Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 22, 2013

Yippee ! Before the day is over, someone will turn this into a political diatribe. But before that happens, the thought of Mike as a grandfather is terrific !

WOW!!!

Ha! I wondered when the next generation would arrive on the scene. This should be good. Bit of a rough road, perhaps, but good.

Silly me, I didn’t know “glowing” was medically diagnostic of a pregnancy. Does hubby-daddy Toggle know yet?

@Linguist " …the thought of Mike as a grandfather is terrific !"*Yes, and Kim as Grandma (!!!) is, too. Toggle’s and Alex’s moms? Interesting.

Good night, all.

Hooray!

We need to make a family tree of the characters who are blood relatives to each other.

Mazal Tov!

Ho. Ly. Crap.

I lived in Nevada for two years. “Glowing” was NOT something you wanted to be.

Hint: both women AND men were susceptible to this condition.

Which is worst? The10 billion people or the suport system?

Shouldn’t Alex finish college and have something of a career first??!! Why is she having a baby right off the bat?! Wasting her life.

Yay! Twins!

OMG – more characters to remember…

wow, twins. is there some truth about twins, that one is evil and other is good? or, that they have their own language. or, that they feel the other’s pain.

@Linguist It’s Obama’s/Bush’s fault!!!

Hey..wouldn’t a great arc be that we get the same panel as above tomorrow…only with Mike and Kim? :)

Returning to the comic strip itself: Remember a few months ago how Alex wanted to have a nose more like her BFF than her dad’s? Well what I noticed was not so much a glow as a shorter, slightly less angular nose. So I thought her announcement would be about the schnoz, not a pregnancy.

Also: TWINS??? How are they going to raise them, broke as they are? Egads.

Unfortunately Linguist is correct. Come on GT, stop procreating.

what you say? with a name like litter box filler? I don’t get it…

Another tragic copy and paste accident. When will people realize the dangers of a full clipboard?

The world can’t support the population it has now, never mind the future inexorable increase. All major ecosystems are being degraded at an increasing rate and it is just a matter of time before there is a total gaian collapse. Oh well, it’s been a fun ride. The short happy life of the human race.

You…have…got….to….be…kidding.

Wowsie! I’m happy for Alex and Leo (yes, I know it’s just a comic). However, if she’s anything like me she’d be the opposite of “glowing” during the second and third months. (Maybe she is past that now.) On another note, the twins’ other biological grandpa is Leo’s anonymous father, member of a rock group. They may be really talented little buggers.

Forgive me, I haven’t been keeping up. I take it this revelation was unexpected? I’m not even sure who the father is meant to be, perhaps anonymous sperm donor and conception was via IVF?

When I started reading Doonesbury, Mike and DB were still in college. One of us is getting old.

STOP!!! Lets think this out..Knowing GT, and this strip, is “glowing” and “twins” really about Alex being pregnant (and can she really know it’s twins at this stage?) Or is this reference to something else and a new story line?

The thought of Alex getting all maternal makes me gag . . . all downhill from here . . .

FYI – JJ is Alex’s Mom, not Kim.

Oh snap, boys, girls, or both?

I remember asking my wife once if a local newscaster didn’t look a little different. A few days later she announced she was pregnant. I still laugh a little at that one.

And just where are these twins going to fit in the trailer?

GT had twins as well as a singleton in his own family. Of course, they are all grown up now. They say it can be an inherited trait. Maybe one of GT’s own kids is having twins? Or wishful thinking on the part of GT?

“Glowing” is a rather old-fashioned term for pregnant. I preferred that one over “blooming.”

Here’s an excellent overview of the population issue:National Geographic: Population 7 BillionYes, fertility rates are declining. Young women – given access to education and birth control – behave with sanity and have far fewer children. And I think many (most?) species have a deep instinct to slow reproduction “when the pond is full.”Nevertheless, the momentum will continue for a couple of decades. And as the Nat Geo article points out, some problems, like climate change, are no longer affected by population numbers.

:0)

And then you have the “Christian” type who don’t believe in any sort of contraception who have 23 kids, have grandchildren older than their youngest kids and own a bus to haul them around.

WTG! Congrats, Alex and Jeff!

Stay calm; I think Alexander was being satirical. The last sentence was the clue: “How’s that? That should get it going…”

Congrats to Mr. Trudeau for the introduction of the third generation of our beloved characters!

@DTPi “Daddy Mike’s 0.01%er $$$” Did you mean “1%”?

Cool, another generation! I wonder if Alex’ twins will be quite as “precocious” as she was.

A good conservation. I agree that the environment is in a bad way. However, we here in the good ole USA have done an awful lot to make our air and water better. But, we have a long way to go. We need to be energy independent but we need to keep working on the environment. I saw and shared an article, on my Facebook page, that exemplifies the dilemna(sp) we are in. While our cities are gaining on air and water quality the citizens of western North Dakota are wrecking the water tables with fracking and the air as they burn off valuable natural gas. This is actually happening all over the country. Wyoming and Pennsylvania come to mind. I have lost family members to cancers that could have been prevented. It is a terrible way to die and, as I said, avoidable. I do not know all the answers and I hope there are people who can solve these problems. OK rant font off.>>We really must have put Tucci out. Haven’t seen him today.

OH, the article came from NPR.

‘Will the war vet chap be able to cope.’We all hope so; and with the way he’s dealt with TBI and having ditzy Alex as a bride, I’m sure he will be just fine.

No sense even remarking here..The crowd’s getting too loud and boisterous.

At 6 week ultrasound appointment, you can find out if you are having twins. Maybe even earlier, if they have another special test nowadays…

“I suspect that long before 2050 such die backs will have already happened. It could wreck our societies.”

As the Nile river, and especially its delta, expanded during “wet centuries”, ancient Egyptian population expanded to match. As it shrank during “dry centuries”, the population shrank to match.

Other peoples elsewhere — one in South America, another in North — either went extinct or migrated (and became lost to pre-history) such that nothing of them remains except the pre-historic archaeological artifacts.

Economists demand “growth” for their models. But if historical / anthropologic archaeology tells us anything, it says that biology trumps economics.

Back in my “journalism daze” I interviewed Stanford University Professor Paul R. Ehrlich who had just published his best-selling POPULATION BOMB (1968). I was convinced he was right and reviewed it in a magazine with a circulation of 400,000.

In successive years, after his predicted bomb failed to explode on time, the economists roared. He was wrong! He was Uncle Stupidhead.

Prez Ronnie RayGun told us it was Morning in America! If ya’ve seen one redwood tree, ya’ve seen ’em all. Cut ’em down! Sell the lumber to Japan for obscene profits! Economic growth will accelerate till the Lord Comes! Which is just around the corner!

But as far as I can tell, Ehrlich made only two mistakes. (1) His predicted catastrophic population reduction too soon. And (2) he failed to predict that in highly developed industrial societies, such as that of northwestern Europe, repro rates would tank.

But now that global warming is weighing in, Prof. Ehrlich is looking more and more like Prof. Einstein.

The planet, with its fragile ecosystems, is only so big. The BIG BUS can only carry so many people. No matter how many multinational mega-giga-tera corps there are employing how many wage-slaves.

BIOLOGY TRUMPS ECONOMICS.

@DTPi Okay, good thinking. Now, can you fill me in as to how we know Mike and Kim are wealthy? I suppose it depends on the meaning of “wealthy,” which is variable with where you live, among other things, but I’ve somehow missed the “wealth” piece as it relates to them.

@gmartin I agree with you that in poverty, physical beauty often seems to fade fast, while those with more money can “buy” more “time.” I’m just wondering where Mike and Kim fall in the overall spectrum, or more specifically, whether Trudeau has given us any information about their income level. I’m also pondering how “wealthy” is defined in general.

They are both white-collar professionals in the tech industry; so I would assume they’d be pulling down decent salaries. But huge salaries? Any reason to think so?

Sorry, but all I got from that was the BAD grammar. “…has made me a better noticer…” WTH?? Shouldn’t it be “…has made me more observant…” ?Trudeau needs to hire on a pro proof-reader.

Basically, they went out on their own years ago, and have very nice home with a view of the mountains near Seattle, so they must be relatively successful. Kid in MIT, no student debt…Don’t know about .1%, though.

Whatever she says HAS to be smarter than anything you’ve EVER said.

I wonder if the pregnancy and birth will happen in real time or comic strip time.

This is pure speculation, but I’ve imagined Mike to be higher than 1%, but lower than 0.1%. He probably CONSIDERS himself to be (upper) Middle Class, and not “rich.” Bernie’s “rich.”

For one thing, however nice his home is, he doesn’t appear to need domestic help…

@DTPi Exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

Unfortunately, So True!!

Re the comic: O..M..G!! Too Funny :)

Didn’t see THAT coming!

cool.. new story arc. upcoming new characters. even if it will take a while…. more fun..and yeah, family tree time should be coming up soon. In a few months. After the twins are born.

Alex needs to consider getting a new hairdo….this is not becoming to her. At all. Could we get something more flattering forher? I am very happy for her and her young husband, theyare my favorite characters. But it hurts to look at her hair.

Whee! What fun! In truth, population politics is an issue that is much too complex and fraught to get a proper airing in such an ephemeral forum as this. Still, thanks to all, even the occasional troll.

@Arye Uygur Have you ever counted the number of grandparents and step-step-grandparents Alex has? Daisy D. and a mysterious father from Mike, Joanie, Clinton, and Rick from JJ, Kim’s adoptive and birth parents, Zeke’s mother and multiple stepfathers… of course, she doesn’t know most of them, but that is truly a ridiculous amount.