Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 31, 2011

My friend’s kid tried that……ruined a perfectly good display.

Zonker steals the clause, “Can we talk?” (panel 3) from Joan Alexandra Molinsky Sanger Rosenberg (aka Joan Rivers), who OWNS it. Bad Zonk! Bad! Bad! Go to your room!

Steal from the best.

I see it all the time in NYC: in elevators, subways, you name it. I guess in the past parents were too busy reading the paper or watching TV.

Eryx, the “dumb bass” was stupid not only for trying to use its cell phone so far away from an e-tree, but also for swimming around in saltwater in the islands thousands of miles away from its home freshwaters in North America! (Most freshwater species don’t last long in saltwater, y’know, and vice versa. I know, I know salmon and other species can and do, so don’t clean my clock, all you evolutionary biologists out there.)

Too bad his target audience is unlikely to be reading Doonesbury.

If you mean Zonk’s “kids” — then, though they may be Zonk’s target, they’re not Trudeau’s. GBT’s “target audience” is Phuh, Dylan, Six, Eryx, C.Smurf, etc.

Heidi Tentee! Calling Heidi Tentee! My 300-pound English Mastiff muscle-dog — Henry VIII — read your embarrassing post of yesterday (you remember: Petraeus = Betray Us?) before I could hide it from him. He’s interested! I tried to explain to him about birds ‘n’ bees ‘n’ puppies ‘n’ dog-human chimeras. I tried to talk him out of it. But he doesn’t listen. He just drools and pants like he has the hots for you. Your call. What’ll I do?

My parents said Rock and roll was a passing fad that would condemn my soul.I used to say electronics were a passing fad that would melt their minds.God I hate being my parents.

Person using cell phone in Galapagos shows no evolutionary process.

Good morning all…

Interactive funnies!!! I love it!

This just in: odd looking coral formations, in the shape of cellular transmission/receiving towers, have been sighted growing on one of the Galapagos Islands! Even odder, is the fact that these formations have electro-magnetic properties. Some scientists are claiming that, given enough time, these formations will act as real cell towers and allow the transmission and reception of cell phone signals! Great news, huh? All those giant tortoises will finally be able to call their relatives in Africa!

Argh! Stop stereotyping teens! I’m 14, and I’m not some sullen, ungrateful, resentful jerk. Heck I don’t even have a Facebook!

There will always be a device for parents to ignore their kids. Electronic devices are just the newest. For my mom, it was books, and for my dad it was the tv. They used them to ignore each other, too, so it works against anyone!

USA too. Lovely colony at San Diego Zoo. Absolutely love those beasts. They move massively but slomo. If one plowed into me while I was asleep on the ground — not maliciously, that’s just the way they get around — I’d probably join those two thugs Jeff’’s MR took out, roasting at the end of a chain in “oven heaven”. (I’m a crip with GBS disorder.) They just want to get at their food, a huge basket of tortoise salad spread out on the ground by a zookeeper: fresh corn-on-the-cob (yes, the gentle giants eat the cob and husk), balls of lettuce and cabbage, whole beefsteak tomatoes, whole cucumbers, your turn to name something . . . . But whereas I’d go to “thug heaven”, one just caroms off the other and tries to get thru the mass to the food again. Whatta hoot to watch. Love that place. Charles Darwin studied them when he voyaged there on the good ship “Beagle”. In those days (mid-19th century) nothing was protected. Sailors would flip one upside down, slaughter, cook it in various ways, and eat it. Meat a delicacy, especially to a sailor long at sea on dried sea biscuit, beer/ale, ration of lime juice, salted meat/fish, preserved potato and cabbage. The tortoises almost went extinct.

Kids use ‘em to ignore parents, parents to ignore kids. Hey, maybe it’s cheaper than sending the kids off to military school?But of course the real fact of “social networks” is, nobody talks to each other any more.

I’ll try this. Post this on my pc and see if there are any changes of attitude…

I did sometimes read “Doonesbury” as a kid, even tho it usually bored and confused me. The occasional “interactive” strips always drew my attention. But now I wonder if Trudeau would do better not to bother.

Huh?

Sorry, Eryx, Apologies for being so rudely interrupted by that Droid. As I was saying, the two El Salvadorean girls, both being albinos, were not allowed to communicate with each other EXCEPT BY IPHONE. Even if riding the same sea turtle from the large island to Ecuador! You see, Steve Jobs was paying Charles under the table by e-check while monitoring the girls’ progress via a U.S.Navy drone from Cupertino. But it was Stephen Hawking who made this all possible with his time travel machine. And they never paid him a dime! Said, he being a multibillionaire and all, didn’t need it! Oh, the humanity, the humanity!

Oh, the guy using his cell in the Galapagos probably had one like mine. Tracfone service … don’t need no stinking towers. Got a satellite.

The thing is, Eryx — and this is what ticked Jobs off the most, because he’s the one who stood to lose the most money — Charles Darwin, being the good adopted daddy that we all (except anti-evolutionist Fundamentalists) expect him to have been, stopped the whole experiment while the two precious girls were less than 10 miles away from the Galapagos on their way to Equador. The reason, he feared they would get sunburned, despite the SPF 85 he had slathered on them. Jobs objected on the ground that Darwin should have protected them with hazmat suits instead of letting them wear bikinis and SPF 85, which washes off. Darwin was unmoved. And remains unmoved till this day. May he RIP.

What’s a “family computer?”

Comment on last week’s strip:

Today’s NYT (online edition) has this confirmation of Mike Doonesbury’s annihilation by the redhead cashier.

“A graying baby boomer told this story about himself. He was standing in a crowded subway car in Manhattan when a pretty young woman, seated nearby, caught his eye and smiled. He smiled back, pleased to think that maybe he still had the right stuff after all. Then she offered him her seat.”

At least he was visible to her; to the redhead, Mike was only a voice.

Trudeau has been making me laugh hysterically for decades. I wonder what will happen as a result of today’s strip. LOL

If I confuse you, Eryx, what must Jeff Redfern’s Sorkh Razil do to you?

good on you, you, The Spanishinquisition. it’s time the 14 yo were allowed to have their say. Bravo!!

I think the idea is that parents will read the strip and realize they don’t put in enough time with their kids. They could get this message without their kids actually taping the strip to the fridge. I think that was just a little fun way of putting it. Yes, it’s a rerun. Trudeau been writing this strip for a lot of years, must be hard to come up with fresh material all the time so if he recycles some, at least it’s good stuff.

Anybody: Regarding shamus and sharks, go to .http://www.seaworld.org/ask-shamu/marine%20mammals/whales/toothed/dolphins/killer-whale.htm

Everybody: Imagine two kids riding on the back of a giant sea turtle on the open ocean, each with an iPhone, not being allowed to talk to each other EXCEPT by communicating via the wretched cell phones? Don’t you think that mental image is in keeping with Trudeau’s message in today’s strip?

I thee so inspire.

Sea turtles and Galapagos tortoises compared:.1. A turtle is not a tortoise and a tortoise is not a turtle.2. Largest sea turtle ever found: 1 ton = 2000 lbs.3. Largest Galapagos tortoise: 400 lbs.4. Whereas a Galapagos breathes only air, a sea turtle breathes both air and (but only when it has to) water.5. A sea turtle has four flippers, whereas a Galapagos has four legs and four feet..All five of these differences are well explained by evolutionary biology in terms of:.1. Adaptive morphology.2. Paleontology and the geological column.3. Genetics (providing the strongest evidences of the three different types).

Doonesburyans:

All these comments are destined to be wiped in 2 hrs. So speak now or wait for the next strip: My greatest desire for the well-meaning, superbly “American” town: Jeff Redfern, long may he live!

One hour left.

~0.7 hr.

~35 min.

~23 min.

~10 min. to ~20 min.

~4 min. to ~16 min.

~ 3 min., then all bets off

~1 min., then “at any moment”

Any min. now