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For the past 2,600 years or so, children have learned important lessons from short tales credited to Aesop, an ancient Greek slave.
Times have certainly changed since then, but scholars say the fables have remained pretty much the same. That means they're not providing the fabulous lessons that modern children need, so I suggest some updates:
During summer, when times were good, the grasshopper goofed off. Credit was easy, and the grasshopper acquired a Ferrari and purchased a large flat-screen TV for his palatial abode which he got for no money down on an adjustable rate mortgage.
Meanwhile the ants toiled away, storing assets for the future by investing their 401(k) plans in solid enterprises like GM, Chrysler, Citicorp, Lehman Brothers and AIG.
Then winter came. The grasshopper lost all to
foreclosure and the repo man. He was starving and penniless
as the wind howled and the snow fell. Hoping for charity
from the prudent ants, he crawled toward their colony, only
to find them scurrying toward him. We have no
sustenance,
they said. We've been wiped out, too. We
seek justice.
The grasshopper joined their chorus, which was drowned
out by accusations from the Fox that they were
attempting to foment class warfare,
and they were
never heard from again.
Moral of the story: Don't look for a connection between morality and economics.
While out jogging to keep in shape, a hare spotted a tortoise plodding along, and began to laugh at the pitiful reptile, who in turn challenged the hare to a race.
The hare got off to a bounding start. Reasoning that he had plenty of time, the hare left the course and pursued an haress for a while, then relaxed with a cold brew. He returned to the course and bounded toward the end where the tortoise was nearing the finish line.
The hare dug hard, his big hind legs made more powerful by anabolic steroids. Within yards of the finish line, just as he began to pass the tortoise, an eagle swooped down and carried off the hare for dinner. This became the basis for a popular video game.
Moral of the story: It's not win or lose or how you play the game; it's how the game plays out on the screen.
While surfing the Internet one lazy afternoon, the dog
discovered that the registration for cows.com
had
expired. For a trifling sum, he acquired the domain, even
though he had no use for it.
After discovering that they no longer owned cows.com,
the cows approached the dog. You don't need
cows.com,
they pointed out, so why don't you give it
back to us?
The dog snarled and growled until the cows met his outrageous price, then retired to a perfect canine life that involved sleeping a lot and gnawing on T-bones.
Moral of the story: You can do pretty well if you can grab something others covet, even if you can't use it yourself.
A fox spotted a bunch of grapes hanging high above him. He leapt and clawed at them, to no avail. Then he realized that he was a carnivore and that the only reason he wanted grapes was that he'd just seen an enticing Food Nework feature about luscious fruits of the vine. So he left and went about his business of raiding henhouses.
Moral of the story: Make sure you really want something before making a fool out of yourself trying to get it.
There are many other possibilities -- The Boy Who Cried WMD, The Goose who Laid the Leveraged Eggs, The Farmer and the Newt, to name a few. Life has changed much since 600 B.C., and shouldn't our fables change too?
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