Auchtoon!

Yes, I know. The editorial cartoon this week isn’t exactly biting commentary. What can I say? I felt the need to make a contemporary joke. And there is nothing more contemporary these days than pickleball.

Have you played yet? No? You will. It’s inevitable — that’s seemingly just how popular it is becoming. And that’s a good thing because it is a lot of fun. Ideal for the times, really. Easy to learn, low cost, very social (but with accommodating social distances), a good workout, and a nice break from streaming devices.

I would like, however, to point out that the genesis of the cartoon did come from a legitimate concern: After Labor Day, we roll in earnest into campaign season for the November election. And it looks very much like us voters will be getting mostly well-crafted talking points for making our decisions. Political message makers (whether the parties, the handlers, or the candidates themselves) are all highly trained to stay strictly to their scripts. And if not their scripts, then definitely their ideology.

This makes any sort of substantive debate or thoughtful interview very difficult. A real conversation (like one you might have after playing a few games pickleball) will be a rare treat.

Ford Motor Co. announced this week that it plans to let go 3,000 white-collar workers, many of whom live in Michigan. In the olden days (pre-Great Recession), a move like this would have been hard to understand. Generally companies didn’t start shedding white-collar workers until they were actually losing money. Ford is highly profitable at the moment and sitting on tons of cash. Also, Ford and other automobile manufacturers have been very clear about their need to attract and retain talent to ensure their success.

But now, the rationale is that the company is preparing itself for (1) a major shift to EV production and (2) anticipated economic volatility. Agree or disagree with the cuts, Ford is acting proactively for itself and its shareholders, and maybe even to the benefit of many of the affected workers (depending on the quality of the severance packages).

However, for the Ford workers who remain, stress levels are likely to move up a notch or two. Your employer has just demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to sacrifice you. I mean, it’s 2022, and none of this is a surprise. But all the same, it feels very much like “The Princess Bride” and what the Dread Pirate Roberts used to say Westley at the end of each day: “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

I suppose I am as prone to entertaining myself with Walter Mitty-like fantasies as the next guy. For me, they tend to be sports related: a relief pitcher with a 110 mph cutter, a skilled shooting guard but with the shot-blocking instincts of Bill Russell, a world-class 200 meter sprinter. (No additional qualifications for that last one — I just like to imagine flying around that turn at super-human speed!)

All perfectly healthy. But where I think it can get dangerous is when guys (and it’s usually guys) attempt to cross their fantasies over into reality. I mean, it’s fun to watch Patrick Swayze in “Road House,” but it would be a terrible idea to try to be Patrick Swayze in “Road House,” right? So many punches to the face!

Another terrible idea would be to take it upon yourself to prove the 2020 elections were rigged by perusing your own investigation based entirely on what you want to believe and then confiscating voting machines. This is what Barry County Sheriff, Dar Leaf, has been up to. That’s scary enough, but what’s terrifying is likely Republican candidate for Michigan Attorney General, Matthew DePerno, also apparently playing that game.

Guys, enough with the Big Lie-fueled fantasies! Maybe try instead: “The quarterback who leads the Detroit Lions to their first Super Bowl victory.” That’d be an impossible dream worth dreaming.

The first time I ever ran a race of any distance was when I was 11-years-old. I don’t remember why exactly, but it was likely inspired by a summer Olympics. (How else would the boys in my Flint-area neighborhood become enthused about distance running?) It was decided that we would run around the “big block,” which seemed marathon-length but was probably about a half mile.

I got it in my head that I would sprint ahead of the field early in the race, thus demoralizing the competition. After which I would simply glide to victory. So that’s exactly what I did. Except some of the guys kept up with me in the sprint and, now gasping air, the others soon caught up. It was pretty brutal from that point. My legs seemed okay with propelling me onward (I weighed next to nothing), but my lungs, having never experienced such a thing, protested violently.

Out of shear force of will (stupidity?), I took the silver medal. But mostly I was thankful that I didn’t die (because I really thought I was going to). It was a really good life lesson about the importance of planning and preparing properly for a race.

Already the political operatives of the nation and state are begging us to cut our precious Michigan summer short and sprint ahead toward the fall election. Don’t listen to them. Both the summer and the election are too important for all of us to be sucking wind for the next three months. Pace yourself!

I’m not typically one for “things are worse now than they used to be” arguments. I see people as fundamentally the same over time — lots of good, lots of bad — but in general pretty consistent from one era to another. For instance, you’ll hear the posit that society today is becoming more violent. Well, I can remember some pretty nasty behavior on the school playground considered to be a rite of passage when I was growing up that would never, ever be allowed today. And we aren’t all that far removed from times when actively enslaving other human beings and displaying decapitated heads on spikes were societal standards.

But one “things have gotten worse” argument that I’m fully on board with: Voting. Specifically, how people determine their votes. Instead of simply picking the most decent, reasonably intelligent candidate who best aligns with our views, we are encouraged, nay, indoctrinated to think like political operatives: What candidate is most electable? What candidate is going excited certain key demographics? What candidate is going to deliver exclusively for our side?

I blame cable entertainment. (They call themselves cable news, but it’s really more of a sideshow than anything else.) They have to fill gobs of time and keep viewers hooked, so it’s an endless stream of nattering talking heads. Spice it up with generous portions of anger and fear, and eventually we’re all pundits. (Or at least we think we are.)

All of which leads to situations like in Michigan’s 3rd district where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee helped a very Trumpian candidate, John Gibbs, win the Republican nomination for the US House because they hope he is more “defeatable” in the November election. It’s exactly that sort of misguided strategic thinking that helped Trump himself get elected President in 2016.

Last week Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tudor Dixon, gave an interview in which she was asked whether a hypothetical 14-year-old incest victim should be required by law to carry a baby to term. I guess you could see it as a “gotchya” question, but she has a realistic chance to be our next governor and with these sorts of situations now being thrown back for states to decide, it’s seems within the realm of reason.

Her answer was basically, “yes, absolutely.” Which checks out because it is consistent with her platform and similar positions she has established on the subject. But sensing that she had perhaps said this with a little too much enthusiasm, she tried to walk it back some with “A life is a life for me. That’s how it is … That’s my feeling.”

For an individual citizen, I think that’s fine, even laudable. But not for an elected official, especially a governor, integral to creating, approving, and prosecuting laws — actual laws that have actual consequences for actual people. I don’t want “that’s my feeling” to be an excuse for what my governor does.

As we ramp up to the August election and the one in the fall, I’m sure you all have also been inundated with ads/emails/text/mailers and so on for the candidates (and even more so with requests for money to create even more materials). One interesting nuance for me: The digital world seems convinced I’m a major donor to the Democrat Party, flooding my email inbox. The analog world seems convinced I’m a major donor to the Republican Party, flooding my mailbox. I’m neither, but it’s very difficult to change the mind of a database.

I certainly don’t read everything, but I do sample it. I’m now living in Michigan’s 3rd district, so I’ve been getting a lot of Peter Meijer material. I consider Meijer a viable candidate because he seems to be a decent human being. (That’s a baseline …and yet a frightening number of candidates don’t meet the qualification.) He also seems intelligent, which I think should be another requirement.

So I was disappointed to see the mailer include this: “Peter Meijer will continue to oppose Biden’s spending spree that’s driving inflation.” Um, yeah. He’s gotta know that’s not true. Or at the very least know that it’s highly misleading.

The reasons for sky-high inflation are considerably more complex — here’s a short video and some handy charts if you’re interested. But suffice to say, there’s a lot more to it than Joe Biden.

Now in Meijer’s defense, the mailer wasn’t actually from him or his campaign. It was paid for by the “American Patriots for Prosperity Sparkle-Sunshine Gumdrop Committee” (or some such thing) as disclosed in the fine print and was not authorized by any candidate. Which is problematic because it certainly appears to be speaking, if not as Meijer, then certainly for him.

Thus was my inspiration for a very cynical cartoon. Please don’t let it get you down — you still absolutely need to vote!

In the 1980s, the Detroit Pistons had an intense basketball rivalry with the Boston Celtics. Actually, for those of us who were caught up in it, “intense” hardly does it justice. It was more like “white-hot passionate hatred.” In the years that followed, both teams fell from championship contention and the rivalry, for the most part, cooled — rosters completely changed as players got traded or retired.

So it was sometime later in the 1990s and the Celtics were in town to play the Pistons. My wife and I were watching on TV, and at one point the camera scanned the crowd. There was a fan with a Pistons jersey holding up a sign that said, “We still hate Ainge.”

If you don’t already know, Danny Ainge was one of the most reviled Celtics of that previous era. He was a very good player, which was reason enough to despise him. But he also was a whiner and had a, well, a very punchable face. (Naturally, this is the Pistons fan in me talking, but look him up and see for yourself.)

My wife and I thought the sign was hilarious, and to this day we will randomly say to each other, “I still hate Ainge.” Which is, of course, absurd — the notion that Danny Ainge as a rival player would still be relevant in our lives.

People are funny like that. We carry around slights, real or manufactured, and refuse to let them go. And then when an event (say, an attempted coup) does need to be deconstructed, there are those who want nothing more than to get past it. “What’s done is done — we need to move on!”

Will Michiganders ever find unity? Well, the Pistons seem to be putting the pieces together for a quality team. Hopefully some day soon there will be another Celtics player for all of us to focus our anger on.

Full disclosure: I definitely contribute to the ludicrous amount of money that gets poured into college sports. I like watching games. And not just football and basketball. Volleyball, softball, and even track & field are fun to watch, too.

So I have no grounds for righteous indignation in pointing out that the Big Ten adding UCLA and USC (and, soon, other schools) is all about the money. Of course it’s about the money. There is lots of it, a tremendous possibility of acquiring more, and that’s exactly what the Big Ten and its (more than 10) universities are trying to do. That’s fine. But, also, it is ridiculous.

Take a step back and consider the original idea of college athletics. They were sort of an extra perk that provided balance to the academic life of the students and helped promote the university (sometimes even in that order!).

Now marvel at how it has evolved into what we have now — how at the top level, it has somehow turned into a feeding frenzy between the Big Ten and its mortal enemy, the Southeastern Conference. A crazed race to claim as many schools as possible to grow grow grow, geography and all other considerations be damned.

Is this really the best plan? I mean, has anybody even thought about the travel costs of, say, the Rutgers track and field teams going to UCLA for a meet? Ah, it’s probably just a rounding error compared to the revenue potential of the Los Angeles TV market. And I’ll probably end up watching the meet on the Big Ten Network.

The way in which the 10 Republican candidates for Governor of Michigan have run their campaigns can be charitably described as not ideal. Michigan Radio and other local media has covered this pretty thoroughly. But it has also attracted national media attention for its, um, not ideal-ness:

• ‘It won’t let up’: Michigan GOP plunges into chaos
• Federal charges against candidate Ryan Kelley add more turmoil to MI Republican race for governor
• Five Michigan GOP candidates for governor disqualified by state board

I’m currently on vacation, so I had to draw a week ahead — I apologize for not including the additional blunders, gaffes, and debacles likely to have occurred since writing this article.