Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, November 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, November 16, 2009

Of course the origins of many of ideas can be traced back to The Princess Bride. Here’s where this cartoon started to germinate:

Inigo Montoya: Are you the Miracle Max who worked for the king all those years?
Miracle Max: The King’s stinking son fired me, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? We’re closed.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everyone!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, November 9, 2009

Never miss a chance to take a jab at economists. The giddiness with which they anticipate the economy going into a recession (Oh, boy! Something fun to talk about!) is equaled only with their annoying enthusiasm for predicting exactly when the economy is coming out. The thing is, they are so very wrong most of the time. What other job can you have such a lousy success rate and still get paid the big bucks? I mean, besides Major League Baseball….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, November 2, 2009

You know, sometimes it isn’t so much the actual failure that feels bad — it’s the knowing that you set yourself up for the failure that’s painful. I do this to myself all the time. Every week I make an impossibly long task list for myself, and by Friday late-morning (right around now in fact) it becomes eminently clear that I have no hope of crossing off half of them. Then I compound that by Friday late-morning (right around now) making a similarly impossible list of weekend tasks. No doubt that when Monday rolls around many tasks will remain untouched. And I can tell you, if that means that I’m scraping frost off my windshield at 5:45AM because I didn’t make room in the garage for my car, reality will = unhappiness. Cold, painful reality.
 
In my defense, I make these lists mostly knowing I have no hope of completing them — my first goal is not to forget anything. So if I make a note to update my blog’s interface or replace the uneven bricks in the front walk, it’s stressful knowing that I very likely won’t do it, but at least I’m keeping track of it. I never call my lists “My Holy Covenant of to Be Completed Tasks” or “Resolutely Affirmed Guarantee of Accomplishments I Will Achieve Successfully” or “The Highest Order of Soon Realized Commitments I Humbly and with Much Fidelity Pledge…” well, you get the idea. I make no promise.
 
So, a few years ago when the State of Michigan set up a scholarship for college students to receive $4000 toward their education, it was a good idea. And when funding for this program was cut because of the current budget crisis, that was cold, painful reality. The bad idea was naming it the Michigan Promise Scholarship, because that was just setting itself up for failure.

Gotta go. I have a long list of things not to get to this afternoon….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 26, 2009

Did you ever have a coach who wasn’t a very good coach? I mean, whether you liked the person or didn’t like the person, he/she was simply not a good coach. Turns out, to be a good coach you really need two things: First, you need to get yourself the position. Second, you need to coach well. Alas, some people are only good at the first part.

I had a basketball coach in 10th grade like that. One game I was playing point guard and the other team (Flint Beecher) was playing a 1-3-1 zone. Well our offense had a point, two wings, a high post, and a low post. For those of you who don’t understand or want to understand basketball terminology (and let me just say that I cannot possibly understand why you wouldn’t), what this means is that our offensive players lined up right next to their defensive players. It was as the coach said, “Get as close as possible to a player on the other team. Wherever he moves, you move with him. This will make it almost impossible for us to find an open shot let alone score points.” So as point, I would dribble the ball down court and have nobody to pass to. Coach would yell at me. Nothing helpful. Just stuff like “pass it!” Sort of like soccer parents who scream for their kids to “kick the ball in the goal.” As if the thought had never occurred to kid.

I got pulled out and while on the bench I made the helpful suggestion of maybe running two guards up top and sending the forwards down to the baselines. Translation: Let’s not stand right next to the defense. He didn’t put me back in at point guard for the rest of the game.

So it goes with our Michigan “coaches.” Governor Granholm has done a dandy job of getting elected, but she has pretty much loused up the actual governing bit, especially when it has come to budgets. Now in some defense, Michigan has been in decline for her entire seven years, so it’s not like it was an easy job. But at some point, I would have hoped she would show some leadership, acknowledge that Michigan finances have to undergo a fundamental shift to adjust to new realities, and make bold, potentially unpopular but necessary decisions. Not even close. Mike Bishop is the leader of the Senate. You could give him points for cleverly sticking to the Republican dogma of never, ever considering different revenue sources, even for the long-term benefit of the state. But that’d be like complementing him on sticking to an offense with a single point guard no matter what, even if the other team is in a 1-3-1 zone. And I believe you know how I feel about that.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, October 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 19, 2009

Back in the day (when we didn’t use trite expressions like “back in the day”), one of the three television stations we got would show old Abbott & Costello movies on Sunday mornings. And back then Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Burton, Michigan had like 27 masses on the weekend to choose from. I tell you this to assure you that we never skipped our holy obligations to take in an old movie — we had lots of church options but very few programming choices. I only missed mass for good reasons like when my parents had a party the night before and I drank for the sludgy coffee our of the industrial percolator left in the kitchen, which made my head spin and my body convulse until I threw up. Good times.

But there were only so many Abbott & Costello movies so the chances of seeing the one with the “Who’s on First” bit was pretty good. I remember watching with my Dad and convulsing again, this time from laughter and no throwing up. It was clever and funny and you could pick it apart line by line to see where they were talking across each other. A little while ago Atticus pulled it up on YouTube, and we had the same experience. So it was fresh in my mind when I was coming up with this week’s comic. The absurdity of the routine dovetailed nicely with all the endless talk in Michigan about the need for an educated workforce, but no real plan for getting one. Remember the fella who plays shortstop? I just hope our routine doesn’t play out to that point.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 12, 2009

Ah! Michigan in the fall. Well at least the leaf colors are nice….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 5, 2009

Sometimes the comic I end up drawing isn’t the one I wanted to draw. I wish I could blame this on somebody — my editor, my parents, the Man. But the truth is, it’s me: there are times I simply can’t come up with a suitable idea for the topic I’m feeling particularly passionate about. I imagine it’s something like a songwriter wanting to pen a love song for his soul mate, but instead of, say, The Beatles “I Will” or Ben Folds “The Luckiest” he keeps ending up with “Macarthur Park.” (Now just try to get that train wreck of a song out of your head for the rest of the day.)
 
What I really wanted to draw about this week was a quote I read in a Newsweek excerpt from T.R. Reid’s new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. It was a fascinating article (and I’m hoping a fascinating book). The basic premise is that a country ends up with the heath care system that reflects the character of the country. So for example, Canadians make no excuses for having to wait a long time for nonemergency care. That’s how they limit costs. And they don’t mind so long as the rich and poor have to wait the same period. Canadians are thrifty and egalitarian (and care mostly about just staying warm). In Germany, health insurance (private, by the way there is no “public option” in Germany but care is universal) will pay for a week at a spa to deal with stress. The British think that’s incredibly stupid and do not pay for it. (Stiff upper lip, the Brits.)

We Americans, of course, have a higgledy-piggledy system where we all think that (because we are smarter than everybody else) we can end up ahead. Everybody thinks this. But everybody can’t end up ahead. There are extreme winners and extreme losers. There are clever advantages to this and cruel efficiencies. Let’s not judge. After all, it very much reflects our American character. (And the same approach has really worked out swell for our financial system, right?!) Ahem. Anyway, the quote that I got stuck on was this:

“The United States is the only developed country where medical bankruptcies can happen.”

Think about that. The only country in the developed world where surviving cancer can and does ruin people. By quitting a job to take care of a loved one or choosing an uncovered procedure or making unlucky decisions on insurance coverage, you can beat the cancer (or not) and then get to foreclose and start over. That doesn’t seem to me to fit with our American character. At least, it shouldn’t.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 28, 2009

Is it October already? Time again here in Michigan for our annual state budget shannanigans….