Those complaining about Sunday's strip seem to be forgetting that humor has always been one of the most effective ways to make people think seriously about racism. Think of Huckleberry Finn.

Here in Alabama our Unofficial State Motto is "Thank God for Mississippi!" They keep us at #49 or #2 on so many awful metrics.

Slavery. Wage slavery. Whatever. Just so long as we're the land of the free -- with a good work ethic. I refer fellow readers to the Pulitzer-winning Slavery By Another Name and the splendid, all-too-tellingly-subtitled Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches From The Unfinished Civil War.  In several passages, the latter delves into how undead the myth of the Happy Slave remains. Bottom line: while respectable pundits, history teachers, media outlets, and even Barack "Post-Racial" Obama turn a blind eye, a localized quasi- (or not-so-quasi) religious fervor remains squarely on the side of Tara/Scarlett/Robert E. Lee. In such a still-riven land, for prevailing kings of "comity" to wring their hands over how on Earth we can stay so polarized is downright risible; kudos to GBT for culling laughter from a touchy, taboo, still-entrenched tradition.

I usually enjoy most your strips, but yesterday's I found particularly inappropriate, offensive and unnecessary. Civil rights, slavery and racial mistreatment I do not see as appropriate to joke about. These are very sensitive issues. I showed it to my dad and he agreed. I do not support using humor as was used in this strip, and find it quite offensive. I will no longer look at Doonesbury the same way, or think of at the same standard. Sorry.

I love the efficiency. A triple play of negative stereotypes! Yesterday's strip not only depicted white Mississippians as racist, but black men as ignorant and Hispanics as in-the-field only! Good hustle, GBT. Roland's employer would be proud.

I was wondering how Mississippi's 13th Amendment SNAFU got past GBT. I should have known he would not let it go without a comment. This is about the best take I've seen on it. There's just not much funny about that situation, yet Trudeau managed to make me laugh. To commend Mississippi on rectifying their 148 years of ignominy, on paper at least, I've bought pages of stamps from the Post Office, whose offerings this month have been the Emancipation Proclamation and Rosa Parks. I intend to put those on every letter that goes to Mississippi.

Living in Australia, I hear some U.S. news but not all. I hadn't heard about Mississippi finally ratifying the 13th Amendment until today's strip. Better late than never, I suppose.

Often I wish we readers could express wonder and excitement over the strips that touch us the most, via some kind of ongoing poll. It's frustrating to not have a way to say "Wow!" Maybe the answer to just to do this. Thanks for your work!

I sure hope someone tells Zonker that firing union organizers is an unfair labor practice!

Speaking of unions, after Zonker moves to Colorado he may find this story useful.

Zonk should join a union! Perhaps this one.

I see that some fast food workers in NYC are doing a wildcat strike. I wonder if they were inspired by the current series or if it is just serendipity.

Nobody else in my life has provided more good cheer than Garry Trudeau. I love my children, but they've only been around 20 and 25 years, respectively. I've got a great natal family, and they are and were (the late ones) funny, but in terms of 43 years of day-after-day joy... it's Doonesbury.

Thank you so much for bringing to light the hardworking people who have jobs that pay poverty wages. I wonder how many people realize that most medical transcriptionists (the people who transcribe and proofread all the medical reports that are generated by physician dictation in offices, clinics and hospitals), who used to be paid generously for their service and given excellent benefits, now work for poverty wages.

With the arrival of speech recognition systems, even the most experienced and extraordinarily fast typists (many of whom are single mothers, single older women and people with disabilities) are lucky to make $20,000 a year if they work for any of the large transcription corporations in the United States and Canada. As a transcriptionist with 20 years experience who can works at above average speed, it is a struggle to make $10,000 a year as a supplement to my Social Security income of $10,000 a year. Transcription is paid by the line. We are pieceworkers who work at home. If our fingers aren't on the keyboard, we are not paid for our time. We are not paid when the transcription company's equipment fails. We are not paid when we stop typing to look up the names of new drugs and medical equipment. My meager medical benefits require a $100 co-pay to see a medical specialist.

The pool of experienced transcriptionists who are willing to continue providing their service is shrinking, and the quality of our medical records is suffering as a result. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work at all at my age, but I have no doubt that I am being exploited along with many others in poverty wage jobs.

Speaking of bad situations, I am a teacher. In Nevada, if you work for the state, when you retire and apply for your pension 2/3 of your Social Security benefits will then permanently disappear due to some sort of 'windfall profit' legislation. I earned my Social Security, but will never see most of it. Even if you move to another state after retiring, this rule holds. Because of this law I will be reduced to poverty after retirement -- which wouldn't happen if I received all of my Social Security benefits. Only a few states in the union have this 'windfall' law. Our union is constantly trying to undo this crazy law but having no success in this Republican-governed state, which is also a 'Right-to-Work' (forever) state. I did not know of this law when I moved here or I would not have.

Uh oh. Are B.D. and Boopsie headed for the rocks?

Earth to Zonk: It is worse in right-to-work-and-not-get-paid states like Indiana, and will continue to be until Democrats vote their numbers nationwide. Before the election I wrote about it on Daily Kos.

B.D. and Zonker! Thirty-eight years since it started for me, it's so cool to still have them in my life.

It's good to see I'm not the only mother that lives to embarrass her children. Lucky for my kids we didn't have video camera access back then. Not that this stops me.

Ah, I just love those two. GBT draws Leo as such an awesome, complex, and inherently decent person. But one with a huge dollop of 'fun' in his soul. Leo's relationship with Alex and their interplay is so much fun to contemplate. I keep thinking one has to be at least a bit of a really, really nice person to create such characters. They could not come from the mind of a mean person, even if the mind they do come from is also capable of creating Duke. Thanks to Garry for such fun people to spend time with on a quiet Sunday morning in late March.