Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 29, 2015

Calvin, it won’t get better with the invention of blogs, online comments on news sites, and Twitter.

He nailed reality tv, before there even was reality tv. Though I think there might have been The Real World.

If we escalate through levels of excitement, terror, fear in general, each threshold passed makes it more difficult to deescalate. It’s stimulus-organism-response. Politicians depend on this, some nefariously. Look at the presidential race. It’s easy to spot. We’re animals at base, easily trained and manipulated. A little introspection and self-awareness can help us keep it on a low flame. That would be the human intelligence part of us. Good luck to us all. You too, Calvin. You’re already at high simmer.

Too many people have not ignored the National Enquirer.

20 years since first publication and it’s STILL perfectly relevant to today.

And there’s the reason why Donald Trump is leading in the polls.

What kid talks like that?

Just gotten worse since you said these words, Mr. Watterson. Maybe it was inevitable.

Current presidential debates come to mind…

If Calvin’s wisdom in the fourth panel hasn’t made it into “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” yet, I’m starting a petition drive to get it in there!

Nobody is shouting and quarrelling!!

Sneakiest political non-commentary of the day, fer sure! Well done.

Wow. Was that really written over 40 years ago? It could have been inked yesterday! Calvin, you’re timeless.

Go and vent all that on Twitter, Calvin!Oops. I forgot:1) Twitter hasn’t been invented yet.2) There is a 140 character limit.xxx

Calvin maybe you are on to something, ya think?i often wonder if somewhere there is a mastermind or group of masterminds that script all the public imagery and information that public debate, entertainment, newscasts, etc. give out. hoping that enough negative, over emotional dramatization will be spread around that it will become a polarizing influence on every person that is exposed to it. thus addicting the populace to more and more mindless unreality so that emotional triggers can be pushed each day by catch phrases or mindless dialogue making it possible to control and manipulate the general populace to do what they, the masterminds wish. as an experiment try not to listen to any news reports or watch any source of information for 1 month or as long as you can discipline yourself to do so, then see if you really missed anything and if you still see things the same way after that media fast.i found it very interesting. kind of like going without food for a time and then tasting food again. it gives a whole new perspective to what things taste like. a media fast might also give life a whole new perspective concerning people, issues, and what we might perceive as the ‘other person’s point of view’ after being without any kind of ‘screen’ for 30 days. or maybe not. the only way i guess is to ‘try it’?or not :)

It won’t be like this in the future.

I think it’s an insistence that all truth is relative—which means that reason and argument and discussion is pointless, since nobody can convince anyone of anything, and so no opinions can be wrong. So the loudest person wins. Sort of.

This should be read out loud before each debate, newscast and the Sunday commentary shows.

I don’t think we should be comparing sizes here.

I thought it was time for a little Mellow Yellow…

This certainly explains the past year.

Pretty amazing considering this strip was written in 1995

Watterson was not a philosopher. Nothing in C&H is new ground. But he has a way of using humor, innocence, and childishness to shed light on important issues.