Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 20, 2025

This kind of humor just blows me away.

Rat’s got a point!

I have a hard time imagining Pig driving.

Actually, Rat is the reason that downtown is what it’s like now,

Rough neighborhood! !

Does Rat play golf? (shotgun start taken literally)!

Maybe Rat’s going wabbit hunting.

I doubt antifa will be much of a threat anymore. But it’s good to be prepared.

Pastis better watches out. It ain’t just mere baseball bat rat is has now.

And I’m also taking an assault* weapon in case I feel threatened.

*style

Don’t worry. I’m sure it will be mostly peaceful.

Must be Winnipeg. I avoid the downtown area at all costs.

Ugh, the Trumpian ‘cities are hell-holes’ narrative.

If you need a gun to go somewhere it’s obviously best to not go there.

You DO have a permit for carrying that, right?

I’m drifting back to Junior Walker & the All Stars…great song for driving downtown. 1965??

Great point, Rat. Let’s go to the mall instead! …oh. nevermind…

You don’t even have to go “downtown”. I live in rural Texas. It’s often that I see armed people in the local Walmart.

Rat having a literal shotgun terrifies me to no end.

Random question: How come the middle and back seats don’t have weapon names? Or do they and I’ve just never heard them?

Sounds like downtown is pretty sketchy. Sure glad Rat is prepared.

Hey, Ponyboy, I teach a real estate agent continuing education class on the Fair Housing Act. In it we cover the racially restrictive covenants from the early 1900s into the 60s that largely limited suburban housing to whites, thus, the white flight and the general antipathy between the burbs and the browner urban areas that exists until today in the form of the sentiment in this cartoon…………….#nopoliticsinanyofpastis’stuff.

Rat is adding to the problem.

They must be driving in downtown Durham, NC

Are they heading into San Francisco???

Goat has other pals?

Rat may be right.

True, there is a gun epidemic, thanks to the weapons industry.

Because you can’t starve us out and you can’t make us run, cause we’re them old boys raised on shotguns. We say grace, and we say ma’am, if you ain’t into that, then we don’t give a d#mn….. A country boy can survive…….Hank Jr.

With the price of ammo these days, I avoid downtown.

Goat, unload the shotgun and hold all the shells yourself. And even then, don’t let Rat aim it at anyone. Don’t want a Pulp Fiction incident.

I remember when downtown had to be locked down and people were required to go through security check points and show ID to get.

It was because the Republican National Convention came into town!

I enjoy biking through there on most other days.

Rat and his fellow vermin (x thousands) might life miserable for the human race. We need Pastis to be the pied Piper for the lot of them. But here in these delightful toons Rat is a hero of mine.

Whoa, I just noticed—that’s one BIG rat!

It’s after you park your car and walk away that you have to worry

PIG, RAT, and GOAT must be living in the wasteland of Southern Illinois, somewhere near Peru, or Oswego, or bumblef***, IL., or somewhere like that, and they’re heading to Chicago!!!!!! Dan aka…ps to me, it’s always felt like a war zone, for decades now…..glad everybody else is caught up now, at last!!!!!!!

I used to live in Seattle. Went back a few years ago and stayed with a friend. He told us to stay away from downtown and a few other favorite memories because they had gotten overrun with crime. We went and had a delightful time. The usual fringe of homeless and such that one finds in any downtown sector and not much different than when we lived in the area in the ’90’s. After the visit I came to the conclusion the friend got his view on life from staying inside and doomscrolling. Sad.

Goat might want to swap seats unless he wants to find out the hard way why the front seat is shotgun.

Who are Goat’s pals?

The nearest city to me (an actual small city, not the “city” town I’m living in) has a reputation for a dangerous level of violence, but from what I’ve seen downtown is safe to visit (if you don’t mind the stupid tricky electronic parking that seems designed to stick people with parking violations), the high crime rate is from areas around the perimeter (mostly one side) where there’s a lot of drug-dealing along with gangs and other nefarious things, and the violence is mostly at night among people involved in those, with some tragic cases of bystanders (including children) caught in the crossfire. Downtown itself is quite safe.

Rat needs to be careful pointing that thing. There are likely areas in “downtown” where that shotgun is going to be a highly inadequate weapon…

kinda wondering where they live

Cleveland, wouldn’t go in town even if Shaun Connery was there waiting to marry me.

Gotta keep you kids away from the big city… they’ll be messing with what we learned you.

Ok, boomer.

Sadly, yeah… welcome to the norm.

Our residents along MLK drive just never grasped the concept.

Hey,rat! That’s Guard Duck’s job!!

Downtown, is a rip roaring area that’s to be avoided…

Sounds like Houston after dark a few years back. I hear its not so bad now.

OMG Pastis has gone MAGA.

#portland

Reminds me of the movie that was made about the Beverly Hillbillies. Jethro is driving their old truck down the freeway, too slow for some guy’s taste. The guy pulls alongside and the dude in the passenger seat pulls out a revolver and points it at Jed and Jethro. Jed stands up, pulls out his double-barreled 12 gauge, points it at the dude and says, “That’s real nice, son. This here’s what I carry.” Dude can’t leave fast enough.

Downtown st.Louis recquires this sadly

“Desperate measures make for desperate times…”

True!

Sad state of affairs when this is reality. Give me Mayberry.