I HAVE always loved fairy tales. When I was a child, I read them in the comic books Young Classics Illustrated or in the youngster books. There were also times when I watched them in the movies and on television.
Even now the magic has not disappeared for me, having shared them with my daughter when she was a child twenty years ago and now with the two year old son of a nephew.
I continue to browse the fairy tale books even now when I immerse myself in looking at books in bookstores.
They are a welcome respite from my more serious readings for academe and professional concerns. However, I have noticed that the advent of technology has brought more realism and even darkness to their presentation in the comics, books and movies. This has somewhat diminished their magical appeal for me.
I prefer my Snow White and Cinderella to be the beautiful and lily pure characters of the Disney presentations.
Now there are versions of aggressive and man eating women warriors. My prince has to be Prince Charming and the Beast must be transformed by the honest love of Beauty into the handsome prince he used to be. The heroes and the good must always win in the end in order to live happily ever after.
Now there are vampires and unresolved endings or unfi nished continuations where the villains are expected to be back in the next episodes.
The frog after being kissed by the heroine is transformed back into the handsome prince. Now, the frog remains not only a frog but is revealed to be an ugly potbellied warted toad! Kokak!
It seems like the reality which is being played out before us. This drama of the pork barrel which is unfolding more and more has opened our eyes to the fact that “the emperor has no clothes.”
Everyone of us kept praising the emperor’s new clothes. These legislators and leaders were supposedly people of integrity, competence, accountability and paragons of public service.
Forgive me while I puke! It appears that they are mostly thieves and sons of bitches. They are all aware of what they are. Now some of them want to be exculpated or forgiven because everyone of them committed the same sin.
Some much more than others or a justification of us versus them are presented as defences. Is it just an issue of our SOBs against their SOBs?
Maybe they would like to be compared to the two thieves crucifi ed on each side of Jesus Christ. Which thief? Or to Ali Baba and the forty thieves? However, they are certainly more than forty-one. 292 and 24 probably.
Warren Buffett, the brilliant American stock market investor, once said,” If I taught a class in valuation, I would ask the students, for the final exam, to pick an Internet company and tell me how much it is worth.” Pause.
“Anyone who gave me an answer would flunk.” He also said, “Time is the enemy of poor business and the friend of good businesses.” (Nocera, Saint Warren of Omaha) What is really the intrinsic value of all of these politicians? Is there any value added contribution that they make to our lives and the nation?
The costbenefit ratio seems to be negative. We do agree that they provide very entertaining comedy. But it would be too expensive. I would still prefer the late actors Dolphy and Panchito, even Chiquito or Tito, Vic and Joey (before one of them became a politician).
On the other hand let me regress back into the fairy tales of my childhood, when the frog became a prince. Now the frog remains a frog which I used to dissect in my lab class in zoology.
Kokak!!
