Blowback
Blowback
A clean, well-lit place to vent
Please feel free to contribute to this frequently-updated forum, which posts selected commentary on our favorite comic strip. If you'd like your critique to be posted, please note that civility, if not approbation, counts. Click here to submit a comment.
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RIGHT ON
Today's strip about WWP was right on. How can "charities" dupe so many people? Fisher House, DAV, and other real organizations need the help. Thank you very much.
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THANK YOU
Thank you, thank you, thank you for today's comic strip!
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TODAY'S STRIP
Garry, thank you for today's strip on the Wounded Warrior Project. It made me think, look up this "charity," and then cancel my contributions. I'll now donate to DAV -- Disabled American Veterans! Thanks again.
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NUDESBURY
45 Years Ago Today: Nudesbury! This ought to inspire the next collection: The Pre-Code Doonesbury.
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STANDARD SHIFT
I was delighted to note the standard shift on the car headed to the cemetery in Friday's strip; Curtis clearly wields it with authority, and the downshifting leaves no doubt as to the need for speed! Hardly anyone appreciates real driving these days...
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ZOMBIE CUCUMBER
Slave Zombie Duke really takes me back. Zombie cucumber (Datura Stramonium, aka Jimson Weed) -- the second half of that prescription after the blowfish poison -- wasn't on Duke's personally approved list of psychotropic drugs, but it suited him. Voodoo Economics has multiple meanings, and there are so many Zombie Lies That Will Not Die, all the way back to the Curse of Ham theology, used to justify slavery in the US and Haiti and many other places.
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TRUMP
Wait! Trump reads Doonesbury? Oh happy day.
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LEAP DAY
No Flashback strips? Stupid Leap Day...
Editor's Note:Indeed. The Flashback system couldn't pull content for all the 5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45 Years Ago Today slots, so it took a day off. It will resume tomorrow!
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SAYWHAT?
Monday's SayWhat? is priceless (it was just on my lunchtime news, too). You have to ask if Trump even listens to what he says, or has said, after a comment like this one. Where was this refusal to jump to conclusions when he called for exclusion of all Muslims from the U.S.?
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BERLUSCONI
If Donald Trump becomes president, it will resemble the presidency of Silvio Berlusconi of Italy — except, of course, with a nuclear arsenal and a huge (really tremendous!) military apparatus, and maybe not quite so many bunga bunga girls. Silvio was a disaster as a chief executive, but was wildly popular, just like The Donald.
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OXYGEN
Donald Trump is sucking all the oxygen from the room? Oh yeah. And he's not done yet. He's barely started.
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CURTIS
Curtis (in the current "Dead Duke" story arc) looks a bit like a young Trump, dontcha think?
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TODAY'S STRIP
Way to trump Trump with his own petard in today's strip. (And you are the master of the DT coif.)
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WHITEWATER
Wow. Thursday's 20-years-ago Flashback strip was prescient, and is still current. That's a real accomplishment for a comic strip. People who lived in Arkansas at the time, of course, knew the Whitewater story was a crock, but when the New York Times is pushing a story it has legs.
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SOUL-SEARCHING
Thank you for the fuel to elicit some beneficial soul-searching, GBT. Yesterday, after being subjected to yet another dose of selfish drivers' antics, and still cogitating on Sunday's Doonesbury strip, my own judgemental reaction to their antics came up for review. Suddenly, as I parked in front of the veterinarian's office in Sublimity to pick up some meds for our beloved old dog, my mother's long-ago remonstrance whispered through my mind: "You see your own faults most in others!"
Now, admittedly, such comeuppances can indeed devolve from witnessing the antics of others important to you, or having been the victim of such inappropriate nonsense, and probably other ways yet -- there are countless ways to be drawn into the practice of selfishness, for one sin -- but I immediately thought how sad it is that, quite apparently, the vast majority of the lot of haters running for president of the U.S. (and seekers of myriad other positions of power and influence), seem to have not had the blessing of such an aware and insightful mother to guide them through the thickets of stupid human tricks.
I did; and I still find myself being sucked into the stupidity of responding judgementally at times. (I have often told students that dumb means you don't know better; stupid means you know better, and refuse to employ it: The only one who can fix stupid is the bearer alone.) Someone should remind these folks that Jesus never once is recorded as having advised us mob to hate anyone, nor anything, except sin. But hey, we prodigal sons are a rare breed, eh? Not: Most of us lot apparently just never seem to garner the courage to admit we were wrong, and wax willing to change that. Any more, my favorite prayer is, "May God bless those who love us; And, those who hate us. May God forgive us all!" I find it's great for humility.
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CLASSICS
The Classic Doonesbury storyline about Duke is even more interesting for knowing what the future has in store. I find myself paying a little more attention, trying to spot clues. And I enjoyed the Sunday strip with Rev Sloan. We don't get to see much of him these days, so that's fun. He raises a very obvious question, but I don't think it should be limited to Trump supporters.
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TRUMP'S APPEAL
I have been a fan of Doonesbury since college, some 40 years ago. As a left-leaning born-again Christian, I say thank you for yesterday's Sunday strip where Rev. Scott Sloane questions Donald Trump's appeal to evangelical Christians. I, for one, think I can sum that up in one word: racism. The blind spot for racism in those Christians strongly influenced by "Southern-fried Christianity" is...well...yuge.
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SCORCHED EARTH
In view of the trail of scorched earth Trump is blazing on his way to the White House, America simply cannot afford to restrict itself to just weekend GBT-administered doses of reality. Alpha House's merits notwithstanding, America -- nay, the world -- has too much to lose from the specter of a Trumpasaurus rampaging into the White House. All hands on deck, GBT! We need you now to champion whatever is left of sanity in America on a daily basis.
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REV. SLOAN
Thanks for bringing back Rev. Scot Sloan who was always, along with Fr. Mulcahy from M*A*S*H, one of my professional role models. His discussion about Donald Trump with B.D. and Boopsie helped me make a connection between Mr. Trump and Downton Abbey. Mr. Trump (and possibly the Kardashian family as well) can be an explanation for why Downton Abbey has been so phenomenally popular. It calls to mind a long-gone era when rich people were also classy, rather than vulgar.
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SLOTH
Re the five-years-ago-today Flashback strip: Turns out the man who visited his golf resorts once every five days while President and spent up to seven hours a day watching cable TV, had the market on sloth, too. Zero for seven on the Deadly Sins!