guess2

A Friday Resurrection – from 2005! We’ve come a long way together, you and I.

Thank you so much to all the readers who used the “help pay for J&M’s hosting” form in the sidebar over the past couple of days. The response has been amazing. J&M readers are the best!

Thanks are due to Phil at Frumph.NET for (I hope) sorting out the RSS image issue. Nearly…

UPDATE: Yes! I believe the RSS problem is solved once and for all. If you follow via Google Reader or some other RSS reader, please could you confirm? Thanks!

(test)

└ Tags: , ,

Discussion (75)¬

  1. HaggisForBrains says:

    Good luck with the RSS (whatever that is). I’m pleased to see that you have updated the artwork on this golden oldie.

    Bacon sandwich or sex? At my age I know which is more likely – just as well I love bacon butties.

  2. drwinston001 says:

    Just to let you know the image isn’t showing up in RSS for me.

  3. Panzerbjørn says:

    I think it is worth pointing out that nowhere does Jesus say that the Old Testament should be ignored, and there are several passages where he wans against ignoring the old laws and prophets.

  4. W. Corvi says:

    Actually, there is nothing in the bible, or anywhere else, that claims Jesus remained a virgin. It was only his mom. About him, it is recent fundies who figger he must have been pure. Whatever pure means here.

  5. Peter says:

    Both, preferably at the same time! Orgasmic!

  6. IanB says:

    No picture in my RSS feed, guess I’ll have a bacon sandwich

  7. theaulddubliner says:

    Great cartoon – I am sure their ignorance of the topic won’t get in the way of their opinions.

    Incidentally no images in my RSS either.

  8. David says:

    Great, at least I’ve got some bacon.

  9. Jim says:

    Still no RSS image for me, either 🙁

  10. Pavel says:

    I am truly sorry to inform you Author, but there still no image on the RSS.

  11. jean-françois gauthier says:

    joseph smith definitely had it figured out: bacon *and* sex with multiple underage wives.

  12. jerry w says:

    To those with these RSS issues, is it really that difficult for you to simply go to http://www.jesusandmo.net/ and see the comic and read the comments, thereby saving us from hearing your endless whining about RSS failure?
    My apologies for the venting, it’s just another day filled with enough really irritating things to deal with.

  13. botanist says:

    Oh Jerry, I’m sorry it’s a bad day. Have a bacon sandwich and/or sex.

  14. MarkyWarky says:

    @jerry w, if you’re in a country that blocks J&M (the countries which most need to see it), yes it is too difficult, that’s the whole point, as has been said repeatedly.

    Whining would be, for example “To those with these …. issues, is it really that difficult for you to simply ….., thereby saving us from ….?”. Telling author that it’s not working when he’s trying to fix it, and thinks it may be, is not.

  15. Brother Daniel says:

    [Panzerbjørn says: I think it is worth pointing out that nowhere does Jesus say that the Old Testament should be ignored, and there are several passages where he wans against ignoring the old laws and prophets.]

    On the other hand, his line about the Sabbath being made for man etc. was a pretty transparent way of weaseling out of the Sabbath law. And his claim that he “fulfills” the Law, quite meaningless if you try to take it literally, could easily be taken as a way of dismissing the Law while explicitly pretending not to dismiss it. Christianity’s history of handling the OT in a thoroughly incoherent way flows quite naturally from the NT.

    [W. Corvi says: Actually, there is nothing in the bible, or anywhere else, that claims Jesus remained a virgin. It was only his mom. About him, it is recent fundies who figger he must have been pure. Whatever pure means here.]

    I’ll agree with “nothing in the bible”. But it’s not just recent fundies. The Orthodox/Catholic tradition about Jesus has asserted his virginity for a long time.

  16. DocAtheist says:

    When I copy the web address from my AOL email and paste it into Google Chrome, it shows up flawed, with an extra “20%” added on the end. If I remove that, the page comes through. Then, when I try to repeat the process, the “20%” stops showing up. I’ve no idea whether this relates to the RSS feed problems, but if it does, I hope to have helped. Of course, the additional suffix shows without the quotation marks.
    And, though I rarely comment so as not to sound redundant, Author, I love your work!!!! J&M is the sharpest cartoon illustration of real religious issues out there, and the most entertaining. too!

  17. Nassar Ben Houdja says:

    Bothersome trivial nit pick
    Their Skulls couldn’t get much more thick
    The letter of the law
    From a legal ass’s jaw
    Is another money making trick.

  18. author says:

    @DocAtheist – thanks for the kind words. I think the extra 20% on the end of the link means you are accidentally copying the line break.

  19. xxxFred says:

    @DocAtheist – do you mean 20% ? %20 is more likely, as that is a standard way in which web addresses encode spaces. As you found out, timming this makes the address work, and as author pointed out, is most likely a copy/paste error – but could pehaps be a coding error to begin with – I couldn’t say.

  20. It’s interesting and amusing that Alom Shaha begins The Young Atheist’s Handbook with a riff on bacon. Perhaps you planted the seed in his brain, Author.

  21. Author says:

    @Ophelia – It’s possible but unlikely that it was J&M, given that bacon is on everyone’s minds all the time. (Isn’t it?)

  22. Joshua Bennett says:

    It’s showing up in Google Reader just fine.

  23. Auntie says:

    Mmmm…..BACON!!!

  24. PaulJ says:

    Image shows up in Google Reader (Firefox 18.0.1, OS X 10.8.2)

  25. Havanacus says:

    RSS image is working for me in Google Reader.

  26. Chris Phoenix says:

    I’ve speculated for a while that our propensity to follow religious rules religiously evolved during the 100,000 years or so when we had fire but not science.

    Cooking detoxifies a lot of foods, and the recipes can be pretty complicated and effortful. If you don’t follow them religiously (I mean that literally) then your family withers away, just like in Proverbs. So people who were more likely to follow received rules, carefully, without knowing why… were selected for. For 100,000 years.

    (Notice how many religions and cults today have idiosyncratic dietary restrictions…)

  27. Tim says:

    hurray! The picture shows up in my google reader!

  28. Bravo yet again, Author. As for bacon, the candy of meat, I’m really trying to give it up. Not sex though. Sex seems to be trying to give me up. Who was it said that as one gets older it is no longer necessary to resist temptation. A lack of opportunity, or ability, will take care of that problem.

  29. RSS feed is displaying pictures again in Internet Explorer 9.

  30. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    HFB, DH, it sounds we’re in the same club; nowadays it’s only the bacon we can do often.
    And with that in mind, I give you The Old Man’s Lament.

    It used to be impossible to make the thing behave
    Early every morning it stood up to watch me shave.
    But now I’m getting older and it sure gives me the blues
    To see it hanging limply down to watch me tie my shoes.

    The “When will I get to see you eat a bacon sandwich, Rabbi?’ gag’s a bit too obvious, isn’t it? Even by my standards!

  31. Ah, here’s the quote I was thinking of. Oh how I love Google and the Internet.
    “Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you.”
    -Joey Adams

  32. AofS while we are on this rather depressing subject, here’s my favourite lines from an old Pete Seeger song.
    How do I know my youth it is spent
    Mu get up and go has got up and went
    But in spite of it all I’m able to grin
    When I think of the places my getup as been. (pronounced in ‘Merkan as “bin” to rhyme with “grin”)
    And, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, here he is in person. Wow and dig it, folks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J0Q5SMTEM0

  33. Red Wolf says:

    Images have been missing in Google Reader for a while for but they’re back now. Yay!

  34. doido says:

    I can confirm that the image is showing on Google Reader using Opera 12. 🙂

  35. UncoBob says:

    Not really into bacon sandwiches, and the comments about sex and aging resonate with me, but I had the best cackle for quite some time on this ‘toon. Now.. cackle… chickens…eggs… eggs and bacon…my favourite breakfast when growing up. Does it prove all roads lead to ham?

  36. Rupert says:

    Picture showed up in my RSS reader (Google Reader) today for the first time in a while. Thanks!

  37. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    “UncoBob says:
    January 27, 2013 at 3:08 am
    ….. Does it prove all roads lead to ham?”

    Yes, unless you’re on the M6/A38(M) intersection, in which case all roads lead to confusion. Ironic really, as they should lead to Birmingham.

  38. Jim Jones says:

    RSS worked OK this time on Windows XP / Windows Live Mail. Cartoon came through.

  39. hotrats says:

    More Old Man wisdom, from Jack Nicholson’s character in ‘The Bucket List’:

    “Here’s something to remember when you’re older Thomas – never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart.”

  40. WCG says:

    Which is better? Gee, I don’t know. Sex is pretty good, too.

  41. Dan says:

    hotrats, That joke was stolen almost verbatim from Billy Connolly.
    He reports it as advice given to him on turning 60 in his World Tour of New Zealand I believe. Certainly before that film.

    Funny though.

  42. JohnM says:

    @ hotrats: “Never pass up a bathroom” seems odd. I, for one, seem less inclined to bathe as I get older, preferring to shower. That way, one can also multi-task.

    Most likely the script writer didn’t dare use the unspeakable (in USA) T-word, relying on the fact that most if not all bathrooms contain a T****t. Even that’s a bit risque, it seems, as most T****ts are labelled “Restroom” by Uncle Sam. Strange place to rest, methinks, given the odour of Indole, Skatole and other, sundry, ‘olfactorally’ unpleasant molecules found near T****ts.

  43. Mahatma Coat says:

    Redolent of the story of the rabbi & the catholic priest in a railway compartment. You’ll have to make up the rest but the punchline is the rabbi saying, “better than pork isn’t it?”
    And a friend reported years ago seeing ‘rest rooms’ signs in the US: ‘Elton John’ & ‘Elizabeth Newton-John’

  44. lukerazor says:

    FYI The RSS feed seems to working AOK using the NewsFox rss plugin in Firefox 18.0.1.

  45. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Waahayy! It would appear that Author has figured out how to feed the internet, or whatever the hell the problem was, so can we please now drop the technogabble and get back to being funny? Or boring? Or serious? Anything except ‘My rss plugin 231.95.45.32 supports Chrome United through the power of wishes alone, and it’s hungry but not getting fed ‘cos the reader is embedded in a threesome and won’t take a line break ‘cos it’s off to the opera when it’s done and the instuction to blah blah blah blah!’.

  46. igor says:

    You did well to mention the donate button. I usually read your exquisite comics through Google Reader and had therefore not seen it.

  47. hotrats says:

    JohnM:

    I also find ‘bathroom’ pathetically mealy-mouthed, but then all the non-slang words we have for a place to shit are euphemisms, and have been for centuries. In this respect Americans are particularly prudish (using ‘rooster’ rather than cockerel, ‘tid-bit’ for titbit, etc), resulting in the meaningless ‘powder room / rest room’. Even my 1998 edition of Websters International Dictionary (formerly Funk & Wagnall’s) has no entry for ‘shit’ or any of its compounds.

    The philosopher Quine noted that with all euphemisms, the conjunction of the practical need for a name to refer to it by, and the polite reflex to avoid any literal description, results in what is now called the ‘euphemism treadmill’; the longer it is in use, the more it takes on the negative associations that brought it into being, and becomes taboo again, necessitating replacement.

    Thus shell shock (WWI) becomes battle fatigue (WWII), then operational exhaustion (Korea), then post-traumatic stress disorder (Vietnam). Similarly privy (12thC) becomes wardrobe (13thC) jakes (15thC), House-of-Office (17thC), toilet (18thC), lavatory / water closet (19thC), bathroom / restroom / WC / loo (20thC).

    Most are variations on ‘wash’ – ‘lavatory’ is from the Latin for ‘washing place’, which was its literal meaning until the mid 19th century; ‘latrine’ means washing-bowl; ‘toilet’ is from French ‘toilette’, little cloth, and ‘make one’s toilet’ still means wash, seldom heard now, but the sense is preserved preserved in ‘toiletries’ and the now-bizarre ‘toilet water’; WC is water closet, reduced to initials to avoid sounding too specific; and ‘loo’ is either from ‘l’eau’, water, or ‘lieu’, the place.

    The Middle English equivalent for what we now call ‘toilet paper’ (or even the ludicrous ‘bathroom tissue’ to Americans) was ‘arse-wisp’.

  48. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    “The Middle English equivalent for what we now call ‘toilet paper’ (or even the ludicrous ‘bathroom tissue’ to Americans) was ‘arse-wisp’”

    I’ve always preferred to use the neck of a swan, although a goose will suffice where swans are unavailable.
    The one euphemism for the toilet that really grips my shit (pun most definitely intended) is ‘cloakroom’. I was once at a dinner party and needed to use the toilet, so asked my host where it was. She replied, in a very haughty tone, that the ‘cloakroom’ was the last door on the left, next to the coat-rack. It was hard, but I managed to resist the temptation to have a dump in the pocket of the first coat I came across.

  49. HaggisForBrains says:

    What a shite-house this site has become! Whilst I agree that the recent American euphemisms have become ridiculous (restroom, indeed!), I agree with hotrats that this has been going on for centuries. I’ve always associated “loo” with the old Edinburgh shout of “gardy loo” (gardez l’eau). Edinburgh practically invented the tenement flat (condominium), but failed to equip them with water closets, and it was a long walk from the sixth floor, so a bucket would generally be emptied out the window, with the appropriate warning cry to those in the street below. Aah, the good old days!

  50. Don says:

    For years I’d thought that cloakroom derived from cloaca, but wiki says no.

  51. Don says:

    Up here in the North-East we have the netty, which may be derived from ‘necessary’ but also may not be.

  52. JohnM says:

    Seems I introduced a major diversion from the habitual godlessness hereabouts. However, for me it has been very informative – so although I’m sorry, I’m not *that* sorry.

  53. hotrats says:

    JohnM:
    with a brief to “talk, to exchange jokes and ideas, to engage in profound philosophical discussion”, there’s really no need to worry about going ‘off-topic’. It covers – well, everything.

  54. Brian says:

    Hello Author – just to let you know my twenty three year old daughter thought your latest cartoon collection book I bought her for the traditional midwinter solstice festival and gift exchanging yule season is fab. Sure there’s a comma missing. Perhaps it was easier to say christmas. With a small ‘c’.

  55. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    The good old days indeed, HFB. In pre-flushing toilet, at polite society dinners, up to and including royalty, there would be a commode or two behind screens in the dining room so no guest had to leave the room to answer calls of nature.

  56. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Aagh! “..in pre-flushing toilet times”.

  57. hotrats says:

    MahatmaCoat:

    * And a friend reported years ago seeing ‘rest rooms’ signs in the US: ‘Elton John’ & ‘Elizabeth Newton-John’ *

    But where do you go if you’re a heterosexual male?

  58. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    I recall hearing about a trendy bar in London where the toilet door signs were simply ‘XX’ and ‘XY’. Possibly the only place where one needs a Biology ‘O’ Level to get into the right toilet.

  59. steeve says:

    Should that be Olivia Newton-John? Who’s Elizabeth? Ah, O N-J, my first crush! Toomorrow! Anyone for vegetarian bacon? A staple of mine since my conversion 25 years ago.

  60. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    C’mon, steeve, veggie bacon? If god hadn’t meant us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made animals so tasty. Vegetables are for colour only; they’re there to make the plate look pretty, nothing else.

  61. WalterWalcarpit says:

    Returning to scatological euphemisms; our family one is ‘dub’ which we presume to be a shortening of WC. In the same sence that WWW is not a shorter way to say world wide web.
    These days I ask where mother nature lives which seems to get past most people.

  62. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    I’ve often thought that ‘www’ should have a name of its own. I would suggest that rather than ‘double-you double-you double-you’ it really ought to be something shorter, so the treble double-you could instead be ‘trubbleyou’.

  63. WalterWalcarpit says:

    ‘trubbleyou’ (sic) is excellent alternative to ‘double-you double-you double-you’. (thanks for typing that out for me – I couldn’t be asked although I am well aware that I am still thumbing out more characters even as I keep going with this sentence.
    I can’t work out how to spell ” w’ w’ w’ ” phonetically but that is how I am inclined to express the nine syllables in speech.

  64. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    I suppose that phonetically it would be ‘wuh-wuh-wuh’, but it sounds too close to a baby having a sulky cry.
    Thanks for your agreement with ‘trubbleyou’*; maybe if enough of us use it, it might eventually come into common usage. “Could I trouble you to visit trubbleyou dot Jesus and Mo dot net?” for example.

    *For those among us who are aware of my -ahem – dislike of unnecessary new words (unnecessary because there are perfectly good words already in existence to describe it. ‘Newbie’ springs to mind; what’s wrong with ‘newcomer’, ‘neophyte’, or ‘debutant’?) I will point out that as far as I’m aware, there is currently no specific word for the three double-yous. And let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to see a word they coined make it into common use, or even into the hallowed pages of the O.E.D.?

  65. WalterWalcarpit says:

    )

  66. WalterWalcarpit says:

    (I found a lost bracket looking for a relationship to close)

  67. WalterWalcarpit says:

    Or perhaps it was a missing wee orphan …

  68. WalterWalcarpit says:

    Ahem.

    I with you on not slangishly creating new words and slavishly accepting them in some politically tolerant manner when there are perfectly useful ones already in our language even if one had slipped from our lexicon.
    Don’t let me get started on the daft use of utilisation instead of use, and why it more useful to use use instead of utilising utility.. [@hotrats – for which should I properly use ize?]
    Almost reminds me of a friend’s assessment of J K Rowling’s Potterings; “why use one word when 10 will do?”

  69. WalterWalcarpit says:

    OMG (sic). I’ve now got a misplaced ‘m to look after!
    And I love the word neophyte. It is perfectly sublime.
    Tarrantino has just given it a good outing in his Southern Django.

  70. WalterWalcarpit says:

    I presume @youall, that you are familiar with Douglas Adams & John Lloyd’s “Meaning of Liff” (another of my personal Trilogy of Testaments). They did such a good job, eh? Acoloite?

    From their forward:

    In Life, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.
    On the other hand, the world is littererd with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.
    Our job, as wee see it, is to get these words dow off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society.

  71. WalterWalcarpit says:

    Now, dear readers, it is not that I am not letting anyone else into the conversation so much as that the only other known participant is sensibly asleep or better still at a birthday party. AHB @AoS 🙂

  72. WalterWalcarpit says:

    But I do want to contribute the following new words with my remaining steam, some might even have been noticed:

    The necessity is for words that allow gender to be rendered insignificant in the same way that ‘Ms’ allows a woman’s marital status as much discretion as a man’s Mr. 
    There will be a term for them, which hotrats might help me with, but I think at least one is a possessive pronoun. 
    Ironically French, for all it’s gender specificity, has a ready advantage here. 

    But between us all, the best the generalati have come up with to clarify that it is not relevant whether or not the architect or zookeeper has testicles is ‘he/she’, ‘her/him’ and ‘his/hers’. 

    For some ten years now I have simply not used any of those often mealy-mouthed,  invariably half-hearted and always triple-syllabled apologies for a solution. 

    For all that time with unilateral consistent quiet determination I have used
    ‘se’, ‘hem’ & ‘hes’ respectively. 

    I think it just works. 

    Please, consider joining in. 

  73. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Wow! A more suspicious mind than mine might think that Walter has partaken of a line or two of the infamous Columbian Marching Powder. A less suspicious mind (such as mine) may recognise a fellow insomniac, exhausted beyong belief yet paradoxically wide awake in the wee small hours with much to say and nobody at hand to say it to.
    I must ask, what or who is AHB?

  74. WalterWalcarpit says:

    AHB, if you will forgive me, is an abbreviation for A Happy Birthday. It was a rather belated wish, and caught in sidelights of a pun, but sincere nonetheless.
    I’m not so much an insomniac as nocturnal – or just balefully unable to go to bed at a sensible time.

  75. Dr_John_the_Wipper says:

    AoS:
    As the RC priest asked: “When will I get to see you eat a bacon sandwich, Rabbi?”
    Änswer: “Oh, you will. I save it for a special occasion.”
    ” What occasion?”. “At you marriage feast, I will enjoy bacon”

Comment¬

NOTE: This comments section is provided as a friendly place for readers of J&M to talk, to exchange jokes and ideas, to engage in profound philosophical discussion, and to ridicule the sincerely held beliefs of millions. As such, comments of a racist, sexist or homophobic nature will not be tolerated.

If you are posting for the first time, or you change your username and/or email, your comment will be held in moderation until approval. When your first comment is approved, subsequent comments will be published automatically.