Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 30, 2008

Michigan has been described as the Saudi Arabia of fresh water. Now Michigan and the rest of the states and providences that share the Great Lakes are taking positive steps toward limiting the shipping of water from the region. Read about the details. I guess that would make it the OPEC of fresh water. Can’t wait for the time when Presidents of the United States drop by to grovel….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 23, 2008

For a handful of Grand Rapids Business Journal readers, this cartoon was very, very funny. I sure hope they read it….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 16, 2008

Michigan recently pushed through a large incentive package to attract work from the film industry and apparently it is seeing some success. I don’t have any sort of idea of the cost/benefit ratio of the deal, but I do find it amusing when people who otherwise preach the gospel of small and limited government lose their religion when a movie crew shows up in their town….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 9, 2008

Man, the Red Wings were fun to watch this year! Great team. Great players. Great organization. Obviously we need more Swedes in charge of things here in Michigan….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 2, 2008

So Ellie and I were at the Grand Rapids Art Museum on Friday. It’s the new one smack dab in the center of downtown. Very impressive facility. We happened to catch an Andy Warhol exhibit. I’m not a Warhol fan. It’s not so much his art as his packaging. As I explained to El, looking at Warhol’s work, I can’t help but to smell the smell of hundreds of cocaine-addled hangers on, talentless themselves but ever effusive in their praise of Warhol and Liza and Bianca and the latest goings on at Studio 54. Kinda gives me a headache. And while that might not seem entirely fair, consider that there was no Warhol art without the Warhol packaging. That’s what he intended.

But in looking at Warhol’s pop art and the other pieces of modern art, one of the things that struck me was their simplicity. I’ve got to think that part of the basic appeal is that the artists haven’t bothered to complicate their pieces. In a world where banning public smoking can quickly spiral into a massive piece of legislation and tax structures are so confusing they are like trying to understand your (gulp!) cell phone billing statement, simple is a relief, a refuge, a refreshment. And just because you can say “well I could have done that!” the appeal is the same.

I could write law that is no longer than a sentence: “There shall be no smoking in public places in Michigan.” But getting something that simple through the legistative process would be a work of art….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 26, 2008

Full disclosure: I can explore the geo-political causes, pontificate on environmental trade-offs, examine the macroeconomic ramifications — but when it comes right down to it, my basic thought on the issue is this: Paying $40 to fill up my little Ford Escort is seriously effed up….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 19, 2008

As it happens, John Edwards came to a Barack Obama rally in downtown Grand Rapids to announce his endorsement of Candidate Obama. It was a big, big deal …for maybe a day or two and then on to the next news cycle. That’s the way it is. Nobody really cares anymore. I mean, honestly, right now, two weeks later, do you care what John Edwards thinks? So I had to come up with a comic that could live beyond a 24-hour expiration date.

Fortunately for me, racism and homophobia have a shelf life measured by carbon dating. (Just goes to prove that editorial cartoonists sometimes have a very twisted view of what “fortunate” is.) And while it is true that West Michigan has historically been inhospitable territory for the Democratic Party, the current Republican Party has screwed up conservatism so badly in this century that this might not be recognized as true come the fall elections. So I was compelled to trot out this generally held belief before it gets taken away from me.

Gotta run. Lots of work to do before the Pistons game tonight. I hate the Boston Celtics. At least I’ll always have that….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 12, 2008

Enough words already in this week’s comic. No need to add more here. Anyway, it’s about the sad state of Michigan economics. We all — sigh — know the drill….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 5, 2008

At certain points in my life I’ve been absolutely positive that I would never like girls, eat a tomato, or carry a cell phone. I’ve been convinced that the NBA would never let the Detroit Pistons beat their precious Celtics and Lakers to win a championship. I’ve thought a Democrat would never be elected President (think Mondale/Dukakis years). I truly believed the band Wild Cherry had something going with that “Play That Funky Music” hit and were really going places. I thought Three’s Company to be a better quality show than M*A*S*H (although, in my defense, it was the later years of M*A*S*H and I had gotten over the idea of never liking girls — or at least their jiggly parts). And I was without doubt that I was lookin’ tasty when I went off to an 8th grade dance at Holy Redeemer in a silk shirt, platform shoes, and polyester slacks pulled tight with an extra wide belt to my barely 20-inch waist. I could go on. But the common thread here is that I stated these beliefs publicly, and I was wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

For a different kind of wrong (let’s call this one “tragically”), this week’s comic was timed to the five year anniversary of President Bush’s infamous landing and speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln under the “Mission Accomplished” banner. As much as the administration has tried to weasil out the intentions of the banner (“We intended it only to mean this particular ship’s mission.” Riiiight.), it was clear it meant, “this Iraq thing is over, let’s throw an oil party.”

Similarly, our Michigan state government thought it had solved our business tax issue last fall when it killed the hated Single Business Tax and then scrambled with unnecessary haste because of political brinksmanship to come up with the Michigan Business Tax. Done! And there was much rejoicing. But wait, as taxes came due this year, some business’s taxes went up. Government officials were shocked, shocked! and proceeded to promise hearings to look into the matter …and there has been no more talk of having the issue solved.

Well this has been very therapeutic. I don’t feel nearly as embarrassed about myself — except for the cell phone thing. What certitudes have you proclaimed and later regretted?…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 28, 2008

As you can see from the first panel, I think there are much better ways to help our economy in the long-term than sending us all welfare checks. As you can see in the second panel, I am as susceptible as any other American consumer to the siren call of flat-panel television technology. Not that we’ve bought one, but I am keenly aware of how to get one…..

Oh, and in the “do something long enough and you start repeating yourself category,” I submit the comic below. I knew I had done a government welfare check comic before. It was published in May of 2001. As you may recall, the government was sending us deficit money back then, too, and encouraging us to buy something — ANYTHING!!! It struck me that that might be a tough sell to the notoriously thrifty Dutch descendents who populate West Michigan: