Auchtoon!Comics and Comments from John Auchter
So the Obama win ends a long dry spell for this kid — I hadn’t voted for the winning presidential candidate since 1988, and it puts me at three wins in seven tries. In baseball, I’d be batting 429, which is awesome. In basketball, I’d be shooting 42.9%, which is not all that good. If I were a field goal kicker in football, I’d be getting cut.
But what about presidential elections? What’s your record? Post and let me know!
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 20, 2008
The Grand Rapids area is losing its last GM facility. When I moved out here almost 23 years ago, GM was the area’s biggest employer. GM was never dominant here like in the Flint I left, but still a significant part of the economy. Other GM facilities fell away to global competition, wrong-guesses, spin-offs, hard times. But the really distressing thing about this particular GM facility is that it is universally acknowledged as a jewel — a highly efficient, extremely safe, premium quality stamping facility. The management has historically been creative and competent. The local union, cooperative, pragmatic, and focused on worker safety. (Have you ever been in a stamping facility? Basically, huge rolls of steel go in one side, humongous dies cut and and stamp the metal, and large car parts — hoods, doors, roofs — flow out the other side.) The facility’s only fault is its location — it’s not adjacent to an assembly plant — and GM simply has too many stamping facilities at the moment.
It is incredibly difficult to set up a stamping facility and have it hum like this one has. It takes a lot of talent, engineering know-how, skilled craftspeople to produce world-class work under difficult conditions. And now that is going away, which is sad and seems like an awful waste.
The salt in this particular wound is that this facility closing can be traced fairly directly to the recent financial meltdown. GM is short on cash because there is no cash. The banks and Wall Street and lack of government oversight has so thoroughly screwed the economic pooch that money has evaporated and any that the government pours back in is apparently being sponged by the very same institutions. This all leaves little capital to either finance purchasing a car or finance the building of cars.
If I were a GM worker who busted my butt to send my kid to college only to see that kid working in investment banking, developing those re-packaged, warmed-over, mortgage debt products, well, I’d be thinking about running that kid through the stamping plant before it closes….
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, October 2008
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 13, 2008
It’s at that point, isn’t it? Election season fatigue. When even folks who are the true believers in their candidate are going, “ya know, I’m kinda tired of hearing about this crap.” Well, me too. And I’m supposed to enjoy it. Okay, I do enjoy most of it, but it becomes overwhelming. I get too many ideas, so I have to sort out exactly what I want to do. And then, often, the one I settle on goes stale within a day because fresh batches of audacities and outrages are coming out of the oven.
So I was going to give you a lengthy, detailed essay on whom I’m planning to vote for, but now that idea just makes me weary. Instead I’ll give you the very basic reasons, and if you are feeling all energetic, you can tell me what you think: Obama. He’s an intelligent person. He at least mentions both revenue and spending when discussing budgets. When he deviates from the script, he typically says something sensible. He seems to recognize the world has changed, and the United States’ role has changed. He’s new.
Sarcastic asides that I removed from my endorsement: He’s got white blood so that means, you know, we’ve got like a special bond and we can hang out and stuff. He has never been a governor of a southern state. The liberal media elite have given me my orders and I must obey.
I had an idea for the Biz Journal that I was pretty sure wouldn’t get printed. No biggie. I had a better idea for a local issue (the local GM stamping plant closing). But I wanted to sketch this one anyway — boogers only stay fresh for so long you know….
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 6, 2008
When the McCain campaign announced they were pulling out of Michigan, my first thought was, “Wow, we really can’t catch an economic break, can we?” Michigan has been having a difficult time attracting investors, but, dang, when even our votes are apparently of no value…..
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 29, 2008
So much to write about, so little time. Perhaps later. In the meantime, this week’s comic is painfully self-explanatory….
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 22, 2008
These days there is so much low-hanging fruit for editorial cartoon ideas, what with the election, the financial meltdown, the bumbling Congress, etc. This week’s plum that I couldn’t quite get to: Certain Republican Representatives from Michigan posturing wildly on the bailout package, voting against it and claiming it would take us on a ride to downtown socialism — but then within days all quietly voting in favor of a bailout for the Big Three auto companies. This is their free market capitalism? Really? But so it goes.
The comic above was kind of a reflection on, well, there are actually good things going on, too. Recently, business leaders in West Michigan organized a policy conference to not only discuss the economic future of the region but also to try to do something with it. Richard DeVos gave a keynote speech that was stunning in its clarity. He basically said, “Don’t stand around expecting somebody else to come here and save us. The people of West Michigan need take responsibility.” He was calling people out, challenging them to open discussions and develop relationships, trying to move things forward.
It’s true that I have had some misgivings with Richard DeVos and have questioned his judgment in previous comics, and I was somewhat let down that the Conference ended up rating “eliminating the Michigan business tax” and “turning us into a right-to-work state” as their top goals. But I think — and this is an odd thing for an editorial cartoonist to say — that sometimes it’s okay to acknowledge the positive. As another example, there were moments in last night’s vice presidential debate when my intestines didn’t actively hurt. There, that was positive….
As an editorial cartoonist I try, I really, really try to stay away from hackneyed stereotypes. You know, like nefarious politicians in the pocket of well-funded special interest groups sneaking suspect legislation through the system under cover of a larger crisis, say, a Wall Street meltdown. But then this happens:
Last week the US Senate managed to approve something called the Orphan Work Act. Didn’t hear about it? Well, frankly, that’s by design. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and I’ve included some links below if you’d like details but the best summary I’ve seen is this: It’s one of those laws that in attempting to address a minor problem creates a major one. Say I draw a comic and it gets published. Some time later, a magazine or book publisher finds it through Google, but my name has been removed and it isn’t immediately obvious that I’m the author. To them, it’s “orphaned.” As is now under copyright law, the onus is on them to find out who the author is and I have decent legal protection if they go ahead and republish without permission. With the Orphan Work Act, the onus would be on me to find the unauthorized work, and in the unlikely event that I did find it, my legal recourse would be limited and prohibitively expensive.
So off to the House it goes. Hopefully it won’t make it through. If you have time, contacting your representative would help.
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, September 2008
