Auchtoon!

This week’s comic has to do with the upcoming governor’s race in Michigan. The Republican nominee, Grand Rapids’ own Dick DeVos, has been running TV ads like crazy to try to get some name recognition in the rest of the state. But the problem with TV ads, especially early in a campaign, is that you can’t actually say anything exact or true or exactly true. There’s too much of a chance that it will be used against you later. So we’re conditioned to expect a frothy “there should be more jobs” and “those jobs should pay money” and “I smile a lot, except when I’m serious” and “I’m serious, we need more jobs that pay money” and “But look at me smile. God love me.”And that’s pretty much what we’re getting from Mr. DeVos. But then he slipped one in called “Grand Turnaround.” You can see it online. Go to: http://www.devosforgovernor.com/Multimedia/VLog/
and click “Grand Turnaround”.

This was much more of a late-in-the-campaign ad where you take a kernel of truth and then make wildly exaggerated claims and imply strongly that the sun shines out your butthole.

What I did was take the ad and rework it to stay within the bounds of that kernel of truth. The funny thing is that I think my version works much better. So if anybody from the DeVos campaign wants to throw a little money my way, I’d love to do some script writing. And I would promise not to use the word “butthole.”

Right. So if a child (yours or otherwise) ever comes to you to ask for help with math homework, what’s your first question? “Can’t your Mother/Father help you instead?” No. C’mon now. You can do this. “Why the hell do you need to know that stuff?” Definitely not! It’s what you’re thinking; it’s what they’re thinking. But saying it out loud is not helpful. “Can you wait until my show is over?” Okay, I see that I’m going to have to tell you.

The correct answer is “How did they teach you to solve the problem?”. I’m fairly good at math and, consequently, I’m usually the parent that helps with math homework. Early on, I was Mr. Smartypants and would grab a fresh sheet of paper and show my kids examples of how I would solve the problem. And I would get the right answer. But when I’d turned to give my kids my best “aren’t you lucky to have me?” smile, they’d just groan. “That’s not how taught us how to do that.” Little ingrates. Stupid teachers. Damnable uh,… other people who, um…. Soon I learned to take a minute to look at their text book first. Math isn’t always about getting the right answer; it’s often about showing you understand how to get the right answer.

See? Like most things, life — *real* life — is more complicated than you hope (and, therefore, think). Take, for example, writing comprehensive laws for primary education. Michigan just passed a law that significantly increases standard requirements for earning a high school diploma. This is generally a good thing and certainly well-intentioned. But it will take much, much more than simply passing the law to make it successful. I’ll be interested to see the state government’s reaction when they find out they aren’t Mr. Smartypants.

Two things triggered this comic: One, Robert Dean is stepping down from the Grand Rapids city council to run for a state office. Mr. Dean is black and so there were immediate demands — not requests, not “hey, wouldn’t it be a good idea if” — but demands that he be replaced by a black person. The next was that the Grand Rapids Public Schools recently chose a new superintendent. The final two candidates were men: one black, one white. Both very well qualified. Both with their strengths in philosophies and experience. Unfortunately, certain members of the black community seized upon the fact that the white candidate was, in fact, a Canadian citizen. He had lived and worked in the US for several years as a superintendent, but was not yet an American citizen. They thought that this and this alone should disqualify him. Silly.