Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 20, 2013

So the US Supreme Court has agreed to decide an affirmative action case coming out of Michigan. Here’re the details, but in short, Michigan passed a constitutional amendment back in 2006 stating that race cannot be considered as part of college admissions. Colleges like the University of Michigan argue that this has had the net effect of reducing the number of minorities on campus. Those who support the law, such as Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, say it prevents discrimination. Like most things having to do with race in America, it’s messier than that.

What makes the issue so difficult is a lack of trust. The first panel is an actual quote from Bill Schuette, and I want to believe that he knows of better ways to promote diversity, but in the articles I read, he didn’t elaborate much. So, yeah, I get it — affirmative action and specific set asides seem unfair and unworkable in the 21st century, but why exactly can’t race be taken into some account for admissions purposes? Relatives of alumni (legacy students) are given preferential treatment, and that tips the balance toward existing racial patterns. Why must it be illegal to consider race? Is there actually a better way to promote diversity?

But most importantly, did anybody get the Blues Brothers references in the cartoon?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 13, 2013

Since my deadline is Thursday and Game 5 of the ALDS was Thursday night, I actually drew two versions of this cartoon. One if the Tigers won (in which Boston hates America), one if the Tigers lost (in which Oakland hates America). It fit well with my general theme — in the current political climate, we tend to demonize anything not on our team. Actually, my first inclination was to equate the big bushy playoff beards of the A’s and Red Sox players with the Taliban. Turns out, there’s nothing funny down that road….

In any case, I was certainly happy the Tigers won. But then in Game 1 and most of Game 2 of the ALCS night, Detroit shut down Boston so thoroughly that I was concerned Tigers fans would not be generate the proper amount of animosity toward the Red Sox necessary for the cartoon to work. Oh, sure, there was the Sox constant bitching to the umps about strike calls. (Geez frickin louise, did they recently have a whiner-himer workshop with Phil Jackson? It’s the playoffs, cupcake. You gotta swing at the close ones!) But with our bullpen collapse to give away Game 2, animosity is now on! So I’ll likely be channeling my inner Ted Cruz to twist any perceived Boston misdeed — no matter how slight — to be a sign of the apocalypse. God have mercy on my soul….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 6, 2013

First, let me assure you that, yes, I am well aware that Democrats and the Democratic Party have had many instances of wild inconsistency in their actions, behave hypocritically, and let their ends justify their means. For the record, I see all sorts of organizations and individuals do the same: businesses, trade associations, unions, you, me. It’s an endless source of material for cartoonists in general and editorial cartoonists in particular. But I only get to draw one cartoon a week, so I have to be judicious and callout the worst offender. And this week, after willfully (and sometimes gleefully) causing a partial shutdown of the federal government, the Republicans absolutely earned it.

The Michigan spin here refers back to end of last year when, in a lame duck session, the state GOP pushed through some controversial legislation (including a right-to-work law) with some dubious, though legal, actions. And they advised anybody who questioned their actions that they could do any number of the following: Stop whining, don’t be a crybaby, grow a pair, put on a pair of big boy pants, don’t like it? lump it, or simply shut up. An anxious nation now awaits as the House GOP searches for its big boy pants.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 29, 2013

This one was funnier in my head when I thought of it. You see, when Rick Snyder was first elected governor three years ago, his theme was a better Michigan through “relentless positive action.” The idea was to avoid the quagmire of petty politics by plowing right through the petty politics with a big smile. And by and large Snyder has done just that. But as he has begun the process for re-election for a second term, I imagine that the stress of that sometimes forced positivity would be taking some sort of toll on Snyder. Relentless can be relentless, and a re-election year plus four more of governing — that’s a lot of relentless.

So I imagined him under a “### Days Since Last Accident” sign with beads of sweat on his stressed face and several handlers looking anxiously on from the side. But I was afraid that Snyder, me, and maybe a dozen other people would have gotten that. So I sifted in more context, which diluted the funny. Oh well. I never promised relentless humorous action. Too stressful….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 22, 2013

For those of you who don’t already know about ArtPrize, it’s:

A radically open, independently organized international art competition with an unprecedented $200,000 top prize decided entirely by public vote.

For 19 days, three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, become an open playing field where anyone can find a voice in the conversation about what is art and why it matters. Art from around the world pops up in every inch of downtown, and it’s all free and open to the public.

It’s unorthodox, highly disruptive, and undeniably intriguing to the art world and the public alike.

Links with more info: http://www.mlive.com/artprize/

Turns out, “unorthodox” “highly disruptive” and even “undeniably intriguing” are all ways I would describe the tea party’s ongoing efforts to deny, derail, and defund Obamacare. Passionate, dogmatic arguments. Visceral emotions. A fundamental desire to advocate for your understand at all cost. This is art, folks!

This past week, MLive newspapers debuted a redesigned layout. I think it looks great — fresh, crisp, but with a very established newspaper feel. Part of this is a new design for the Sunday editorial page and a new home for my cartoons. And there I am in the marque spot — to the right of the editorial and just above the Letters to the Editor! For somebody who has loved editorial cartoons all his life, this is a dream come true, and I’m thrilled. (I don’t quite yet know what to make of my floating head, but I can deal with that later.)

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 15, 2013

So a professor at Michigan State University, William Penn, went off on a rant in a class he was teaching. Apparently Professor Penn has some very specific opinions about Republicans and felt compelled to share them in his Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities class (re: not actually the topic). We know this because one of the students took a video and posted it. Trouble ensued. Click here for the complete  story.

I had a metallurgy professor in college who would occasionally take five minutes during a lecture to tell us a story that had nothing to do with metallurgy. He’d share his thoughts about this or that or tell us a story about growing up on a farm. It was wonderful. So I’m not fundamentally opposed to the off-topic aside. But I have also been trapped in rooms where people feel entitled to tell you exactly what they think and do so because, well, they can. That, too, happened to me in college. But it didn’t stop happening there. (Cue Dilbert.)

So I’m sure that it sucked having to listen to Professor Penn go on and on, but it was in fact a pretty good life lesson. And I would give the  student who thought to record and share the rant an “A” for doing something about it.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 8, 2013

When you’re from Flint, one of the most annoying things somebody not from Flint can say to you is, “You never should have become so dependent on the auto industry.” Well, yes, in hindsight, smartypants, that may be right. But when the town was booming (and it was booming for decades) it was awfully hard to say “thanks, but no thanks” to well-paying jobs and a sturdy tax base. Think about it — how many people, let alone communities, have the foresight to turn down good money in the short term because at some undetermined point in the future it could possibly go away? Yeah, not many.

And so here we go again. Car sales in August were through the roof. The industry is on pace to make and sell nearly as many cars in North America as it did before the Great Recession. And even though all the jobs will never come back, Michigan is certainly benefiting. We still design, engineer, and build cars here. We’re doing what we do and making money doing it. So it’s okay if you’re from here to poke a little fun at our willful blindness in the good times. For those not from here, you can shut the #&@* up. (But keep buying those cars.)

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
September 1, 2013

Last week I was reading the “On This Day…” section of Wikipedia about the Pennsylvania oil rush. On August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake successfully struck oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. As the article noted, crude oil had begun to be used as an alternative to whale oil as a lighting source for lamps and inventors and scientists began to test oil for other possible uses, including energy. So finding a plentiful source was a big deal. The problem was that Titusville was (and still is) in a fairly remote part of northwest Pennsylvania. The oil needed to be transported to a population center. Here’s the part that struck me:

In the first years of the oil rush, high overland shipping costs drove many well owners to float their product down Oil Creek to the Allegheny River as lumber producers did.[3] For decades, logs had been transported using man-made floods, known as pond freshets, created by successively breaking milldams along the length of the river. These freshets could carry up to 800 skiffs filled with crude oil downstream at once. Most skiffs held between 700 and 800 barrels (110 and 130 m3) of oil, but one third of that leaked out of the skiffs before they were even launched and another third was lost by the time the skiffs reached Pittsburgh. Furthermore, only three in five of the flimsy vessels survived the trip down river without being destroyed by collisions with rocks, fallen trees, or other skiffs.

Eventually pipelines and railroads were built to transport the oil more safely and reliably. But, dang, they floated petroleum on leaky skiffs down a river! Why? Because it made economic sense at the time and (here’s the part that inspired this week’s cartoon), there was no regulation!

Now I’m not such a hypocrite as I sit in my temperature-controlled office with my electric lights typing on my computer before I get in my gasoline-powered car to drive to work to say there should be no mining or drilling. Let’s face it, we’re still highly dependent on carbon-based energy and will be for some time. (Obviously a return to whale oil is not a strong option.) But let’s go about it sensibly. And let’s at least acknowledge that the same human wisdom and natural desire to maximize profits that led us to set giant tubs of crude oil to sail down a river is the same that will tend us toward unwise decisions today. So some amount of regulation, some amount of “hey, let’s think this thing through about transporting and processing tar sands oil” would be a good idea.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 25, 2013

Are you in college, planning to go to college, have kids in college, planning to have kids in college, or ever felt uneasy about paying a great deal of money for something? Then this cartoon needs no explanation. But if you need a hint:

The average tuition cost at a four-year public college has increased by more than 250% over the past three decades, according to the White House. Meanwhile, incomes for typical families grew by 16%.