Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 05, 2025

“Not only that, we’ll make you eat gluten!”

If that don’t work, we’ll pipe in Yoko Ono music until you barf!

“Go ahead. We were just about to trade them in for the newer models.”

Siege the day!

Surrender or we’ll plug up your plumbing system so you can’t flush.

People were tougher back then.

Meanwhile the old methods are currently being used against the Palestinian people. With the complete support of the US.

Uh, we don’t need Cell phones to survive, goat.

WE will force you to listen to tRumps speeches for many hours!

You will die of cognitive dissonance!

Surrender or I’ll give you a bad review on Google!

Spouse refuses to get a phone without a tail. Though it’s getting harder and harder to cope with things like the internet (if you clear your cookies, they demand to be able to TEXT you when next you try to log in). I have a smart(ish) phone, so we pretty often do the “Hon, did you want this PIN?” … “Yeah, please read it to me…” dance.

How would they get hold of the smartphones in order to toss them in the river?

Heavens! People would have to talk face to face? Shudder!

It’s always been my contention that you adapt yourself and your skills to the situation in which you live. You gain the skills you need to survive in your current context. As your context changes, you either adapt or are overtaken by those who do. I have a son who is an IT professional but also knows how to fight with swords, make a fire in the woods in the middle of the rain without matches and shoot several types of firearms. He’s not former military, he just had a well-rounded upbringing. Speaks three languages and dances, too. The point is, no matter what the context, people tend to adapt to it, so all those people who say we’re lost as a species because young folks are hopelessly dependent on their tech just don’t understand the human ability to adapt when necessary.

B*tch of it is, it would actually work!!

Not really.

William the Conqueror had a reputation for brutality such that one town surrendered as soon as he and his army arrived.

We’ll make you binge watch “The View”!

I’m reminded of the time l was visiting someone in hospital. I looked across the ward and saw a whole family around a ‘loved’ one’s bed all staring into their phones.

You see these people everywhere now. Parents are no longer interested in their children and dog walkers are no longer interested in ‘Fido’.

They’re also bumping into me!

Surrender or we will cut off your………Wi-Fi.

They’re bluffing! Don’t submit!

If you don’t surrender, we will force you to watch High School Musical.

25 years ago, no one would have believed we would be walking around with super computers in our pockets.

“You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! "

“Surrender or we’ll force you to watch cheesy movies (the worst we can find) and monitor your minds. Sorry, no robot friends to suffer along with you, though.”

Being a teacher today must be a nightmare. I was at school during the 70’s and 80’s and the only distraction was the window, comics, digital watches, pocket calculators and looking up naughty words in the dictionary.

Surrender or we will ban Tic Tok.

They would have already knocked down all the cell towers making the phones useless.

At least siege is spelled correctly otherwise I would have a seizure.

Different times. We’re softer and lazier.

They can’t get their phones if they can’t get inside.

Coercion has become much more sophisticated.

Go ahead, toss away.

Destroying the grid hasn’t worked on Ukraine.

I won’t know what to think, where to eat, how to navigate, and who to hate.

next we’ll delete your Netflix account.

We should be ashamed.

You know, kids nowadays won’t understand this gag. Can’t imagine anybody actually playing those records.

The “inhumanity” is the Pig’s Head. My wife’s got one roasting in the oven, as I write. (At least it’s no longer staring back at me when I open the fridge!)

Okay… but don’t step on my blue suede shoes

“Is it fresh water or backwash seawater?” Scotty says, "Set your phones to ‘STUN.’

How did they obtain the sieged one’s smartphones?

„Cable has been cut already! Surrender or we’ll cut down all cell towers around!“ Now that’d work.

How did they get a hold of the defenders’ phones?

I was thinking just last night about replacing my smartphone with a simple flip phone.

Actually, what we need for survival has not changed, unless you let the machine do the thinking for you.

Surely these days it’s more like “surrender and there be could be some money in it for you.” Also a lot of boot licking.

Or, modern hillbilly (country & western) “music” is equally repulsive.

Cut their power. They can’t microwave their food or charge their smartphones!

Now, we threaten rogue countries with “sanctions.” And if that doesn’t work, even more sanctions…

What happened to the hostages?

The typical siege deal dating back to at least the ancient Greeks and Romans was surrender at the start and we will not kill or sell into slavery the citizens, if you don’t you will be no quarter when we finally take the city.

LOLOL

The same would work if he threatened to delete their social media accounts

“Surrender or we’ll have Donald Trump lead your country!”

I know it’s a comic, but how did the attackers get the defenders’ smart phones?I propose that threatening to jam their signals would achieve the same effect and be plausible (well, relatively…).