Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 12, 2015

Trust me, Rat, you are NOT a philosopher.

Most drunks attempt to philosophize, however only the Irish have mastered it. And rat is not Irish. Therefore, rat is just a drunk!

René Descartes was a drunken fart

“I drink therefore I am”

As Homer Simpson once said, “Beer: the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.”

As philosophy goes, this is par for the Coors.

There is beer therefore I drink.

Beer is for wimps and rats. When I feel like enjoying a drink, it’s always Whiskey.

It’s actually ,soooooo-eeeeeee!

Australians named Bruce are drunk philosophers. That counts.

Thus guitar.

closest Rat gets to philosopher is when he makes neighbor Phil Oh Suffer

Due you suffer from debilitating sadness, emotional distress, ennui, a sense of futility, or good old-fashioned poverty? Try alcohol. Yes, alcohol can alleviate all those problems and more. Why with alcohol you can be amiable, fearless, and sociable at parties. Wait, there’s so much more! Alcohol can act as a diuretic to reduce water retention, alleviate insomnia, and shorten your miserable life. So why wait any longer? Act today, and we’ll thrown in a stay at your local detox center followed by a jail booking. Now go out there and get drunk!

Yes. Rat is a philosopher. This is known as a transcendental philosophy, wherein one may achieve enlightenment by studying the process of thought itself. First you have to pour it, though. Thankfully, there are many available places where one may tap the stream of consciousness.

Yup, BrassOrchid is right and Rat is obviuosly from the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo.

So Stephan which beer do you like? Ice or Regular?

have never drank a Martini that I didn’t like!

Rat needs to seek out a Czech Pohoda Master. Pohoda is the ineffable state of being produced by consumption of exactly the right amount of beer. A Master can sustain it for days on end, with only occasional nibbles on a good sausage and of course frequent trips to the bathroom.

Why not both?

A. E. Housman, British poet (1859-1936), had something to say on this subject. In “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff,” he goes on for awhile about how drinking beer is one way to achieve temporary happiness. His most famous line is, “And malt does more than Milton can/ To justify God’s ways to man.”

rat is a drug addict

noted.

kea, lighten up! Until I read yours, I enjoyed every comment.I am Rat, Rat is I.

Rat is a… rat. :) Peace.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.A. E. Housman

A longer excerpt from Terence, this is stupid stuff. Why, if ‘tis dancing you would be, There’s brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world’s not. And faith, ‘tis pleasant till ’tis past: The mischief is that ’twill not last. Oh I have been to Ludlow fair And left my necktie God knows where, And carried half-way home, or near, Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: Then the world seemed none so bad, And I myself a sterling lad; And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, Happy till I woke again. Then I saw the morning sky: Heigho, the tale was all a lie; The world, it was the old world yet, I was I, my things were wet, And nothing now remained to do But begin the game anew.

Rat, meet Andy Capp, Hagar the Horrible, Soppy Sopwell, and Bung the Jester! All preceding you in your fine philosophy.

Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;He wept that he was ever born,And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of oldWhen swords were bright and steeds were prancing;The vision of a warrior boldWould set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,And dreamed, and rested from his labors;He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,And Priam’s neighbors.

Minever mourned the ripe renownThat made so many a name so fragrant;He mourned Romance, now on the town,And Art, a vagrant.

Minever loved the Medici,Albeit he had never seen one;He would have sinned incessantlyCould he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplaceAnd eyed a khaki suit with loathing;He missed the mediæval graceOf iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,But sore annoyed was he without it;Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,Scratched his head and kept on thinking;Miniver coughed, and called it fate,And kept on drinking.

To quote Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neil – Modern Family), burrito-burreado.

The folks citing Western thinkers are missing the point. This is a spoof of “The Four Noble Truths” of the Buddha. I don’t know whether Stephan knew that in the second noble truth “tanha” (desire, craving) also means “thirst.”

http://buddhism.about.com/od/thefournobletruths/a/fournobletruths.htm

You’re something else, Rat.

But if I repeated it, I would be banned from GoComics.

xxx

I’ll remind you that it was Benjamin Franklin who reputedly said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy!”

I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. No sure if this applies here but I always liked that saying.

You were so close, Rat…

Anyone can be a philosopher. The trick is to be a good one and a convincing one.. There, beer may not help much….

How were you able to arrange the tasting of the rancid apple juice that has been filtered through a camel?

Philosobeer.

A philosopher or a drunk? Rat – they are not mutually exclusive.

Didn’t the Buddha say that in the Dhammapada? I wasn’t aware they brewed Kingfisher in Siddartha’s day…no wonder he was always smiling.

If to be alive is to suffer, to cease suffering is to die.

Gotta get off the English stuff and drink something good. After all, even John Cleese ranted about English beer being “nasty, warm, sticky stuff with various forms of pond life in it!”

Who did you have to sue to get into opera and Shakespeare?

Also yes.

Just like my dad.

Drunk, go with drunk.

Same thing. At least, according to Monty Python.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissantWho was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggarWho could think you under the table

David Hume could out-consumeWilhelm Freidrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swineWho was just as schloshed as Schlegel

There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya’bout the raising of the wristSocrates, himself, was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free willOn half a pint of shandy was particularly ill

Plato, they say, could stick it awayHalf a crate of whiskey every day

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottleAnd Hobbes was fond of his dram

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart“I drink, therefore I am.”

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missedA lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pissed

Every drunk is a philosopher. Sadly, this says more about philosophers than it does about drinking…

The two can be interchangable.