Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 23, 2010

Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

All non-alcoholic punch is tied for worst.

ya made me tear up, gt.

Sandfan, I have had awesome punch in mexico, served piping hot. The Austrian version of Gluhwein isn’t bad either.

It’s the atmosphere that makes the drink. My son purchased “near beer” for a frat party and he said some guys got plastered on it. Of course he didn’t tell them it wasn’t alcoholic.

justice? :0) !

home, sweet home….the paradox of the lost being so found. amazing grace.

pouncingtiger said, about 9 kilovolts ago: “Every dark cloud has a silver lining.”

…and every year hundreds of people are killed by lightning as they try to find it.

For all of you that knock the non-alcoholic punch, remember that there are some of us who choose NOT to drink alcoholic beverages. Personally, the only use I see for that substance is as a part of motor fuel. (Drinking alcohol is ethanol, which is chemically a poison.)

jrmerm, you are being overly sensitive here.

If you think GT portrays white men as mean and/or bumbling idiots, watch some TV, the commercials especially.

Speaking as a white male, I don’t mind in the least that we’re often portrayed as bumbling incompetents. It makes it that much easier to rise above people’s expectations (and cuts me some slack when I fail to).

I don’t think GT is particularly hard on the men in the strip, but he often treats the women with kid gloves. There aren’t THAT MANY major female characters in “Doonesbury”, but the only one I can think of that’s consistently unsympathetic is J.J., Mike’s ex-wife. (Toggle’s mom is no prize, but I wouldn’t call her “major.”)

In Mel’s particular case, part of her function in the strip is that she’s a woman trying to navigate an overwhelmingly male environment. That the men around her by and large fail to see things from her perspective is, from a storytelling standpoint, understandable; it tends to be what drives her plots forward.

(By the way, this last bit is why I DON’T expect that Mel will turn out to be a lesbian; she’s carrying enough baggage as it is, and adding more would tip her over.)

jrmerm may have a point here. Mel’s resentment towards males in general, resonates with a few posters almost naturally and reflexively. Same type of animosity drove the Duke lacrosse case in Durham.

Remember what they were saying about Seabrook?