Anyway, you can check out both the Ann Ad and the Work Day Ad on Romney's media clips web site (at least until November). And if that isn't bad enough, you can watch Bush make a speech about how great Romney is.
A final note: Romney's ads are intended to make him seem warm and fuzzy, but this guy is a conservative Republican, and no joke. He's against same-sex civil unions ("Call me old-fashioned, but I believe marriage is between a husband and a wife") and somehow imagines that he can cut 1 billion dollars from the state's already strained budget. He is a NASTY DANGEROUS MAN... and that's why I'm going to grit my teeth in pain and vote for centrist Democrat Shannon O'Brien, even though Green Party candidate Jill Stein is a 1,000 times cooler (get this: Stein actuallys CARES about race issues!)
Random fun fact: Did you know Romney was named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World? I have to wonder what the editors were smoking... * }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "inconceivable.gif", "description" => "Inconceivable!", "date" => "9/30/02", "alt" => "Inconceivable!", "caption" => qq*Seems like a more sensible way of providing prenatal care would be... to provide prenatal care! See Ellen Goodman's column on the subject. * }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "bitterpill.gif", "description" => "Bitter Pill", "date" => "9/26/02", "alt" => "Bitter Pill", "caption" => qq*My first cartoon for the Boston Phoenix!* }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "silber.gif", "description" => "Back to School with John Silber", "date" => "9/17/02", "alt" => "Back to School", "caption" => qq*For those of you who don't know, John Silber has been working his evil ways on education in Massachusetts for years. He's been chancellor of BU, head of the Mass Dept. of Education, Democratic candidate for governor, and now he's been reappointed chancellor at BU.
One of the first things he did with his regained power this year was to order BU Academy (a high school affiliated with BU) to disband its gay-straight alliance. His explanation? Gay/straight alliances encourage sex, and sex education doesn't belong in high school any more than Jon Benet Ramsey belonged in a bikini. As he explained to the Boston Globe: "Look at that little girl out there in Denver that got killed - all dressed up like a whore when she was 5 years old."
But wait, there's more. Silber has also declared that the high ratio of women to men at BU (60% women) makes it impossible for men to learn, what with their raging hormones... so he's determined to reduce the percentage of women to at most 55%. Nice guy. * }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "cambodia.gif", "description" => "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor... (sort of)", "date" => "8/6/02", "alt" => "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor... (sort of)", "caption" => qq*Wow, my first cartoon in two months. For more information, see the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center. * }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "grad.gif", "description" => "Momentous Time.", "date" => "6/6/02", "alt" => "Momentous Time.", "caption" => qq*My optimistic contribution to the commencement issue of the Harvard Crimson. The gowns are actually black but I made this one gray so you could see it better.* }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "spin.gif", "description" => "GOP Spin Cycle.", "date" => "5/20/02", "alt" => "GOP Spin Cycle.", "caption" => qq*Round and round and round it goes...* }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "mcas.gif", "description" => "Is the Class Half Full or Half Empty?", "date" => "4/29/02", "alt" => "Is the Class Half Full or Half Empty?", "caption" => qq*Go, Cambridge! This cartoon was printed on Monday rather than Wednesday to coincide with a Crimson editorial. For more on the MCAS, please see this blog post and this one.
And just FYI, the first part of that headline (76 percent of Class of 2003 pass MCAS) is from a real Department of Education press release; the rest of the headlines are made up.* }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "larry.gif", "description" => "Leadership Lessons With Larry.", "date" => "4/24/02", "alt" => "Leadership Lessons With Larry", "caption" => qq*I should note that Summers denies he ever made the comment in the second panel, which was reported by the students who brought the Latino Studies petition to him. For more on the issue, please see my blog. * }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "eviction.gif", "description" => "Eviction Notice.", "date" => "4/17/02", "alt" => "Eviction Notice", "caption" => qq~Inspired by the comments of Patricia Williams and others regarding the Supreme Court decision (8-0) that it IS constitutional to throw public housing tenants out on the street if a member of their household or even a vistor/guest was using drugs... whether or not the tenant knew about the drug use, whether or not the drug use occurred on the premises, whether or not the household member had actually been convicted of drug use. This has resulted in more than a few women who lost their homes because their grandsons were smoking pot in parking lots blocks away without their knowledge.~ }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "bush_global.gif", "description" => "Compassionate Conservationism.", "date" => "4/8/02", "alt" => "Compassionate Conservationism", "caption" => qq~Enough said. This cartoon helped me learn how to draw Bush, who is maddeningly average-looking.~ }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "cruel.gif", "description" => "Cruel and Unusual", "date" => "4/1/02", "alt" => "Cruel and Unusual", "caption" => qq~Inspired by an article my friend Marlo sent me about Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who has decided to charge prisoners rent for his inhumanely run jails (known for suicides and riots).
For more information on prison issues, check out this special report from Mother Jones magazine, which includes a state-by-state incarceration atlas comparing how much states spend on education (not too much, generally) with how much they spend on locking people up (a lot, generally).~ }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "name_color.jpg", "description" => "What's in a name?", "date" => "3/18/02", "alt" => "What's in a name?", "caption" => "The (former) school committee member in question is George Kouloheras, who thankfully lost the election in 1999... by 18 votes (3 of which were my parents and me). I find it depressing that it took 40 years of this man's continuous blatant and public racism, sexism and homophobia for voters to decide he wasn't such a great guy after all. And not only is the Lowell High School Library named after him, so is an entire wing of the school." }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "sep11.gif", "description" => "Six Months Since 9/11", "date" => "3/11/02", "alt" => "Six Months Since 9/11", "caption" => "When I realized my cartoon was going to be printed exactly 6 months since September 11th, I felt like I had to say something...
But the second to last panel is incorrect. When I originally did the cartoon I wrote that NONE of the people jailed since 9/11 were charged in connection with the attacks. My editors were skeptical and since I couldn't immediately find an article to prove my claim, I had to change it to VERY FEW. But according to an article in the March 28th issue of the New York Times, Zacarias Moussaoui is still the only one charged in the attacks, and he was already in jail when they occurred." }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "blackhistory.gif", "description" => "History Lessons (on Police Brutality)", "date" => "3/4/02", "alt" => "History Lessons (on Police Brutality)", "caption" => "Inspired by:
(1) The huge sigh of relief that comes from schools across the country when they can finally shove what little they actually teach about black history in a cabinet at the end of February.
(2) The very recently (as in, February 28th) overturned convictions of three of the officers who assisted in the torture of Abner Louima and/or helped to cover it up. One of the men will be retried but the other two are off scot-free and are applying to be reinstated in their jobs (one of them claims he was playing with a puppy outside the bathroom where Louima was being tortured and didn't hear any screams. Yeah, right.) It's also possible that some of the men who murdered Tyisha Miller will have their jobs back. With back pay!
(3) The fact that it has become taboo to even talk about police brutality since 9/11... Why the hell did Giuliani get Time Magazine's Man of the Year? Has everyone forgotten how his policies encouraged racial profiling and police brutality? That the first thing he did after the shooting of Patrick Dorismond was to dig into Dorismond's past to justify his murder? That the men who tortured Louima told him 'It's Giuliani time!'?" }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "cinderella.gif", "description" => "Cinderella and Prince Charming: A Welfare Reform Fairy Tale", "date" => "2/25/02", "alt" => "Cinderella and Prince Charming: A Welfare Reform Fairy Tale", "caption" => "Inspired by the Bush administration's proposal to set aside millions in already meager welfare funding for 'Marriage Promotion' (i.e. pro-marriage advertising and the like), and the same administration's cuts in job training programs. But I should like to point out that it's not just Republicans who are the wicked witches here--it was Mr. Clinton who signed the stupid 'Welfare Reform' Bill in the first place."}); push(@pics, {"fname" => "botox_color.gif", "description" => "Facial Paralysis for Fun & Profit!: Color Version", "date" => "2/11/02", "alt" => "Facial Paralysis for Fun & Profit!: Color Version", "caption" => "By the time you read this, the FDA may already have approved Botox for cosmetic use. I'm not making this up--wealthy women (and men) are paying thousands to have their facial muscles frozen (which makes their wrinkles appear to disappear)... the treatment has to be repeated every 3 months or so, or the face returns to its normal expressive state. Movie directors complain that many actresses are now incapable of... acting! But these are the same directors who only want to hire young smoothfaced anorexic women in the first place... sigh. But in case you ever wondered why news anchors have such an uncanny ability not to smirk or frown even at the most hilarious or serious news items... Botox is why!" }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "bush1.28.02.gif", "description" => "It's a bird, it's a plane... it's SuperBush!", "date" => "2/4/02", "alt" => "It's a bird, it's a plane... it's SuperBush!", "caption" => "Inspired by Bush's recent logic-defying budget proposals." }); push(@pics, {"fname" => "bar051299.gif", "description" => "Exoticism the Barbie Way.", "date" => "5/12/99", "width" => "", "height" => "", "alt" => "Exoticism the Barbie Way", "caption" => "This was inspired by a trip to the Barbie section of some mall toystore, followed by a trip to the Mattel website, where I found hundreds of ethnic Barbies for sale. This cartoon is simpler and more direct than most others I've done and doesn't have as much small print."}); push(@pics, {"fname" => "mod042799.gif", "description" => "The Modesty Craze.", "date" => "4/27/99", "width" => "", "height" => "", "alt" => "The Modesty Craze", "caption" => "This was my reaction to the glut of articles celebrating the publication of the young conservative pundit Wendy Shalit's book A Return to Modesty. I actually do own a Take Back the Night shirt, but it doesn't really fit--I'm wearing it in the cartoon because it was Take Back the Night Week.
Someone wrote an angry letter to The Crimson accusing me of being patronizing towards women who choose to wear modest clothes, and of equating turtlenecks with rape--this was not in any sense my intention. The point was that women should be able to wear whatever they want--whether it be a miniskirt or a full-length fur coat--without being stigmatized. Or something like that."}); push(@pics, {"fname" => "rig042199.gif", "description" => "Do you dare enter the Right-Wing Rhetoric Zone?", "date" => "4/21/99", "width" => "", "height" => "", "alt" => "The Right-Wing Rhetoric Zone", "caption" => qq@ This cartoon is about something that makes me really angry: how much conservatives (especially on the Harvard campus) like to portray themselves as some kind of oppressed minority courageously battling against The Powers that Be (can we say: David Horowitz?). Those Powers, of course, are the legions of politically correct demagogues who are holding the rest of the country hostage to their freakish obsessions with race, gender, sexuality and class.
To give a specific example, Harvard's Republican Club and Jews for Conservative Politics actually had a Conservative Coming Out party where they ate steak and apple pie and complained about how hard it was to be right-wing. As the article reported, "The dinner was a forum for students to openly confess their conservative political viewpoints in a supportive environment." I'm not making this up.
I would like to add that my dad is a huge fan of the old Twilight Zone and knows every episode by heart.@});
