Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 13, 2010

Alex with the touche’.

Assuming Mrs. DeLuca owns the trailer, Alex is being impudent. She may be Leo’s guest, but her vulgar hostess provided their bed.

The poor guy is getting as much stress at home as he did in combat. A domineering mom and a shallow needy girlfriend aren’t helping him.

My offer to make breakfast, still stands!

Catty, Catty, Catty,

They each want “ownership” of him. Me thinks it is time for Toggle and Alex to move out on their own.

Mom is going to find out real quick where the loyalties of an adult son lie.

I’m getting a déjà vu from this. During the last time around, wasn’t the forum trying to decide if that’s a tattoo or shoulder hair on Mrs. DeLuca’s arm?

I don’t think it was resolved.

As I recall, this story lasted another week. It certainly doesn’t sound ended here, so we may have another week of squabbling reruns before us.

Is that a tattoo or shoulder hair on Mrs. DeLuca’s arm?

Replying to some of yesterday’s later remarks:

As for what President Obama should do, Nemesys, he has already created a business-friendly economy, which helped keep us from a depression. Yes, the stimulus should have been bigger, with more spent on job-creation, and, yes, we need to compel businesses to put more money into hiring & less into bonuses, but, certainly, the economy is back on track.

Although these speculations about a McCain presidency are baseless, I can see that it would have led to great Democratic victories this year and a terrific longing for a do-over of 2008. Huge numbers of Americans would wish that they had voted for Obama, and Bush-Dick’s popularity (presuming anyone measured it) would still be low, of course, as we wallowed in a Republican-caused economic depression.

Alex has spent the night many times with Mrs. Deluca present. Why the sudden surprise or problem?

BrianCrook thinks “we may have another week of squabbling reruns before us.” That prognosis for Doonesbury neatly matches the political outlook for next week, when the triumphant Republicans and Teapartiers get to take an ax to discretionary (i.e. non-mandated) spending, as they’ve pledged to do.

The NYT has an article today on repealing the tax deduction for interest we pay on our mortgages, something proposed by Obama’s commissioners. Neither side is going to touch that one, but the article implies that the new majority’s tax-cutting rhetoric is about to be proven hollow: tax breaks for small businesses (and for an individual who files as a business) are already a major budget outlay or expenditure, just like the break on home interest:

“The rhetoric of tax-cutting so dominates the political debate in Washington that many elected officials are reluctant to acknowledge that the federal government devotes about as much money to tax breaks—$1.1. trillion—as it does to discretionary spending.”

(Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/business/economy/13mortgage.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business )

Ps. @ Annie

I think Mrs. D. is upset because, as she told Alex yesterday, her lover’s wife came home unexpectedly before breakfast and kicked her out of the house (or trailer).

Leo is in Hamlet’s situation—forced to acknowledge his mother’s lust. Hamlet, never impeded by aphasia, explodes in a famous rant against his mother:

Rebellious Hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let Virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire.

(Hell = personification of lust; flaming youth = Alex)

This really wasn’t a good enough thread to be worth rerunning.

Why didn’t Alex leave when Toggle did? Then none of this would have happened.

This is a re-run, in the newspaper it stated that Doonsebury is on vacattion the local and they ran some other comic on a trial basis.

As it is Veterans Day week, this is actually a good re-run.

I’d say it was time for Leo to move out on his own … the stress where he is now is a slippery downward path … on his own he might find some traction. — or is GT going to take a really morbid look at the situation?

Do as I say, not as I do.

I’m glad Alex was with Toggle last night. He was in no condition to be alone with those nightmares.

Besides, I shudder to think how Mommy Dearest would have been any comfort. It would have been a missed breakfast opportunity.

palin drome said, about 17 hours ago

Assuming Mrs. DeLuca owns the trailer, Alex is being impudent. She may be Leo’s guest, but her vulgar hostess provided their bed.

But what if Leo owns the trailer?

Drome, comparing Leo to Hamlet is a bit much. Hamlet rails at his mother in one of the most intense scenes of the play, and he has more about which to complain than does Leo. Merely months after Hamlet’s father’s death, Hamlet’s mother married the father’s brother, which is shameful in its haste and might lead one to consider adultery before the death.

You use Hamlet merely to refer to Jones’s Freudian interpretation of the scene in Hamlet, and Leo also does not demonstrate such unsublimated Oedipality. Indeed, the mother evinces more Oedipality than does Leo, considering her anger with Alex.

In the 2nd panel, the image on Mrs. DeLuca’s arm looks like a crude rendition of the Marine Corp emblem, whereas the apparition in the 4th panel looks like a dolphin jumping over the moon, so it can’t be a tattoo, unless DeLuca is flex/clinching her muscles between panels.

It’s plausible that it’s shoulder hair, blown out of place by an oscillating table fan.

Good thing Alex has Leo’s blind side.

Back to the therapist!