Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 14, 2008

The only thing I want to add here is that I really, really hope this isn’t prophetic because I do a lot of work in the healthcare industry. But booms tend to bust, and there certainly is a lot of air pumping up the healthcare bubble right now….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 7, 2008

It’s all at once terribly frightening and comfortably reassuring on the day you realize that nobody in any profession really, really knows what the hell they are doing. Case in point: Bankers. Oh sure, they appear to be very knowledgeable and secure in their spiffy tailored suits sitting bolt upright behind their manicured desks. But as it turns out, they are frumpled messes casting about for clues just like the rest of us. A year ago bankers would practically visit you in public restrooms to stuff cash in your pocket, taking with them used urinal cakes as collateral for the loan. Now, well, you have this week’s comic. The pendulum swing has been radical, to say the least.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 30, 2008

Michigan has been described as the Saudi Arabia of fresh water. Now Michigan and the rest of the states and providences that share the Great Lakes are taking positive steps toward limiting the shipping of water from the region. Read about the details. I guess that would make it the OPEC of fresh water. Can’t wait for the time when Presidents of the United States drop by to grovel….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, June 2008

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 23, 2008

For a handful of Grand Rapids Business Journal readers, this cartoon was very, very funny. I sure hope they read it….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 16, 2008

Michigan recently pushed through a large incentive package to attract work from the film industry and apparently it is seeing some success. I don’t have any sort of idea of the cost/benefit ratio of the deal, but I do find it amusing when people who otherwise preach the gospel of small and limited government lose their religion when a movie crew shows up in their town….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 9, 2008

Man, the Red Wings were fun to watch this year! Great team. Great players. Great organization. Obviously we need more Swedes in charge of things here in Michigan….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 2, 2008

So Ellie and I were at the Grand Rapids Art Museum on Friday. It’s the new one smack dab in the center of downtown. Very impressive facility. We happened to catch an Andy Warhol exhibit. I’m not a Warhol fan. It’s not so much his art as his packaging. As I explained to El, looking at Warhol’s work, I can’t help but to smell the smell of hundreds of cocaine-addled hangers on, talentless themselves but ever effusive in their praise of Warhol and Liza and Bianca and the latest goings on at Studio 54. Kinda gives me a headache. And while that might not seem entirely fair, consider that there was no Warhol art without the Warhol packaging. That’s what he intended.

But in looking at Warhol’s pop art and the other pieces of modern art, one of the things that struck me was their simplicity. I’ve got to think that part of the basic appeal is that the artists haven’t bothered to complicate their pieces. In a world where banning public smoking can quickly spiral into a massive piece of legislation and tax structures are so confusing they are like trying to understand your (gulp!) cell phone billing statement, simple is a relief, a refuge, a refreshment. And just because you can say “well I could have done that!” the appeal is the same.

I could write law that is no longer than a sentence: “There shall be no smoking in public places in Michigan.” But getting something that simple through the legistative process would be a work of art….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 26, 2008

Full disclosure: I can explore the geo-political causes, pontificate on environmental trade-offs, examine the macroeconomic ramifications — but when it comes right down to it, my basic thought on the issue is this: Paying $40 to fill up my little Ford Escort is seriously effed up….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, May 2008