Mike Peters, being 75 himself, presumably knows that a 60-year-old Barbie isn’t likely — by virtue of her age alone — to be in an assisted living facility.
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Comics I Don't Understand 
” 60-year-old Barbie isn’t likely — by virtue of her age alone — to be in an assisted living facility.”
She’s been through approximately 375 distinct careers. There might be something to this.
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I thought the same – at 65, I moved to another part of the country and a house twice what I’d lived in previously. I did take note of this yesterday, however . . .
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/us/barbie-doll-disabilities-trnd/index.html . . . still, FAR AWAY from assisted living (Hubby’s mother went into AL at 89 years of age).
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I could understand if this strip had been written by Bambi, or whatever Arlo and Janis’s young neighbor was called, since she apparently thinks everybody over 50 is ready for the glue factory…
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My aunt’s still living at home at 95.
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Maybe we should consider Barbie’s the poor woman’s distorted physiology. She’s clearly been starving most of her life, since her torso is so severely cinched in the middle. She was on high heels all of her life, so she can no longer walk. Maybe she needs the help.
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I would like to praise him for hand-lettering, but I can’t resist harping over the apostrophe missing from the last panel.
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Also, in an ALF she wouldn’t have an IV (in general). People who need medical care tend to be in a nursing home.
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I hadn’t noticed that, but you are absolutely correct, and the ALFs I’ve dealt with are VERY strict about that.
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Barbie debuted as a very adult-looking model sporting grown-up fashions, and early on had her own bachelorette flat with cardboard furniture. So one should add at least 20 years. Later that they redesigned her as a smiling teenager / coed.
Similarly, while Gasoline Alley is 100 years old, Walt Wallet is probably well over 120. He’s introduced as an adult hanging out with married pals, maybe slightly younger than them.
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Minor Annoyance, but that wouldn’t mean *Barbie* isn’t turning 60; it’s her career as a doll that is turning 60 and if we think of a Barbie as a doll, then… well, dolls shouldn’t age at all. Or if they aged we should have been having her in her 30s in 1970 and in her 40s in the 80s and… it just doesn’t work to think it out.
It’s …. a cheap shot basically. But a weird one for a guy in his 70s to make.
In 1989 there was a strip in Gasoline Alley where 65 or so year old Skeezik speculates on Walt’s age and figures he must be pushing 90.
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Woozy, this brings me back to when I was 9 and the rabbi said that Adam was 930 when he died. I asked him whether that meant 930 years after he was created, or was he already considered 20 years old (or whatever) when he first came into existence.
Not all teachers like questions like that, not even teachers who are also rabbis, but I still consider it a valid question.
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Bill, I have two comments about your question.
First, if you find a rabbi (or whatever) who *is* intrigued by a question like that, you’ve probably found a winner.
Second, “Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after he begot Seth were eight hundred years”, so it appears that 930 years counts his time on Earth, rather than his age, per se. Since that’s from Genesis 5 3-4, any rabbi should have been able to answer you. I’m not a rabbi, and it didn’t take long for me to find the information.
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Hmm. He called his son’s name Seth. It doesn’t say what he called his son, nor what he named him. Probably his son was A-sitting on a Gate.
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“but I still consider it a valid question.”
How so? *looking* like you are 20 years old doesn’t in any way mean those 20 years ever occurred. So how could they count as his age? Seems like a straightforward answer. 930 years since being created.
Did you Rabbi really not like the question or are you just remembering it that way.
The real question is did Adam really not have a childhood and relatedly how long did he spend in the garden. Two days? Years? Decades? Maybe 880 years? Did he have infancy and child hood and come to adulthood in the garden?
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I agree with woozy. Even if Adam was created looking like he was twenty years old, that doesn’t mean he was twenty years old. After all, even if Adam had a belly button, that doesn’t mean he had was born.
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Woozy, he said “Adam was 930 years old,” which makes “Was he created as 20-year-old?” reasonable.
And although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, in Jewish tradition, rabbis have argued for long periods of time over much finer points of semantics than this — so by right he should have welcomed the question.
Of course in his defense he probably just wanted to move on with the lesson. And maybe he thought “The real question is did Adam really not have a childhood and relatedly how long did he spend in the garden. Two days? Years? Decades? Maybe 880 years? Did he have infancy and child hood and come to adulthood in the garden?” would be my follow-up if he didn’t shut me down.
But in my defense, I never asked these questions to be a Caulfield.
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Addendum: I’m not saying it’s not a “valid” question. Pretty much all honest questions are valid questions (particularly from a 9 year old). I just don’t see why the answer would be anything other than “930 years since he was created.”
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” in Jewish tradition, rabbis have argued for long periods of time over much finer points of semantics than this — so by right he should have welcomed the question.”
Wanting to argue fine points of doctrine, and wanting to argue them with a child… not necessarily the interchangeable positions to take.
“The real question is did Adam really not have a childhood and relatedly how long did he spend in the garden”
God knows, and probably though not certainly Adam knew. Anyone who is not either of these personages doesn’t know, and is at best offering a wild guess.
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It was a question, James, not an invitation to an argument.
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Okay, I’m giving too much credit to a child but he wasn’t created as a 20-year. You can’t create anything as 20-year old. If you create it, even to appear aged, it is newly created.
To be fair to children everywhere this can be puzzling and confusing but to a rabbi this should be simple “930 years since created” answer. There *isn’t* any finer point or semantics to argue.
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” You can’t create anything as 20-year old”
God can do anything He wants to do.
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Andrea – Mom is 89, lives alone in the house we grew up in, just gave up her car as she did not drive it enough, and plans are being put together for a dinner for her 90th birthday which is next month. Her dad lived to 95. (Unfortunately my dad’s side often does not make it to 65.)
She is finally letting me drive her to the doctor’s office (3rd time will be tomorrow) as she doesn’t want to be burden (which means she would rather bother her favorite, one of my sisters or take a cab). Robert may join us as he doesn’t want to sit alone and watch weather reports to the point that he is willing to spend an afternoon with her when he doesn’t have to.
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Barbie’s designer/inventor, Ruth Handler was also the mother of Barbie and Ken Handler. So Ken should actually be her brother.
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As a girl I had two books – Stories of King David and stories of King Solomon. (They were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy at mom’s house). In one of them was a story about Adam (although why I am not sure based on the story).
When Adam was created God showed him at the tree of life all that would come after in the future. Adam saw a baby die. He was upset at this by this. “That baby could have done so many if it had a life.” God had told Adam that he would live for one heavenly day which is 1000 years for man. Adam asked God if he give part of his life to the baby and God said that he could give the baby 70 years. The baby was Moses.
So, the 930 years is from when Adam was created.
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Barbie was born a teenager. Her biological age is more like 76. She still looks like a teenager, so she much have a plastic painting in her attic.
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Meryl, were they part of a set of fairly thin blue books?
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CIDU Bill – measuring an unrelated craft book which looks around the same as I remember them being, they were about 3/4 of inch thick and 10-11 inches tall and, yes. they were blue. I just had those 2 books, so I don’t know if it was set or just those two.
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