Auchtoon!Alice’s Adventures in Michiganland
Also posted online at MLive.com, June 13, 2015
Last week I poked fun at old farts who complain about the current state of the world. Well, here’s my old fart complaint: Hardly anybody reads the classics anymore. Time was when an editorial cartoonist could use a classic literature reference (Aesop, Shakespeare, Swift, Dickens, Austin, Twain, Hugo, Poe, etc.) and be reasonably sure that the general public would understand. Nowadays, not so much, what with these kids and their self-esteem and video games and tattoos and that darn hippity hop music and… (um, you know how the rant goes from here).
So I was somewhat hesitant to use Alice in Wonderland. True, the Disney animated feature and the recent Tim Burton film have helped keep Alice in Wonderland in the public consciousness. But to truly appreciate the divine craziness, you need to read Lewis Carroll’s actual stories. Alice trying in vain to make sense of the Mad Hatter and March Hare’s tea party — what could be a better metaphor for Lansing politics and the utter delusional madness of the House Republican bill to fix our roads?
