#632 Just Desserts

I worry sometimes that we are starting to neglect the basics in education. Maybe those hours youngsters used to sit parked in front of Sesame Street didn’t give them the cautionary morality of the classics.
A lot of the old fables and stories had a moral. A point, if you will, to instill in young folks the idea that something was either good or bad behavior and would likely have a consequence.
The three little pigs story is a good example. The pig that made his house of sticks had it blown down, the pig that made his house of brick is still pigging away, hoove-ing his snout at the big bad wolf.
I know, I know, wolves got a bad rap. Just cause they didn’t kowtow to that whole domestic thing like their piggy contemporaries, they have to be the bad guy in the story. The pigs, fattened up and destined for slaughter at the hands of the moral makers, are the “good” guys.
Anyhow, what brought this to mind was an event I took part in by a local chamber recently that was themed “The Midas Touch.” Everyone was supposed to wear gold and it was a big festive event. But it got me thinking.
The Midas touch was actually a bad thing.
These days we say it’s good. That Bill Gates, he’s got the Midas touch. Midas touch with stocks? That would be Warren Buffett. But the fable had ol’ Midas coming to a bad end.
He loved gold; he did everything in his power to acquire gold. He craved it so much he made some deal with the devil or a river sprite or something so that everything he touched turned to gold. He was delirious with pleasure.
And then he realized—his food turned to gold, his wine turned to gold and... You get the picture. Pretty soon he starved to death. His solid gold Devil’s-food cake inedible. What you would call just desserts.
So why am I thinking a certain muffler company founder didn’t read his Aesop’s tales...
America, ya gotta love it