Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, February 2008

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 18, 2008

The drawing of the GM guy in the deep, deep hole? I mean, the drawing of what is supposed to look like a GM guy in a deep, deep hole? Yeah, that’s what happens when you are merrily drawing away at 10:00 filling in the money pile and suddenly realizing you are supposed to be at a meeting downtown at 10:30. I only draw perspective with painstaking trial and error, and even then get middling results.

So, yeah — decent idea, but this one definitely isn’t going in the portfolio….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 11, 2008

I’ve earned my wrinkles and plan to keep them. Besides, they are blending nicely with all the scars from my youth….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 4, 2008

Michigan recently passed a somewhat draconian law regarding non-residents acquiring a drivers license. Like a lot of laws, the idea seemed sound — don’t let illegal aliens (read: terrorists) get drivers licenses, which can lead to them getting other citizenship-type benefits. But in practice it could cause all sorts of callateral damage such as highly valued foreign workers at multinational corporations, universities, and research institutes being denied licenses.

The silly thing is, if a drivers license was simply a drivers license — a card indicating that one has been successfully prepared to operate a motor vehicle in Michigan (which should, by the way, include advanced pothole avoidance maneuvers) — then this wouldn’t be such an issue. It would be in our best interest for any potential driver to have one — to be licensed to drive. Unfortunately, a drivers license functions as so more in its capacity as a picture ID. So now we have this unfortunate law on the books and our Attorney General is enforcing it. Good thing we don’t need no stinkin’ foreign investment here in Michigan….

This cartoon would have been in the Biz Journal next week, but the editors passed on it. So I’m posting it here. Think of this as the reduced price bin….

Here’s what I was trying to get at. The press has seized upon the unique makeup of this year’s presidential candidates, and not without merit. While a pleasingly high percentage of voters have managed to cross race and gender lines to support candidates who don’t happen to look exactly like themselves, there are still quite a few who have been voting strictly within their demographic. Taken to an extreme, that’s a bad idea.

Two others stories are looped into this. The less obvious one — this week Grand Rapids chose two new leaders for its police department, both from within its ranks, both with their own strengths but pretty much equally qualified. The chief is a white man, the deputy is black man. There were many who felt strongly that this should have been reversed. Some based solely on his race. Again, bad idea.

The other story is the ongoing shenanigans of the mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. Illicit affair. Spend taxpayer money to cover up. Lie. Get caught. Incredibly uncomfortable public apology. Ongoing questions. In summary, an otherwise skilled politician doing breathtakingly stupid things. Sound familiar?