Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 07, 2016

We all want some do overs.

Enjoy what you have.

“but our counterparts in other universes may have done so.”

.multiple universes are fun to imagine but believing in them requires religious-quality faith.Need a convincing prophet first and many are hostile to the idea of a new false prophet.

Go ahead, Michael, father another, even smarter generation.You have good inspiration before you.Of course your gene sequences are breaking down, but the worst mutations quickly miscarry and you — or at least she — can abort the defectives.(after all, it isn’t like they’re real, just colors on a screen or ink on paper)

(of course, curing old age would also restore the integrity of the personal genome and make defects less likely)

If i should have a nice and brilliant woman as Kim is I would have no problem to became father, even at the age of Mike (that is , circa, mine)Considering panel two ,sometime I dreamed ,returning at 1975 , to became the substitute of Peter Gabriel in Genesis ., unfotunely I was completely off-key : as a broken bell

One of the signal indications that one has entered the “senior class” is when one discovers that one’s future is going away.

…AND, THE DYE IS CAST!!

This is a perfect example of why people should care about history. Not your own past, but the pasts of everyone before. They already made most of the mistakes you are likely too and you have the opportunity to learn from them. But there seems to be a strange joy in people when they say they don’t care about history.

Way to go, Mike. Panel five is the first time I’ve seen Kim as “older”.

Oh boy! Does this ring a bell!

The imaginary son having Kim’s hair color and the imaginary daughter having Mike’s hair color is a nice touch.

Speaking as someone whose wife didn’t have a kid until she was in her forties, it’s not advisable. Should have done that a decade ago.

Mike was certainly in college, but yeah- he never fronted any rock bands. But then, that’s what fantasizing is about.

Agree! I figure some 4,000 generations of my ancestors were ALL DEAD before I was born. If they hadn’t been, there would never have been room for me. We need to pay that debt forward and stop trying artificial cures for old age. Natural death is the cure for that “disease”.

I like to think that somewhere in the multiverse, there exists a version of me that is happy.

She wished she had kids? I never got that from her.

Do eet!

I swim laps with a waterproof Ipod shuffle all the time . I listen to audio books though.. So I get my best reading done when I’m swimming lol

The problem with boomers isn’t just that they’re hung up in the past but that they’re unaware of the present. They think of themselves and their culture as some sort of epitome that will never be improved upon. A “greatest generation” that really wasn’t all that great at all.

Man, Mike really can be clueless sometimes. Wonder if this is a subtle hint that Kim is expecting.

I have often heard that we have met the enemy and it is us in connection with climatic disruption. I disagree and I believe Bernie would agree with me. The enemy is not us, but the socially enabled capitalistic economy that was designed and then “tweaked” by the rich and successful to maximize profits and disregard planetary life support systems in the process. Violence is endemic in that capitalism, which is after all just a creation of short sighted humanity. If we remove the top 1% the next 2% will just rise to fill the void getting stronger with each new rendition. Cutting the heads off the Hydra is worthless, as history has shown time and again. (Violence begets violence.) Humanity must excise the cancer from the of the beast, the endemic violence of capitalism, which will kill the beast as surely as it will kill the rest of us. I do not feel I would have as issue with capitalism if it worked for the well being of humanity and planetary life support systems first and foremost with limited personal wealth second. Kill the “violence” but retain the surely to be emancipated beast. At this point we have no time evolve a new “beast” but hopefully nurture it back to life in a manor that we can then collar and leash the beast to help in the survival and advancement of all species for all time.

Never mind that! I want those waterproof swimbuds for lap swimming!

Two Sunday strips recently with Mike and Kim way out of sync…

“Physicists reason that if the universe is unnatural, with extremely unlikely fundamental constants that make life possible, then an enormous number of universes must exist for our improbable case to have been realized. Otherwise, why should we be so lucky? ".Yes, they REASON that.Given the information at hand, that is a reasonable guess — well, in general.It seems improbable.That is not the same as actually knowing given all the facts.There are very likely facts we don’t know.Changing the constants doesn’t mean as much as some might think. We can only observe the universe because we exist, or think we exist.Everything is ultimately improbable other than the thought that something has to happen — or does it?We don’t understand the creation of the universe or how the constants happened.Thus, there is too much guess work at this point in time.You are free to guess and may be right.You are free to guess and may be wrong..“But if it is proven, how would those who believe in gods accept it?”.You are blaming them for not believing before you have reason to believe. Let the horse lead the cart.

I suspect Mike stopped daydreaming about His future when he realized that He’s a Grandpa.

At first I thought those were the twin grand babies; but I never could figure out how he could swim to them.

NightG, “no room for failure” or room for success, assuming all is independent of our efforts. Don’t know why you are worrying about predestination, though. Don’t know why you think a cure for biological aging would be kept in the hands of only the wealthiest unless you mean that is what you would do if giveo the chance. I sincerely doubt the wealthiest would have a say in the matter. The scientists would know first and they would have spouses, children, parents, siblings, friends. They would care for someone other than themselves. The research would probably be done by a corporation with thousands or tens of thousands of shareholders ~ Especially When You Consider Florida retirement Funds And Suchlike ~ and under federal oversight. And all it would take would take would be one secretary to spill the beans.

“…our counterparts in other universes…”.Even if other universes exist, this is the only one i*m able to experience. If some other “me” has an experience that I wish were mine, it’s still his, and I haven’t experienced it. So that’s no comfort to the me that’s writing this.