Folktales Updated for 2024

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs

Aesop — A man owns a uniquely productive goose. Instead of laying ordinary eggs, this goose produces an egg of pure gold every day, which the man sells, making him more prosperous every day.

But the man grows impatient with the goose’s production. He thinks that cutting the goose open might immediately produce a large treasure of golden eggs. Seeking that quick treasure, he’s disappointed to find that he now owns only a dead goose.

2024 — America’s always-angry left keeps getting angrier about capitalism. Sure, capitalism keeps producing trillions of tax dollars sustaining the governments they rely on. But government payrollers are still ticked off that the hard work and success of many capitalists make them much richer than state diversity administrators, county executives, endangered-dung-beetle monitors, powerful bureaucrats, and all the other 24 million Americans who are guaranteed government paychecks.

Emboldened by victories in elections and the approval of corporate media, the left finally piles up enough taxes, regulations, executive decrees and income redistributions to kill America’s capitalist economy. Alas, they don’t find the “golden eggs” of socialism’s always-promised bonanza. All they find is an economy like Venezuela’s: once strong, now another socialist dead goose.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Aesop — A shepherd boy, bored and ignored while watching sheep sleep, tries to attract attention by repeated false alarms about a sheep-ravaging wolf. “Wolf, wolf!” he shouts. “A wolf is attacking the sheep!” After the boy has annoyed everyone with his fake wolf warnings, the shepherd master growls at him, “Hey, knock it off, kid.”

Then a wolf actually attacks, the shepherd boy shouts, “Wolf! Wolf!” in vain, and the sheep do not do well.

2024 —The boys and girls performing for CNN’s cameras, bored and seeing their ratings get weaker, try to attract attention by repeated fake news and false warnings. “President Joe is perfectly competent, on top of his game!” their broadcasts assure viewers. “And Trump is a threat to democracy!”

The broadcasters become more disappointed when, despite their warnings, more and more Americans notice that the only game the president might be on top of is marathon beach sleeping. Tiring of CNN’s reruns, many viewers change channels. Some notice that a competing channel covers the president struggling to complete a sentence. Then he gives up his candidacy, unhappily endorsing a woman who seems even more feeble-minded than he is.

CNN isn’t sure what to do about its declining ratings. It tries an old promotion: “More theories on that Malaysia Airlines flight!” That doesn’t work either. The wolf is at their door.

Jack and Jill

18th century British nursery rhyme —

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after

2024 —

Old Joe and his Veep of confusion
Sat tight through their term of illusion.
Then Joe’s incoherence
Made quick Veep ascendence.
Now Dems bang the drums for delusion.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Hans Christian Anderson — A vain Emperor is more concerned with fancy clothes than matters of state. Two con artists posing as weavers sell him their services making clothing so magnificent that inferior people can’t even see it. Sewing and scissoring thin air, they pretend to create garments worthy of the monarch. Everyone from the Emperor to the townspeople pretends to see the magnificent clothes invisible to inferior people.

Proudly wearing the non-existent clothes, the Emperor parades naked through the streets — until a child unaware of the con blurts out that the imperial butt is bare.

2024 — The Vice Emperor has an easy gig. She’s given a token responsibility or two, accomplishes nothing, talks like a dim-witted kindergarten teacher yet lives a life of splendor. She’d taken the Vice Emperor position expecting early promotion, which seems even likelier now with the increasingly infirm Emperor publicly calling her the Emperor.

Then the Emperor makes a prime time show of his infirmity and is soon sent to his posh beach home. The entire court, influential figures in La La Land, and messengers of state media suddenly proclaim the Vice Emperor a grand and kingdom-saving eminence. Major Courier Morning Joe quickly reverses his befuddled mythology about the befuddled Emperor.

The Vice Emperor is proclaimed Emperor-To-Be amid tidings of glory and fanciful history. Smiling and giggling over her election-free promotion, she finally tries to speak without a script, but smarter audiences are only puzzled or amused. Even some children notice the Vice Emperor’s nonsensical talk nakedly exposed.

Cinderella

Traditional folktale / Disney movie adaptation — Beautiful though wearing rags, Cinderella is mistreated by an evil stepmother and two hideous stepsisters. She dreams of going to the royal ball, meeting the handsome Prince and finding true love. The stepfamily tries to thwart Cinderella’s hopes of going to the ball, but her fairy godmother intervenes and a glass slipper saves the day. Cinderella and the prince live happily ever after.

2024 — WHAT?!?!

This elitist Disney myth lionizes a patriarchy of entitled white people. And isn’t that “fairy godmother” just old-school homophobia? And villainization of those unbeautiful stepsisters is pure lookism. And what’s with the super-elitist glass slipper? Marginalized women are urged to value footwear that’s petite and “feminine” yet uncomfortable and unaffordable. And that carriage turning back into a pumpkin is an obvious allegory for re-victimization of the working class! And that song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo clearly mocks African-American field hollers.

Even Disney’s movie titles are offensive. Snow White? Seven Dwarves? Really?