<p>Chad - the comic strip version of Chuck (Happy Days)</p>
<p>I’m actually old enough to be their grandmother!</p>
<p>Don’t ask my why, but Davey and Goliath used to give me nightmares but then again so did Howdy Doody. My Little Margie, Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room and M…I…C…K…E…Y M. O. U. S. E. with Annette and Jimmy - I know I am old enough to be somebody’s grandmother!</p>
<p>Yup, Walden’s got it all - prestige and legacy. Btw, Brian Dowling was a sight to behold back in the day. I never did figure out what a “down” was, though…</p>
<p>RE turning down all those great colleges for Walden–sometimes, it’s all about fit!</p>
<p>hey there is someone on the waitlist at all of school’s she’s turning down who are now doing the happy dance :)</p>
<p>Do you think that her dream school is financially out of reach or will she be negotiating her package?</p>
<p>Walden–prestige? Isn’t it the slacker school that’s just glad to have warm bodies to fill up the seats?</p>
<p>having trouble seeing it as a fit for Alex, esp judging by her half-uncle that goes there, and also especially if she’s busy stumping the MIT profs.</p>
<p>Re: Walden - I have the utmost respect for President King. What’s a little loss of accreditation among friends?</p>
<p>The Walden University:</p>
<p><a href=“http://info.waldenu.edu/?j_id=942&s_id=4444&affiliateID=7[/url]”>http://info.waldenu.edu/?j_id=942&s_id=4444&affiliateID=7</a></p>
<p>Sorry to have to break this to you, and no disrespect meant for the real Walden University, but in the parallel universe of Doonesbury (a comic strip) Walden is the fictional counterpart to Yale. President King is modeled on Kingman Brewster. The character B.D. is modeled on the Yale (and later pro-Green Bay Packer) football player Brian Dowling. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doonesbury[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doonesbury</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_King[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_King</a></p>
<p>Gee no kidding…</p>
<p>Garland, there will be some plot twist where Alex figures that Walden is the perfect “fit” for her. </p>
<p>(Walden’s lack of accreditation is just spoofing Yale’s prestige.)</p>
<p>Wanna bet its a hot boy…after all, people have decided about schools for less…one kid I heard about picked a school cause the pizza was better…</p>
<p>I dunno; I’m not seeing this Yale thing. I get that the names of characters are similar, but how is it a spoof to show the students as totally unmotivated with terrible high school records, the school as struggling to find students, no one does anything but play computer games. That’s pretty weak satire if that’s what it is. And I still can’t see brilliant Alex there, as it’s currently depicted–if Trudeau had Alex give up her academics over a boy, I’d have to stop reading!</p>
<p>But I do trust Trudeau with his characters, so I’m willing to be convinced it will make sense.</p>
<p>That’s the spirit Garland! </p>
<p>Btw, it is hard to figure out what is going on at Walden what with everyone listening to their own drummer…</p>
<p>Originally Doonesbury (or the predecessor strip) was set in Yale. BD’s helmet used to have a “Y”. But when he went national he changed the setting to Walden. Early on, it was clear that Walden was just a thinly disguised Yale. But after a while Walden took on a life of its own. Now, I consider Walden to just be the “Everycollege U” that Trudeau uses when he wants a setting to pick some fun at colleges or college kids. Saying that “Walden is Yale” lost its accuracy years ago. Maybe decades, I’m getting too old. Somewhere buried in my boxes is a book of his early Yale cartoons, including a deluded Mike who believes he’s a ladies’ man, a much more stoned Zonker and one of my favorite forgotten characters, Rufus, the inner-city African-American (well at that time Afro-American) kid that Mike tutors with hilarious results.</p>
<p>In the parallel anti-universe that Trudeau has constructed, Walden is still, to my mind, very much a mirror image of Yale (read HYPS) as well as a vehicle for “Everycollege U”. Walden College celebrates and critiques college life precisely by spoofing the inquiring spirit , inherent disobedience, and quirky individuality of its zany students. Hence its appeal and aptness for satire. </p>
<p>Even though Henry David Thoreau went to Harvard, I think he would have approved.</p>
<p>Joannie Caucus was originally wait-listed at Boalt. There was about a week there when she did nothing but wait by the mailbox. I remember Zonker asking her what she was doing: “I’m on the waiting list, so that’s what I’m doing - I’m waiting.”</p>
<p>And the vigil with her daycare kids. Right before she got accepted the little girl who was keeping the vigil with Joanie walked off shaking her head. “I give up. You’re NEVER going to be accepted to law school. Just no way”</p>
<p>Added Doonesbury trivia: Who can describe the first appearance of Kim, Mike’s wife?</p>
<p>Totally Ot: In Walden, Thoreau complains about formal education and suggests students should, for instance, learn science by making a pen knife, (melting down the metal, etc.) rather than learning in the abstract. I’m guessing, if he was looking for college today, he’d go to someplace like Deep Springs.</p>
<p>For him, Harvard was just the local place where all the neighborhood kids went. :)</p>
<p>He might have loved Deep Springs had it existed back then, but</p>
<p>Henry David Thoreau went to Harvard.</p>
<p>Well, yeah…sorry, I definitely wasn’t meaning to say he didn’t; he wrote about that, too.</p>