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
July 22, 2012

Once when I was in college, I had a professor (George Meese) invite me to some sort of academic paper-review function. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think the point was a paper that a professor had written. Other professors (who presumably had read the paper) were there to ask the author questions. Well… “questions” only in the grammatical sense that they ended their long-winded statements with a question mark. Mostly it went something like this: The person began talking by introducing him/herself (including full educational credentials), opined about something only marginally related to the topic, embellished said topic with stories of personal triumph, dropped in a word like “pedagogy” or “rubric” to bring the educational crowd back in, and finished it all with a “don’t you agree?” to ensure the answer. It was horrible.

On the way out, Professor Meese asked me what I thought. I told him exactly what I thought. Which is to say, it was BS. He was startled for a second, and I realized he was asking about the actual topic of the review. I started to backpedal (because, frankly, I was so caught up in the meta-properties of the event I really hadn’t thought at all about the topic). He kind of held his hand up to stop me and said, “Wait. What do you mean?” And I said, “Are all “reviews” like that?” He smiled and said something like, “Not all. But too many.” (He was a good teacher — that wasn’t the lesson I came for, but he was pleased I had learned something of value.)

Anyway, that sort of bloviating, “I know it all and you simply don’t have the capacity to understand” behavior is stereotypically associated with those who self-identify as liberals (say, college professors). And it’s annoying as hell. But if Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld taught us anything, it’s that it’s not exclusive to your political ideology. So I intended to call out our state attorney general, Bill Schuette, here. He has taken a pretty hardline against the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare law to the point now of actively circumventing it (and patronizing the citizens of Michigan in the process). If calling him a liberal doesn’t change him, perhaps I will have to draw him in a tweed jacket, smoking a pipe, and driving a Volvo.

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 15, 2012

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 8, 2012

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 1, 2012

This was meant to be a general reflection on Independence Day and our consistent distaste for taxes. But then the Supreme Court decision came down late last week on the Affordable Health Care Act and the whole “taxes” view Chief Justice Roberts took with upholding the mandate portion and, boom!, it’s incredibly topical. Sweet! Sometimes things just work out for totally unintended reasons. Like a single Supreme Court justice making it possible for 40 million Americans to possibly have health insurance…

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
June 24, 2012

I didn’t quite get around to posting last week (I was on vacation, which is the best excuse in the world for not doing stuff you normally do), so now this seems a bit dated. But it all has to do with the brouhaha last month when the GOP leaders in the Michigan House censured a female Democrat legislator for using the word “vagina” in a floor debate. Here’s the link with the back story.

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
June 17, 2012

This scene from Casablanca is something of an old-school editorial cartooning standard (to the point of cliché), and I really, really try to avoid cliché. I also try to avoid old-school because 30 years ago knowledge of Casablanca was regarded as common knowledge — nowadays, I’m sure I absolutely confused a large chunk of readers. (Here’s a clip of what I was vamping on.)

But it was so perfect — from the bald-faced hypocrisy of the opposition to new bridge to Canada to the fact that Governor Snyder’s first name is Rick. But where this all started was me seeing a picture of Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun and thinking he looks a lot like Peter Lorre. (Peter. Peter Lorre. Creepy little guy in all those old movies. Don’t tell me you don’t remember him!…)

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
June 10, 2012

In Michigan, we are generally blessed with a distinct lack of natural disasters. Paraphrasing Garrison Keillor talking about his native Minnesota, other than January and February doing their level best to kill us, we don’t have a lot of worries about Mother Nature. (We know what to expect from January and February….) So it’s a bit extraordinary to have an enormous fire burning in the Upper Peninsula for the past couple of weeks. And because it’s happening in the UP, I’m sure most Michiganders are completely unaware. That’s the subtle social commentary I was going for, anyway. Too subtle? Yeah, probably….

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
June 3, 2012

 Even though I am very much an advocate for keeping an open mind, I will admit to having certain prejudices. For instance, music by punk bands should never be played on “Classic Rock” radio stations — Foghat; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; then The Clash? That’s just wrong.
 
Also, breakfast cereals should never be mixed. Chemical engineers in the manufactured food industry have taken a great deal of time and effort in formulating just the right combinations of food-like materials to create a single cereal. To take the last bits of nearly empty boxes, combine them in a single bowl, and then activate the highly volatile mix with milk — you’re just inviting trouble.
 
And Newt Gingrich should never be elected to be the President of the United States of America. Some people were seriously considering this only a few months ago! I’m not kidding — look it up!

But one maybe slightly unreasonable prejudice that I can’t seem to shake is that I believe professional ice hockey teams from the southern United Sates should not be successful. They have sun and pleasant winters and no Canadian coins mixed in with their loose change. How could they possibly have the proper appreciation for a good hockey team? They can’t! They don’t! And that’s why it’s unsettling to see the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup finals. But I know this is my problem that I just have to work through it. Maybe next year it will be something like Detroit vs. Montreal and the world will make sense again….

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
May 26, 2012

All three of my kids had Jan Burlowski for their second grade teacher at East Elementary in Grandville. What a wonderful teacher! A kind, caring, and giving person with an obvious natural rapport with children and a dedicated work ethic for teaching them. (Editor Note: The drawing here looks nothing like Mrs. Burlowski — I was going for a more stereotypical “school marm” look.) In fact, my kids have had a lot of wonderful teachers in their public school education. For my family, it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience and — if you want to talk strictly financial terms — a huge return on investment.

So it is somewhat counterintuitive for me to see teacher pay and benefits chipped away under the guise of “their failure.” Yes, I know that some public schools are not run nearly as well as Grandville’s and difficult decisions need to be made, but that does not mean the entire system is broken. And it does not make it right to demonize all teachers so it’s easier to break promises to meet budget goals.

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
May 20, 2012

And then sometimes the target of my editorial cartoon — the individual I set in my sights to flay, to eviscerate, to impale upon my razor pen is …me. (I buy a lot of stuff online….)