{"id":4422,"date":"2026-02-06T10:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=4422"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:09:22","slug":"protect-our-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=4422","title":{"rendered":"Protect Our Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/JPA534.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"407\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/JPA534.jpg\" alt=\"Political cartoon: Protect Our Community\" class=\"wp-image-4423\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/JPA534.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/JPA534-300x218.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We humans are wired to recognize patterns, which has come in handy. For example, being able to observe when and where a hungry bear or lion might show up, our ancestors were able to avoid them and survive long enough to become our ancestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s always at least a little jarring when we cannot detect a pattern. It&#8217;s these instances that are an endless resource for political cartooning in particular and satire in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Michigan, communities are coming together to figure out ways to <a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-environment-watch\/at-least-19-michigan-towns-pause-data-centers-no-one-knows-if-itll-work\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prevent developers from building new data centers<\/a>. Whatever you feeling may be about the data centers themselves, it is heartening to see people unite for a shared cause with the intention of ensuring the future health of their common community. That should be the expected pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But at the very same time, there is a surprisingly strong counter-community current when it comes to vaccinations for our children. Despite overwhelming evidence of vaccines ensuring community health, an alarming number of people don&#8217;t seem to care at all about the future health of their common community. So despite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/01\/31\/nx-s1-5694681\/measles-elimination-status-south-carolina-texas-outbreak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">measles outbreaks<\/a> (a disease once thought eliminated in the United States), St. Clair County here in Michigan is trying to make it easier for <a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/michigan-health-watch\/st-clair-county-makes-it-easier-for-parents-to-opt-out-of-vaccines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">parents to opt out of vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It kinda feels like they are leading their community right into the path of a hungry bear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We humans are wired to recognize patterns, which has come in handy. For example, being able to observe when and where a hungry bear or lion might show up, our ancestors were able to avoid them and survive long enough to become our ancestors. So it&#8217;s always at least a little jarring when we cannot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4424,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions\/4424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}