Recent Comments

1. about 6 hours ago on Luann

   My seasonal wishes to my friends here on GC (not just this strip, but I won’t be cross-posting on them all) come from Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield (and Serge Prokofiev):

   “I wish you a hopeful Christmas

   I wish you a brave new year

   All anguish, pain and sadness

   Leave your heart and let your road be clear"

   —“I Believe in Father Christmas”

   (Looks as if we’ll really be needing a brave new year, too.)

2. about 7 hours ago on Doonesbury

   (As It Happens actually runs from 6:30pm to 8:00pm, not starting at 6:00pm as I mistakenly typed. But no matter—the reading is available on demand in several places, including one on YouTube that’s illustrated with still pictures—like maps, Mosquitoes, and Vampires (oh my!).)

3. about 21 hours ago on Kliban

   For a musical accompaniment, check out Prince of Peace, by Crowbar, on YouTube.

4. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   One of the features I always enjoy on Christmas Eve is the annual reading, by the late Alan “Fireside Al” Maitland, of Frederick Forsyth’s short piece “The Shepherd,” on the CBC program “As It Happens.” It’s a neat story, and you don’t even know what genre it’s in until the last sentence. It can be found the the CBC site cbc(dot)ca, or even on YouTube. It will undoubtedly be read tonight during the show, which runs 6:00pm to 8:00pm local time across the country, and on cbc(dot)ca/listen

5. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   “. . . the people buying them think they look cool.”

   One of my favourite strips (sadly not on GC) is Alex alexcartoon(dot)com . Alex is a merchant banker in London, and displays a level of cynicism and narcissism higher than Uncle Duke’s. He has a Range Rover that he uses to commute from his suburban house to The City, but likes people to think that he has a country estate. Check out the strip for 18 Jan 1975.

6. 2 days ago on Luann

   Has Brad ever profited by taking advice from TJ?

7. 2 days ago on Dick Tracy

   There was a British tv series named Unforgotten that dealt with a series of cold cases. At the beginning of each season, we viewers would be introduced to a bunch of characters who seemed to have no connection, and, over the course of the season, various connections would be discovered by the intrepid detectives, and the murderer(s) would be revealed.

   So far here, we’ve seen a number seemingly unconnected characters and situations—the TA arrests, the TA killing, the clock tower, the Totten development, even an apparent Nazi connection. Although it’s unraveling slowly, I’m willing to have faith that the story will all come together. I have lots of time, and nothing in my life is critically dependent on a quick resolution of this story.

   Of course, if the resolution of this story is as dumb as reading writing impressions on a pad, then I reserve the right to get mad about it.

8. 3 days ago on Overboard

   Here above the 49th parallel, the sun sets at 4:17pm.

   I’ve been trying to find the poem that celebrates St. Lucy’s Day as having the shortest day, but the longest night, perfect for love. (No, it’s not Donne’s “Nocturnal on St Lucy’s Day,” and Spenser’s “Epithalamion” doesn’t seem to mention St. Lucy’s Day specifically. Google hasn’t helped, but I’ll keep looking.)

9. 5 days ago on Compu-toon

   Santa does, however, have a postal address: Santa Claus / North Pole H0H 0H0 / Canada. It’s staffed by a bunch of elves who are mostly retired postal workers.

10. 5 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

    I believe that Rand endorsed capitalism in its rawest form, and she was surely rabidly anti-communist. I think, however, that the quote you gave just illustrates the fact that “good” capitalists will sell anyone anything, as long as there’s a profit in it. I don’t see that she sees that as a problem.

    (I remember that Doonsbury‘s Uncle Duke was facing an Iranian firing squad and haggling: "And that’s my final offer!" Apparently that offer was accepted, because he did reappear as “the 53rd hostage” some months later.)