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Scott Adams, creator of satirical ‘Dilbert’ comic strip, dies at 68

(NYT) — Scott Adams, whose experience as a bank and phone company middle manager gave him the material to create the comic strip “Dilbert,” a daily satire of corporate life that became a sensation but was dropped by more than 1,000 newspapers after he made racist comments on his podcast in 2023, died Tuesday at his home in Pleasanton, California, in the Bay Area. He was 68.

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His former wife Shelly Adams confirmed his death, saying he had been receiving hospice care. Scott Adams announced in May that he had aggressive prostate cancer and that he probably had only a few months to live.

For more than 30 years, “Dilbert” chronicled the absurdities of the high-tech workplace and skewered management. The title character was a frustrated engineer working from a cubicle at a high-tech company whose intelligent, anthropomorphic pet, Dogbert, dreamed of world domination. Other characters included Dilbert’s co-workers, Alice, Asok and Wally; the hapless Pointy-Haired Boss; and Catbert, the fire-red-colored cat and evil head of human relations.

At its peak, “Dilbert” was syndicated to about 2,000 newspapers internationally, placing it in the realm of other popular syndicated strips like “Peanuts,” “Doonesbury” and “Garfield.” Adams also published numerous “Dilbert” collections and wrote business books, including “The Dilbert Principle,” which posits that “the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage — management.”

The strip also led to production of a short-lived animated TV series, plush Dilbert dolls, computer games and the Dilberito, a frozen vegetarian burrito, which flopped in supermarket sales after a few years. Dilbert himself was the star of a $30 million advertising campaign for Office Depot in 1997.

Adams suggested that Dilbert gave voice to isolated cubicle dwellers. “That’s the amazing thing I found when I went online a couple of years ago,” he told The New York Times in 1995. “I heard from all these people who thought that they were the only ones, that they were in this unique, absurd situation. That they couldn’t talk about their situation because no one would believe it.”

South Carolina measles cases in rise by 124 to 434

(Reuters) — ‌The South Carolina health department reported 434 measles cases related to the ongoing outbreak in the state on Tuesday, 124 additional cases since ‍its last update on Friday.

The widening outbreak has been reported in the northwest part of the state, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, according ​to the South Carolina Department ​of Public Health.

Of those infected, 378 were unvaccinated, three were partially vaccinated with one of the recommended two-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccines, six ‍were fully vaccinated and 47 had unknown vaccination status.

There ​are currently 409 people in quarantine due to an exposure and 17 people in isolation.

“Quarantine is staying home 21 days after a known exposure to monitor symptom development. Isolation is when an individual has the measles and is infectious,” a state health department spokesperson told Reuters in an email.

Most cases were reported in children in the five to 17 age group, followed by those below five years of age.