Auchtoon!

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 29, 2015

Now is probably a good time to remind readers: I don’t draw editorial cartoons intending to change opinions; I draw them to provoke thought.

Cartoons (good ones, anyway) are much more about throwing a chunk of raw meat into the wolf den than they are about trying to herd the whole pack to a specific destination. Besides, recent articles on MLive regarding gun deaths have demonstrated that opinions are pretty well entrenched. But I do think it’s worth considering the notion that the number of gun deaths is unacceptably high in Michigan and the rest of the United States.

So … what can be done? What exactly, I don’t pretend to know. But somewhere between the naive desire to pass a magic law that makes all bad guns disappear and the creepy desire of the gun lobby to load up every man, woman and child with multiple firearms, there must be solutions to reduce those deaths. It is a legitimate public health concern.

As a state and as a nation, we need more gun-related homicides, suicides and accidents like we need, well, like we need a collective hole in the head.

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 22, 2015

 I’m a bit late getting to this one. I was on vacation when the Courser/Gamrat scandal broke, so I felt I needed find a different angle. A lot has already been said, but the irony of two family-values tea partiers behaving in a manner typically associated with corrupt political-machine bosses has been largely untapped. I couldn’t let that go by. That’s editorial cartooning gold, baby!

Still, I was honestly hoping to find a more positive takeaway from all this. I tried to figure out a way to juxtapose Courser and Gamrat with genuine, selfless public service. If they win the Kilpatrick, who gets the Bing? That would be Dave Bing, the Detroit Pistons star who after his basketball career became a successful entrepreneur and business leader in Michigan.

At the point of comfortable retirement and with a well-earned reputation, Bing sought and got the most difficult job imaginable: mayor of Detroit in the depths of the Great Recession after the city had been bled dry. He made unpopular but necessary decisions with limited power while navigating the uncharted waters of big city bankruptcy. That, my friends, is public service. I don’t expect Courser and Gamrat to be up for a Bing any time soon.

On a personal note, I would like to mention the passing of Richard “Dick” Daly on Tuesday, August 18. Dick was an exceptional public servant in the Flint community, dedicating his professional career to providing positive growth opportunities for citizens of the Flint area, most notably with his work in developing the Flint Olympian and CANUSA Games. Again, that is public service.

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 15, 2015

I’ve done a few of these “public service reminders.” Here are links to a couple more:

• Important Public Service Reminder.
• The Lane is Going to End!

Not exactly hard-hitting editorial commentary, but they do tend to elicit strong emotions. And anyway it helps me channel my road rage.

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 8, 2015

 Here are three other pieces of dialogue I considered for Panel 4:

• “What’s this Planned Parenthood thing all about?”
• “What do you guys think about Obama’s new emission controls?”
• “How ’bout those Tigers?”

In the end, I felt talking about an election that is 15 months away fits best the definition of “needless distraction.” It’s certainly the least controversial — especially the Tigers topic. I mean, what the heck happened there? The season had such potential, such promise. Then a few injuries, the bullpen never gels, inconsistent offense — boom! It all implodes. They trade away their ace, their closer, an all-star left fielder. Now Dombrowski is gone. And… wait… sorry….

Back to the original point: It’s summertime and the living’s easy. It’s our best hope to recharge. And February will be here soon enough.

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 2, 2015

Also posted online at MLive.com, August 1, 2015

So that’s my prediction: Within 30 years the United States will have a national health care system. Now you can debate how it will be paid for; you can debate what will be covered; you can even debate how the status of your citizenship will or will not qualify you. (Oh, and those debates will rage!) But there will be single, federal system.

It will not be like Great Britain’s, because we won’t tolerate waiting in line for ice cream, let alone important medical services. It won’t be like Germany’s, because as the ACA has demonstrated, we don’t have the capacity to follow complicated rules. It won’t be like Canada’s, because everything would be fair and even, and we hate it when there is no clear winner. No, it will be something uniquely American. My guess is that it will be designed by Republicans — probably with vouchers, along the lines of what Paul Ryan has proposed for Medicare. But when a Democratic president implements it, the Republicans will call it socialism and undermine it by naming it “Chelsea-care.”

The one thing I do know is that your employment situation will no longer have anything to do with your health insurance. Why? Our current system is a historical anomaly. After World War II, companies started granting medical insurance to employees to attract workers. It was more cost-effective than raising salaries, and soon the government began to grant tax breaks to support it. It snowballed, and after a generation or two, we came to expect it.

But it has turned out to be grossly inefficient, and nobody really likes it. Take the tax breaks away, and employers will gladly give up having to administer health coverage. Private employers will be especially glad not having to make moral decisions such as whether to provide benefits for gay spouses. We will look back and think, “Wow, that old system was really dumb; I’m so glad we came to our senses.”

Of course if we go ahead and let Emperor Trump come to power, all bets are off.