"Pearls Before Swine" Has It Right, The French Have It Wrong

I never met a pun I didn't like. Today's "Pearls" strip was LOL funny. If the French have a thing for Jerry Lewis, why can't "Pearls" have a thing for Dean Martin? If this is a (fair & balanced) paronomasia, so be it.

[x Pearls Before Swine]

Copyright © 2008 Stephan Pastis
Click on image to enlarge.

[Stephan Pastis is a native of San Marino, California and attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning a B.A. in Political Science in 1989, followed by UCLA School of Law.

From 1993, Pastis worked as a litigation attorney in the San Francisco Bay area. At this time he also tried to fulfill his childhood ambition of becoming a syndicated cartoonist by submitting different concepts to syndication agencies. "The Infirm", "Rat", and "Bradbury Road" were rejected, but "Pearls Before Swine" was accepted by United Features in 1999. It started publication on December 31, 2001, and Pastis left his day job in August 2002.]

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My Current (Manly) Fantasy

In Tom Tomorrow's delicious fantasy, The Dubster leaves office (Praise the Lord!) on January 20, 2009, and immediately enters the Federal Witness (Witless) Protection Program because he ratted out The Dickster and the other war criminals in a plea bargain. If only life imitated art and The Dubster (aka "Rod Manly") went to live in a FEMA double-wide to breathe formaldehyde fumes for the rest of his miserable days. If this is a (fair & balanced) sweet daydream, so be it.

[x This Modern World]

Copyright © 2008 Tom Tomorrow
Click on image to enlarge.

[Dan Perkins is an editorial cartoonist better known by the pen name "Tom Tomorrow". His weekly comic strip "This Modern World," which comments on current events from a strong liberal perspective, appears regularly in approximately 150 papers across the U.S., as well as Salon.com and Working for Change. The strip debuted in 1990 in SF (San Francisco) Weekly.]

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We (The People) Don't Ask And They (Our Public Servants) Don't Tell

Marcy Shaffer strikes again. Nothing will change unless we, The People, ask and we, The People, compel our public servants to tell. If this is (fair & balanced) truth to power, so be it.

[x Versus]
"Ode To Join" (Click on this link to listen.)
To Symphony No. 9 in D Minor,
Op. 125 - Finale
(Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, based on "Ode to Joy" by Friedrich Schiller)
Parody Lyrics by Marcy Shaffer

We are POTUS.^*
[^*President Of The United States]
If you quote us?
We will make your life a hell.
Just a thought, oh:
Here's our motto.
"YOU DON'T ASK, AND WE DON'T TELL."
Secret beatings.
secret retreatings.
Secret deletings.
we can mask.
Of this nation's violations:
We won't tell, and you won't ask.
At constraining reins on our reigning.
And at explaining.
we rebel.
We can track mail.
also blackmail.
You don't ask, and we won't tell!

We're the Senate.
Now and then it
Serves to lob an angry shell.
But our raging Is just staging.
We don't ask, and you don't tell.
Flags on fire.
gags on desire.
Quags without mire.
there we bask.
No revamping.
Rubber-stamping!
You won't tell, so we won't ask.
Nodding and winking.
that is our thinking.
Whatever's stinking?
we won't smell.
Oversight, it's over.
Right!
It's: We don't ask, and you don't tell.

We're of FISA.*
[*Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]
We comprise a
Court support so you can sell
Constitution
Dissolution.
We don't ask, and you don't tell.
Evildoers.
deceive interviewers.
Leave the pursuers
to their task!
Being Brutus
Doesn't suit us.
You won't tell, so we don't ask.
Unordained spying.
scatterbrained prying.
Uncontained lying.
we won't quell.
Just assure us you'll secure us.
We won't ask what you won't tell.

We're the press.
We must confess.
We've fallen victim to your spell.
First you dared so.
then you scared. so
We don't ask, and you don't tell.
Why despoil wilderness royal?
Drilling for oil in AlaskA.
What's the hitch here?
Who gets rich here?
You won't tell, so we don't ask.
Woe we can't promise
more Helen Thomas!
Throwing a bomb.
This could compel:
A renowned sound cut
we could pound. BUT
We won't ask, and you won't tell.

[ORCHESTRAL INTERLUDE]

We're your "folks."
The ones you coax.
To trust you, like in George Orwell.
Rarely vetting, now regretting.
We don't ask and you don't tell.
Why oh why would you try to hide?
What should be outside.
not in some cask.
Why incitements?
Why indictments?
You don't tell and we don't ask.
What's your handy plan for Iran?
Afghanistan? can that land yet gel?
We'll have earned all you have burned.
If we don't wake and make you tell.
Will we ask
until you tell?

[Angie Jarée - lead vocal; background vocals
Janis Liebhart - lead vocal; background vocals
Guy Maeda - lead vocal; background vocals
Victor Zharkov - lead vocal; background vocals
Greg Hilfman - music director
Marcy Shaffer - attorney-cum-parodist.]

℗ © 2006, 2008 The Meyer Shaffer Company LLC. Lyrics © 2008 The Meyer Shaffer Company LLC.

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