Peanuts

A new book delves into one of the great enigmas about Charles M. Schulz: Was he a fundamentalist, an atheist—or both?

As a follow-up to a Peanuts post the other week, I should note that the syndicate has made all the Peanuts strips available online, though they haven’t really publicized it much. There’s no search engine, really (there is a search feature but it only allows you to get all the strips from a particular time period displayed on one page) or tags, so to find a strip, you have to know what day and what year it was published, or just keep clicking on the arrow buttons until you find the strip you’re looking for. The format is:

Outside the Excel Center there is a big gathering of Ron Paul supporters and 9/11 “Truthers” chanting “9/11 was an Inside Job!” A little while ago they were joined by the anti-war Code Pink people who can be heard in this video singing what at first sounds like “God Bless America,” but if you listen closely, is actually “God Help America.” The din in the background is MSNBC broadcasting from an outdoor stage. A few people brought big banners warning people they are going to HELL. I was not entirely sure who they are aimed at: Republicans? Democrats? the nice people of Minnesota? Then I came upon a spirited argument over Obama’s “gay lovers”. And everywhere, everywhere, I go in St. Paul, those darn Peanuts characters keep stalking me.