FOX stifling Roland's tweets is a tragedy of Shakespearean scope. (Hamlet: "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.") Roland, we hardly knew ye...

Thank you so much for the Melissa storyline. Harrassment sounds like such a minor non-issue, and people tell you to just ignore it or develop a thicker skin. That sounds great until you are the one putting up with it day after day. I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who volunteers for the military, but even more for the people who continue to serve in these situations.

And you can't line the bottom of the budgerigar's cage with a computer screen.

Duke and his son need not worry about their income. The Supreme Court has taken care of their paydays. Insurance companies, many owned by German and Swiss Companies, can now fund elections for the insurance commissioners in 12 states, including Florida and California. Imagine being able to elect your own regulator. Companies can also fund the campaigns of judges in 33 states. Hugo Chavez's Citco can also be expected to be a funder of American elections, and Duke would be just the person to help that effort.

It would be great to see some official Berzerkistan fan items for the 2010 games. I'd love to sport a Berzerkistan XC ski team jacket. Thank you for writing a witty, sardonic, and still relevant commentary on our country and world.

I want to take a moment to thank you for the B.D., Toggle and Mel storylines. I post these outside my office and the vets on my campus seem to enjoy them. More importantly, you're making the soldiers' lives and concerns real to all who read your strip. I'm not a veteran (and I'm quite a critic of our recent wars) but I work with a lot of the young men and women who have served.

Mike is dying his hair? So what? If it's good enough for Paul McCartney...

Re. the fourth panel of today's strip: Where I grew up, it was "Wextree, Wextree!" We love our newsprint, too. Beats a warm laptop.

GBT/MD -- I can't believe you still have print subscriptions. I got rid of all mine almost ten years ago. Back in the 90s I thought I would never be able to do without my newspaper with my morning coffee. But time is of the essence, and I realized everything I read in the print newspapers I already knew from the Internet. Biggest pleasant surprise: no newspapers to have to bundle up for the recyclers. Man, you are so 1990s. I was in Starbucks the other day and saw someone reading a print copy of The New York Times. "How quaint," is what I thought.

Ooh! Ooh! Mike is dyeing his hair! No more white bits over his ears...

I don't know who's funnier, the boomers who keep up with the times or the ones who don't. Luckily it doesn't really matter, we can laugh at both. So cheers to jobs and Jobs!

Hold the presses! Better get back to the 20 friends and tell them that pennini is the plural, and pennino is the singular. At least that's what wiktionary.org says. I wonder what the pannini sandwich has to do with the nib of a pen...

Actually, panini is the plural. Singular: panino.

GBT had better watch out. The iDrones will come for him. They will smug, smarm, cajole, and eye-roll him into the fetal position. They will use subjectivity and browbeating fanaticism until he cries out, "No more! I didn't know the interface was so personal! I'm sorry I didn't consider design to be more important than function! It just works! It just works! It..just...works..." He'll be left a sobbing mess when they're done with him.

I recognize that this is a problem perpetuated by corporate advertising, and that falls right in line with today's strip -- but just so we're all clear, the plural of pennini is pennino. Tell a friend; tell twenty friends. We can make a difference.

Perfect paninis? I'll take it!

I love Leo! He may be a wounded warrior, but he's proud of his regiment. Whether you're Army or Marine, you have to have that pride and know you were the best, or what was the point of being there.

I also love Dr. Shiply. My wife and I took several math classes at Houston Community College on our way to getting into teaching. We found that the instructors were professional, prepared, and interested in their subjects and teaching. Community colleges are the last hope in America for lower class and lower middle class kids to have a chance at an education.

So glad to see Alex hasn't dropped out of MIT to be with Toggle. I'm guessing that Toggle is going to Bunker Hill Community College -- but are there trailer parks in Boston?

Yesterday's strip, in which Leo talks about being lucky, I found particularly moving. Some years ago we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday, and he gave a toast in which he said how lucky he had been. He mentioned two things in particular -- getting together with my mom, and getting out of World War II alive. He was in the Army in Italy and lost the lower part of one leg from a land mine, but what he remembered was how a brave medic had helped him out, and how other people had not been so lucky. I've really enjoyed Doonesbury over the years, for a lot of reasons, but this strip was special.

Thanks for the levity in a week that has been nothing but bad news here and abroad. It's good to laugh.

Thank you for your character Leo. As a fairly conservative Vietnam veteran, I have followed your commentary with bemusement since Day One. Political philosophy aside, I have found your work of late has been very supportive of our military veterans. I am very appreciative of your efforts in this regard. It helps. Good job. Thank you.

I agree with all the other posters. I am really enjoying the evolution of Leo (Toggle) and Alex. I'm a 25-year reader -- faithfully everyday -- and I just can't wait to see what happens with these kids next. Thanks, GBT!

Today's comic: Awwww! I am so loving this.

Okay, it's official, today's panel is without a doubt the best one in the history of Doonesbury. Thanks, GBT!

Ten years into my own TBI, I'm deeply sad that so many thousands of our young troops have closed head Traumatic Brain Injury. It's not near so much fun as Toggle is having these days. Aphasia is not common to the injury; you wouldn't know anything was wrong with me if I didn't tell you. You'd just think I'd been into the wacky tabacky again. TBI's mostly just years of pain, weakness, and diminished capacity. The strip has been so good with vet's issues, wish we could start over with Toggle...

Editor's note: According to the National Institutes of Health web site, "Language and communication problems are common disabilities in TBI patients. Some may experience aphasia, defined as difficulty with understanding and producing spoken and written language. In non-fluent aphasia, also called Broca's aphasia, TBI patients often have trouble recalling words and speaking in complete sentences. They may speak in broken phrases and pause frequently. Most patients are aware of these deficits and may become extremely frustrated."

Monday's strip is so...well, sweet isn't really the right word, but it'll do. It's sweet how Toggle goes from being all slouchy teen to perfect posture, salute ready when reminded that he was in the Army! Aaawww... I love him! (But shouldn't Alex be back at MIT by now?)

Army reject? Not likely. The Army keeps wanting the Marines to dumb down because we take too many of their officer candidates!

It's nice to see Toggle getting support from his prof. He is motivated enough to get through this. BTW, we could use an update on Jeff and his CIA problems.

Regarding today's strip, in which Toggle calls a Marine an "Army reject" -- never in a million years would the U.S. Marines even let an "Army reject" in their Recruiting doors. And as far as being a "real soldier," I will give the Army that, but then there are the Marines, and that is something you will never be! Semper Fi! M.O.M. (for non-Marine people, that's Mom of a Marine)

Thanks for bringing on board Dr. Shiply and community colleges. Dr. Shiply recognizes the challenges faced by many community college students, and he represents the caring faculty that sees to the students' needs beyond the academic issues.

I have been wanting to tell Garry for some time now that Leo and Alex make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside -- a bit of beauty in a harsh world. They are so real, and I love them. Doonesbury is absolutely brilliant, and I've followed it for a gazillion years. You shine a focused light on all the idiocies ("Here's a deer hoof..."), and you "support our troops" brilliantly, by raising questions about the war and the "leadership," by showing the realities on the ground, casualties included, and by depicting the young women and men who are risking life and limb with compassion and understanding. Thank you thank you thank you. And don't stop!!!

Garry Trudeau may be a bleeding heart liberal, but I really like how he treats the military. Today's strip is great -- Leo saying he's sorry that Dr. Shipley was a Marine, because the "Army rejected him." Sounds a lot like something I'd say -- and did. I was asked once if I was a Marine, and I said "No, I'm a real soldier."

I've spent 31 years in the military, 28 as an officer, and have been pretty much suspicious of this strip the entire time (as well as a loyal reader -- go figure). I really like what you're doing with the Leo character. For the first time (for me) I see no political agenda whatsoever in a character, other than an admiration for the young men and women serving our country. As I approach the end of my career, it's good to see bipartisan public support for the young troops coming up. They are, generally, the best this country has to offer. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Today's exchange between Leo and Dr. Shiply brings to mind my favorite circus punchline. In the movie Murder by Death, Peter Falk's secretary/mistress explains that her uncle stopped taking her to the circus when she reached the age of 26. With expert deadpan, Falk responds, "Yer uncle took you to the circus til you was 26? What the hell kind of circus was it?"

Thank you so much for depicting community colleges as you are doing. They are unsung heroes. Doonesbury stands as a pillar in my quotidian day. Thanks.

"Mesmerized" indeed -- and the fact it is Toggle, whose prior indicators show strong clear BS filters, reinforces the point of the word. All the moreso for those who know Mesmer's career.

I think Leo (Toggle) is one of the best characters you have ever come up with. Intelligent, funny, and a hero. Wow. The perfect foil for Alex. I'd love to see a meeting between him and Jeff Redfern. Whew!!!

Oh this is good! This is very good. Toggle really sees Alex and calls it. I think this is one of the best "love" stories I've read. Very uplifting today. Thank you.

Okay, I take it all back, I thought Toggle was a low-class distraction for Alex in her brilliant career, and I am well and delicately set right. Beautiful. I love this guy!

Oh good for Alex. Even though she's panicking, she says "You're a soldier -- suck it up!" She doesn't cling, she doesn't thrash, and she doesn't whine. She's closer to Boopsie than JJ. Good work, Alex.

Re today's SayWhat? quote:

"You know, well, all of them, because they came collectively together with...so much diversity in terms of belief but collectively they came together to form this union."
-- Sarah Palin, when asked by Glenn Beck to name her favorite founding father

Well she couldn't say "Washington," because he hated factionalism and she's a bewildered faction of one; she couldn't say "Jefferson," because he was pretty much a Democrat; she couldn't say "Hamilton" because he was too intelligent and apparently couldn't well handle pistols -- and besides, by her standards he'd probably be an illegal alien and the Federalist Party sounds too much like big, intelligent government.

I think the Alex and Toggle relationship is one of the most inspired directions Doonesbury has taken. I do like how the two are emerging from the honeymoon period of their relationship and facing some serious challenges. Though I would like to have a bit more focus on Alex and her schoolwork, I'm hoping GBT keeps these two together despite everything -- if for no other reason, just so Toggle can finally meet Alex's dad and his wife.

Two words to Mrs. DeLuca: "Overprotective much?" Really, seriously, she raised Toggle to be a man. That hasn't changed. She needs to get past nearly losing her baby and get back to letting him be the man he is.

Wow, I bow my head to Robert Gibbs of Manchester! I thought I knew the Doonesbury world, but to remember Sherm from those few Jimmy Thudpucker toons 10 1/2 years ago -- that blows me away!

Excellent! Audio comedy in a comic strip! I am a physiatrist, and I have always appreciated your portrayal of us in your amputee series. I just had to write to tell you how much I appreciate your positive portrayal of disability, including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and others over the years. This strip, which combines aphasia and hearing impairment, is delightful. Thanks again!

Re today's strip: Why do I get the impression I just walked into an "Airplane!" routine?

Here's one more you can burn!

Clearly, Zeke torched the silo because he knew some reader had written in identifying him as the mastermind behind the seduction and attempted swindling of Mike's mom. Our heroes' only hope is a massive email campaign which will hopefully come to Mike's attention. So let me be the first to say: "Mike! Zeke is behind that con artist who's been sponging off your mom! He's gonna try to cut you out of the will, Mike!"

Suspects? Me, I think it was GBT himself in the mail silo with the match, getting rid of another timesuck. First the tweets, now the letters. Will Blowback be next? Maggie, haul the pike down from the roofthatch and meet me in the yard.

I'm surprised that people haven't heard the phrase "dead to me" before. And it's appropriate; I've always been under the impression that it's Jewish in origin, as is Mark.

As for today's strip -- Why, Zeke, why? Why?

A while back, a reader from North Carolina mentioned that your website was the first one she goes to each morning. In my time zone, the next day's strip is available at 10PM. So Doonesbury is the last thing I read at night. I get my chuckle and then head off to bed.

Today's Zipper strip is a perfect punctuation to the week of Palin strips -- the same pea in two different pods when it comes to process. Does it come from being raised by a TV? Say and Do are separate realms irrelevant to each other, and Say seems to be the only one that counts. Is there also a Darwinian leverage in its biological efficiency, or only in its utility as eternal camoflauge?

With the frightening potential that Sarah Palin will achieve the highest office based on extremely important behaviors such as timely winks, 'honest' talk and faux-rogueism, I had a flash of the scene at the end of "Samson and Delilah" (1949), which I saw as a child, when the screen hunk, Victor Mature, as the blinded Samson, put his shoulders to the pillars supporting the temple (read USA), while, above him, in the temple, the happily oblivious Palin supporters drank wine amid massive denial of the mess made of our country by not-Walt-Disney's "Leaders of the 21st Century." I don't know a single war Veteran from my small group who 'likes' Palin for anything but keeping a constant vigil on Russia from her property.

I think one of the best recent developments in the strip -- second only to the Alex/Toggle romance -- is Boopsie's growth. Bravo, GBT, for smashing another stereotype and creating such a lovable, admirable character.

Wouldn't the Sarah Palin action doll's batteries be dead by now? It seems unlikely that a lookalike daughter of warm Boopsie and somewhat remote B.D. would still be interested. There are so many more attractive pop figures who don't relate by way of politics -- the sphere that is surely anathema to teenage daughters of anybody but solid right-wing fanatics. And B.D.? Though conservative and a bit thick, surely he is just too smart to fall for Palin. Maybe it's just that he is amused at the phenomenon -- or perversely feels he should defend her against Boopsie's good sense.

Boopsie has always been my favorite "airhead", and in her commments about Palin she shows still more smarts than many.

I'm a professor of English and linguistics, and just wanted to tell you how impressed I am with how you capture and caricature Sarah Palin's speaking style. It has me rolling on the floor every time! Thanks for many smiles and chuckles.

A New Year's strip about Obama -- I love it! Thanks so much, Mr. Trudeau.

Boopsie: "You can't just spend the first 40 years of your life being woefully ignorant of the world and how it works and then suddenly announce you're prepared to become President because someone crammed you with bullet points!" Agreed. All you really need is a teleprompter crammed with bullet points.

Boopsie for president.

You may have picked the wrong cartoon to rerun on January 1st, because it's so good that the strip the rest of the year will find it hard to live up to.

Today's strip may be the best thing you've done since "Bravo for life's little ironies."

The eight Americans killed in Afghanistan were CIA. I hope Jeff's okay.

Interesting take on Sarah Palin in today's script. For a moment, I thought the subject was Obama.

I seem to be reading Mark's tirade differently from everyone else, as I thought it was Mark himself, along with other instant-gratification liberals, who was being pilloried. Most of us know a few people like Mark; all one can do is let them rant. While idealism is a wonderful thing, and we need idealists, they can be a royal pain. Isn't the main point of our system the necessity for compromise, so that no one group's ideals completely dominate? In the recent past we came as close to that as I ever want to come, and I found it scary, to say the least. There's not an idealist on either side who will ever be happy with everything coming out of Washington, no matter who is in power, and it is truly better that way. Let Mark rant.

It seems that some people don't understand that the expression, "So-and-so is dead to me" means that the speaker has lost all affection for that person. Also, re the commentary on "MARK'S REACTION", there are a number of liberals who have become disillusioned with Obama not because he has been too slow to push a liberal agenda, but because they think he never intended to, and that his campaign promises were all empty talk. It may have been only a year, but with a solid majority in Congress, his "blame the mess I inherited" is sounding like a thin excuse.

Doonesbury advocating assassination? No way! First of all, Mark's actual words were, "He is dead to me!" Those aren't the words of a would-be assassin. That's the howl of a disappointed lover who has just spotted the lumps of clay on the ends of his beloved's legs. Second, why assume that Mark (or any other Doonesbury character) is voicing his creator's personal views? When, for instance, Zonker says something typically Zonkerish, I doubt that you, or anybody, thinks he's channeling Trudeau's own thoughts. Trudeau is a cartoonist, doing a cartoonist's job -- part of which is to point out the shortcomings of the people in power, whoever they are.

Honestly, I can't tell which makes me laugh more, Mark losing it over Obama's lackluster performance or the responses from the people who are mortally offended that you gave Obama the same treatment you've given every other sitting president since the strip began. You've been killing (or at least bruising) sacred cows since 1970. I'd expect no less from you in 2010. Keep it up!

I love the Sarah Palin Action Doll! And now that I've discovered it is not just a figment of Garry's imagination, I plan to get one. But I wonder -- is it anatomically correct? That is, does it have the brass balls?

In the latest series with the SP doll, why doesn't GT let us see Palin's eyes? Palin herself does her best to conceal them behind spectacles that make her look intelligent. Her earlier pictures without glasses, such as those taken when she was in college, show the eyes of a wild animal. Does Trudeau find it too frightening to portray her eyes?

You and Tina Fey have got Palin down pat. You may or may not know that the reason she talks so funny apparently is due to a Minnesota connection. Several decades ago, a number of families from central and northern Minnesota moved to Alaska and homesteaded in the Wasilla area. They had a unique dialect/accent that has its roots in their Scandinavian heritage -- yah sure ya' betcha, oh fer sure, hey donchaknow? A lot of Minnesotans settled in Alaska. In fact, one of the main streets in Anchorage is Minnesota Avenue, right near the airport.

In an earlier cartoon that features an exchange between Mark and the homeless Elmont, you may also have captured the essence of Sarah Palin's fractured syntax. Mark: "Seriously, you've always had that pithy non sequitur thing going on." Elmont: "Along with a robust incoherence and a transcendent vacuity."

Please, please, please stop running strips about Sarah Palin. The fact that she even exists makes me nauseous. We don't need to be reminded of it via Flashbacks. You must have plenty of other good Flashback material you could run instead.

I really enjoyed your artwork and your writing today -- the dialogue between Rick and Joanie, her thinking, the silhouetted frame with the contrasting reality of the kid in Afghanistan following. Nice!

Thank you for posting this. I'm just sick of everyone here in America as well! The Republicans are pretending the last eight years never happened, and that all our woes just warped in with Obama as president. The Democrats are acting like Obama can flick a switch and undo the corrosive damage done by the last eight years of intolerable incompetence. Some commentators are saying how Obama should do what Bush did, for heaven's sake!

Obama should be respected for trying to follow the actual rules our forefathers set up, which were rules designed to keep things from changing too quickly. Has everyone become so accustomed to the Republican abuse and abandonment of those rules that we want Obama to simply follow suit? I respect that Obama is trying desperately to de-polarize the hostility between the left and the right so that Americans can come back to the world of debate and discussion rather than stonewalling and obstruction. Obama should be praised for trying to behave like a President of Americans.

While I agree with Mark that many of the programs and policies of the Bush/Cheney years were appalling, I'm finding the progressive/liberal reaction to President Obama too similar to the purging of the GOP by the ultra-conservatives. If President Obama fails, we all fail, and the progressive/liberal movement will be no more in this country. President Obama was given a country in ruins, economically and morally. He can't change everything overnight, and believe it or not, everyone in the country may not want everything the progressives/liberals want. I am a progressive/liberal and have been my entire political life, but I am slowly moving away from the movement as I see it using the same tactics as the Palin-Limbaugh-Beck wing of the GOP.

Ironically, Alex walked herself back out of a bind very nicely last Sunday and, the next day, Mark...didn't, even when advised to. I wonder what he'll do now.

Witnessing how Mark and other former supporters are turning on President Obama as we face the gravity of the numerous realities with which he must deal, I think back to 1988 when, for a while, it appeared that the Democrats might take back the White House. The economy was in a mess, Ronald Reagan had tripled the deficit that he had inherited from Jimmy Carter, and the Reagan administration was awash in political scandals.

While no big fan of Bush 1, I sympathized with his situation when he tried to clean up some of the Reagan mess by taking some responsible, but politically unpopular, actions. After one term the public turned on him and somehow forgot all about Teflon Ron's role and we got a Bill Clinton with a largely free slate. I am very glad that Barack Obama is our President, but I fear that many Americans, with our very short political memory, will direct our anger and impatience against the wrong target. President Obama needs our energy and support now more than ever.

I wonder what's next for Mark -- hosting Sister Sarah Palin on his show and hawking her "book"? Enrolling in a Focus on the Family, Pray it Straight homosexual cure course? He's stood for strong values all these years, and I'm disappointed that he would cave eleven months into the new administration.

My son who is married to a lovely British lady and lives in the UK brought her here to Vegas for a visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. In the course of his visit, while talking politics, he echoed Kathleen's sentiments almost exactly. The people in the UK and on the Continent recognize the enormity of the problems that President Obama inherited from the previous administration's reign. The folks of Donald Rumsfeld's "Old Europe" are able to understand how hard it has been for Obama to navigate through the two war, economic near disaster, social program initiative and opposition party delay tactic minefields.

They find it hard to believe that instead of the nation getting behind the leadership to help solve our national problems, most people, including some from both political parties, the obnoxious Tea-Partiers, and people who seem to be concerned only with the problems that concern them individually continue to snipe at the President and his efforts to solve everyone's perceived difficulties. They seem to know us better than we know ourselves.

A reader of Doonsebury for decades, I never thought I would read in it anything as callous and dangerous as I did this Christmas! "He is dead to me"? With overtones of assassination? Couldn't our cartoonist have let us enjoy the day rather than bring hatred into it? I am baffled, almost hurt. I think his world deserves an apology. Like we all have to make sometimes.

I just want you to know that your website is always the first I go to when I log onto the web in the mornings. It always starts my day out with a smile.

My wife stopped reading Doonesbury a long time ago, which I am now realizing, after reading your December 25th strip, was remarkably prescient of her. While I thought you went a little overboard in your constant ridicule of Dubya (but only a little), making fun of Obama and using the word "dead" is not only in bad taste, but will hopefully attract the attention of the Secret Service.

You seem to resent that only a politician can be elected President, but if what it will take to make you happy is a Philosopher King, you're going to have a long wait. Of course, Philosopher Kings wouldn't have had to run for office. Hitler gave up on the idea of the democratic process and decided that only a strong individual (himself) was worthy to lead Germany. You seem to think that anyone with the ability to overcome prejudice and stupidity and actually get elected President of the United States is worthy of ridicule because he isn't immediately doing everything a rabid liberal (who could never have gotten elected) would do in his first six months in office. Lighten up a little.

Re: "MARK'S REACTION": Hear, hear! Maybe the problem is an instant gratification entitlement thing. Or a wish to be totally absolved and cleansed from the Bush years ASAP. Sorry, but innocence isn't possible...

Mark's loss of faith in Obama matches mine. Please read The Tragedy of the Obama Presidency by Eli Zaretsky. Also, the Blowback post "HISTORY" mistakenly asserts "all U.S. military action in Cambodia, as well as Vietnam and Laos, had ended on August 15,1973." We were still fighting until the emergency evacuation of the U.S. embassy in April 1975. Mark got it right.

I always love your outlook whether I agree or not. However, I do think the current strip ripping into Obama is a bit strong. He hasn't done everything for everyone, but he has done so very much in one year, especially in light of what he walked into. He is doing great and we all need to understand priorities at that level may not match our own. I for one am looking forward -- with hope -- to 2010!

The past couple of days Mark has been sounding a lot like some of the folks over at Daily Kos. They're all upset that Obama hasn't done everything that he promised, all within the first year of his Administration. I'd have to say to Mark what I say to my fellow Kossacks: Don't try to insist that he put all of the Thanksgiving dinner on a tea saucer. He's got a hell of a lot on his plate already, and what I see is that he is patiently and methodically working his way down the buffet.

My best clue that our president is doing a better job than he's presently getting credit for is that he's ticked off both the clowns to the left of him and the jokers to the right. Good for him!

Mark's reaction this week seems to me to be an accurate reflection of the reaction of many Americans and one I find baffling as well as painful to witness. I first noticed it when I went home to Canada in August and popped down to visit some friends and family in the U.S. There appear to be amazingly unrealistic expectations as to what the man can accomplish and how quickly, and I found it depressing to realize how many Americans seem to have lost a sense of priorities.

Obama is dealing with the worst economic crisis to hit America in seventy years, while dealing with two foreign wars and their related problems (such as Guantanamo) as well as trying to revamp your health care system. He has also been dealing with Iran and North Korea as well as trying to handle Palestine/Israel and reassure the Moslem world, and trying to integrate climate change into economic policy in America while ramping up for Copenhagen. These are all major major issues and cannot be handled precipitately. While the current status of homosexuals in your military (for example) needs to be looked at (this has not been an issue in Canada in almost two decades), it does not appear to touch as many Americans as health care; and there does not seem to be a reason to spend possible political capital on these less immediate issues that might impede success in the higher priority issues.

Everyone I know outside of America thinks Obama has done very well given the range and severity of issues facing him, I think he has done marvelously trying to balance and maintain priorities. When I was in America I heard him being lambasted by Democrats (!) for trying to work with Republicans - it might not have worked but it is worth a try; it is such a pity America seems to have slid so far down the polarized, combative route. Obama warned everyone in his inauguration speech that none of this would be easy or quick -- why does it seem so few people in America actually heeded him?

Garry, please consider showing leadership and offering alternative suggestions -- rather than just bashing our President.

At times Doonesbury really takes me back to the 1960s when I, as an engineering student, tried to be "hip" in the coffee house where the hippies discussed social issues such as Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. This proved to be a good example of cognitive dissonance, because engineering deals with mathematics and physics that are well defined whereas the theory of cognitive dissonance does not. In the end, I returned to my engineering studies and dropped my quest to be "hip."

Mark usually gets things right, but he got history a little wrong with "since Kissinger took time out from bombing Cambodia." Kissinger didn't take the time to accept his Nobel Prize in person, and all U.S. military action in Cambodia, as well as Vietnam and Laos, had ended on August 15, 1973, when the Case-Church amendment took effect.

Yes. Kudos to Festinger's work on "cognitive dissonance" but his "propinquity" is naive and underestimated. Life is proximity to other life. Without proximity life is not.

I'm surprised that Mark Slackmeyer's radio show is depicted as an NPR program when it's much, much closer to Air America or Pacifica Radio than anything on NPR. One could certainly see someone like Mark as a guest on any number of NPR shows, but as a host? No way. A show like his would frighten too many of the member stations.

Today's strip is a delightful syzygy of three of my favorites: Doonesbury, Obama and "Car Talk." Made my day.

Mr. Obama being criticized? I hear an icon being born, any moment now, wait for it, wait for it...(even if the Chinese, and not Mr Obama, ruined Copenhagen).

I hope we'll see a new Doonesbury character out of the bankers' scene. The latest news is overwhelming; giant profits for Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, even Lehman and the others, $800,000 average income for the Goldman investment employers, while big nations are close to insolvency and millions of people face unemployment. A character from the investment banking part of society could produce more valuable insights than good old Uncle Duke has reached in years. Keep up the fantastic work.

Readers should remember that Mark's opinions may not reflect those of his creator. Quite the contrary: Trudeau has populated his world with a wide array of characters, all with distinct viewpoints -- no one is right all of the time, and everyone is right some of the time. (Except maybe Zeke.) Enjoy Mark's frustration, but don't assume that Trudeau is nodding in agreement.

Better listen to President Obama's Oslo speech again. He said peace may be worth a fight. I agree. Please do not give up on President Obama just because you do not agree with him. You did that to President Bush, already. We don't have to give up when the fight is difficult...

I am a longtime fan and have always appreciated the strip, especially your storylines on our Vets and PTSD. I'd like to let you and those who read Blowback know about a wonderful woman named Michele Rosenthal, a licensed hypno-therapist who helps treat PTSD victims using therapies like hypnosis. Here's a link to her site. Thanks for all that you do.

Hoooo-weee, Bubba, did we just hear Mark join conservative talk radio?!...It's wonderful to see everyone finally treating Obama less like the Messiah and more like a real president. Keep up the great work. Readers have always looked to Doonesbury for sharp commentary on the current administration, regardless of party affiliation.

Finally someone has the grit to say what many have been thinking: "Obama has lost me! He's finally lost me!" Even my European friends are disappointed as well as a little confused, and I have no answers for them. They and I dared to hope that as long as a Dem was in office things would be better. Okay, it's not fair to expect miracles in the very first year, but most were expecting, and feel we were promised, more than a premature Nobel Peace Prize.

I couldn't disagree with you more about the stance that you are revealing this week on Obama. I know we all wish that more progressive items could be passed, but I don't think any would be passed if anyone but Obama was President. At least you have a man in the Presidency fighting for these issues. But as Paul Krugman states in his blog post today, "How could he have made Joe Lieberman less, um, Liebermanish?"

There are political realities that all progressives must contend with. The President is not omnipotent and is not a king. There is just so much he can do. If you are interested in pushing for a progressive agenda then you have to continue to fight for progressive candidates, not only for the Presidency, but also all other elected offices.

Re the comment called "A SHIFT" and the perceived liberal/conservative divide among the Doonesbury characters: Yes, the focus has changed. B.D. and Toggle's direct experiences with war and their low-to-mid-class economic status put them in common with a growing part of U.S. society. By contrast, Mike is a Dot.com millionaire, Mark is a radio voice, and Duke is still a shyster. It is easy to see who is "relevant".

Of the above, only ex-campus radical Mark is leftist. Remember: Mike voted for GWB twice, and Duke was an ambassador during the Ford Administration. Like Duke, B.D. has always been anti-commie, but whither Toggle? Although some self-styled "conservatives" may claim him, he may be honest, hard-working and liberal. Such people do exist.

I love Toggle so very, very much. Today's strip made me his slave for life. What a great guy.

Oh, today was lovely! The more I see of Alex and Toggle as a pair, the more I like them as a pair. I am so glad Leo had the wits to let Alex talk herself back out of that little depressive death trap. Smart man, our Toggle. And smart of Alex to appreciate it rather than resent him for failing to enhance her bout of angst.

I took the Tiger stuff to be about what constitutes global headline news these days; made me chuckle. The Toggle/Alex storyline is fantastic. Keep on keeping on!

The final Roland tweet sequence was terrific. It said as much, if not more, about him as a journalist/person than it did about Tiger's, er, situation. The tweets have been such an immediate way of accessing Roland as a (deeply awful) mediaperson that it has been so easy to forget that they were actually real-time work for GBT, done in addition to his full-time job of maintaining the Doonesbury genre. Thanks for the bonus entertainment!

When I read that Cal State @ Long Beach is offering a Master's degree in Recreational Administration I immediately thought of Doonesbury. I would think that Zonker Harris might want to attend.

What happened to Hedley? I've really been enjoying those ignorant and egotistical tweets from our favorite journalist, but what happened? Now his Twitter page "doesn't exist". Please give Roland back his Blackberry so that he can continue to provide us unique takes on the events of the day. Let us know one way or the other, because not knowing sucks, and no new tweets sucks more.

Editor's note: Alas, Roland's Twittering has come to an end. The complete disappearance of his archive was inadvertent, which this site's Duty Officer and Archivist-in-chief deeply laments. (If anyone out there copied it, please send in.) For his part, GBT does not miss the time suck and sees the benching of Roland as an opportunity to get back to producing the strip on time.

Comics (with few exceptions, including serials like L'il Orphan Annie or Mark Trail) have never been aimed at kids. Even family-friendly strips like Blondie, The Family Circus, and Garfield require a level of life experience that no child can attain. The reason why parents should read the comics page (or Sunday comics section) to their children is to help the children to "get" the joke. It also provides an opportunity to explore things that children wouldn't be exposed to any other way.

I do not follow golf, nor vampire TV shows/movies, but I love the direction that Hedley is taking! We all need this type of levity.

Please leave the "Tiger" issue entirely to Fox News and the National Enquirer. I'll be back when you're finished.

I love Doonesbury and have for more years than I care to admit. But today's shot at Tiger Woods is beneath your usual style. He's not a politician and, although I don't agree at all with what he's done, I don't think he's fair game for you and your wit. Joe Lieberman is a different matter, and I hope you take him on instead.

Tiger's ladies unionize? That's lame. Those lawyered-ladies are going to file a class action lawsuit. Then see how many more such ladies emerge and seek to join the class.

Brilliant. Thank you for today's strip. It hijacked me immediately, laughing: "Twitter is the first rough draft of gossip."

I've noticed that the characters holding the most interest recently represent a shift from years past. B.D. and his youthful counterpart Toggle (who is the only reason Ms. Doonesbury isn't completely annoying) are the princes of the strip, while Mike, Mark, and Duke are a yawn. Does this represent the truism that liberals are youth with nothing to lose and conservatives are middle-aged breadwinners with stuff to actually lose (okay, I butchered that completely, but you get the point). Conservatives have the relevant hand these days. Interesting.

I agree with the post "STRIPS LIKE DOONESBURY." Comics are not for the kids anymore -- what a shame! You liberal people are forcing adulthood on children way too fast. Let them be kids and have fun and games, and laugh and play. What's the rush to grow up? Thank God (yes God) that Charlie Brown is still around!

Re yesterday's strip: "Morning all. Remember how you used to read the Sunday funnies with your folks?" Let me see if I can remember: political subjects as if we don't get enough Ridiculing the President on a regular basis; a storyline about masturbation; a line about homosexuals having sex like my parents; digs at religions. These are just a few that come to mind. Here is a line you might consider, from Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." You guys took a perfectly good form -- the comic strip -- and made a mess out of it.

This week's water-cooler question about B-grade gossip "news" is a good chance to meditate upon the "tabloidization" of our culture. (That's a brand-new word I just made up -- you heard it here first!) Thanks to the modern miracles of mass media, the 24-hour news cycle, and the Internet, what would have been just a 10-minute time-waster around the pub hearth in Samuel Johnson's day has become a global time-waster for everyone, everywhere. The other night Jim Vance, one of the local news anchors, said "I've heard enough about Tiger Woods and I'm not going to say anything else about him." To which I reply, "Amen Jim. I'm with you. Let's starve these silly gossip stories to death for lack of attention, and be done with 'em."

P.S. A correction for "A MUCH-NEEDED CHUCKLE": It was Samuel Clemens, not Thomas Jefferson, who popularized the observation, "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics." It's not completely clear who came up with it in the first place -- maybe Disraeli -- but I don't think Jefferson is on the list.

I'm with you. Save those newspapers!

I am afraid that the reason people don't gather the kids around and read the Sunday Comics for fun is strips like Doonesbury. Doonesbury belongs on the editorial page. Why do you continue to have your material in the comic section? Even my kids are smart enough to tell a comic from political satire. I absolutely loved the time of the wedding gifts. It's sad that you lost your comic focus. I always would read Doonesbury but now I never do. Sorry.

Editor's note: The decision regarding where to place a syndicated comic strip within any given newspaper is completely up to the editor of that newspaper.

Today's "Save the Papers" strip may be too late. We gather around the laptop and read the comics online. I canceled the local fish wrapper last year because there was nothing to read except the comics.

When it comes to saving newspaper comic strips, I'll be going my part as long as GBT does his. Keep it up!

Just want to add more Doonesbury Love. Thank you for the aLIST storyline, I'm enjoying it immensely.

It's interesting that all the themed parties thrown by Mike, Mark, and Zonker occurred in exact five-year increments, and are now all ongoing at the same time on the Flashbacks page.

I wasn't aware that Madonna preferred pubescent men. I thought that was more of a Demi Moore "thing."

Thank you for posting the Melissa back story. More brilliant than ever!

The GPS A-list storyline is fantastically enjoyable. Thank you.

This week's strips have been so spot-on. When the sound man does his/her job well, no one even knows we're there. When we do the job poorly, everyone knows! Not that my husband and I have worked with any name artists in our home business -- a recording studio and portable PA for live performances -- but even when the artists aren't nationally known, they can be difficult, and some of them require a lot of support and handholding from the "sound man" working the board.

I love the 50-Cent piece, Bro! Every day I try to guess who the celeb will be before reading the last frame. I keep thinking the incoherent will be Paris Hilton. Lucky for me, GBT has chosen better for his GPS avatars. Keep up the good work.

That there Palin strip was a much-needed chuckle for real Americans in this times of tough finances with the troops of ours overseas and also back home like that Toggle fellow and all that bail-out and Copenhagen email scandal proving again that, by golly, that darn Obama ought to show us all his birth certificate especially now in this season when good Christians are having to fight like a salmon on a treble hook to keep from having our Christmas traditions that the Founding Fathers fought so many wars for taken away from us, too. It's like Thomas Jefferson said, "Lies, darn lies, and statistical stuff."

Having Sarah Palin do GPS instructions is like telling Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson to be humble. I wonder who's next?

Doonesbury was never a morality play with villains and role models, or perhaps never merely a morality play. It does have villains and even role models, and moral lessons may even emerge from the narrative, but I think Adam from Tsukuba is right to identify Zonker and Zipper as archetypes in an ongoing satirical portrayal of our society.

I'm a big and long-time Doonesbury fan, and enjoy the current storyline. I wonder, though, if Mr. Trudeau is passing on strips examining current political events, maybe because they are so high-stakes and complex that satire can't really do them justice. (Real life will suffice, I guess.)

Zonker was never presented as a role model but as an archetype of one aspect of youth culture. A hippie he may be, but his worst crime is innocence, not cluelessness. On the other hand, Zipper although tech-savvy is anti-intellectual and clueless by choice. He too is not a role model, but representative of one aspect of his generation.

Hippies are not dead; we straights have simply accepted their beliefs. Hence the popular commitment to environmental issues, which by the way were always dear to Zonker's heart as he talked to his plants and went snorkeling in Walden Puddle. Hee-Wack!

I am a veteran from Korea, Viet Nam, and actually spotted aircraft for the Army Air Corps during WWII. I am following Toggle carefully, and his welfare has become important to me. Please treat him kindly.

I wonder if celebrities ever complain about being in Doonesbury. The late Alistair Cook, when asked by Sesame Street if they could name the Cookie Monster after him, famously replied that it would be an honour. And so Alistair Cookie Monster introduced Monsterpiece Theatre's "Upstairs Downstairs." (You go up the stairs, and you go down the stairs...)

Doonesbury used to glorify people like Zipper and Zonker Harris, who got by as drug-taking slackers. The Doonesbury strip now has U.S. military servicemembers like Toggle, people who use a strong work ethic, talent and education to do their jobs, like the people in the various Star Trek movies and TV shows. Thank God hippies are officially dead as Doonesbury role models.

Trudeau probably is making a comment about this via Alex, but it's not a sign of last times. Enjoy! I know the strip makes me smile every morning. Although I don't have a GPS yet, if I could get Johnny Depp or Alan Rickman to give me directions, I'd be first in line. I think GBT is on to something here!

What I really love about today's strip is that James Earl Jones overcame a speech impediment himself: "I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year, and then those mute years continued until I got to high school."

Cool that "Mr. Depp" says "argh" to Toggle, in his pirate eye patch.

Leo the multi-tasker. He's gotta be one; it's life's natural way. There are a lot of great expressive opportunities available downroad in the Leo-Alex nexus. They could steal the strip, or at least the readers, from the old stable of staple characters.

Economic prosperity has produced a nation of sexually active and emotionally crippled university students who have yet to learn civic responsibility and critical thinking. Alex demonstrates the colossal failure of this in today's strip: stabilized behavioral models are replaced by wealthy celebrities who make us gasp, who exacerbate the global challenge that our nation is not meeting; we are cleverly distracted by celebrity worship that will not serve us in a competitive world. Notice that the one keeping the focus is Toggle.

I love it. Totally clueless boss is about to find himself facing the A-list of the A-list of stardom. This will put the spotlight nicely on Toggle. Please let him shine. This setup could go in so many directions. Just be nice to Toggle, please!

Go Toggle! That is so very cool. Maybe Alex needs to update her hairstyle and go shopping with Grandma or Kim, after all.

This morning's strip was wonderful. I almost fell out of my chair. The lives of a whole host of characters are coming together. At some point, I realized that Doonesbury should be read as a sweeping, comic, multigenerational novel of the upper middle class with political commentary interspaced. My critical insight is about to be confirmed again.

Hmm. Isn't it interesting how people see the same message so differently? I'm married to a guy whose work is a foreign language to me, and when he gets into the technical stuff I'm thinking about lots of other things. Why not daydream about one of many possible futures? I think that is what being young is all about.

Don't be so hard on Alex. She's a dreamer, like her dad. Okay, she can be grandiose, like her mom, but don't forget, the kid's brilliant. This was once the little girl who simply fixed Windows 95.

Huh? Alex being cruel, sarcastic or out in lala land? You never fantasized and dreamed with your newfound love when you were very young, about what might be possible? She's just young and talking with her beau, sharing in his probable hopes. Remember when she was looking for something to wear to the Telluride Film Festival when she did that documentary on her grandma? The Grammys comment could very well have been directed at herself, and her silliness at that earlier time. And if she was being sarcastic, I suspect Toggle is just the same, and probably smiled at the comment.

Joanie Caucus hit the nail right on the thumb awhile back when she said that Alex is as grandiose as her mother J.J. The only threats to Alex and Toggle's relationship are her inflated fantasies. Maybe living in the real world with a disabled vet will bring Alex down to Earth.