"Once upon a time there was......

Flirtatious: " Have you ever tasted my braised chicken strips on curried rice? Uuum, so good."

Real Mood: Oh, well.

Prediction: In the media something will always get worse before it gets better.

Wouldn't it be great if we really could believe everything we read, heard or saw? It would make life so much easier to understand and predict. We could cope. But alas, as we know, this is not the case. Every image or expression that passes through our sensory organs is wrought with agendas. That includes, of course, our own agendas. Nothing heightens the introduction of the number of points of view expressed than a crisis we are now weathering down in New Orleans. What's a person to believe?

I recently spent a year's worth of Saturday afternoons reading to children at Border's Books. One of the revelations that befell me during that year is what great liberty authors and publishers take with fairy tales and nursery rhymes.You take a basic fable from antiquity, which apparently has no attachment to copyright law, and look out! There is no limit to the variety of twists and turns this story will take. The characters will change, the plots will change, the hidden messages (the allegories and metaphors) will bend to any number of slanted messages.

It's incredible to see what successive generations have done to "Grimm's Fairy Tales" in order to turn them into morality plays for toddlers.

Picture a bunch of toddlers hanging out around the nap mat, knockin' down some milk and "Graham Crackers." One of them brings up "Little Red Riding Hood."

"Wasn't that weird how the wolf ate grandma and they had to cut her out of his stomach."

"That's not what happened. Little Red Riding Hood got there in time so Grandma could hide under the bed." 

"She wasn't under the bed, she was in the closet."

"Wasn't that cool how the woodcutter chopped the wolf's head off?"

"What wood cutter?"

"You know we could fight over this until we're twelve. Why don't we just wait for the Disney version to come out. That will straighten it all out."

I don't think I'm unusual in carrying one of those tales for toddlers on into adulthood with me. I've always liked "Chicken Little." I've liked it partly because the story line parallels a point of view I have about  my life's work. (Well, at least one of the storylines.)

You probably remember how it goes. "Chicken Little" gets hit on the head with an acorn and makes an assumption. "THE SKY IS FALLING," Litttle declares. The little chicken starts running around shouting to all the other chickens, 'THE SKY IS FALLING." Nobody ever stops to see what really hit Little on the head. Nobody waits for an analysis of the nut. They all run around in a panic until they meet up with Foxy Loxy, who says, "What's up?"  "THE SKY IS FALLING!"

"Well then why don't you all just come into my den here for safety and a little lunch."

"WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?"

"You! What would you say to a little chicken cordon bleu?"

In one my rare pedagogical blasts of pomposity, let me ask you to just picture Little as one of the reporters or anchors you've been watching.

In one of the versions Little gets past Foxy Loxy, and makes it all the way to the King. The King listens, and then patronizingly hands the dumb chicken an umbrella to protect against the sky falling.

Might one or more of you join me in equating the King to Lt. General Honore as he spoke to reporters in New Orleans this past week?

"Okay, reporters, let's don't get stuck on stupid." 

In a land where there is freedom of the press (media), one should expect reporters so chastised to rip the General "a new one."

But you know what? They were stuck on stupid. They knew they were stuck on stupid. So were the anchors and the field producers and the tape editors and the assignment editors. Regardless of how we've evolved, the five W's ought to still be the base of our contribution to society. Where (one of the 'W's) did they go.

Some Examples:

Did anyone question the guy who said, "43 thousand people are going to die in New Orleans."  Nah, just put him on the air.

Not true.

Did anyone try to verify the words of a distraught and over worked cop who said, "more than a hundred police officers defected when the going got tough."

"Love that anger. Look at the tears. Get that guy, what his name, Little, and put him on the air."

Not true.

Was it Little who said, "New Orleans is totally uninhabitable. Nothing will be dry here until June."

Not true. ( A good portion of the city has already been described as "dry as a bone." 

It had to be Little who declared "there were more than a hundred rapes in the Convention Center. It was horrible."

"Let's get that Little on the air, but see if we can't get the chicken to make it INCREDIBLY horrible."

"Not true."

We ought to mourn just one drowning, one person's total loss of worldly goods, one rape, one murder, one lost child. When the competition comes along to outdo each other without verification it becomes a "Video Game."  Who has the most points at the end of the contest.

Despite this tirade you need to know I'm not a reformer.  Nothing is going to change. FOXY LOXY didn't eat CHICKEN LITTLE.   But I wanted to get this written before Rita Hits Houston. ("Wow what a nice piece of alliteration, HITS HOUSTON. Get the graphics people on that.  I want a banner ready when we come out of break.) Everyone has been reporting on the MONUMENTAL lessons learned from KATRINA.  

I've already heard about the 18 foot, 37 foot and 50 foot wall of water that is going to wipe out Galveston Island.  Little is already at work and landfall is nearly two days away.  I wonder if anyone heard Little blame all this hurricaning on GLOBAL WARMING. If so did we hear the guy from The National Hurricane Center say, "Uh Uh!"

I'd like to think otherwise, but I believe we are all still "STUCK ON STUPID."

"Dammit, where are all those umbrellas we ordered? We got some sky out here FALLING people!"

I mean you are aware that Disney is coming out with yet a new version of "Chicken Little" this fall? I totally, indefatigably, over the top, can't wait.