Hmmm. Probably should have posted this before I went, but I have been away on a desert island celebrating my little sister’s wedding for the past eight days. I am now sitting in my office, rudely awakened, and trying desperately to remember how to draw a straight line. (Check in tomorrow to see how I managed…)

(Sigh.) Don’t you detest the first day back at work, trying to fire up the grey cells after a lazy family vacation?

Our fair City of Yonkers pays lots and lots of overtime to its Police officers. Many made well over $200,000 in 2007 – Top pay was $253,000 (and to be fair there was a parks dept. “painter” in there who took home $157,000!) I don’t blame the cops – I’d be racking up lucrative overtime if I were them too. But the city should be a more prudent manager of its affairs so as to avoid the tens of millions it throws away on time-and-a-half pay – Especially a city which derives its tax funding primarily from citizens who themselves live on far less.

I was working on a local cartoon for much of Friday about The Tappan Zee Bridge (which, for the uninitiated, is a past-it’s-sell-by-date bridge that crosses a spectacular gorge in the Hudson River a few miles north of NYC.) In the early hours of a recent morning an inebriated young woman actually managed to drive a considerable distance – including the entire three or so miles of the span of the TZ Bridge – the wrong way. Miraculously she hurt no-one. The task force that is unenviably charged with coming up with a plan that will please all (in this neck of the woods? good luck..) for a replacement for the bridge just issued another statement that they need more time.
So I was working on an image of them going “the wrong way” on the TZ. Sounds simple, right? Except somewhere along the way I realized that the task force was right to delay their recommendations, as they were taking into account the newfound need for a commuter rail. I didn’t think it was a fair analogy and I shelved the cartoon. So, you can see that I do have a conscience (that is, if you ignore the cartoon above – that I went with at 4:30 PM on Friday…)

Despite the overt cynicism displayed in today’s cartoon, I think the Democrats will quickly rally around Obama, once they realize that the things they were fighting over (ie: who they “like” better) were silly in comparison with the real issues (which they all agree on) that are at stake in November.

Also, I think we can all agree (on all points of the political and ideological spectrum) that the nomination of a black man as a major party’s candidate for President of the United States is a proud and significant moment in our History.