Auchtoon!

In other most other states, the end of February brings forth flowering trees, chirping birds, and pleasant temperatures. They call it spring. In Michigan, we recognize an ongoing series of freeze/thaw cycles to be pothole season. Sure, it’s awful, but at the end awaits our glorious summer (and fall), which are generally why we endure the rest.

Anyway, with a land war now fully underway in Europe, I thought I’d try to keep it on the lighter side this week.

Every day before work, my wife makes for me a fruit bowl that I have as my mid-morning snack. The contents vary but can include blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, kiwi, green grapes, red grapes, cherries, grapefruit, oranges, and apples. Yes, I know — clearly I am spoiled. But on so many levels!

First and foremost, having a loving spouse who cares enough to select, purchase, and assemble the fruit bowls. (And not include mango because, ewww, mango.) But also because here I am living a middle-class life in the upper-midwest where only a few generations ago my only option for fresh produce in February would have been a withered turnip that had been harvested just before the ground froze.

Now I get a selection of all these sweet, delicious fruits! Sure, they may not all be up to the heavenly standards of a local in-season harvest. But for having made the trip from Mexico and South America (and New Zealand!), they are pretty dang good.

I saw an article this week about how inflationary prices finally hitting fresh produce after largely sparing that segment until now. Among the many reasons why — the minimum wage in Mexico has doubled in the past four years, and that cost has finally worked its way through to the end consumer. I’m embarrassed to say that my first thought was, “But I don’t want to pay more for my winter blueberries!”

I say embarrassed because my ideology is more about having empathy for those Mexican farmers and how higher wages benefit them (and make it much less likely that they would need to leave their homes). But just like with a guy who supports the Canadian trucker protest until his new vehicle is delayed, ideology can go quickly out the window when it effects you personally.

Garrett Soldano is a Republican candidate for governor of Michigan. He was recently on a podcast expressing his thoughts regarding women, rape, pregnancy, and adoption in the context of some of his personal experiences. A clip was tweeted by Heartland Signal this week, and it quickly went viral.

It’s fairly obvious why it did go viral — there were a ton of tripwire issues packed into what Soldano said. It would be difficult for anybody not to have an emotional response. I didn’t want to add fuel to that fire, but there was one point I took issue with.

Some seem to feel that Soldano has been unfairly attacked for expressing his opinion. If he were just an ordinary citizen, I might agree. But he’s not. He’s running for governor. And as a candidate running for public office, his opinions inform voters of his intentions. In this case, the intention seems clear — make abortion, even for rape victims, illegal. 

His freely expressed opinion quickly became a thinly veiled threat.

It is, of course, quite an understatement to say that the automotive industry is not what it once was in Michigan. But it still has an oversized influence on both our economy and our identity.

I was listening to an episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. Documentary filmmaker, author, and activist Michael Moore was the guest. Say what you will about Moore, but he is undeniably a Michigander. Shepard was also born and raised here (as well as his wife, Kristen Bell), so a lot of the episode was very inside baseball. I don’t know how enjoyable it was for somebody not from Michigan, but I thought it was great — GM proving grounds, Kellogg’s, St Andrews Hall, Huntington Woods — yeah, I know what you’re talking about. 

So when I saw the news this week about the General Motors plan to invest $7 billion in Michigan (with Ford having announced a couple months ago their intentions to invest in Tennessee and Kentucky), I was inspired. Only somebody from Michigan would truly understand the GM/Ford rivalry. Again, not what it once was, but it is in our Michigander DNA.

And, sure, GM isn’t necessarily more loyal to our state than Ford — both are big businesses most heavily influenced by where the tax breaks and government incentives are plentiful. But it was good news about automotive jobs, which (like a summer day on a lake UpNorth) just naturally makes us feel good.

This story about apparel company, Carhartt, wasn’t necessarily big news this week, but it’s the one my brain found interesting. So, yeah, I apologize for my characters needing to explain it in the cartoon. I spent considerable time trying to interest myself in something that would be more snackable, but, you know how it is with brains sometimes.

I came across the story in the Washington Post. (It’s behind a paywall, but I’m sure you can search for it elsewhere.) What hooked me was a teaser headline with “Michigan-based company” in it. But as I read on, I found myself doing exactly what the guy in cartoon is doing — looking for a good guy, looking for a bad guy, trying to fit the story into a familiar narrative.

Is Carhartt a hero for looking after the health and safety of its workers and insisting on COVID-19 vaccinations? Or a villain for not accommodating all of its workers? Am I annoyed with conservative media for turning so quickly on a company that makes products championed by its demographic? Does it matter that the workers protesting at its plants in Kentucky are unionized? And so on.

Eventually it occurred to me — I wasn’t learning anything, I was only processing. It was simply information — a well-written news story with the facts and context, and it wasn’t intended to be pro-this or anti-that. 

Anyway, it made me take a beat to consider: Maybe I should try understanding the whole story before trying to figure out who I’m supposed to hate. (And maybe that second part isn’t necessary.) 

My daughter is going back to school with the intention of becoming a counselor/therapist, specifically for teens and young women. She is smart, perceptive, and deeply empathetic, so I have no doubt she will be wonderful at it. I also have no doubt that she will be needed. (Actually, my only concern is that it will be overwhelming.)

The pandemic by itself has heaped an immense amount of pain and trauma on children. The behavior of many adults continues to compound it. From everyday rude treatment of service and healthcare workers to going ballistic at a school board meeting, children are watching and learning all of the time.

Some of this cannot be helped. Stressed people act out, and as it turns out, an ongoing worldwide viral infection generates a tremendous amount of stress. We’ve had two years to understand this. So now would be a good time for adults to consider what we can do to take care of our own mental health — both for our own good and for my daughter’s future workload.

I’ve been reading a book called “Bad Days in History” by Michael Farquhar. It’s sort of a devotional with “a gleefully grim chronicle of misfortune, mayhem, and misery for every day of the year.” It was published in 2015, so it obviously doesn’t include January 6, 2021, but it definitely should if there ever is a next edition.

I did, however, find an entry with rough parallels. January 6th was not the first time our country has had to deal with that sort of extreme nationalistic behavior. Perhaps we can find some solace in that:

The magnificent stone obelisk that is the Washington Monument today was still just a stump in 1854. And thanks to the actions of a group of anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant political agitators called the American party, or “Know-Nothings,” it remained that way for more than two decades.

The trouble began when Pope Pius IX donated a black marble stone for the memorial, one taken from the ruins of the temple of Concord in the Roman Forum. Though many other states and organizations had also given inscribed slabs to the construction effort, the Know-Nothings saw the papal gift as a loathsome declaration of the Vatican’s intent to control the United States through the mass influx of Catholic immigrants.

Outraged by the Holy Father’s supposed insult, a band of Know-Nothing Party thugs appeared at the construction site during the late hours of March 5, 1854, overpowered the guard, and snatched away the Vatican stone. Not content with this brazen act of thievery, the Know-Nothings next seized control of the Washington National Monument Society through a rigged election and took over construction. They didn’t get very far, though — installing only a few layers of inferior marble (which later had to be replaced) before an appalled Congress stopped funding the project altogether.

It was not until 1877, with the Know-Nothings having long since dissipated, that the work on the Washington Monument resumed. It was finally completed in 1884, and stands as the tallest freestanding stone structure in the world. Evidence of the Know-Nothings legacy is still clearly visible, however: The exterior of the obelisk is of two distinct shades of marble. The stone used in the first stage of construction was unavailable when the job was resumed so many years later.

I wish all you readers a happy holiday season and a blessed new year. (What do you say we give this common good thing a try in 2022?)

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” contains so many all-time best comedic scenes — the Black Knight (“Just a flesh wound.”), the Coconut Debate (“An African or European swallow?”), the Killer Rabbit (“And we’d better not risk another frontal assault — that rabbit’s dynamite!”). One of the most overlooked (and under appreciated, in my opinion) is the Guarding the Room scene.

If you don’t remember, here it is:

It wasn’t until I had completed this week’s cartoon that I realized how closely it tracks with that scene. It seems the one consistent thing that Michigan citizens asked of the newly formed commission to determine Michigan congressional districts was transparency. And yet, here we are with several news organizations suing the commission because of their secret memos and closed-door meetings. The Michigan Supreme Court could possibly make a ruling on this by the time this is published.

Of course, if you look closer, there are reasons for this — relatively standard “we are in a position of power and our lawyers advise us to not tell you everything” sorts of reasons. So, I’m not feeling all high and mighty for calling them out. (And neither should Governor Whitmer and the state legislature, considering their own issues with similar shenanigans, such as stonewalling freedom of information requests.) But it is ridiculous. Not as funny as Monty Python, but nearly as ridiculous.

Let’s be honest, it wasn’t easy or comfortable or even appealing (as strange as that may sound now) when laws were passed and enforced to prevent people from smoking in public areas. The pushback was enormous — can you imagine a bar where people weren’t allowed smoke? Are you kidding me?! Or on airplanes when smokers are super-stressed and need a cigarette to calm their nerves? It’ll never happen.

And yet, it did. There was overwhelming evidence that these measures would save lives and reduce injuries. It was a national health concern. So it was the responsible thing to do to pass laws and enforce the laws even though it was difficult.

Now I am absolutely not saying that it is the exact same situation with guns and gun violence in America. But in the context of health and safety, it is quite similar. There are deaths and burdensome costs that we as a country endure year after year because of the inertia of the status quo. And seemingly there is nothing we can do about it.

But there is. We can enforce existing laws to remove firearms from homes with reports of domestic violence. We can augment existing laws to ensure that all legal guns are registered. And we can certainly pass new laws to ensure that adults are held responsible when guns they own find their way into the hands of minors. And we’ll look back in a few years and say, yep, that wasn’t easy, but it was sure worth it.