I'd always assumed J.J. was the one who designed the, um, hats. You know the ones I mean.

As a man and a feminist, I think it is wonderful to see J.J. in this light.

I've always been a fan, but today's strip, for some reason, just "said it all." Masterful indeed to evoke such a visceral response with the final panel. Well done!

You know, I completely misguessed the punchline today. I thought J.J. would have been one of several artists commissioned to do a theme like "the largest inauguration crowd in history" as a counterweight to the protests. But I have to admit that this calls more for the photoshopping talents of, uh, Zipper?

J.J. has acquired a social and political conscience? Why, it's a Trump miracle!

Speaking of geography, travel is a great way for people to find out about the world, but it's a double-edged sword with regard to making the world a better place in the long term. All those people flying around constantly, burning vast quantities of fossil fuels that pollute the environment and add to climate change; there's not a lot of point to learning about the world if there's not going to be much of a world left to know about...

Geography is so important. And travel. After teaching university for four years in a wealthy Persian Gulf country, to mostly Muslim students whose parents were from 20-plus countries in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and SE Asia, my memories are of happy, cooperative, friendly, and hospitable people -- mostly women -- who love to laugh and who respect teachers. With "family values." So different from the image one gets from TV. If only more (U.S.) Americans would travel and see that the majority of people in the world just want to get through their lives, support their families, and have the pleasures of socializing. They all would wish me Merry Christmas, by the way, and Christmas trees and ornaments were for sale in many stores.

In today's Classic strip on North Korea you could very easily substitute Donald Trump for Miss Nouri.

Today's "Where's Korea?" strip, though 29 years old, is timely.

The student's geographical ignorance in today's strip is no worse than that among the current crop of social media experts. Gil should lean on his geometry expertise as he introduces the most basic foundation of geography -- the world is not flat, it is a sphere.

Given our math professor's heroic efforts to educate his students in geography, I can't resist sharing my "teacher fantasy." Whatever the subject, I would be sure to help my students understand their good fortune to be born in the wealthiest country in history that also respects individual liberty (pretty much like all of the West, Japan, South Korea, etc). To start would be a brief review of human history -- war, slavery, disease, and a very high mortality rate due to "neighborly" violence.

Geography is a Jeopardy category?! Now I know I'm getting old, because it was a subject in elementary school -- even had a textbook, and tests you had to pass.

Kudos to Gil for being willing to tackle the problem. I was thinking recently about all the hoopla over STEM skills and wondering why it has completely taken the place of concerns re basic literacy, geography, and -- last, but it should certainly not be least -- history and government. I do not argue the importance of STEM education, but the reality is that most of us do not use higher math in everyday life. But everyone needs to know how to read and write. Good writing skills equal good communication skills, and we are leaving the newer generations woefully unprepared -- to say nothing of the fact that kids today probably know less about U.S. history, and certainly less about how our government works, than at any other time in our history. The world's greatest nation is getting dumber all the time. Seventy years ago when my parents were growing up in a small, rural mountain town, people wanted their kids to get educated and have more opportunities. What happened? Make America great again: Encourage your children to learn something, so that the future isn't so scary. They'll have to deal with it anyway, at least help them prepare.

GBT was right on the money with J.J.'s self-involved, self-aggrandizing, concept that Mike had thrown out "$300,000 worth" of her art. I believe that 1988 cartoon predates an incident at a London art museum in which a custodian doing after-hours cleaning took an installation's "found objects" to be trash.

Gil is right. Geography is math. The lengths of days and nights at different latitudes and seasons, navigation, prevailing winds, weather, fractal coastlines, the Four Color Theorem, political redistricting, demographics, medal counts at the Olympics, the impact of Global Warming; something for everyone.

The forty-five-years-ago-today-Flashback strip is sweet: The christening of Walden Puddle.

Wow! The Flashbacks page gave us a momentous week in Doonesbury history: a wedding, another wedding, the birth of Samantha, and the founding of the Walden Commune. Good times, great memories!

Now that I see that Roland Hedley also associates Trump's armada with the Armada, as I did, I'd like to suggest that everyone should recall what happened to the Armada.

Today's DAILY BRIEFING article on the Doolittle Raid of 1942 gave me reason for a sad smile. While it is true that Col. Cole is the last survivor of that Army Airforce mission, it will live on in literary form. In Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, there is a secondary character named Lucian Connolly, the retired sheriff of the fictional Absaroka County. Variously described as mean, cranky, feisty or other generally negative adjectives, he resides in Mr. Johnson's novels as a tribute to the brave, if not foolhardy, flyers who undertook that mission. Live long and prosper, Col. Cole.