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
February 3, 2013

Two specific inspirations for this week’s cartoon. The first was a bill that popped up in the Michigan Senate, Senate Bill 63, which would make “firearms, ammunition or accessories that are manufactured and sold in Michigan not be subject to federal regulations.” It is difficult to imagine a more cynical piece of legislation — attempting to defend Second Amendment rights by openly declaring our state as not subject to constitutional law. Hmmm…  The second was a Facebook posting that turned into a gun debate in the comments. Typically, I don’t subject myself to these. But I was taken with two guys in the thread — one who kept trying to bring the debate to a thoughtful discussion and another who was stunning in his volume of words and apparent depth of conviction. The stunning guy was arguing for guns, guns, and more guns and I found myself thinking, “Is it possible for somebody to be this ideologically passionate?” And then it occurred to me — yes, he’s full of fear. Or more specifically, fear bordering on paranoia.

Fear can drive us to do and say unreasonable things. And I don’t judge because we all have fear. But I think we would be all better off as a matter of public policy if we at some point acknowledge the fear but don’t let it drive us.

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 27, 2013

Last week in Michigan we had our first real taste of winter with sub-zero temps and a couple of nasty snowstorms. And with it came the usual jokes about how the world scientific community has it all wrong and the idea of global climate change is a bunch of hooey. (As if the world scientific community has some sort of motivation — and ability — to conspire to make this stuff up.)

Now I don’t want to get on my high horse about this. Well… maybe I want to, but I can’t. How can I when I got on my high John Deere tractor and belched carbon into the sky as I removed snow from neighborhood driveways? But I can say that I don’t think we should summarily dismiss the idea of man-made weather change based on a week’s weather. And to be fair, I won’t say anything about the mid-winter thunderstorm that kept me awake half of last night….

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 20, 2013

No real controversy here — the Detroit Auto Show looks to be a big success this year and the roads to get there are awful. That’s just the way it is. But look for some good fights in the coming months as the governor and state legislators figure out what to do about it. Turns out it takes money to fix roads….

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.