Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 25, 2021

Ouch!

Why is it sometimes called “getting fixed”? If anything, it’s getting permanently damaged.

Those guys could be tough in a fight because kicking them might not work as well as expected.

I’m surprised Mr. Censor doesn’t make an appearance.

More of an Eastern thing like Byzantium, at least that’s what comes to mind. That and China.

I’m surprised, Pig

At the risk of giving Stephen the heebee-jeebees (is that how you spell that?), um.. and I really am not being very serious here.. and I certainly don’t mean to cause any blame to be heaped upon him (or myself, for that matter), not to mention his being ‘canceled’ (I’m JOKING) but.. umm.. er..I found it interesting that in one of the only times I can recall Stephen portraying someone with a speaking role as being a person of color, perhaps at least partly African-American in background… this curly haired lad was the (albeit, joking) object of a reference to eunuchs. Ah, American society.. torn between portraying Black men as hyper-masculine, and emasculating them.. sigh…Oh ye immortal gods, such are the fruits of deconstruction.More seriously though… does it seem to anyone else as if the most common targets of Stephen’s mockery are, umm… oh wait… really, other than Jeff the cyclist, not many others spring to mind who can be given a political interpretation.. and even there, the politics of ‘Jeff’ is only vaguely ‘liberal’ if one connects ‘liberals’ with cycling, dietary obsession (which actually is now seen running across all political stripes, including the furbearing shamanist who occupied the Capitol then refused prison food), and so on… indeed Stephen has crossed the traditional line of political insipidness in comics by mocking the huge disparity between CEO and ordinary wealth in our country…And thus, I withdraw my case, and curl back up in my shell, and pray that someone might have been slightly amused by this rambling, and not use it as a pretext to ‘dox’ me for accusing Stephen of non-wokeness.

Maybe this explains why Nick always has a neuteral stance on matters.

Does anyone else but me think Nick looks a bit like Kim Jong Un?

That’s some dubious wordplay.

The guy who did the singing wasn’t Nick

It was Mr. Strato, known to friends as

Cas

This pun would not work in England… or rather, it would be funny in an entirely different way ;-)

certainly a take that’s unique…

I had a cast on my leg when I tore the ligament in my knee. But I never had my cast rated. I didn’t know it was possible.

We now know why he has this nickname!

Eunuch this strip today? Me too!

it’s pronounced yoo·nuhk….Not you-nik

Has Nick just been emasculated again?

I don;t get it :P

Before getting stuck on vampires, Anne Rice wrote "a good one “Cry To Heaven” about castrati.

Sorry to be a bit technical here, but European royal courts didn’t use eunuchs. That would be middle eastern (like the Ottoman Empire) and Chinese.

And if you think of Castrato singers (also of Byzantium/Eastern origin, but a technique imported into Europe), they are not eunuchs for two reasons: first a castrato is operated upon before puberty so that it will affect his voice but he will grow up without body modifications – a bit androgynous though, while a eunuch is turned into one after puberty so that he will grow curves especially breasts and bottom. And second a castrato singer keeps his little hose, only the hanging fruits are gone. Whereas the eunuch loses the whole three pieces set.

Now you have the theory but please don’t do this at home.

A nick here and a nick over here, and we’re done.

They say castration was a eunuch experience.

Gotta love word play!

A lot of men need a set….

Pig, you knuck…

…le head.

Gotta call a spayed a spayed……

My mother subscribed to Reader’s Digest when I was younger, and being that I spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid, her Reader’s Digest often came with me, because it was compact, portable, and easy to read while sitting in bed.

A mother sent in a contribution one time talking about how her young son asked what a eunuch was. She tried to explain it as best she could, and when she finished, he asked, “So then how come on the police shows, they say ‘attention all eunuchs’?”

And that’s the story of why, at seven years old, I asked a pediatric nurse, “What’s castration?”

The unkindest cut of all.

Eunuchs can’t run a cervical OS.

BOLLOCKS!!

When I was in school and asked a teacher how to spell a word, the standard retort was often “look it up in the dictionary.” This word is a prefect example why that “advice” was forking bullshirt!

I wonder if Nick works with Unix?

Although this strip is humorous, what is sadly being done to young girls routinely today is not.https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation

You, nick? Hahahahahahahaha

No more puns!

What? No threatening Cartoon Boy for the bad pun?

Why am I not surprised that Pastis would have the balls to come up with this?

Did they have Unix on their computers?

I bet Pastis is laughing his head off “all the way to the bank”, as they say….. assuming response to his puns give him satisfaction! This was really great this morning….. lots of out loud laughs!

Castration just does not sound like much fun.

The Brits were kind, they did chemical castration like with Alan Turing, the guy who saved countless lives by breaking the NAZI Enigma code.

That one took me a few secs to get!

Stephen Pastis may be the very best in crafting the painfully contrived groaner.

Rat should be on this one with a bat in hand.

Here’s an idea. Let’s castrate Pastis so he can’t reproduce.

Groan….

How do you catch one of those guys? Eunuch up on them!

At least the joke is organ-Nick.

Eunuch.

I’m slow this morning. Probably because the difference between nik and nuk is too plain.

They only censor ideas now, not smut.

What do you do or say when a 8 year old girl reads this comic strip and ask “Mom (or dad) what does castrated mean”.

Castration is the new hula hoop.

Lookie, Pig. We don’t need any more counter-tenor choir boys, so please don’t give Rat any ideas!

i suddenly feel so much better about being neighbor Bob, and triathlete Bob.

Less chance of “successful” hanky panky

When I broke my ankle once, I went to the doctor to get it fixed and set. He told me that due to regulations I would need to get the quality of his handiwork inspected afterward. I said, “Doctor, I don’t understand what you mean.” He said, “In simple terms, in order for your bills to be covered, your insurance company will need to cast-rate you first.”

To this day I still walk with a limp and crutches.