Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for March 01, 2015
Transcript:
Pig: Hey, Willy. What are you doing? Willy: Memorizing history. It takes forever, but I have to do it. We have a test. Pig: How come you have to know history? Willy: I guess so that when we're older, we'll know things. Pig: Like what? Willy: Like who wrote the declaration of Independence and where Napoleon died and when man first walked on the moon. Rat: Jefferson. St. Helena. 1969. It's called 'Google.' Willy: Is school just torture? Pig: Yes, but torture builds character. Rat: I guess technically, I know everything.
Machtyn over 9 years ago
I know it’s true… I saw it on the Intarwebs!
Machtyn over 9 years ago
Or…“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet just because there’s a picture with a quote next to it.” – Abraham Lincoln
noahproblem over 9 years ago
Torture builds character? I guess Pig has been hanging around with Calvin’s father…
Sherlock Watson over 9 years ago
School is for people who can think, and constant Googling is for people who can’t think.:I’ll never get a smartphone because I prefer to be the smart one.
Alabama Al over 9 years ago
“Columbus sailed the ocean blue in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two.”The above line is simply trivia.“Why did Columbus sail the ocean blue in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two?”The answer to that question is history.`Yeah, I know. “Pearls Before Swine” indeed.
arye uygur over 9 years ago
I agree with @Alabama_Al: History is about learning concepts, not memorizing dates and trivia.
susanwobb over 9 years ago
internet: The Collective Conscious
JBAInTexas over 9 years ago
Poor Willy. Can’t catch a break. First the heavy backpack that made him like a turtle, then this. What next for him?
I hope to see more of him.
wiselad over 9 years ago
to know, study…………….. to get fast answers in order to impress others, use google
TMO1 Premium Member over 9 years ago
If Pastis is taking the attitude that no one needs to know any history, I have to disagree with that. The average American voter is already far too ignorant (and also lazy).
TMO1 Premium Member over 9 years ago
“Where Napoleon died”? Since when did an American public school require anyone to know that?
Arianne over 9 years ago
I thought Tracy and Hepburn settled this question once and for all in “Desk Set.” “Making Machines do More, so that Man can do Less”.
Sisyphos over 9 years ago
History is fun, and school is not torture, so long as you keep up with your tasks. Slackers find that they’ve buried themselves alive, and that’s no fun!
awgiedawgie Premium Member over 9 years ago
So far, the only thing Rat has proven is that he knows how to look things up. He has not proven that he actually knows anything else.
juicebruce over 9 years ago
Hum, I think a famous general said it best; Those who do not learn from history are bound to relive it .
Vonne Anton over 9 years ago
The most important answer to questions I know is how to look up the answers.
doublepaw over 9 years ago
Learning from the internet is the same as learning in school, and probably more fun and more complete also.
doublepaw over 9 years ago
TMO1 seems to be saying voters need to know more, but why should they learn about history other than U.S. history.
Bubba Yoloman over 9 years ago
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL!!! MY SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHER STINKS!!!
puddlesplatt over 9 years ago
I still can’t fiqure out how they got a picture of Jesus with those children…strike me deaf.
Defective Premium Member over 9 years ago
From a personal viewpoint, I have to disagree about learning history. I did well in school. Top 10% of the class, and history was one of the many courses I had to take. What good did it do me? None. I have absolutely no use for any of it, and have never used it or discussed it with anyone in my life. And most of the ‘facts’ I learned are actually questionable. I was made to learn them for a reason. To brainwash me into thinking a certain way. That certain things were right and good. And we can see the efforts of the brainwashing paying off.
jbmlaw01 over 9 years ago
Agree with defunctdoormat. Economics history could be useful, as we seem to repeat the Great Depression mistakes every 40 years, but with today’s schools everyone thinks the stock market crash caused the Depression. (Answer, it was really three income tax rate-increases between 1930 and 1935, plus a pile of new government regulations over commerce, including international trade. Growing government always harms the real economy.)
AliCom over 9 years ago
Yes.
nosirrom over 9 years ago
History? We don’t need no stinking history. We are quite capable of making the same mistakes whether we know history or not!
Lamberger over 9 years ago
History is supposed to supply context for your “instinctive” critical decisions. And it IS written by the winners to leverage that context.
smobey over 9 years ago
Google has a serious habit, Electricity. Your brain works without it. (Well sometimes.) Plus your brain can think its own thoughts! Remember the end of Fahrenheit 451? Soon come mon.
Alexander the Good Enough over 9 years ago
It has been pointed out that here, in the good old U. S. of A., when someone says “It’s history!” they mean it’s over, we’re done with it and it’s no longer important. That’s here in the U. S. of A. In much of the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East, eastern Europe and the Balkans, when someone says “It’s history!” they say it with the veins bulging in their neck.
ziggman14304 over 9 years ago
If your computer locks up, is that the inertweb?
A_NY_Outlaw over 9 years ago
all Hail the Google!!
Pointspread over 9 years ago
They have the internet on computers now? -Homer (Simpson)
unca jim over 9 years ago
As a……. oh, the hell with it !!
KEA over 9 years ago
school should be for learning to think. just Knowing information is not thinking. (but it can win you trivia contests)
William Bludworth Premium Member over 9 years ago
@Sherlock Watson
“School is for people who can think, and constant Googling is for people who can’t think.:I’ll never get a smartphone because I prefer to be the smart one.”
Google is for people who want to know more than the useless information taught in schools.
Fibbermcgee Premium Member over 9 years ago
Thumbs up!The Nabster is a little confused at times.
chrisjb88 over 9 years ago
lmfao torture builds character
Saddenedby Premium Member over 9 years ago
you go rat!!!! “technically I know everything!”that is a statement of the ‘true leaders’ of present history!!brilliant pun Pastis !!!!!!!!
jrowell over 9 years ago
I think the most important thing this day and age is to learn the skill to evaluate sources so you can recognize accurate information online and not be misled like so many.
claire de la lune. over 9 years ago
Ha – Pig sounds like Calvin’s father in the last panel.
Darrell Patton over 9 years ago
We must learn history so that we will recognize our mistakes when we repeat them.
heatherjasper over 9 years ago
Pig in the last panel reminds me of Calvin’s dad.
MidnightHunter over 9 years ago
last line from the kid. that IS what school is. meant to brainwash and torture with confusion and it’s a waste of time, energy, and money. and i’m only 15. SSSSSSSSOOOOOOOBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSS!!!!!!
Caedmon The Great almost 4 years ago
For a second there I thought Rat actually knew something for once
Bye Bye Jeffy almost 4 years ago
why do we need school if in the future we have google
Aldew Yellowson over 3 years ago
How did rat type that in, like, 4 seconds?