Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 02, 2011

Shouldn’t these two be texting each other rather than talking to each other?

RtO, or possibly just completed his life’s work?

Just because we CAN, doesn’t mean we SHOULD. Pity we can’t learn that.

In the background, the teenagers who read books are shown going to class and experiencing the intellectual life of young adults. Zipper and Jeff, walled out from that academic experience, use their books or computers as pillows and grow old (note the falling leaves) trying to compile an “archive” of youth as they remember it.These are two of his slightest characters, yet GBT makes their nostalgia poignant as they try to recapture the youth that they squandered so heedlessly. All they can remember is getting “hammered.”

“If I had a hammer, / I’d hammer in the morning / I’d hammer in the evening, / All over this land." So modestly singeth the naked temptress. Then — sopping stringy glistening black hair hanging down and sticking all over her face, and glittering blood-red lips puckering to form that uniquely lethal kiss — she boasteth: “That be how 7,967,000,000 teenoids be rendered nailed." Then vaulteth she away, faster than light, into the higher dimensions of the Bulk (conjured up by theoretical cosmological particle physicist Lisa Randall), as a way of bidding them all a “fond” farewell. Yet complaineth the 3’ high black lettering all over the front of the 1st sacrificial victim, the pure homecoming princess: ALL I GOT FROM TAKING ALL THIS HAMMERING WAS THIS LOUSY WET TEE SHIRT

My teenage years were 1956-62, and not only was it a different time, it seems like it was a different planet. In a different galaxy.

On the other hand, as a teenage boy, my life revolved around cars, girls, and beer… so maybe it wasn’t so different after all.

if that’s jeff, this is an old tune. look at his hair style. i also don’t recall jeff having any programming skills.

I’m proud to say I’m a teen that’s not among the 7.967 billion.

Whether that’s because I don’t drink or because I’m just not on Facebook is for me to know only ;).

p.s. i was responding to susan.

I believe I’ve discovered a flaw in his research. Not every drink in plastic cups is alcohol.

Right, Mike.On the difference between getting “hammered” and getting laid, see the Gatekeeper in Macbeth:“Much drink may be said to be an equivocator with Lechery. It sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him; makes him stand to and not stand to.”

One more detail: I saw a group of Brits—-males, but of all ages—-playing “ultimate frisbee” in London’s Green Park.Got to http://www.whatisultimate.com/what.asp

Palin drome: You make a good point. Though if every teenager is drinking 2,000 alcoholic drinks each, that may explain why they’re hammered.

Unfortunately, the biggest difference between my own teenage years and those of my children was that (as I’ve told them many times) life is going to be harder on them than it was on me.

In “ultimate frisbee,” no physical contact is allowed. It’s much like pornography, and maybe that’s why it appeals to the reality-challenged Jeff.

I assumed Jeff was looking for American students who get drunk between the ages of 13 and 19.But as you observe, the www is universal, so the part of the world’s population born between 1992 and 1998 would yield a cohort approaching 1 billion,That still leaves Jeff with more images than people—-a cartoonist’s despair?

It likely includes multiple postings of the same photographs, multiple photographs from the same parties, and multiple parties for each teen. I doubt that historical photographs account for much of the number, since teenagers in the 1950’s didn’t have cell phones; they couldn’t broadcast to the world “I am sooooooooo wasted right now!* I’M OUTTA CONTROL! Whoooo!”

Actually, Tigger, there already is one – appropriately called “App Tracker”. I use it to check for new apps for my iPad. ;-)

You’re parroting empty phrases again. The “lost generation” Jeff defines here was born during the Clinton years.That means their formative years were spent under President Bush, who taught them they didn’t have to pay for government, for war, or for medical care. Their future would be free! Just put it on their parents’ credit card.Now when President Obama tells them they’ll have to find a job to help pay for all these goodies, they naturally ask why they’re also responsible for all the taxes that Bush failed to collect.

I don’t know when you were born, Parrot, but it’s plain that you “garnered any lessons” about economics from the Reagan years. The Reagan mantra, “starve the beast,” was utterly discredited by his successor, Bush senior, who had to raise taxes. Bush junior learned nothing from his daddy and repeated the Reagan folly.