Strange Brew by John Deering for September 25, 2018

And yet he is the only bear to do so.

So, what about all the posters with Mr Bear pointing at me saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”? Oh, wait, on one wall we put the Smokey Bear poster and on the opposite wall be put the Uncle Sam poster. Some sort of dimensional warp is bound to form in the space between them.

The bear is telling the humans only “they” (humans) can prevent the forest fires because animals don’t play with fire.

The ad campaign came later.

With the incredibly destructive firestorms made so much worse by fire suppression, he shouldn’t be on the couch, he should be in jail.

I used to respond to mentions of Smokey the Bear with “Forest fires prevent bears”, but the truth is, bears as a whole probably benefit from regular fires.

The shrink better hope that Smokey isn’t hungry!

Good thing for the therapist that that isn’t a Wiley Bear.

If California would just allow controlled burns to get rid of the underbrush, they wouldn’t have so many devastating wild fires. But the tree-huggers would never allow that.

There once was an abbey that was known for it’s beautiful flower gardens. The friars that lived there however, had a problem. The roof required extensive repairs and they had no money. They decided the best way to raise the needed funds was to open a flower shop and sell their famous flowers. Unfortunately, this cut severely into the livelihood of the existing florist in town. He complained to the town, but the friars had got the proper licenses so nothing could be done. He approached the friars, but they indicated that this was their best hope. Finally, he hired a thug by the name of Hugh to run them out of town. Hugh went over one night, trashed the shop and roughed up the friars and sent them running back to their abbey. Moral of the story is:

Only Hugh can prevent florist friars.