newyorkette

But are they like the Mets? That’s the question.

Due credit must be given to this painting for inspiring the parents.

Also, this Oscarina also appears at The Huffington Post today, here.

Well, in NYkette’s news, we had a caption contest at The New Yorker, and you can still vote on your favorite caption, here.

And we’ve had a few Oscarina’s in the Huffington Post! I try to make sure there’s on there every Monday. I call it “Political Monday at Oscarina.”

This one is about the middle class worker’s duty to strike:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll always think of this as Roy G. Biv day, you know why? Of course you do, if you ever had to memorize the colors of the rainbow in the right order: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet—ROYGBIV, or, Roy G. Biv, as we art students say to ourselves when we try to remember. Nice guy, Roy.

Congratulations to New York, where we can all be gay in every sense of the word now, as equally as anyone. Boo to you Ruben Diaz, but as this is a democracy, we have to uphold your right to dissent from common sense if you must. Do everything else right, and I’ll be okay with you. But you better do everything else right, bud.

I’ll have to repost this Oscarina (as seen on the Huffington Post recently) in honor of it all. Blow it out your asses, conservatives! (click on the image if you need it bigger).

Oscarina’s getting more and more “likes”, and has appeared a few times on the Huffington Post’s comedy site, notably today, regarding the marriage equality struggle in NY.

Also in the news, I’ve created a page on Facebook, for those for whom newyorkette is not enough!  Please feel free to go there and “like” away. I need at least 25 likers before I can get a username, they say.

I haven’t been submitting much to The New Yorker due to working on more personal stuff, but I’m getting back in the groove, and you will be seeing me there again soon, if they haven’t given up on me in disgust, thinking I just got lazy.

Meanwhile, here’s the lastest Oscarina, for your entertainment. Click on the image to open a larger one if you can’t read the text.:

I try to avoid the topical, but sometimes I come across something that’s too good to keep under my hat.

www.thedailyshow.com

Above is how time flies for me. I did this doodle this morning while drinking my coffee. Suddenly I realized it was time to run to my day job! Thus, “time” and “carrots.”

As far as cartoons go, here’s my latest in The New Yorker:

And here’s my debut on 23/6, the Huffington Post’s comic relief site, with a musing on President Bush and the Shoe Incident.

We’ve finally made it into the 21st century!  Obama is the first bi-racial president of the United States.  I am emphasizing that he is half white and half black, and this is why: I am half hispanic, and half white, with a little Jewish thrown in.  What does that make me?  That makes me American. And that’s how I related to Obama.  I related to him as an American. Even though he was forced into choosing black over white for political purposes, he is multi-racial, and that is the future of not only the USA, but also of the world.  Which is good, because it means love is prevailing!

Welcome to the 21st century! The future is finally beginning to look like the future, and not the past!

Now! Where’s my Jetsons space-car?  :)

WARNING: Don’t click on this link below till you’ve read the results of my calls and clicks!

Okay, so I have the day off today, never mind all the errands I have to do, but I decided to do my civic duty and check that the voter assistance websites and phone numbers were actuallly assisting people, since on the last day of in-person registration, they totally let us all down by giving out false information on pre-recorded (and out of date) messages, with no live operators to back them up, since it was a Saturday. Mind you, I know where and how to vote: I’m doing this to see how the system would work for someone who doesn’t know.

The first thing I did was a Google search of “voting in New York”. I came upon this phone number, listed on a few sites: 1.886.VOTE.NYC
This is the WRONG number. The correct number begins with (866), not (886). See what happens if you dial the (886) number. Imagine what you’d do if you were a less spirited person facing that crazy loop: give up, or perhaps just listen to the conspiracy theories that have begun swirling in your head?

If you find the official voter assistance website, you’ll see three options for finding out how and where to vote:

Search with the Online Poll Site Address Locator

Call the Voter Phone Bank at 1.866.VOTE.NYC

E-mail your complete home address to us at vote@boe.nyc.ny.us and we’ll e-mail your polling place location back to you. (Please put in the subject line the borough in which you reside.)

The third option is seductively easy. So I tried it. I clicked on the link, and a window opened up in my own email browser, into whose subject line I duly placed my borough, “manhattan”, and into whose body I typed in my complete address, as directed. See what happened:

From: carolitajohnson
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:37 AM
To: *VoterRegoutsideEmailAddress
Subject: manhattan

[imagine my complete address here, which I’ve deleted now for this post because I don’t want to give it out to the world]

Here is the reply I got:

> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Cathy Basham 
> wrote:
>> GO TO WEB SITE
>> WWW.VOTE.NYC.NY.US
>> AND CLICK ON POLL SITE LOCATOR
>>

Hey! Why not just reply, “run around in circles, puny voter!”

So I replied:

>——-Original Message——-
> From: carolitajohnson
> Behalf Of carolita
> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 12:58 PM
> To: Cathy Basham
> Subject: Re: manhattan
>

> Thanks for nothing, lady.
>

And to which Cathy Basham replied (note the expressive of anger/impatience all-caps answer):

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:59 PM, Cathy Basham wrote:
> WHAT DID U WANT
> U SENT NOTHING BUT YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS
> YOU ARE WELCOME
>

And to which I reasonably replied:

On this website, which I presume you know about:
http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/pollingplaces.html
there are the following instructions:
E-mail your complete home address to us at vote@boe.nyc.ny.us and we’ll e-mail your polling place location back to you. (Please put in the subject line the borough in which you reside.)

It does not say to include a letter of introduction, and a Hi How are you?

-carolita johnson

 

I have not heard back. Poor Cathy.  I guess she didn’t know that all those emails would be forwarded to her. What surprises me is that I’m apparently the only one clicking that link and following instructions.  Way to get the word out, Voter Assisters!

Anyone else feel like writing to Cathy?
Here you go: CBasham@boe.nyc.ny.us

Other problems include:

– outgoing recorded message lists outdated information (such as voter registration information for past elections, as old as 2007). – assister answering all my questions with “it’s on the website.” When I say “no it’s not,” she says, “yes it is.” Repeat. – assister not knowing what “ex-con” means (when I asked if ex-cons can vote), or assister who knew what an ex-con was saying “only if they have finished their jail sentence and are no longer on probation or parole.” Which is not true. Parolees cannot vote, but probationers can.  Or so says another website.  Anyone know better?  Tell me. – assister saying no political t-shirts or buttons allowed within 100 feet of the polling site, in contradiction to what I heard on the radio today.  Anyone? – assister replying to my question of “what if it’s 8:59pm and I am on a line around the corner behind 200 people?”, with “I doubt that will happen.” When I insist is is happening right now in Florida, she says, “if you are on the premises on line, you will be allowed to vote, even if it’s after 9pm.” So I ask, “is around the corner outside considered on the premises?” And she simply repeats her first answer. Anyone?

UPDATE:
after trying several websites and phone numbers, this is my recommendation for the best, non-partisan information information online: rockthevote.org, and for the best by phone, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), where you can “oprima el numero 2” if you need spanish-language help. You can make sure you’re registered where you think you’re registered, as well as ask any question—they’re very patient—, and report any abuses you may encounter.
If you’re registered but simply don’t know where to vote, try a google maps search: maps.google.com/vote

I totally have to give credit to SNL tonight for this pun. (I’d put up the link but it’s not up yet.)

UPDATE: I found the SNL link!  I think she says “terriers”! Not sure, but that’s what I heard!
Crazy McCain Rally Lady

This cartoon was inspired by the very desperate search to keep ahead enough of the news to submit cartoons that might still be valid for at least a few days.  At least time enough for the magazine to come out! It aint’ easy!  

Things change so quickly! For example, McCain will pull the Decency Card a few days before the debates, mystifying everyone till the day of the debate when he says, “I repudiate people when they get out of line!” (Which is true, but only for that one time that he made sure he got on TV a few days before the debates, saying “Obama is a decent family man”!) Till the debate, I thought he had simply lost his marbles again, like that time he hugged President Bush, with a beatific smile. Here is my take, the day of that repudiation, which did not anticipate its use as fodder for the debate:

I was so innocent and naive! His true love, after all, is Joe the Plumber, a guy ” who thinks Barack Obama “can tap dance – almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”! Now that’s a supporter McCain can be proud of….?

 

I made up and distributed a bunch of flyers of the above for my own neighborhood when I learned people could still register in person today! It seems people have been getting misinformation from the 800-NYC-VOTE helpline, which only has a recorded outgoing message saying that the deadline to register is Friday, October 10th. Which is not true! Deadline for mail-in registration was yesterday, but deadline for in-person registration is today, by 9pm in NYC.

So, with twenty minutes left, I decided to put it up on the website, just in case. You never know! Click here for a link to a PDF file with all the addresses, mostly schools, where you can still run in panting for breath to register in the home stretch. Addresses begin on the second page, by borough.

And if you get there even one minute before 9pm, don’t let them argue with you, deadline is 9pm tonight. Give ‘em hell if they try to stop you.

I did a variation of this portrait of Obama (see above) for a client, and decided to make a t-shirt too!  If you buy one, proceeds go to the Obama campaign, unless otherwise requested (like if you’re a McCain supporter, and prefer me to keep the proceeds, because nope, I won’t send them to the McCain campaign, ha ha). 

Very reasonably priced!  To see the, “you betcha!” on the back, and/or to order a shirt, click on the image below! There’s also a poster!

 

Can anyone guess where I read this, last night?

“[she], seeing the house laughing, began to laugh herself. The gaiety of all redoubled itself. She was an amusing creature, all the same, was that fine girl! Her laughter made a love of a little dimple appear in her chin. She stood there waiting, not bored in the least, familiar with her audience, falling into step with them at once, as though she herself were admitting with a wink that she had not two farthings’ worth of talent but that it did not matter at all, that, in fact, she had other good points.”

 

Answer: Zola’s “Nana.” 

I just thought that was a funny coincidence.  Click on the image for the article I got this pic from.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. The economy wasn’t saved!

This was rejected, but  not abandoned! I decided to practice my colorizing with Photoshop.  Still have no idea if I’m doing it right, just trying this or that.  Seems like it should be easier, somehow!

And I don’t want to hear any crap about comparing Palin to a poodle being sexist!  She’s the one who started comparing herself to domestic animals! She made her dog-bed and she can lie in it now!

(Disclaimer: Yes, I’m of Ecuadorian descent and quite proud of them for this.)

Every little squeak helps!
Ecuador expels World Bank rep. Heheheheheheheheheh!

Effigy by Joel. (I think that was his name!)

What did you do on New Year’s Eve? I went upstate, and helped build a bonfire! Then, during the countdown to midnight, we burned effigies of Condi and Rove. We saved President Bush for the stroke of midnight. Here he is waiting his turn: the little snot. And here he is on his way to the bonfire! One more, here, of him burning, in case you can’t watch the video. (Last two pics are from Farley Crawford’s website). All in good fun, mind you!

Click here for the video!
(If the video looks pixelated, click on the arrow on the lower right, and choose “smooth video” or “original size.”)

Happy New Year! May it be better than last year, and still not as good as next year!

PS- HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little brother, Johnny!

^{“Today’s Special: Undigested News” (Image: carolita johnson)}

Someone once accused me of posting “partially-digested newspaper articles,” as if I’d ever presume to do anyone’s digesting for them. There are some articles that need no pre-digesting. All you have to do is look at the headlines one after another, and you’ve got the whole story. I’m just saying hey, look at this:

NYT: Cheney’s Aide Says President Approved Leak.

And this:
WaPo: Bush Authorized Secrets’ Release, Libby Testified

And of course, the inevitable this:
WaPo: Experts say tactic would be legal but unusual

I feel like I’ve just O.D.’d on the news! I don’t think I’ll be able stand having NPR on while I clean house today.

UPDATE: here’s one more from the NYTimes, about how the Bush called the leak he himself authorized “a shameful act” that “helps the enemy.”
The article poses that this may be hard for the President to live down. But he seems to be living it down so far! In fact, the lack of outrage about this in general seems to point to the public simply being fed up. Think he’ll be impeached? I think not. We’re too tired to impeach him now. And that’s probably what he’s counting on.

Bon appetit?

^{[image with comment from worldviews]}

The comic strip Jesus & Mo doesn’t always get a laugh outta me, but sometimes they are so perfectly a propos, so I believe in them. And needless to say, I believe in a couple of cartoon characters’ ability to say what the papers can’t (but oughtta) say, though Le Monde did notice with irony that the ban was signed on the eve of International Woman’s Day: [Jesus & Mo]