Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 14, 2010

Even a M.I.T. grad students put their foot in their mouth.

This isn’t a re-run.

Alex is showing Leo an example of what the French call deformation professionelle. Becoming a grad student (let alone a professor) means warping your human side. She needs Leo to straighten her out.

(The name Leo, by the way, does not mean “king.” It means “lion.” Persons born under that zodiacal sign—23 July to 22 August—are supposed to be generous and outgoing. Obama and Clinton both are Leos. Bush was born under the preceding sign, Cancer, and so was Garry Trudeau, on 21 July.)

Hey, don’t knock Cancers - I’m a Cancer. Wait, that didn’t come out right…

Bush was also a Texan, went to Yale?, and was an “oil man”. Do not tread on Cancer.

Bernard Shaw said that “Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” I know what he means. Each has its own vocabulary and grammar that concentrates a lot of information for quick reference.

Toggle could probably speak pure military-ese and make himself incomprehensible to Alex.

Good one Ira!

Just call me Crabby, Crab is sign of Cancer zodiac

Did you know that the male lion is is a lazy do nothing. Sleeps about 20 hour a day, only gets up to eat after the female lions have made a kill.

is it the old Alex or the true Alex? trouble in Paradise. says a Capricorn, opposite to Cancer, a beloved sign dishonored by the dry drunk.

Be fair, @everyone. Alex is really trying. She notices her errors - true, not till she has made them - and always apologizes. (I must be very tired - only four hours sleep last night. I’m not sure how to spell that last word. But the spell-checker has accepted it, so it must be ok.) So she has potential to improve. Remember - “the light bulb must want to change!”

Let’s hear it now - some (how many is up to you) cheers for Alex! and also for Toggle! He just lets her remarks slide off him. Good man! Definitely this couple has potential to succeed.

HAPPY FORTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I notice that Alex’s nose is noticeably shorter and a nicer shape.

The astronomical sign came first. We Cancers should speak our name proudly (admitting, of course, that astrology is bushwah).

This is a good strip today. Where is Alex in grad school? Leo lives, as I recall, in northern Virginia.

I am truly proud that Trudeau has done some that illuminate the problems our soldiers are having without trashing the same soldiers. Good work GT.

surely I’m not the only one who thinks the zodiac = bulls#!t?

(joethuen: they also have sex and fight each other for the right to have sex! but yeah that’s about it)

Person918, the Zodiac and its believers antedate all of the world’s faiths. As Mom once said to me, do not worry about God, She does not care about what you believe at all.

isn’t moonchild the name of frank zappa’s daughter?

no…second thought - “moon dawn and dweezle”. that’s franks kids.

can’t wait to see what nursing home they put him in as payback for that little stunt.

Hooray for Leos! I am a Leo! I am also glad to know that I am in great company!

Astrology is like psychology: not exactly anti-scientific, but pre-scientific. Correlating zodiacal signs with personality goes back at least as far as religion, as Theomordha notes.

Matching presidents with their zodiacal sign is a psychological parlor game, just like the Jungian personality types that Nemesys plays with. The astrology of our 20th-c. presidents reveals these pre-scientific correlations:

–In addition to “W” Bush, the other Cancers have been Ford and Coolidge (the only president born on 4 July)

–Bush’s father was one of our two Gemini presidents. The other was JFK.

–The only other Leo was Herbert Hoover (b. 10 Aug.)

–The president whose personality is astrologically compatible with (not like) Obama’s is Harry S. Truman (b. 8 May).

–Cancer marks the summer solstice, where the sun turns (“tropic”) and heads back south. The two presidents who share the winter solstice of Capricorn were Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon.

–F.D.R. (b. 30 Jan.) and Ronald Reagan (6 Feb.) share Aquarius with Lincoln (12 Feb.)—but so does that other Great Communicator, Sarah Palin (11 Feb.)

Maybe those who believe that politics is a science will be able to discover meaning in these zodiacal correlations.

Frank’s kid is named Moon Unit.

I’m just saying…..

With limited ability to get words out, he’s leared to make them count. Great zinger in the last panel.

My son is dealing with PTSD (like dad from 40 years earlier) and going back to school for veterinary technician rather than his original plan for PhD in physics. ( His choice because he does petter with animals than humans.) He can discuss quantum mechanics with no problem, but can’t spell worth squat- hang in there Toggle.

I’m certainly glad that none of our presidents believed in astrology and made decisions based on the position of planets and stars.

Congrats on your 40th also GT.

New Alex…

GET SOME SLEEP!!!

From Dragoncat (a Capricorn) with love

@Justice22

Reagan came awfully close, with his stargazer-consulting wife. Remember when Obama had to apologize to Nancy for making fun of her White House astrology?

Incidentally, Doonesbury’s birthday falls in Scorpio, the sign of vitality. For every Scorpio birth, another Scorpio unfortunately has to die (or so the stars tell us).

Our two Scorpio presidents have been Teddy Roosevelt and Harding—men who showed their “vitality” in very different ways. Harding’s fellow-Ohioan, John Boehner, is also a Scorpio. That moron’s political birth is set for January 3rd. Can we hope Doonesbury’s Scorpio birthday is a sign that the new House Speaker will prove stillborn?

Radfish said, about 3 hours ago

Cancer means crab. The disease was called cancer because it sometimes looks crab shaped. Cancer people are ruled by the moon and are as sensitive as water.

I am not sensitive.

At least the kid is making an effort, unlike alot of people at the Community College I currently go to.

Well, I am a Leo, as well as a doctoral grad student, and there are many who would verify that my personality warped a long time ago.

But palin, I do take issue that MBTI type assessment (which has been validated repeatedly and is used by nearly every Fortune 500 company for developmental, career counseling, and team-building purposes) shares much in common with horoscope predictions, except that neither methodology is useful in predicting future behaviors. The best predictor of future behavior has been shown to be past behavior, regardless of personality preferences or zodiac sign.

If you have genuine interest in understanding Type, the Association for Psychological Type International http://www.aptinternational.org/ has reputable resources.

Of course you’re correct, Vanpelt; my tropical astrology is obsolete when one takes into account the precession of the equinoxes. I never claimed it was scientific, only “pre-scientific.” So Leos like me and Nemesys are 2000 years out of date; the sun was actually housed in Cancer when we were born, and BrianCrook, “W” and GT were all born under Gemini.

I don’t think much, however, of your distinction between “hard” and “soft” sciences. The objective phenomena on which science is based have got to be uniform and consistently defined. Any fudging or “softening” of the data makes it no longer science.

Psychology is as old as astrology and its data are no more “hard” than when Hipparchus noticed 2135 years ago that the spring equinox occurred when the sun was in Aries (April), not Pisces. Yet belief in tropical astrology based on the hypothetical solstices (in “Cancer” and “Capricorn”) continues strong, right alongside psychology’s objectification (really personification) of our “drives” and our “introversion” and all the other fuzzy pyscho-social concepts.

THANK you vanpelt… I’m stunned at how many people here actually seem to be taking that bullshit (hey they don’t censor that one!) seriously. people have been believing lots of stupid things for very long periods of time; I don’t see how that validates them.

Radfish, I wouldnt know.

I find the Chinese horoscope more accurate. I’m a fire dog : )

Alex has had the same hair-do since she was 13. Time for an update, Garry.

Rad, I dont understand any of what that chart is talking about.