Birdbrains by Thom Bluemel for May 20, 2010

I see a face on the gray rock. What say you, Lewreader?

Good Morning Thom & everyone!

The grass is waving! That one plant is not being very polite. Lonewolf I see an alligator on the gray rock.

I am offended that there is a small puddle of water next to the canteen. Obviously it would have been absorbed by the ground or at least evaporated by now.

Did you remember to bring the ketsup?

This panel is hilarious today!

An old Playboy cartoon: “Like everything else, there are good Samaritans and there are bad Samaritans”

This Samaritan seems to be overcooked to me.

I hope it isn’t the good Samaritan.

Yummo, Samaritan with a side of fries.

LUVH8 I think it’s a puppy dog, not an alligator. And that blade of grass? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

How long will a Samarian stay good if not refrigerated?

LUVH8 I said hound dog, not puppy dog, Honest.

I find myself in agreement with Lewreader. It’s a dog of some kind.

The strip’s no dog though.

Funny one!

Yet another example of how no good deed goes unpunished.

poohbear8192 said, less than a thought ago

Yet another example of how no good deed goes unpunished.

In that case, bring on the puns! I could see a frog–but it’s not catching the flies, though it does have it’s eye on a few of them–or a dog. And it’s a real dog of a day if even the vultures have to walk.

Obviously the buzzards aren’t Priests or Levites because they wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole.

It looks like there is a face on Clyde’s left thigh and a sad face on the Samaritan’s back.

If there are any Jewish readers of this here Birdbrains, seems like that’s one less citizen of Samaria to worry about. Jews and Samaritans have a Martins/Coys-like feud.

No wonder he is dead, he stole the grim reaper’s cape.

Jews (Judah, Benjamin and Levi) and Samaritans (remains of the other 9) were both from the Tribes, so it was more like two brothers at odds, comix.

You might want to be careful, birds. He’s not kosher.

How can you pass by that?

Indeed. Wait until you all read (in Josephus) how the Samaritans claimed to be descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh (not all of the other 9 tribes, BTW) when things went well for the Jews and claimed to descend from the nations brought into the region by the conquering Assyrians when things went badly for the Jews.

Both statements were half-truths, as the pagans were indeed brought in but then intermarried with the remnant poor of Ephraim and Manasseh in that district. In addition, the syncretic religion originally held by the pagans was radically transformed by an apostate Aaronic priest whom Nehemiah drove out of the Jewish community - thus the origin of the sectarian Samaritan religion and its text.

You can see, I hope, why the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, and why Jesus’ dealings with the latter in parable and in reality were so radical in his day.

End of theological lesson for today… :)

Meanwhile… Chief Thom Thom, are you so morbid by nature, or do you have to work at it? :)) Alas, we are much alike: we both could find something funny in a famine…