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
January 13, 2013

Justin Amash is a congressional representative from West Michigan. He is, from what I can tell anyway, an earnest person who takes his job seriously. But then he also tends to take these ideological stands (such as voting no on funding federal flood insurance), which seems less what a thoughtful, practical Midwesterner would do and more what a self-involved, purist from the Deep South would do.

Diane Hathaway was until very recently a Supreme Court Justice in Michigan. She resigned before she got kicked off for lying and doing stupid things. She’s a Democrat and our Republican governor will likely replace her with a Republican. Some are more upset by the prospect a new Republican justice than an existing Democrat who lies and does stupid things.

Michigan recently passed legislation to create tighter oversight of abortion clinics. Ostensibly, this was done to protect women. Practically, it was done to limit abortions. In any case, I heard more than one quote to the effect of “if just one life is saved, it’s worth it.” Could we not apply this same standard to sensible gun policies?

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

A traditional editorial cartoon this week. I do these on purpose occasionally because I think certain readers expect them. That is, they want an editorial cartoon to look like an editorial cartoon — short on words, big on symbols, a label or two to help it along. I think it gets the point across: Governor Snyder is going to try to press forward with his whole relentless positivity schtick in the coming legislative session, but the last session pretty much poisoned the water hole. (Actually, Tim Skublick’s article on Sunday did a great job of summarizing this. And if you want a taste of the poison, read the comments.) But my concern in doing these traditional editorial cartoons is the potential confusion it might cause other readers, particularly young readers. Do they have any idea what the whole donkey and elephant thing is all about? Why are they dressed like that? And who’s “Guv”? Ah, well. At least the butterfly, sunshine, rainbow, and candy are universally recognized as deep sarcasm, right?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 30, 2012

Yep, nothing could go wrong with armed volunteers quickly assembled to stand out in front of every school in America. Nothing could go wrong with scaring people who should not handle guns into feeling like the need to own them. Nothing could go wrong with manufacturers creating new markets for their military grade weapons. Nothing could go wrong with blaming mental health problems and then doing nothing to solve them. Nothing could go wrong with stockpiling guns and ammo in case they might someday become less available. Nothing could go wrong with equating guns for vigilante justice with guns for licensed sports hunting. Nothing could go wrong with selling fear.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 23, 2012

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 16, 2012

I may have had more words to add to the right-to-work fiasco, but I think the Grand Rapids Press editorial is an excellent summary — it was embarrassing for Michigan as a whole. Plus the tragedy at Sandy Hook pretty much has consumed any thought (editorial or otherwise) since Friday; the importance of our embarrassing state politics pales in comparison. It’s probably how most of us feel. So you know what? Now, now finally would be the time to address and create a sensible policy toward mental health and firearms. Let’s concentrate on that.

Fellow Flint Powers grad and current San Francisco Bay area journalist Gordon Young has written a new book about Flint, “Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City.” It’s available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indigo. Click here for a post with details on Gordy’s site, FlintExpats. If you haven’t ever been to the site, do yourself a favor and have a look around — it’s wonderfully well done. It helps if you have some sort of ties to Flint, but there are insights and oddities there that don’t make it necessary. All the more reason to make me look forward to the book!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 9, 2012

I grew up in Flint. And one of the benefits of growing up in Flint (and stop snickering — there were many. If you aren’t from Flint, you just don’t know) is having a special insight on these right-to-work shenanigans. I’ve seen unions from the inside. I’ve experienced the good and the bad. I grew up in stable neighborhoods where hard-working folks earned a good wage and passed it forward to their children. I supervised in a foundry where a hopelessly bored worker made a cat and mouse game out of hiding from me at every opportunity — sometimes successfully for entire shifts for which he was paid. I heard my Dad tell stories about how it struck him that there were so many less missing eyes and fingers in Michigan factories than there were in the South Carolina factories he had previously made sales calls in. Or my brother-in-law working at the City of Flint and how oblivious the Firefighter union was to the fact that the tax base had totally eroded and there would have to be concessions.

But you know what? These are just like the enormous positives and squandered opportunities of any human institution — government, Wall Street, churches, newspapers, Detroit Lions. When humans are involved, really incredible and really stupid things can happen.

So as the cartoon suggests, I think this right-to-work law is nothing more than a deeply cynical power grab by the GOP. But the Democrats would do well to acknowledge that this is 2012, not 1972, and it’s time to stop looking at unions and labor purely as a revenue source. What was the word they were using all year? Oh yeah, forward.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 2, 2012

This was a fairly easy one to come up with. For as much change and contraction the American auto industry has gone through since the salad days (post-World War II to the 1970s), Michigan is still very much intertwined. I myself — after having gone most of my working career with only tangential work in the auto industry — am now employed by an auto supplier. My brother who lives in Michigan is an auto executive. And I have three Michigan brother-in-laws and a niece who are in the biz. It is generally a happy thing when folks are buying cars; it’s unnerving when they don’t. So if you’re still stuck for what to get that special someone this holiday season, remember that a new automobile always makes a thoughtful gift. Michigan would very much appreciate 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
November 25, 2012

In 2004, 59% of Michigan voters passed an amendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage. Similar to the ballot proposals this year, I thought amending the constitution for this was a bad idea, and I drew some cartoons to that point. Some readers contacted me to tell me I was wrong. Most cited natural law and procreation and the history of marriage (at least as far as their recent memory) and an implied discomfort with two men kissing. But the closer argument for all was this: “This is what the people want. The majority rule. That’s how democracies work, you know. Too bad for you.”

Eight years later, a Michigan State University study shows that 56% of Michigan voters now support gay marriage. This seems entirely plausible considering Maine, Maryland, and Washington state all passed popular vote measures to legalize gay marriage, and Minnesota turned down a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Soooo… do the people still decide?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
November 18, 2012

When you’re good — when you’re really, really good — you get away with stuff. You can do things, and people say, “Oh, well, that’s so-and-so. He’s really good. Exceptional. Has a deeper understanding of things. Knows more than the rest of us. Just better, I guess.” And they can push that envelope just as far as they want.

So in 1979, the really, really good cartoonist Pat Oliphant drew the following cartoon, which was printed in family newspapers:

That’s Jimmy Carter speaking as the ant. And that’s Ted Kennedy as the grasshopper. As a teenage boy, I was obviously impressed with both the cussing and the scantily clad female. But as a budding cartoonist teenage boy, I was more impressed with how — by using the cussing and scantily clad female in context and with wit — Oliphant took a decent analogy to an Aesop Fable and made it absolutely hilarious. (The born-again President Carter would never say that! But that’s just how much Kennedy frustrated him!)

I remembered this cartoon as I was drawing my cartoon. I wanted the sign in panel 3 to read, “Fix the goddam roads!” I’m no fan of gratuitous cursing (as if any curse word truly has any shock value any more). And I understand and endorse the 4th commandment. But in a cartoon, funny is funny, and funny wins. Still, I knew that “goddam” wouldn’t get printed so I made my case for a simple “damn.” (It’ s unlikely anybody would write swearing gibberish instead of an actual curse on a placard.) But understandably (alas), my editor opted for the gibberish. I still aspire to someday be Pat Oliphant….