{"id":469,"date":"2010-01-29T11:39:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T16:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/?p=469"},"modified":"2010-01-29T11:39:01","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T16:39:01","slug":"constitution-overhaul-health-care-reform-and-hieronymus-bosch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"Constitution Overhaul, Health Care Reform, and Hieronymus Bosch&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/GRBJ0743.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-468\" title=\"GRBJ0743\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/GRBJ0743.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/GRBJ0743.gif 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/GRBJ0743-300x199.gif 300w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/GRBJ0743-451x300.gif 451w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Originally published in the <em>Grand Rapids Business Journal<\/em>, January 18, 2010<\/p>\n<p>My earliest cartoons revolved around two characters: an angel and a devil. (Someday I\u2019ll get all scanny and post some of these for you.) I suppose it was not extraordinary that as a young Catholic boy I would muse beyond our mortal world and consider how these heaven and hell things might function. It is a little disturbing that I tended to focus more on the hell\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>One comic that pops to mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Panel 1: A man is tied to a post and a devil is snapping his bare back with a whip. The man is laughing uproariously, and the devil is angry.<\/li>\n<li>Panel 2: Devil: \u201cWhat are you so happy about? You sold your soul, and you\u2019re being tortured?\u201d Man: \u201cYes, but in I sold my soul for eternal bliss!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Panel 3: Man throwing his head back and laughing. Devil: \u201c%@#$* loopholes\u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0A more current thought is this: What if there is no actual \u201cHell\u201d as a destination point but rather an infinitely long line you must wait in throughout eternity with peppy, muzak versions of your favorite songs playing in the background?<\/p>\n<p>Or, for something more old school &#8212; with fiery brimstone and gnashing of teeth &#8212; I considered in this week\u2019s comic an eternity of the health care reform debate. Ooo, nasty! And frankly, nobody depicts old school hell like the 15th\/16th century Dutch painter, <a title=\"Hieronymus Bosch\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hieronymus_Bosch\" target=\"_blank\">Hieronymus Bosch <\/a>(the darkness! the eyes! the creepy birds!). Now, why in the, um, hell would I have the imagery of a pre-Renaissance painter floating around in my head, at the ready to use in an editorial cartoon? I dunno. That early (and apparently continuing) fascination with these topics and, more likely, something my parents did wrong. Yeah, let\u2019s go with that one. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason, the comic germinated when former Grand Rapids mayor John Logie publically suggested that Michigan should consider revamping its constitution (which hasn\u2019t had a good whisking since the early 1960s). I happen to think it would be a good idea. With Michigan at its (hopefully) lowest point, it\u2019d be an excellent time to get ourselves aligned for moving forward. Or it could be a torturous political painfest. Heaven or hell. Fascinating\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 18, 2010 My earliest cartoons revolved around two characters: an angel and a devil. (Someday I\u2019ll get all scanny and post some of these for you.) I suppose it was not extraordinary that as a young Catholic boy I would muse beyond our mortal world and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-rapids-business-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","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=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}