Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 15, 2013

So a professor at Michigan State University, William Penn, went off on a rant in a class he was teaching. Apparently Professor Penn has some very specific opinions about Republicans and felt compelled to share them in his Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities class (re: not actually the topic). We know this because one of the students took a video and posted it. Trouble ensued. Click here for the complete  story.

I had a metallurgy professor in college who would occasionally take five minutes during a lecture to tell us a story that had nothing to do with metallurgy. He’d share his thoughts about this or that or tell us a story about growing up on a farm. It was wonderful. So I’m not fundamentally opposed to the off-topic aside. But I have also been trapped in rooms where people feel entitled to tell you exactly what they think and do so because, well, they can. That, too, happened to me in college. But it didn’t stop happening there. (Cue Dilbert.)

So I’m sure that it sucked having to listen to Professor Penn go on and on, but it was in fact a pretty good life lesson. And I would give the  student who thought to record and share the rant an “A” for doing something about it.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 8, 2013

When you’re from Flint, one of the most annoying things somebody not from Flint can say to you is, “You never should have become so dependent on the auto industry.” Well, yes, in hindsight, smartypants, that may be right. But when the town was booming (and it was booming for decades) it was awfully hard to say “thanks, but no thanks” to well-paying jobs and a sturdy tax base. Think about it — how many people, let alone communities, have the foresight to turn down good money in the short term because at some undetermined point in the future it could possibly go away? Yeah, not many.

And so here we go again. Car sales in August were through the roof. The industry is on pace to make and sell nearly as many cars in North America as it did before the Great Recession. And even though all the jobs will never come back, Michigan is certainly benefiting. We still design, engineer, and build cars here. We’re doing what we do and making money doing it. So it’s okay if you’re from here to poke a little fun at our willful blindness in the good times. For those not from here, you can shut the #&@* up. (But keep buying those cars.)

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 1, 2013

Last week I was reading the “On This Day…” section of Wikipedia about the Pennsylvania oil rush. On August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake successfully struck oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. As the article noted, crude oil had begun to be used as an alternative to whale oil as a lighting source for lamps and inventors and scientists began to test oil for other possible uses, including energy. So finding a plentiful source was a big deal. The problem was that Titusville was (and still is) in a fairly remote part of northwest Pennsylvania. The oil needed to be transported to a population center. Here’s the part that struck me:

In the first years of the oil rush, high overland shipping costs drove many well owners to float their product down Oil Creek to the Allegheny River as lumber producers did.[3] For decades, logs had been transported using man-made floods, known as pond freshets, created by successively breaking milldams along the length of the river. These freshets could carry up to 800 skiffs filled with crude oil downstream at once. Most skiffs held between 700 and 800 barrels (110 and 130 m3) of oil, but one third of that leaked out of the skiffs before they were even launched and another third was lost by the time the skiffs reached Pittsburgh. Furthermore, only three in five of the flimsy vessels survived the trip down river without being destroyed by collisions with rocks, fallen trees, or other skiffs.

Eventually pipelines and railroads were built to transport the oil more safely and reliably. But, dang, they floated petroleum on leaky skiffs down a river! Why? Because it made economic sense at the time and (here’s the part that inspired this week’s cartoon), there was no regulation!

Now I’m not such a hypocrite as I sit in my temperature-controlled office with my electric lights typing on my computer before I get in my gasoline-powered car to drive to work to say there should be no mining or drilling. Let’s face it, we’re still highly dependent on carbon-based energy and will be for some time. (Obviously a return to whale oil is not a strong option.) But let’s go about it sensibly. And let’s at least acknowledge that the same human wisdom and natural desire to maximize profits that led us to set giant tubs of crude oil to sail down a river is the same that will tend us toward unwise decisions today. So some amount of regulation, some amount of “hey, let’s think this thing through about transporting and processing tar sands oil” would be a good idea.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 25, 2013

Are you in college, planning to go to college, have kids in college, planning to have kids in college, or ever felt uneasy about paying a great deal of money for something? Then this cartoon needs no explanation. But if you need a hint:

The average tuition cost at a four-year public college has increased by more than 250% over the past three decades, according to the White House. Meanwhile, incomes for typical families grew by 16%.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 18, 2013

Sorry, not much time to add context this week. Getting kids ready for school! Here’s a link with a bit of backstory on the cartoon and the debate about common core standards.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 11, 2013

As a former fast-food worker who did find something better, I feel justified in using this old pet peeve: perfectly capable people on perfectly lovely days idling away in the drive-thru line. It may also have something to do with the fact that I could never hear clearly what people were saying over the lousy speaker system, so I would get their order screwed up.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 4, 2013

Dear Michigan,
Yes, Detroit is a mess. It has been for a long time. There are lots and lots of reasons why, and lots and lots of people to blame. We all know this. So, honestly, at this point, we gain no advantage by purging our bile every time the subject comes up. In fact, it may be causing more harm than good. Outside our borders, Detroit and Michigan are largely the same. Okay?

Sincerely,
Michigan

P.S. That Coleman Young sure was an a-hole, huh? Okay, now that’s really it.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 28, 2013

I got a bunch of comments back on this one. There were a range of points that readers wanted to make, but the consensus seemed to be “what’s the matter with you” and “you’re not funny.” My short reply is: “lots” and “oftentimes, yes.”

The slightly longer reply is “I think there’s an uncomfortable inconsistency when the law prevents retirement money from being stolen from old ladies on the streets but allows it through the courts” and “I really wasn’t trying to be funny.”

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 21, 2013

And then sometimes it just feels right to vent about personal (although I’m sure shared) experiences….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 14, 2013

Last week, a West Michigan lawmaker proposed legislation for a 2014 ballot proposal to eliminate state income tax. You can click here for the particulars, but it really doesn’t get more thought-out than what I wrote. This sort of deep cynicism can only be met with even deeper sarcasm.