I burst into tears when Andy died 25 yrs ago on Sunday. So silly. I knew it was coming.

The 1980s was a time when I lost contact with the denizens of Walden. I was living in Australia (as I still do), where the only paper that carried the strip was Mr. Murdoch's The Australian. I only reconnected with Doonesbury via its website in the dot-com era. As a result, I never knew of Duke's involvement with Falklands War tourism. I'm looking forward to the rest of this storyline.

Because I had written this for my blog earlier this week, I particularly appreciated your hypothetical press announcement today.

Stephen Crane's short story The Open Boat begins, "None of them knew the color of the sky." The survivors of a real-life shipwreck, including Crane, were totally focused on the waves that threatened to swamp their little lifeboat at every moment. But our Republicans are perfectly happy for us all to be swamped. Some of us have been saying for years now that President Obama should come out in favor of breathing.

Last week every Republican senator voted for Obama's secret Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty. Mitch McConnell led the support for the bill, while Elizabeth Warren opposed it. So today's strip is not true, and therefore not funny.

I can't stop laughing -- in a sad, sad way -- over the notion of Zonker the soon-to-be graduate going to a job fair choked with big-name companies. The grads coming out into the "real world" now are in for not just an eye-opening experience, they're in for a rip-your-eyelids-clean-off-your-head experience: salaries are down, jobs are scarce, pensions are going away, the planet's heating up, and our political leaders are, frankly, not even close to being able to cope. Let's all have a good laugh at Zonker. In 10 more years, I wonder how many people with freshly-printed diplomas will want to shake him by the throat for not appreciating the opportunities he had.

Re Zonker's plan: What if everyone did that? The world would be a much pleasanter place.

I inherited the passion for Doonesbury from my father's comics, but I never got to know how Mike and Kim met. Can you please help me fill in this gap? Thank you very much

In the last panel of today's strip, i notice that the toast has popped up but the toaster handle is still down. How can this be??

Today's is indeed a classic strip; my favorite character wearing my favorite work clothes. OshKosh, b'gosh!

In today's 35-years-ago Flashback strip I enjoyed the reference to Bruce Jenner, who was a Wheaties-cereal-box-featured athlete after winning the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon in 1976.

I think today's Walden Uni "recruitment of applications to fail" would make a funny premise for a series.

Doing the math, Jeff is now about 32 years old. I wonder why senior citizens Rick and Joanie are still letting this loser sponge off them.

Both Jeff and J.J. strike me as being highly underrated. Jeff was certainly in some very dangerous situations in Afghanistan and muddled through somehow; and writing a highly successful novel is certainly a major accomplishment. And in the case of J.J., any artist who can support herself with her work is not to be sneered at. Also, if I remember correctly, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant, albeit with a little help from Mike. Nonetheless, she obviously is not without talent. Both tend to be their own worst enemies; but both have been uncommonly successful in their own way and deserve at least a little respect.

J.J. or Jeff? Considering what they've produced so far, J.J., in spite of herself, gets the prize.

In today's Doonesbury Classic Joanie's feeling like she can get being a parent right this time. I wonder, on the scale of things, which child is the bigger train wreck, J.J. or Jeff?

It was so good to see Kim as a baby again on the Doonesbury Flashbacks page last week, in the strips from 35 years ago. Who could have guessed then that she would become step-grandmother to the heirs-apparent of the whole franchise? I remember her in her early teens doing too well in school for the comfort of her schoolmates, and getting her parents in trouble for throwing off the curve, and then, years later, going to work for Mike as a coder.

Knife, knife, knife, spoon! -- Ah, Jeff is a winter child.

I was born in 1970, and I became a daily reader of Doonesbury with the "Extra-Terrarium" strips. Prior to that I often didn't "get" the humor, or got lost with the number of characters. Seeing Zonker trying to revive "E.T." was a distinct moment for me (I thought it was hilarious!) in which I decided to make a point of reading it daily to keep up with the stories. Since then I've gotten to know and appreciate all the characters more, and more . . . Thank you, GBT!

P.S. In those days my hometown paper The Boulder Daily Camera had Doonesbury on the editorial pages, which also had fairly regular (and sometimes controversial) contributions from Hunter S. Thompson.

The 40-years-ago strip yesterday: how prescient.