Auchtoon!

So you’re vacationing with a large group, and you’re hungry. You’ve rolled up to, through, and now well past dinner time. Several plans have been suggested and (you thought) agreed to, but never quite executed for reasons that run the gamut from passive-aggressiveness (“Oh, I guess seafood is fine. I usually break out in hives and my throat closes, but that’s okay.”) to over-the-top rejections (“NO! Absolutely not! Applebees is dead to me! They know what they did!”)

It is at this point that somebody suggests that perhaps it’d be a good idea to consider Somali food, even though nobody has ever had it or knows where a restaurant might be. Know that hangry feeling?

That’s kinda what I felt like when I read that the Michigan Senate is proposing a study to look into whether toll roads make sense for Michigan. Seriously? You’ve been supposedly working on a long-term plan for our infrastructure, and you’re just now floating this idea? I mean, I’ve got nothing against considering tolls (or Somali food), but isn’t it a bit late in the game? Good heavens, what else don’t you have figured out? 

It’s not that there wasn’t anything going on in Michigan this week. There was plenty. And there always is plenty for an editorial cartoonist to pick from. It’s just that, when there are active impeachment hearings implicating the President of the United States, it was awfully difficult to concentrate on anything else.

I have a day job that requires me to actually pay attention to it, so I haven’t been able to see much of the hearings live. It’s been killing me. I feel like I’m derelict in not only my editorial cartooning duty but also in my duty as a US citizen. I mean, I’ve been listening to and reading reports from a pretty wide variety of news sources, but that’s still not the same as first-hand and real-time.

Sure, a slight advantage of missing the live experience is not suffering through all the posturing. But the antics of Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan notwithstanding, it’s still incredibly important to experience. The leader of the Executive Branch is being called to defend his extraordinary behavior. And it’s not being done with pitch forks or tanks, but with rules and constitutional processes. This is remarkable! Human history shows us that this uniquely American approach is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

You may or may not be happy about this. Your politics may or may not align with the eventual outcomes. But we all should at the very least keep informed as best we can.

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Who knows? By the time this cartoon is published, maybe Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Governor Gretchen Whitmer will have worked out the state budget for 2020. But I doubt it. For the very reasons why the budget was not really done on the October 1st due date: Political posturing has priority over actual work. The pollsters, the advisors, the party insiders are making the decisions.

Let’s not be naive — these folks have always been part of the process. It’s politics, after all, right? And it’s not necessarily dirty politics. Partisans gonna partisan. They are going to advocate hard for their sides and they won’t have any problem stepping over (or even slowing down for) lines that divide civility from zealotry. It’s just that, ideally, the shouldn’t be in charge.

And over the past decade, they have not only been put in charge, they’ve been supercharged. It’s been a deeply cynical, highly orchestrated national phenomenon, and Michigan is taking cues. Party over country. Bias over law. Campaigning over legislating. Control over constitution. Special interests over general good. And without exception, the end justifying the means.

I don’t think there is a term for this. But my suggestion is that henceforth we refer to it as McConnellism. What do you think? Credit where credit is due.

I was at a training conference this week for my day job. It was about the future of communications (specifically public relations and marketing communication), and while I would say that it was definitely worthwhile and I learned a lot, the best conversations I had weren’t about the conference topics. That seems often to be the case with me — what I find most enjoyable is not what I’m actually supposed to be doing.

But let’s leave my flaws there for now and move on to why I bring this up. One of the people I met was a former Michigan Wolverine football player. He is a relatively recent graduate, so in the course of conversation I asked about the new California law aimed at compensating college athletes, particularly those in high-profile, high-revenue sports like football. (This week two Michigan lawmakers introduced a similar law for our state.)

He had a number of very interesting insights and was able to speak with firsthand experience about the intensity of playing on a Division 1 team. He had concerns about how exactly athletes would be compensated and when. One method he pitched was to award a lump sum of money at the end of a collegiate career based on the amount of time spent in the system. Sort of a profit-sharing thing. It would include counseling on what to do with the money (with an emphasis on saving some for future health issues).

Interesting. I’m not sure whether that’s the best way to go, but my opinion really doesn’t matter. What mattered was to listen. Maybe I did learn something at the communication conference.

I know this is a fairly obscure reference but hang with me — there is a point to it: Thirty-ish years ago the  late great Phil Hartman had a reoccurring character on Saturday Night Live called The Anal Retentive Guy. A sketch would have him as an instructor demonstrating how to do something. For example, a chef showing you how to create a certain dish. The humorous conceit was that he was so overly meticulous that he would never get around to doing what he was actually supposed to do. In the end, he’d pleasantly acknowledge that he’d run out of time as he continued to be sidetracked.

You kind of have to see it to understand. Unfortunately NBC has those sketches locked down, so it’s not just a simple trip to YouTube.

But anyway, the point: If the continuum goes from Totally Spontaneous Guy on one end to Anal Retentive Guy on the other, I’m more on the latter. And that can be really frustrating to people who just want to get stuff done. Especially if it’s something that seems way past due. Like, say, legalizing marijuana for recreational use. I can understand that. But I also understand that there are consequences for moving ahead too fast.

If I’ve lost you either with the cartoon or what I’ve written here, please let me be clear about one thing: I’m NOT saying that marijuana is the same as opioids and vaping. I’m saying that there are lessons to be learned from experiences with legal use of opioids and vaping mistakes should be considered and avoided. That may slow the process, but I think we’ll be better off for it.