Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 16, 2004.

Sometimes people ask me, “Is it difficult coming up with a new idea for an editorial comic every week?” And I say, “No, the difficult thing is coming up with *only* one idea for an editorial comic every week.” Not that all of these ideas are good. But sometimes I get so many that I like -- or I have so many issues I want to address -- I end up with a grapeshot comic (like this week's) where I pack an enormous number of disparate issues inside a 5x8 inch box and hope I hit something when you read it. It can get a little messy....

So as Ricky said to Lucy, “You got some ‘splain’ t'do!”

Frame 1: To stave off further state budget cuts here in Michigan, Governor Granholm has proposed a new round of sin taxes -- increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes by 75 cents and tax on a bottle of liquor by something like a buck. Of course she has framed this as a health issue, helping the citizenry to confront our vices (or dip into the grocery money for some smokes). Only a matter of time before the "carb" tax gets proposed, eh?

Frame 2: Local State Congressperson Joanne Voorhees has "introduced a package of bills aimed at preparing couples for marriage and protecting children from the negative impacts of divorce. The bills call for pre-marital education or counseling and a tax credit to cover the costs." Which sounds good until I think about how Jane and I didn't much care for going to our Catholic pre-marriage counseling and at least they (because marriage is a sacrament) had a defensible reason for requiring it. (We had a volunteer happy couple council us over the course of a few Sunday afternoons, but it was clear that this was the wife's idea and the husband would have much preferred watching basketball on TV. If we only could have ditched the wife, the three of us would have really enjoyed watching basketball together.) Also in this frame, the on-going (and now ubiquitous) efforts to keep gays out of the marriage biz.

Frame 3: College costs here in Michigan keep exploding, what with the universities taking it in the teeth every time the education budget gets cut and the ongoing need to require the purchase of books students will never read again in their lives. (That last bit has nothing to do with anything new going on here in Michigan -- it's just that I'm looking at the $50 Physics book and $40 Psychology book that are boosting up my monitor, and I guess I'm still a little bitter about the whole thing.)

Frame 4: So imagine yourself as a young college graduate in Michigan. You have all this stuff going on as described in the first three frames, and -- although you might not be a smoker or you support a ban on gay marriage -- it looks an awful lot like the government is trying to legislate how you should behave. Then the Governor starts touting a "Cool City" initiative (http://www.michigancoolcities.com/), which is supposed to sell you on how great it is to live in Michigan and the fabulous freedoms it offers young, educated adults. And it's friggin' February. Not good timing...