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
January 27, 2013

Last week in Michigan we had our first real taste of winter with sub-zero temps and a couple of nasty snowstorms. And with it came the usual jokes about how the world scientific community has it all wrong and the idea of global climate change is a bunch of hooey. (As if the world scientific community has some sort of motivation — and ability — to conspire to make this stuff up.)

Now I don’t want to get on my high horse about this. Well… maybe I want to, but I can’t. How can I when I got on my high John Deere tractor and belched carbon into the sky as I removed snow from neighborhood driveways? But I can say that I don’t think we should summarily dismiss the idea of man-made weather change based on a week’s weather. And to be fair, I won’t say anything about the mid-winter thunderstorm that kept me awake half of last night….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
January 20, 2013

No real controversy here — the Detroit Auto Show looks to be a big success this year and the roads to get there are awful. That’s just the way it is. But look for some good fights in the coming months as the governor and state legislators figure out what to do about it. Turns out it takes money to fix roads….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
January 13, 2013

Justin Amash is a congressional representative from West Michigan. He is, from what I can tell anyway, an earnest person who takes his job seriously. But then he also tends to take these ideological stands (such as voting no on funding federal flood insurance), which seems less what a thoughtful, practical Midwesterner would do and more what a self-involved, purist from the Deep South would do.

Diane Hathaway was until very recently a Supreme Court Justice in Michigan. She resigned before she got kicked off for lying and doing stupid things. She’s a Democrat and our Republican governor will likely replace her with a Republican. Some are more upset by the prospect a new Republican justice than an existing Democrat who lies and does stupid things.

Michigan recently passed legislation to create tighter oversight of abortion clinics. Ostensibly, this was done to protect women. Practically, it was done to limit abortions. In any case, I heard more than one quote to the effect of “if just one life is saved, it’s worth it.” Could we not apply this same standard to sensible gun policies?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
January 6, 2013

A traditional editorial cartoon this week. I do these on purpose occasionally because I think certain readers expect them. That is, they want an editorial cartoon to look like an editorial cartoon — short on words, big on symbols, a label or two to help it along. I think it gets the point across: Governor Snyder is going to try to press forward with his whole relentless positivity schtick in the coming legislative session, but the last session pretty much poisoned the water hole. (Actually, Tim Skublick’s article on Sunday did a great job of summarizing this. And if you want a taste of the poison, read the comments.) But my concern in doing these traditional editorial cartoons is the potential confusion it might cause other readers, particularly young readers. Do they have any idea what the whole donkey and elephant thing is all about? Why are they dressed like that? And who’s “Guv”? Ah, well. At least the butterfly, sunshine, rainbow, and candy are universally recognized as deep sarcasm, right?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 30, 2012

Yep, nothing could go wrong with armed volunteers quickly assembled to stand out in front of every school in America. Nothing could go wrong with scaring people who should not handle guns into feeling like the need to own them. Nothing could go wrong with manufacturers creating new markets for their military grade weapons. Nothing could go wrong with blaming mental health problems and then doing nothing to solve them. Nothing could go wrong with stockpiling guns and ammo in case they might someday become less available. Nothing could go wrong with equating guns for vigilante justice with guns for licensed sports hunting. Nothing could go wrong with selling fear.