Auchtoon!

Whether you were delighted with the politics of 2017 or devastated, we can all look forward to expressing ourselves in 2018. An informed and engaged electorate is the catalyst that makes this grand American experiment work. Thank you for reading — Happy New Year!

Sorry. I tried to come up with a positive, hopeful holiday message. But as was often the case in 2017, cold, harsh reality won out. It’s a shame, because truly, this is the one time of year where a cynical editorial cartoonist gets a pass at being openly optimistic. Not so much after this week, this month, this year…

But you know, now that I think about it, maybe I am being hopeful. The messaging in Christmas stories would seem to be pretty straightforward: good prevails over evil, kindness over meanness, love over hate. Thus, the Grinch heart grows two sizes that day. Scrooge keeps Christmas in his heart all year long. The Peanuts gang rallies around good ol’ Charlie Brown and his poor little tree. I mean, I’m not making this up, right? These are arguably the intended lessons to be learned.

And yet, in this new bizarro world, the lessons are clearly not learned. All that time and energy spent trying to teach people to be good, kind, decent — well, that’s out the window. It doesn’t seem to matter. It’s all about self-interest and winning and doubling-down regardless.

So maybe, maybe drawing the opposite of what we should be striving for will help to get us back on track. Or maybe it’s the end of the year, and I’m just very, very tired.

When I was a 20 year-old college student, I got a summer intern job at a GM foundry in Saginaw. I was a second shift supervisor. For the three months I was there I had various assignments and was responsible for anywhere between 8 and 16 workers. It was this type of job: Thankful for having the experience, thankful for never having it again.

Already the cards were stacked against me: I was a skinny kid with very little experience. Because of seniority rules, everybody was at least a dozen years older than me. Training for the job was pretty much “sink or swim.” But my biggest problem was that I really didn’t have much to do. After I got jobs set up and time sheets squared away, I basically just had to wait for something, anything, to happen.

After I figured out what some of the rules were, I noticed that a few workers would occasionally break them. I’d ask them not to do that. Some would say OK. Some would yell at me. (It wasn’t any fun, but at least a little bit interesting.) A very few would go right ahead and continue breaking the rules. I was told I needed to “write them up.” My boss or fellow supervisors didn’t bother to tell me exactly how this worked, so I did the best I could.

Eventually I made it to the shop steward to introduce myself and tell him my intention. He looked me over, gave an annoyed sigh, and said, “Fine.” He motioned me to follow him back to his office. On the way we passed a chalkboard where one of the testers who had a radio would write the score and current inning of the Tigers game. When we got to his office, I started talking about Detroit baseball and his mood brightened considerably.

We discussed many things Tigers, but settled on Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker and what a joy they were to watch. He appreciated Trammell’s steadiness and efficiency. I marveled at how Whitaker could go deep in the hole at second to backhand a grounder then smoothly spin and flick the ball to first to beat the runner by a half-step. Then he explained to me that my efforts to write up anybody were really pointless and that I should be careful in challenging him. But if I felt it necessary, he’d help me with the paperwork.

So, yeah, I’m thrilled that Jack Morris and Alan Trammell are going to the Hall. I’m disappointed that Whitaker isn’t (at least so far). But mostly I am happy to have learned at an early age that being on opposite sides of an issue doesn’t mean it has to be unpleasant.

Credit where credit is due. The punchline came from a friend. We were talking over lunch trying to reconcile the events of the past week: The Republican/Trump tax bill, the Alabama Senate race, travel-ban decisions, North Korean missiles, the Mueller investigation, and so on.

There is just so much to process, so much to, well, not to sound old, but growing up we just never would have anticipated this level craziness.

For example, it’s bad enough that the Senate rammed through a huge national tax bill with no time provided for actually reading it; that it included handwritten notes directly from lobbyists; that it purposely adds to the national debt at a time of near full employment. But it’s the doublespeak and the pious assurances of our so-called leaders (with absolutely no real evidence) that is so unsettling.

I said to my friend, “We seem to be heading toward a dystopian future.” He said, “This is a dystopian future!” Then we laughed. I’m not sure why.

We’ve all read Brave New World and 1984. We’ve all seen The Matrix and Hunger Games movies. As with most science fiction, these stories are cautionary tales — they are beginning to feel more like documentaries.

Larry Nassar, the doctor who worked with various women’s gymnastics programs including the Michigan State University team and USA Gymnastics, pled guilty this week to charges of first degree criminal sexual conduct with children under the age of 16. This is just a small portion of the charges that have been (and could be) brought against him, including further abuses and child pornography possession. It would be difficult to find anybody who would deny that Dr. Nassar is in every sense a sexual predator.

So there is some consensus. And we should try to remember this common ground because it gets very divisive, very quickly, when we go on to name the politicians, entertainers, executives, and media personalities whose indiscretions have recently come to light.

In an effort to defend those who we are inclined to support (and demonize those whom we would like to see suffer), it can go immediately off the rails. It turns into an ugly parlor game of “what’s worse?” Admitting or denying? Is one accuser enough? Is a dozen too many? How’s a random grab stack up against soliciting underage girls?

As a result, victims are either further exploited or dismissed. It muddies the waters, which helps only the guilty. I suggest we focus more on real justice and less on scoring points for a particular “side.” There have been men with power who have taken advantage of their power to sexually abuse women. It is in everybody’s best interest that they be held accountable for their actions.