting he's dealing ice and no consequences taken against him (his case being brought up just before the impeachment vote, but now that he voted not to impeach the case is sinking out of sight again).  The people who are still loyal are living on false promises and nepotism/government jobs.  The governor's cronies, old and new, form corporations and days later get sole-source contracts.  Lies and more lies are so common we can't even keep track of them.  

Bad cops were revealed so clearly when a whole slew of them pleaded the 5th amendment right not to incriminate themselves in the impeachment hearings--as if we weren't already worried when Ray Mafnas interfered in the Luhk girls disappearance, tried to redirect searching away from certain areas, and managed to get an ice-using fireman (I think) out of the CNMI without any arrest.  We are still waiting for the promised press release of news about Emy Romero's murder. 

Vacancies in the civil service have completely gutted the operation of this constitutional agency that is supposed to protect government workers from political influence--instead we have a government workforce that is afraid to do anything against the governor for fear of reprisals--and we are seeing reprisals. Think of the DPS official who didn't take the 5th at the impeachment hearings--who has now been re-assigned to rookie cop duties despite his many years (11?) on the force. 

Thugs are so active we have repeated attacks on prominent citizens--Glen Hunter's tires slashed, Tammy Doty repeatedly harrassed, Tina Sablan threatened--all by the governor's close supporters--his thugs.

We are being hammered, screwed, nailed, wrenched, attacked with pliers, greased and bolted and just worked over with so many tools of corruption that our society is an ugly mess.