I subscribe to the Oglaf patreon. I find the comic amusing, and via the patreon, I get extra content, sporadically. Recently, Trudy and Doug posted “A bunch of ideas we had that didn’t quite turn into strips but that we also couldn’t quite let go of,” and there was one that I also found irresistible. It’s mildly scatological and definitely profane, and also biological, so I have to post it here.
Matthew 6:28-29
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
Flowers of the field are shitty with Matthew.
What? We aren’t working because we’re not running a bakery or some shit?
We’re processing carbon dioxide to oxygen and carbohydrates, storing that energy, growing roots and leaves, drawing water and nutrients from the soil, deploying defenses against climate and pests, constantly battling for reproduction and survival.
Fuck you.
Let’s see you attract appropriate pollinators with scent and colour and then tell us we don’t work, you anthrocentric shit.
I post it here because, tragically, I cannot use it in my classes, no matter how appropriate the point is.
I would recommend the SF novel Semiosis and its sequels, with humans interacting with information-procrssing plants that have as much agency as motile critters.
I love this, and it’s so very, very Oglaf.
Hey, PZ and everyone! Hope you’ve been well!
I had a very similar thought back in 2011, and wrote this on my ancient LiveJournal blog, that might be closer to a form that you can use in class:
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin.”
“Hey!” cry the lilies of the field,
“Hold on a minute. What’s with this
‘Toil Not’ crap? Here we are,
Juggling Nuclear Fire from the Heavens
and wresting our sustenance from the very
Air and Soil, so that you Animals
can sustain your parasitic lives by drinking
our nectar and eating our bodies,
and you have the gall to claim
we ‘toil not’? Where do you get off, anyway?”
Hi Seedy!
How’s every little thing?
I do love me some Oglaf.
You say you can’t use it, but consider the fact that you’re retiring, and thus entering the phase of your career when you can do whatever you like because firing you would take longer than waiting for you to leave anyway.
ELSIE: Consider the lilies?
BRIAN: Uh, well, the birds, then.
EDDIE: What birds?
BRIAN: Any birds.
EDDIE: Why?
BRIAN: Well, have they got jobs?
ARTHUR: Who?
BRIAN: The birds.
EDDIE: Have the birds got jobs?!
FRANK: What’s the matter with him?
ARTHUR: He says the birds are scrounging.
BRIAN: Oh, uhh, no, the point is the birds. They do all right. Don’t they?
FRANK: Well, good luck to ’em.
EDDIE: Yeah. They’re very pretty.
BRIAN: Okay, and you’re much more important than they are, right? So, what are you worrying about? There you are. See?
EDDIE: I’m worrying about what you have got against birds.
BRIAN: I haven’t got anything against the birds. Consider the lilies.
ARTHUR: He’s having a go at the flowers now.
EDDIE: Oh, give the flowers a chance.
http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/17.htm