Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
by James Finn Garner


To the Theater of the Bizarre,
including Pepe, Armando, Egon, Ted,
Matteo, Nick, and Julietta; James Ghelkins, Jr.,
and Willie, Smitty, and Jocko
of the Teamsters Children's Puppet Theater;
and Others too numerous to mention.
To Carol, for help and encouragement,
and to Lies, for everything.


INTRODUCTION

When they were first written, the stories on which the following tales
are based certainly served their purpose--to entrench the patriarchy,
to estrange people from their own natural impulses, to demonize "evil"
and to "reward" an "objective" "good." However much we might like to,
we cannot blame the Brothers Grimm for their insensitivity to womyn's
issues, minority cultures, and the environment. Likewise, in the
self-righteous Copenhagen of Hans Christian Andersen, the inalienable
rights of mermaids were hardly given a second thought.

Today, we have the opportunity--and the obligation--to rethink these
"classic" stories so they reflect more enlightened times. To that
effort I submit this humble book. While its original title, Fairy
Stories For a Modern World, was abandoned for obvious reasons (kudos
to my editor for pointing out my heterosexualist bias), I think the
collection stands on its own. This, however, is just a start. Certain
stories, such as "The Duckling That Was Judged on Its Personal Merits
and Not on Its Physical Appearance," were deleted for space reasons. I
expect I have volumes left in me, and I hope this book sparks the
righteous imaginations of other writers and, of course, leaves an
indelible mark on our children.

If through omission or commission, I have inadvertently displayed any
sexist, racist, culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, ageist,
lookist, ableist, sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist,
socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist, phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist,
or other type of bias as yet unnamed, I apologize and encourage your
suggestions for rectification. In the quest to develop meaningful
literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the
influences of its flawed cultural past, I doubtless have made some
mistakes.


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

There once was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her
mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to
take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's
house--not because this was womyn's work, mind you, but because the
deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of community.
Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full
physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of
herself as a mature adult.

So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket through the woods. Many
people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place
and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident
enough in her own budding sexuality that such obvious Freudian imagery
did not intimidate her.

On the way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood was accosted by a wolf
who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, "Some healthful
snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of
herself as a mature adult."

The wolf said, "You know my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to
walk through these woods alone."

Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the
extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional Status as an
outcast from society, the stress of which has caused yon to develop
your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now if you'll excuse me, I must
be on my way."

Red Riding Hood walked on along the main path. But, because his status
outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear,
Western-style thought, the wolf knew a quicker route to Grandma's
house. He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid
course of action for a carnivore such as himself. Then, unhampered by
rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he
put on Grandma's nightclothes and crawled into bed.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, "Grandma, I have brought
you some fat-free, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a
wise and nurturing matriarch."

From the bed, the wolf said softly, "Come closer, child, so that I
might see you."

Red Riding Hood said, "Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as
a bat. Grandma, what big eyes you have!"

"They have seen much, and forgiven much, my dear."

"Grandma, what a big nose you have--only relatively, of course, and
certainly attractive in its own way"

"It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my dear."

"Grandma, what big teeth you have!"

The wolf said, "I am happy with who I am and what I am," and leaped
out of bed. He grabbed Red Riding Hood in his claws, intent on
devouring her. Red Riding Hood screamed, not out of alarm at the
wolf's apparent tendency toward cross-dressing, but because of his
willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing woodchopper-person (or log-fuel
technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the
cottage, he saw melee the and tried to intervene. But as he raised his
ax, Red Riding Hood and the wolf both stopped.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" asked Red Riding Hood.

The woodchopper-person blinked and tried to answer, but no words came
to him.

"Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your
thinking for you!" she exclaimed. "Sexistl Speciesist! How dare you
assume that womyn and wolves can't solve their own problems without a
man's help!"

When she heard Red Riding Hood's impassioned speech, Grandma jumped
out of the wolf's mouth, seized the woodchopper-person's ax, and cut
his head off. After this ordeal, Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the
wolf felt a certain commonality of purpose. They decided to set up an
alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, and
they lived together in the woods happily ever after.


THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

Far away, in a time long past, there lived a traveling tailor who
found himself in an unfamiliar country. Now, tailors who move from
place to place normally keep to themselves and are careful not to
overstep the bounds of local decency. This tailor, though, was overly
gregarious and decorum-impaired, and soon he was at a local inn,
abusing alcohol, invading the personal space of the female employees,
and telling unenlightened stories about tinkers, dung-gatherers, and
other tradespeople.

The innkeeper complained to the police, who grabbed the tailor and
dragged him in front of the emperor. As you might expect, a lifetime
of belief in the absolute legitimacy of the monarchy and in the
inherent superiority of males had turned the emperor into a vain and
wisdom-challenged tyrant. The tailor noticed these traits and decided
to use them to his advantage.

The emperor asked, "Do you have any last request before I banish you
from my domain forever?"

The tailor replied, "Only that your majesty allow me the honor of
crafting a new royal wardrobe. For I have brought with me a special
fabric that is so rare and fine that it can be seen only by certain
people--the type of people you'd want to have in your realm--people
who are politically correct, morally righteous, intellectually astute,
culturally tolerant, and who don't smoke, drink, laugh at sexist
jokes, watch too much television, listen to country music, or
barbecue."

After a moment's thought, the emperor agreed to this request. He was
flattered by the fascist and testosterone-heavy idea that the empire
and its inhabitants existed only to make him look good. It Would be
like having a trophy wife and multiplying that feeling by 100,000.

Of course, no such rarefied fabric existed. Years of living outside
the bounds of normal society had forced the tailor to develop his own
moral code that obliged him to swindle and embarrass the emperor in
the name of independent craftspeople everywhere. So, as he diligently
labored, he was able to convince the emperor that he was cutting and
sewing pieces of fabric that, in the strictest objective sense of
reality, didn't exist.

When the tailor announced that he was finished, the emperor looked at
his new robes in the mirror. As he stood there, naked as the day he
was born, one could see how years of exploiting the peasantry had
turned his body into an ugly mass of puffy white flesh. The emperor,
of course, saw this too, but pretended that he could see the
beautiful, politically correct robes. To show off his new splendor, he
ordered a parade to be held the next day

On the following morning, his subjects lined the streets for the big
parade. Word had spread about the emperor's new clothes that only
enlightened people with healthy lifestyles could see, and everyone was
determined to be more right-minded than his or her neighbor.

The parade began with great hoopla. As the emperor marched his pale,
bloated, patriarchal carcass down the street, everyone loudly oohed
and ahed at his beautiful new clothes. All except one small boy who
shouted:

"The emperor is naked!"

The parade stopped. The emperor paused. A hush fell over the crowd,
until one quick-thinking peasant shouted:

"No, he isn't. The emperor is merely endorsing a clothing-optional
lifestyle!"

A cheer went up from the crowd, and the throngs stripped off their
clothes and danced in the sun, as Nature had intended. The country was
clothing-optional from that day forward, and the tailor, deprived of
any livelihood, packed up his needle and thread and was never heard
from again.


THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

Once there were three little pigs who lived together in mutual respect
and in harmony with their environment. Using materials that were
indigenous to the area, they each built a beautiful house. One pig
built a house of straw one a house of sticks, and one a house of dung,
clay and creeper vines shaped into bricks and baked in a small kiln.
When they were finished, the pigs were satisfied with their work and
settled back to live in peace and self-determination.

But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad
wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry in
both a physical and an ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf;
they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and
banged on the door, shouting, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

The pigs shouted back, "Your gunboat tactics hold no fear for pigs
defending their homes and culture."

But the wolf wasn't to be denied what he thought was his manifest
destiny. So he huffed and puffed and blew down the house of straw. The
frightened pigs ran to the house of sticks, with the wolf in hot
pursuit. Where the house of straw had stood, other wolves bought up
the land and started a banana plantation.

At the house of sticks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted,
"Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

The pigs shouted back, "Go to hell, you carnivorous, imperialistic
oppressor!"

At this, the wolf chuckled condescendingly. He thought to himself:
"They are so childlike in their ways. It will be a shame to see them
go, but progress cannot be stopped."

So the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. The
pigs ran to the house of bricks, with the wolf close at their heels.
Where the house of sticks had stood, other wolves built a time-share
condo resort complex for vacationing wolves, With each unit a
fiberglass reconstruction of the house of sticks, as well as native
curio shops, snorkeling, and dolphin shows.

At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted,
"Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

This time in response, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote
letters of protest to the United Nations.

By now the wolf was getting angry at the pigs' refusal to see the
situation from the carnivore's point of view. So he huffed and puffed,
and huffed and puffed, then grabbed his chest and fell over dead from
a massive heart attack brought on from eating too many fatty foods.

The three little pigs rejoiced that justice had triumphed and did a
little dance around the corpse of the wolf. Their next step was to
liberate their homeland. They gathered together a band of other pigs
who had been forced off their lands. This new brigade of porcinistas
attacked the resort complex with machine guns and rocket launchers and
slaughtered the cruel wolf oppressors, sending a clear signal to the
rest of the hemisphere not to meddle in their internal affairs. Then
the pigs set up a model socialist democracy with free education,
universal health care, and affordable housing for everyone.

[Please note: The wolf in this story was a metaphorical construct. No
actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story.]


RUMPELSTILTSKIN

Long ago in a kingdom far away, there lived a miller who was very
economically disadvantaged. This miller shared his humble dwelling
with his only daughter, an independent young wommon named Esmeralda.
Now, the miller was very ashamed of his poverty, rather than angry at
the economic system that had marginalized him, and was always
searching for a way to get rich quick.

"If only I could get my daughter to marry a rich man," he mused, in a
sexist and archaic way "she'll be fulfilled and I'll never have to
work another day in my life." To this shabby end, he had an
inspiration. He would start a rumor that his daughter was able to spin
common barnyard straw into pure gold. with this untruth, he would be
able to attract the attention of many rich men and marry off
Esmeralda.

The rumor spread through the kingdom in a manner that just happened to
be like wildfire and soon reached the prince. As greedy and gullible
as most men of his station, he believed the rumor and invited
Esmeralda to his castle for a May Day festival. But when she arrived,
he had her thrown into a dungeon filled with straw and ordered her to
spin it into gold.

Locked in the dungeon, fearing for her life, Esmeralda sat on the
floor and wept. Never had the exploitativeness of the patriarchy been
made so apparent to her. As she cried, a diminutive man in a funny hat
appeared in the dungeon.

"Why are you crying, my dear?" he asked.

Esmeralda was startled but answered him: "The prince has ordered me to
spin all this straw into gold."

"But why are you crying?" he asked again.

"Because it can't be done. What are you, specially abled or
something?"

The differently statured man laughed and said, "Dearie, you are
thinking too much with the left side of your brain, you are. But you
are in luck. I will show you how to perform this task, yes, but first
you must promise to give me what I want in return."

With no alternative, Esmeralda gave her assent. To turn the straw into
gold, they took it to a nearby farmers' cooperative, where it was used
to thatch an old roof with a drier home, the farmers became healthier
and more productive, and they brought forth a record harvest of wheat
for local consumption. The children of the kingdom grew strong and
tall, went to a cooperative school, and gradually turned the kingdom
into a model democracy with no economic or sexual injustice and low
infant mortality rates. For his part, the prince was captured by an
angry mob and stabbed to death with pitchforks outside the palace. As
new investment money poured in from all over the world, the farmers
remembered Esmeralda's generous gift of straw and rewarded her with
numerous chests of gold.

When all this was done, the diminutive man in the funny hat laughed
and said, "That is how you turn straw into gold." Then his expression
became menacing. "Now that I have done my work, you must fulfill your
part of the bargain. You must give me your first-born child!"

Esmeralda shot back at him, "I don't have to negotiate with anyone who
would interfere with my reproductive rights!"

The vertically challenged man was taken aback by the conviction in her
voice. Deciding on a change in tactics, he said slyly, "Fair enough,
dearie. I'll let you out of the bargain if you can guess what my name
is."

"All right," said Esmeralda. She paused a second, tapped her chin with
her finger, and said, "Would your name be... oh, I don't know,
maybe... Rumpelstiltskin?"

"AAAAAKKKK!!" shrieked the man of nonstandard height. "But... but...
how did you know?"

She replied, "You are still wearing your name badge from the Little
People's Empowerment Seminar."

Rumpelstiltskin screamed in anger and stamped his foot, at which point
the earth cracked open and swallowed him up in a rush of smoke and
sulphur. With her gold, Esmeralda moved to California to open a
birth-control clinic, where she showed other womyn how not to be
enslaved by their reproductive systems and lived to the end of her
days as a fulfilled, dedicated single person.


THE THREE CODEPENDENT GOATS GRUFF

Once on a lovely mountain-side lived three goats who were related as
siblings. Their name was Gruff; and they were a very close family.
During the winter months they lived in a lush, green valley, eating
grass and doing other things in a naturally goatish manner. When
summer came, they would travel up the mountainside to where the
pasture was sweeter. This way, they did not overgraze their valley and
kept their ecological footprint as small as possible.

To get to this pasture, the goats had to cross a bridge over a wide
chasm. When the first days of summer came, one goat set out to cross
the bridge. This goat was the least chronologically accomplished of
the siblings and thus had achieved the least superiority in size. When
he reached the bridge, he lashed on his safety helmet and grasped the
handrail. But as he began to cross, a menacing growl came from beneath
the bridge.

Over the railing and onto the bridge leaped a troll--hair,
dirt-accomplished, and odor-enhanced. "Yaaarrrgh!!" intoned the troll.
"I am the keeper of this bridge, and while goats may have the right to
cross it, I'll eat any that try!"

"But why, Mr. Troll?" bleated the goat.

"Because I'm a troll, and proud of it. I have a troll's needs, and
those needs include eating goats, so you better respect them or else."

The goat was frightened. "Certainly, sir," he stammered. "If eating me
would help you become a more complete troll, nothing would please me
more. But I really can't commit to that course of action without first
consulting my siblings. Will you excuse me?" And the goat ran back to
the valley.

Next, the middle sibling goat came up to the bridge. This goat was
more chronologically advanced than the first goat and so enjoyed an
advantage in size (although this did not make him a better or more
deserving goat). He was about to cross the bridge when the troll
stopped him.

"Nature has made me a troll," he said, "and I embrace my trollhood.
Would you deny me my right to live the life of a troll as fully and
effectively as I can?"

"Me? Never!" exclaimed the goat proudly.

"Then stand still there while I come over and eat you up. And don't
try to run away; I would take that as a personal affront." He began to
invade the goat's caprinal space.

"However," blurted the goat, "I have a very close family, and it would
be selfish of me to allow myself to be eaten without asking their
opinion. I have respect for their feelings, too. I would hate to think
that my absence would cause them any emotional stress, if I hadn't
first...."

"Go then!" screamed the troll.

"I'll rush back here as soon as we reach a consensus," the goat said,
"for it's not fair to keep you in suspense."

"You're too kind," sighed the troll, and the goat ran back to the
valley. As his hunger grew the troll began to feel a real grievance
toward the goats. If he didn't get to eat at least one of them, he was
determined to go to the authorities.

When the third goat came to the bridge, the troll discovered that he
was nearly twice the troll's size, with large, sharp horns and hard,
heavy hooves. The troll felt his physical-intimidation prerogative
fading fast. As fear turned his insides into jelly, the troll sank to
his knees and pleaded, "Oh, please, please forgive me! I was using you
and your goat siblings for my own selfish ends. I don't know what
drove me to it, but I've seen the error of my ways."

The goat, too, got down on what passed for knees in goats and said,
"Now, now, you can't take all the blame for yourself. Our presence and
supreme edibility put you in this situation. My siblings and I all
feel terrible. Please, you must forgive us."

The troll began to sob. "No, no, it's all my fault. I threatened and
bullied you all, just for the sake of my own survival. How selfish I
was!"

But the goat would have none of this. "We were the selfish ones. We
only wanted to save our own skins, and We totally neglected your
needs. Please, eat me now!"

"No," the troll said, "you must butt me off this bridge for my
insensitivity and selfishness."

"I'll do no such thing," said the goat, "since we all tempted you in
the first place. Here, have a chomp. Go ahead."

"I'm telling you," the troll insisted, standing up,

"I'm the guilty one here. Now knock me off this bridge and be quick
about it!"

"Look," said the goat, rearing to his full height, "no one is going to
take away my blame for this, not even you, so eat me before I pop you
in the nose."

"Don't play guiltier-than-thou with me, Hornhead!"

"'Hornhead'? You smelly hairball! I'll show you guilt!" And with that,
they wrestled and bit and punched and kicked as each sought to don the
mantle of blame.

The other two goats bounded up to the bridge and sized up the fight.
Feeling guilty at not accepting enough of the blame, they joined the
others in a whirling ball of hair, hooves, horns, and teeth. But the
little bridge was not built to carry such weight. It shook and swayed
and finally buckled, hurling the troll and the three codependent goats
Gruff into the chasm. On their way down, they each felt relieved that
they would finally get what they deserved, plus, as a bonus, a little
extra guilt for the fate of the others.


RAPUNZEL

There once lived an economically disadvantaged tinker and his wife.
His lack of material accomplishment is not meant to imply that all
tinkers are economically marginalized, or that if they are, they
deserve to be so. While the archetype of the tinker is generally the
whipping person in classical bedtime stories, this particular
individual was a tinker by trade and just happened to be economically
disadvantaged.

The tinker and his wife lived in a little hovel next to the modest
estate of a local witch. From their window, they could see the witch's
meticulously kept garden, a nauseating attempt to impose human notions
of order onto Nature.

The wife of the tinker was pregnant, and as she gazed at the witch's
garden, she began to crave some of the lettuce she saw growing there.
She begged the tinker to jump the fence and get some for her. The
tinker finally submitted, and at night he jumped the wall and
liberated some of the lettuce. But before he could get back, the witch
caught him.

Now, this witch was very kindness-impaired. (This is not meant to
imply that all, or even some, witches are that way, nor to deny this
particular witch her right to express whatever disposition came
naturally to her. Far from it, her disposition was without doubt due
to many factors of her upbringing and socialization, which,
unfortunately must be omitted here in the interest of brevity.)

As mentioned earlier, the witch was kindness-impaired, and the tinker
was extremely frightened. She held him by the scruff of the neck and
asked, "Where are you going with my lettuce?"

The tinker might have argued with her over the concept of ownership
and stated that the lettuce rightfully "belonged" to anyone who was
hungry and had nerve enough to take it. Instead, in a degrading
spectacle, he pleaded for mercy. "It was my wife's fault," he cried in
a characteristically male manner. "She is pregnant and has a craving
for some of your lovely lettuce. Please spare me. Although a
single-parent household is certainly acceptable, please don't kill me
and deprive my child of a stable, two-parent family structure."

The witch thought for a moment, then let go of the tinker's neck and
disappeared without a word. The tinker gratefully went home with the
lettuce. A few months later, and after agonizing pain that a man will
never really be able to appreciate, the tinker's wife gave birth to a
beautiful, healthy prewommon. They named the baby Rapunzel, after a
type of lettuce.

Not long after this, the witch appeared at their door, demanding that
they give her the child in return for the witch's having spared the
tinker's life in the garden. What could they do? Their powerless
station in life had always left them open to exploitation, and this
time they felt they had no alternative. They gave Rapunzel to the
witch, who sped away.

The witch took the child deep into the woods and imprisoned her in a
tall tower, the symbolism of which should be obvious. There Rapunzel
grew to wommonhood. The tower had no door or stairs, but it did boast
a single window at the top. The only way for anyone to get to the
window was for Rapunzel to let down her long, luxurious hair and climb
it to the top, the symbolism of which should also be obvious.

The witch was Rapunzel's only companion. She would stand at the foot
of the tower and shout,


"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,

"That I might climb your golden stair."


Rapunzel obediently did as she was told. Thus for years she let her
body be exploited for the transportational needs of another. The witch
loved music and taught Rapunzel to sing. They passed many long hours
singing together in the tower.

One day a young prince rode near the tower and heard Rapunzel singing.
But as he rode closer to find the source of the lovely sound, he spied
the witch and hid himself and his equine companion in the trees. He
watched as the witch called out to Rapunzel, the hair fell down, and
the witch climbed up. Again, he heard the beautiful singing. Later,
when the witch finally exited the tower and disappeared in the other
direction, the prince came out of the woods and called up:


"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,

"That I might climb your golden stair."


The hair cascaded from the window, and he climbed up.

When the prince saw Rapunzel, her greater-than-average physical
attractiveness and her long, luxurious hair led him to think, in a
typically lookist way, that her personality would also be beautiful.
(This is not to imply that all princes judge people solely on their
appearance, nor to deny this particular prince his right to make such
assumptions. Please see the disclaimers in the paragraphs above.)

The prince said, "Oh, beautiful damsel, I heard you singing as I rode
by on my horse. Please sing for me again."

Rapunzel didn't know what to make of this person, since she had never
seen a man up close before. He seemed a strange creature--large, hairy
in the face, and possessing a strong, musky odor. For reasons she
could not explain, Rapunzel found this combination somewhat attractive
and opened her mouth to sing.

"Stop right there!" screamed a voice from the window. The witch had
returned!

"How... how did you get up here?" Rapunzel asked.

"I had an extra set of hair made, in case of emergency," said the
witch matter-of-factly. "And this certainly looks like one. Listen to
me, Prince! I built this tower to keep Rapunzel away from men like
you. I taught her to sing, training her voice for years. She'll stay
here and sing for no one but me, because I am the only one who truly
loves her."

"We can talk about your codependency problems later," said the prince.
"But first let me hear... Rapunzel, is it?... let me hear Rapunzel
sing."

"NO!" screamed the witch. "I'm going to throw you from the tower into
the thorn-of-color bushes below so that your eyes will be gouged out
and you'll wander the countryside cursing your bad luck for the rest
of your life!"

"You may want to reconsider that," said the prince. "I have some
friends in the recording industry, you see, who would be very
interested in... Rapunzel, wasn't it? Different, kind of catchy, I
suppose...."

"I knew it! You want to take her from me!"

"No, no, I want you to continue to train her, to nurture her... as her
manager;" said the prince.

"Then, when the time is right, say a week or two, you can unleash her
talent on the world and we can all rake in the cash."

The witch paused for a second to think about this, and her demeanor
visibly softened. She and the prince began to discuss record contracts
and video deals, as well as possible marketing ideas, including
life-like Rapunzel™ dolls with their very own miniature stereo
Tune-Towers™.

As Rapunzel watched, her suspicions turned into revulsion. For years,
her hair had been exploited for the transportational needs of others.
Now they wanted to exploit her voice as well. "So, rapaciousness does
not depend solely on gender," she realized with a sigh.

Rapunzel edged her way to the window without being seen. She stepped
out and climbed down the second set of hair to the prince's waiting
horse. She dislodged the hair and took it with her as she rode off
leaving the witch and the prince to argue about royalties and
percentages in their phallus-shaped tower.

Rapunzel rode to the city and rented a room in a building that had
real stairs. She later established the non-profit Foundation for the
Free Proliferation of Music and cut off her hair for a fund-raising
auction. She sang for free in coffee houses and art galleries for the
rest of her days, always refusing to exploit for money other people's
desires to hear her sing.


CINDERELLA

There once lived a young wommon named Cinderella, whose natural
birthmother had died when Cinderella was but a child. A few years
after, her father married a widow with two older daughters.

Cinderella's mother-of-step treated her very cruelly, and her sisters-
of-step made her work very hard, as if she were their own personal
unpaid laborer.

One day an invitation arrived at their house. The prince was
celebrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized
peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball. Cinderella's sisters-of-step
were very excited to be invited to the palace. They began to plan the
expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural
body images to emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty. (It
was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently
visaged enough to stop a clock.) Her mother-of-step also planned to go
to the ball, so Cinderella was working harder than a dog (an
appropriate if unfortunately speciesist metaphor).

When the day of the ball arrived, Cinderella helped her mother- and
sisters-of-step into their ball gowns. A formidable task: It was like
trying to force ten pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses into
a five-pound skin. Next came immense cosmetic augmentation, which it
would be best not to describe at all. As evening fell, her mother- and
sisters-of-step left Cinderella at home to finish her housework.
Cinderella was sad, but she contented herself with her Holly Near
records.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood
a man dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a
wide-brimmed hat. At first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer
or a bandleader, but he soon put her straight.

"Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson, or individual deity
proxy if you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind
yourself into the male concept of beauty? Squeeze into some
tight-fitting dress that will cut off your circulation? Jam your feet
into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone structure? Paint your
face with chemicals and make-up that have been tested on nonhuman
animals?"

"Oh yes, definitely," she said in an instant. Her fairy godperson
heaved a great sigh and decided to put off her political education
till another day. With his magic, he enveloped her in a beautiful,
bright light and whisked her away to the palace.

Many, many carriages were lined up outside the palace that night;
apparently, no one had ever thought of carpooling. Soon, in a heavy,
gilded carriage painfully pulled by a team of horse-slaves, Cinderella
arrived. She was dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from
unsuspecting silk-worms. Her hair was festooned with pearls plundered
from hard-working, defenseless oysters. And on her feet, dangerous
though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal.

Every head in the ballroom turned as Cinderella entered. The men
stared at and lusted after this wommon who had captured perfectly
their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine desirability. The womyn, trained
at an early age to despise their own bodies, looked at Cinderella with
envy and spite. Cinderella's own mother- and sisters-of-step, consumed
with jealousy, failed to recognize her.

Cinderella soon caught the roving eye of the prince, who was busy
discussing jousting and bear-baiting with his cronies. Upon seeing
her, the prince was struck with a fit of not being able to speak as
well as the majority of the population. "Here," he thought, "is a
wommon that I could make my princess and impregnate with the progeny
of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy of every other
prince for miles around. And she's blond, too!"

The prince began to cross the ballroom toward his intended prey. His
cronies also began to walk toward Cinderella. So did every other male
in the ballroom who was younger than 70 and not serving drinks.

Cinderella was proud of the commotion she was causing. She walked with
head high and carried herself like a wommon of eminent social
standing. But soon it became clear that the commotion was turning into
something ugly, or at least socially dysfunctional.

The prince had made it clear to his friends that he was intent on
"possessing" the young wommon. But the prince's resoluteness angered
his pals, for they too lusted after her and wanted to own her. The men
began to shout and push each other. The prince's best friend, who was
a large if cerebrally constrained duke, stopped him halfway across the
dance floor and insisted that he was going to have Cinderella. The
prince's response was a swift kick to the groin, which left the duke
temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other
sex-crazed males, and he disappeared into a pile of human animals.

The womyn were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone, but
try as they might, they were unable to separate the combatants. To the
other womyn, it seemed that Cinderella was the cause of all the
trouble, so they encircled her and began to display very unsisterly
hostility. She tried to escape, but her impractical glass slippers
made it nearly impossible. Fortunately for her, none of the other
womyn were shod any better.

The noise grew so loud that no one heard the clock in the tower chime
midnight. When the bell rang the twelfth time, Cinderella's beautiful
gown and slippers disappeared, and she was dressed once again in her
peasant's rags. Her mother- and sisters-of-step recognized her now but
kept quiet to avoid embarrassment.

The womyn grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the
confinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched
and scratched her ribs. She smiled, closed her eyes and said, "Kill me
now if you want, sisters, but at least I'll die in comfort."

The womyn around her again grew envious, but this time they took a
different approach: Instead of exacting vengeance on her, they
stripped off their bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining
garment. They danced and jumped and screeched in sheer joy,
comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet.

Had the men looked up from their macho dance of destruction, they
would have seen many desirable womyn dressed as if for the boudoir.
But they never ceased pounding, punching, kicking, and clawing each
other until, to the last man, they were dead.

The womyn clucked their tongues but felt no remorse. The palace and
realm were theirs now Their first official act was to dress the men in
their discarded dresses and tell the media that the fight arose when
someone threatened to expose the cross-dressing tendencies of the
prince and his cronies. Their second was to set up a clothing co-op
that produced only comfortable, practical clothes for womyn. Then they
hung a sign on the castle advertising Cinderwear (for that was what
the new clothing was called), and through self-determination and
clever marketing, they all--even the mother- and sisters-of-step-lived
happily ever after.


GOLDILOCKS

Through the thicket, across the river, and deep, deep in the woods,
lived a family of bears--a Papa Bear, a Mama Bear, and a Baby
Bear--and they all lived together anthropomorphically in a little
cottage as a nuclear family. They were very sorry about this, of
course, since the nuclear family has traditionally served to enslave
womyn, instill a self-righteous moralism in its members, and imprint
rigid notions of heterosexualist roles onto the next generation.
Nevertheless, they tried to be happy and took steps to avoid these
pitfalls, such as naming their offspring the non-gender-specific
"Baby."

One day, in their little anthropomorphic cottage, they sat down to
breakfast. Papa Bear had prepared big bowls of all-natural porridge
for them to eat. But straight off the stove, the porridge was too
thermally enhanced to eat. So they left their bowls to cool and took a
walk to visit their animal neighbors.

After the bears left, a melanin-impoverished young wommon emerged from
the bushes and crept up to the cottage. Her name was Goldilocks, and
she had been watching the bears for days. She was, you see, a
biologist who specialized in the study of anthropomorphic bears. At
one time she had been a professor, but her aggressive, masculine
approach to science--ripping off the thin veil of Nature, exposing its
secrets, penetrating its essence, using it for her own selfish needs,
and bragging about such violations in the letters columns of various
magazines--had led to her dismissal.

The rogue biologist had been watching the cottage for some time. Her
intent was to collar the bears with radio transmitters and then follow
them in their migratory and other life patterns, with an utter
disregard for their personal (or rather, animal) privacy. With
scientific espionage the only thing in mind, Goldilocks broke into the
bears' cottage. In the kitchen, she laced the bowls of porridge with a
tranquilizing potion. Then, in the bedroom, she rigged snares beneath
the pillows of each bed. Her plan was to drug the bears and, when they
stumbled into their bedroom to take a nap, lash radio collars to their
necks as their heads hit the pillows.

Goldilocks chortled and thought: "These bears will be my ticket to the
top! I'll show those twerps at the university the kind of guts it
takes to do real research!" She crouched in a corner of the bedroom
and waited. And waited, and waited some more. But the bears took so
long to come back from their walk that she fell asleep.

When the bears finally came home, they sat down to eat breakfast. Then
they stopped.

Papa Bear asked, "Does your porridge smell... off, Mama?"

Mama Bear replied, "Yes, it does. Does yours smell off, Baby?"

Baby Bear said, "Yes, it does. It smells kind of chemical-y."

Suspicious, they rose from the table and went into the living room.
Papa Bear sniffed. He asked, "Do you smell something else, Mama?"

Mama Bear replied, "Yes, I do. Do you smell something else, Baby?"

Baby Bear said, "Yes, I do. It smells musky and sweaty and not at all
clean."

They moved into the bedroom with growing alarm. Papa Bear asked, "Do
you see a snare and a radio collar under my pillow Mama?"

Mama Bear replied, "Yes I do. Do you see a snare and a radio collar
under my pillow, Baby?"

Baby Bear said, "Yes I do, and I see the human who put them there!"

Baby Bear pointed in the corner to where Goldilocks slept. The bears
growled, and Goldilocks awoke with a start. She sprang up and tried to
run, but Papa Bear caught her with a swing of his paw and Mama Bear
did the same. With Goldilocks now a mobility nonpossessor, Mama and
Papa Bear set on her with fang and claw. They gobbled her up, and soon
there was nothing left of the maverick biologist but a bit of yellow
hair and a clipboard.

Baby Bear watched with astonishment. When they were done, Baby Bear
asked, "Mama, Papa, what have you done? I thought we were
vegetarians."

Papa Bear burped. "We are," he said, "but we're always ready to try
new things. Flexibility is just one more benefit of being
multicultural."


SNOW WHITE

Once there was a young princess who was not at all unpleasant to look
at and had a temperament that many found to be more pleasant than most
other people's. Her nickname was Snow white, indicative of the
discriminatory notions of associating pleasant or attractive qualities
with light, and unpleasant or unattractive qualities with darkness.
Thus, at an early age, Snow White was an unwitting if fortunate target
for this type of colorist thinking.

When Snow white was quite young, her mother was suddenly stricken ill,
grew more advanced in nonhealth, and finally was rendered nonviable.
Her father, the king, grieved for what can be considered a healthy
period of time, then asked another wommon to be his queen. Snow white
did her best to please her new mother-of-step, but a cold distance
remained between them.

The queen's prized possession was a magic mirror that would answer
truthfully any question asked it. Now years of social conditioning in
a male hierarchical dictatorship had left the queen very insecure
about her own self-worth. Physical beauty was the one standard she
cared about now and she defined herself solely in regard to her
personal appearance. So every morning the queen would ask her mirror:


"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

"Who's the fairest one of all?"


Her mirror would answer:


"For all it's worth, O my queen,

"Your beauty is the fairest to be seen."


That dialogue went on regularly until once when the queen was having a
bad hair day and was desperately in need of support, she asked the
usual question and the mirror answered:


"Alas, if worth be based on beauty,

"Snow White has surpassed you, cutie."


At this the queen flew into a rage. The chance to work with Snow White
to form a strong bond of sisterhood had long passed. Instead, the
queen indulged in an adopted masculine power trip and ordered the
royal woodsperson to take Snow White into the forest and kill her.
And, possibly to impress the males in the royal court, she barbarously
ordered that the girl's heart be cut out and brought back to her.

The woodsperson sadly agreed to these orders, and led the girl, who
was now actually a young wommon, into the middle of the forest. But
his connections to the earth and seasons had made him a kind soul, and
he couldn't bear to harm the girl. He told Snow White of the
oppressive and unsisterly order of the queen and told her to run as
deeply as she could into the forest.

The frightened Snow White did as she was told. The woodsperson,
fearing the queen's wrath but unwilling to take another life merely to
indulge her vanity went into town and had the candy maker concoct a
heart of red marzipan. When he presented this to the queen, she
hungrily devoured the heart in a sickening display of
pseudo-cannibalism.

Meanwhile, Snow White ran deep into the woods. Just when she thought
she had fled as far as she could from civilization and its unhealthy
influences, she stumbled upon a cottage. Inside she saw seven tiny
beds, set in a row and all unmade. She also saw seven sets of dishes
piled high in the sink and seven Barcaloungers in front of seven
remote-controlled TVs. She surmised that the cottage belonged to
either seven little men or one sloppy numerologist. The beds looked so
inviting that the tired youngster curled up on one and immediately
fell asleep.

When she awoke several hours later, she saw the faces of seven
bearded, vertically challenged men surrounding the bed. She sat up
with a start and gasped. One of the men said, "You see that? Just like
a flighty woman: resting peacefully one minute, up and screaming the
next."

"I agree," said another. "She'll disrupt our strong bond of
brotherhood and create competition among us for her affections. I say
we throw her in the river in a sack full of rocks."

"I agree we should get rid of her," said a third, "but why degrade the
ecology? Let's just feed her to a bear or something and let her become
part of the food chain."

"Hear, hear!"

"Sound thinking, brother."

When Snow White finally regained her senses, she begged, "Please,
please don't kill me. I meant no harm by sleeping on your bed. I
thought no one would ever notice."

"Ah, you see?" said one of the men. "Female preoccupations are already
surfacing. She's complaining that we don't make our beds."

"Kill her! Kill her!"

"Please, no!" she cried. "I have traveled so deep into these woods
because my mother-of-step, the queen, ordered me killed."

"See that? Internecine female vindictiveness!"

"Don't try and play the victim with us, kid!"

"QUIET!" boomed one of the men, who had flaming red hair and a
nonhuman animal skin on his head. Snow White quickly realized that he
was their leader and that her fate rested in his hands. "Explain
yourself what's your name, and why have you really come here?"

"My name is Snow White," she began, "and I've already told you: My
mother-of-step, the queen, ordered a woodsperson to take me in the
forest and kill me, but he took pity and told me to run away into the
woods as far as I could."

"Just like a woman," grumbled one of the men under his breath, "get a
man to do her dirty work."

The leader held up his hands for silence. He said, "Well, Snow White,
if that's your story I guess we'll have to believe you."

Snow White was beginning to resent her treatment but tried not to let
it show. "And who are you guys, anyway?"

"We are known as the Seven Towering Giants," said the leader. Snow
White's suppression of a giggle did not go unnoticed. The leader
continued. "We are towering in spirit and so are giants among the men
of the forest. We used to earn our living by digging in our mines, but
we decided that such a rape of the planet was immoral and
short-sighted (besides, the bottom fell out of the metals market). So
now we are dedicated stewards of the earth and live here in harmony
with nature. To make ends meet, we also conduct retreats for men who
need to get in touch with their primitive masculine identities."

"So what does that involve," asked Snow White, "aside from drinking
milk straight from the carton?"

"Your sarcasm is ill-advised," warned the leader of the Seven Towering
Giants. "My fellow giants want to get rid of your corrupting feminine
presence, and I might not be able to stop them, understand? My men, we
must speak our hearts openly and honestly. Let us adjourn to the sweat
lodge!"

The seven little men scampered out the front door, whooping and
stripping off their clothes. Snow White didn't know what to do while
waiting. For fear of stepping on anything that might be scurrying
about amid the debris on the floor, she stayed on the bed, although
she did manage to make it without ever stepping off.

Snow White heard drumming and shouts, and, soon after, the Seven
Towering Giants came back into the cottage. They didn't smell as bad
as she thought they would, and thankfully they all wore loincloths.

"Agggh! Look what she's done to my bed! I want her out of here! I want
to change my vote!"

"Calm down, brother," said the leader. "Don't you see? This is just
what we were talking about: contrasts. We can better measure our
progress as true men if there is a female around for comparison."

The men grumbled among themselves about the wisdom of this decision.
But Snow White had had enough. "I resent being kept around like an
object, just a yardstick for your egos and penises!"

"Fair enough," the leader said. "You're free to make your way back
through the woods. Give our regards to the queen."

"Well, I guess I can stay until I figure out a new plan," she said.

"Very well," said the leader, "but we have a few ground rules. No
dusting. No straightening up. And no rinsing out underwear in the
sink."

"And no peeking in the sweat lodge."

"And stay away from our drums."

Meanwhile, back at the castle, the queen rejoiced at the thought that
her rival in beauty had been eliminated. She puttered around her
boudoir reading Glamour and Elle, and indulged herself with three
whole pieces of chocolate without purging. Later, she confidently
strolled up to her magic mirror and asked her same, sad question:


"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

"Who's the fairest one of all?"


The mirror replied,


"Your weight is perfect for your shape and height,

"But for sheer OOOOMPH!, you can't beat Snow White."


At this news, the queen clenched her fists and screamed at the top of
her lungs. For years, her insecurities had been eating away at her
until now they turned her into someone who was morally out of the
mainstream. With cunning and malice, she began to devise a plan to
ensure the nonviability of her daughter-of-step.

A few days later, Snow White, to be sure she didn't touch or rearrange
anything, was meditating on the floor in the middle of the cottage.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Snow White opened the door to
find a chronologically gifted woman with a basket in her hand. By the
look of her clothes, she was apparently unfettered by the confines of
regular employment.

"Help a woman of unreliable income, dearie," she said, "and buy one of
my apples."

Snow White thought for a moment. In protest against agribusiness
conglomerates, she had a personal rule against buying food from
middlepersons. But her heart went out to the economically marginalized
woman, so she said yes. What Snow White didn't know was that this was
really the queen in disguise and that the apple had been chemically
and genetically altered so that whoever bit it would sleep forever.

When Snow White handed over the money for the apple, you would have
expected the queen to be gleeful that her plan for revenge was
working. Instead, as she looked at Snow White's fine complexion and
slim, taut body, she felt alternating waves of envy and
self-revulsion. Finally she burst into tears.

"Why, whatever is the matter?" asked Snow White.

"You're so young and beautiful," sobbed the disguised queen, "and I'm
horrible to look at and getting worse."

"You shouldn't say that. After all, beauty comes from inside a
person."

"I've been telling myself that for years," said the queen, "and I
still don't believe it. How do you stay in such perfect shape?"

"Well, I meditate, work out in step aerobics three hours a day; and
eat only half-portions of anything placed in front of me. Would you
like me to show you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, please," said the queen. So they started out with 30
minutes of simple hatha yoga meditation, then worked out on the step
for another hour. As they relaxed afterward, Snow White cut her apple
in half and gave a piece to the queen. Without thinking, the queen bit
into it, and both of them fell into a deep sleep.

Later that day, the Seven Towering Giants returned from a retreat in
the woods, elaborately decked out in animal skins, feathers, and mud.
With them was a prince from a nearby kingdom, who had come on this
male retreat to find a cure for his impotence (or, as he preferred to
call it, his involuntary suspension from phallocentric activity). They
were all laughing and high-fiving until they saw the bodies and
stopped short.

"What has happened?" asked the prince.

"Apparently our house guest and this other woman got into some sort of
catfight and killed each other," surmised one giant.

"If they thought that by doing this, they could make us slaves to our
weaker emotions, they're wrong," fumed another.

"Well, as long as we have to dispose of them, let's practice one of
those Viking funerals we've read about."

"You know" said the prince, "this might sound a little sick, but I
trust you guys. I find that younger one attractive. Extremely
attractive. Would you fellows mind... um... waiting outside while I...
?"

"Stop right there!" said the leader of the giants.

"Those half-eaten apple pieces, that filthy costume--this has all the
earmarks of some sort of magic spell. They're not really dead at all."

"Whew" sighed the prince, "that makes me feel better. So, could you
guys take five and let me... ?"

"Hold it, Prince,' said the leader. "Does Snow White make you feel
like a man again?"

"She certainly does. Now could you guys... ?"

"Don't touch her! You'll break the spell." The leader thought for a
minute and said, "My brothers, I see certain economic possibilities
arising from this. If we kept Snow White around here in this state, we
could advertise our retreats as impotency therapy."

The giants nodded in agreement with this idea, but the prince
interrupted, "But what about me? I've already paid for my retreat. Why
don't I get to, um, take the cure?"

"No dice, Prince," said the leader. "You can look but don't touch.
Otherwise you'll break the spell. Tell you what, though. You can have
the other one if you want."

"I don't want to sound classist," said the prince, "but she's not high
enough caliber for me."

"That's pretty big talk from a man shooting blanks," said one of the
giants, and everybody but the prince laughed.

The leader said, "Come on, brothers, let's lift these two off the
floor and decide how we can best display them." It took three giants
for each female, but they managed to get both bodies aloft. As soon as
they did, however, the pieces of poisoned apple fell from the mouths
of Snow White and the queen, and they awoke from the spell.

"What do you think you're doing? Put us down!" they shouted. The
giants were so startled they almost dropped the womyn to the floor.

"That was the most sickening thing I have ever heard!" shouted the
queen. "Offering us around like pieces of property!"

"And you," said Snow White to the prince, "trying to make it with a
girl in a coma! Yuck!"

"Hey, don't blame me," said the prince. "It's a medical condition."

The leader of the giants said, "Don't start tossing blame around. You
both broke into our property in the first place. I can call the
police!"

"Don't try it, Napoleon," said the queen. "This forest is property of
the crown. You are the ones who are trespassing!"

This rejoinder caused quite a stir, but not as big a commotion as when
the queen warned: "And another thing. While we were immobile and you
all blathered on in your sexist way, I had a personal awakening. From
now on, I am going to dedicate my life to healing the rift between
womyn's souls and their bodies. I am going to teach womyn to accept
their natural body images and become whole again. Snow White and I are
going to build a womyn's spa and conference center on this very spot,
where we can hold retreats, caucuses, and ovariums for the sisters of
the world."

There was much shouting and name-calling, but the queen eventually had
her way. Before the Seven Towering Giants could be evicted from their
home, though, they packed up their sweat lodge and moved deeper into
the woods. The prince stayed on at the spa as a cute but harmless
tennis pro. And Snow White and the queen became good friends and
earned world-wide fame for their contributions to sisterhood. The
giants were never heard from again, save for little muddy footprints
that were sometimes found in the morning outside the windows of the
spa's locker room.


CHICKEN LITTLE

Chicken Little lived on a winding country lane surrounded by tall oak
trees. (It should be mentioned here that the name "Little," was a
family name, and not a derogatory, size-biased nickname. It was only
by sheer coincidence that Chicken Little was also of
shorter-than-average height.) One day, Chicken Little was playing in
the road when a gust of wind blew through the trees. An acorn was
blown loose and hit Chicken Little squarely on the head. Now, while
Chicken Little had a small brain in the physical sense, she did use it
to the best of her abilities. So when she screamed, "The sky is
falling, the sky is falling!" her conclusion was not wrong or stupid
or silly, only logically underenhanced.

Chicken Little ran down the road until she came to the house of her
neighbor, Henny Penny, who was tending her garden. This was a simple
task, since she didn't use any insecticide, herbicide, or fertilizer,
and also permitted the native nonedible varieties of wildflower
(sometimes branded "weeds") to mingle with her food crops. So, lost
amid the foliage, Henny Penny heard Chicken Little's voice long before
she saw her.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Henny Penny stuck her head out from her garden and said, "Chicken
Little! Why are you carrying on so?"

Chicken Little said, "I was playing in the road when a huge chunk of
the sky fell and landed on my head. See? Here's the bump to prove it."

"There's just one thing to do," said Henny Penny.

"What's that?" asked Chicken Little.

"Sue the bastards!" said Hermy Penny.

Chicken Little was puzzled. "Sue for what?"

"Personal injury, discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional
distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, tortious
interference, the tort of outrage--you name it, we'll sue for it."

"Good gracious!" said Chicken Little. "What will we get for all of
that?"

"We can get payment for pain and suffering, compensatory damages,
punitive damages, disability and disfigurement, long-term care, mental
anguish, impaired earning power, loss of esteem...."

"Person, oh, person!" said Chicken Little joyfully "Who are we going
to sue?"

"Well, I don't think the sky per se is recognized as a suable entity
by the state," said Henny Penny.

"I guess we should go find a lawyer and learn who is suable," said
Chicken Little, her diminutive brain working overtime.

"That's a good idea. And while we're there, I can ask whom to sue for
these ridiculously bony legs of mine. They've caused me nothing but
anguish and embarrassment my whole life, and I should be compensated
somehow for all that."

So they ran farther down the road until they came to the house of
their neighbor, Goosey Loosey. Goosey Loosey was busy teaching her
canine animal companion to eat grass so she could avoid the guilty
feelings that came with feeding the dog processed animal carcasses
from a can.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards!"

Goosey Loosey leaned over her fence and said, "Land sakes! Why are you
two carrying on so?"

"I was playing in the road and a piece of sky fell on my head,"
explained Chicken Little.

"So we're going to find a lawyer to tell us whom we can sue both for
her injuries and for my bony legs."

"Oh good! Can I come and sue someone for my long, gangly neck? You
know, nothing really flatters it, so I am convinced there's a
conspiracy within the fashion industry against long-necked waterfowl."

So the three of them ran down the road looking for legal assistance.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"Sue the bastards! Sue the bastards!"

"Smash the conspiracy! Smash the conspiracy!"

Farther down the road they met Foxy Loxy, who was dressed in a blue
suit and carried a briefcase. He held up a paw to halt the entourage.

"And what are you three doing out on this lovely day?" asked Foxy
Loxy.

"We're looking for someone to sue!" they shouted in unison.

"What are your grievances? Personal injury? Discrimination?
Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Negligent infliction of
emotional distress? Tortious interference? The tort of outrage?"

"Oh, yes, yes," the three said excitedly, "all that and more!"

"Well, then, you're in luck," said Foxy Loxy "My caseload has just
eased up, so I will be able to represent you in any and all lawsuits
we can manage to bring."

The trio cheered and flapped their wings. Chicken Little asked, "But
who are we going to sue?"

Without missing a beat, Foxy Loxy said, "Who aren't we going to sue?
Three hapless victims such as yourselves will be able to find more
guilty parties than you can shake a writ at. Now let's all step into
my office so we can discuss this further."

Foxy Loxy walked over to a small black metal door that was in the side
of a small hill nearby. "Step right this way," he said as he lifted
the latch. But the black door wouldn't open. Foxy Loxy tugged on it
with one paw then with both. It still wouldn't budge. He yanked and
pulled violently, cursing the door, its mental abilities, and its
sexual history.

Finally the door swung open, and a huge ball of fire shot out. This
was really the door to Foxy Loxy's oven! But unfortunately for him,
the ball of fire engulfed his head, burned off every hair and whisker,
and left him totally catatonic. Chicken Little, Henny Penny, and
Goosey Loosey ran away, thankful that they had not been devoured.

However, the family of Foxy Loxy caught up with them. In addition to
suing the manufacturer of the oven door on behalf of Foxy Loxy, the
family brought suit against the three above-named barnyard fowl,
claiming entrapment, reckless endangerment, and fraud. The family
sought payment for pain and suffering, compensatory damages, punitive
damages, disability and disfigurement, long-term care, mental anguish,
impaired earning power, loss of esteem, and the loss of a good dinner.
The three birds later brought a countersuit, and they've all been
battling in court from that day to this.


THE FROG PRINCE

Once there was a young princess who, when she grew tired of beating
her head against the male power structure at her castle, would relax
by walking into the woods and sitting beside a small pond. There she
would amuse herself by tossing her favorite golden ball up and down
and pondering the role of the eco-feminist warrior in her era.

One day, while she was envisioning the utopia that her queendom could
become if womyn were in the positions of power, she dropped the ball,
which rolled into the pond. The pond was so deep and murky she
couldn't see where it had gone. She didn't cry, of course, but she
made a mental note to be more careful next time.

Suddenly she heard a voice say, "I can get your ball for you,
princess."

She looked around, and saw the head of a frog popping above the
surface of the pond. "No, no," she said, "I would never enslave a
member of another species to work for my selfish desires."

The frog said, "Well, what if we make a deal on a contingency basis?
I'll get your ball for you if you do me a favor in return."

The princess gladly agreed to this most equitable arrangement. The
frog dived under the water and soon emerged with the golden ball in
his mouth. He spit the ball on the shore and said, "Now that I've done
you a favor, I'd like to explore your views on physical attraction
between the species."

The princess couldn't imagine what the frog was talking about. The
frog continued, "You see, I am not really a frog at all. I'm really a
man, but an evil sorcerer has cast a spell on me. While my frog form
is no better or worse--only different--than my human form, I would so
much like to be among people again. And the only thing that can break
this spell is a kiss from a princess."

The princess thought for a moment about whether sexual harassment
could take place between species, but her heart went out to the frog
for his predicament. She bent down and kissed the frog on the
forehead. Instantly the frog grew and changed. And there, standing in
the water where the frog had been, was a man in a golf shirt and loud
plaid pants--middle-aged, vertically challenged, and losing a little
bit of hair on top.

The princess was taken aback. "I'm sorry if this sounds a little
classist," she stammered, "but... what I mean to say is... don't
sorcerers usually cast their spells on princes?"

"Ordinarily, yes," he said, "but this time the target was just an
innocent businessman. You see, I'm a real estate developer, and the
sorcerer thought I was cheating him in a property-line dispute. So he
invited me out for a round of golf, and just as I was about to tee
off, he transformed me. But my time as a frog wasn't wasted, you know.
I've gotten to know every square inch of these woods, and I think it
would be ideal for an office park/condo/resort complex. The location's
great and the numbers crunch perfectly! The bank wouldn't lend any
money to a frog, but now that I'm in human form again, they'll be
eating out of my hand. Oh, will that be sweet! And let me tell you,
this is going to be a big project! Just drain the pond, cut down about
80 percent of the trees, get easements for...."

The frog developer was cut short when the princess shoved her golden
ball back into his mouth. She then pushed him back underwater and held
him there until he stopped thrashing. As she walked back to the
castle, she marveled at the number of good deeds that a person could
do in just one morning. And while someone might have noticed that the
frog was gone, no one ever missed the real estate developer.


JACK AND THE BEAN STALK

Once upon a time, on a little farm, there lived a boy named Jack. He
lived on the farm with his mother, and they were very excluded from
the normal circles of economic activity. This cruel reality kept them
in straits of direness, until one day Jack's mother told him to take
the family cow into town and sell it for as much as he could.

Never mind the thousands of gallons of milk they had stolen from her!
Never mind the hours of pleasure their bovine animal companion had
provided! And forget about the manure they had appropriated for their
garden! She was now just another piece of property to them. Jack, who
didn't realize that nonhuman animals have as many rights as human
animals--perhaps even more--did as his mother asked.

On his way to town, Jack met an old magic vegetarian, who warned Jack
of the dangers of eating beef and dairy products.

"Oh, I'm not going to eat this cow" said Jack. "I'm going to take her
into town and sell her."

"But by doing that, you'll just perpetuate the cultural mythos of
beef, ignoring the negative impact of the cattle industry on our
ecology and the health and social problems that arise from meat
consumption. But you look too simple to be able to make these
connections, my boy. I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll offer a trade of
your cow for these three magic beans, which have as much protein as
that entire cow but none of the fat or sodium."

Jack made the trade gladly and took the beans home to his mother. When
he told her about the deal he had made, she grew very upset. She used
to think her son was merely a conceptual rather than a linear thinker,
but now she was sure that he was downright differently abled. She
grabbed the three magic beans and threw them out the window in
disgust. Later that day, she attended her first support-group meeting
with Mothers of Storybook Children.

The next morning, Jack stuck his head out the window to see if the sun
had risen in the east again (he was beginning to see a pattern in
this). But outside the window, the beans had grown into a huge stalk
that reached through the clouds. Because he no longer had a cow to
milk in the morning, Jack climbed the beanstalk into the sky.

At the top, above the clouds, he found a huge castle. It was not only
big, but it was built to larger-than-average scale, as if it were the
home of someone who just happened to be a giant. Jack entered the
castle and heard beautiful music wafting through the air. He followed
this sound until he found its source: a golden harp that played music
without being touched. Next to this self-actualized harp was a hen
sitting on a pile of golden eggs.

Now, the prospect of easy wealth and mindless entertainment appealed
to Jack's bourgeois sensibilities, so he picked up both the harp and
the hen and started to run for the front door. Then he heard
thundering footsteps and a booming voice that said:


"FEE, FIE, FOE, FUM,

"I smell the blood of an English person!

"I'd like to learn about his culture and views on life!

"And share my own perspectives in an open and generous way!"


Unfortunately, Jack was too crazed with greed to accept the giant's
offer of a cultural interchange. "It's only a trick," thought Jack.
"Besides, what's a giant doing with such fine, delicate things? He
must have stolen them from somewhere else, so I have every right to
take them." His frantic justifications--remarkable for someone with
his overtaxed mental resources--revealed a terrible callousness to the
giant's personal rights. Jack apparently was a complete sizeist, who
thought that all giants were clumsy, knowledge-impaired, and
exploitable.

When the giant saw Jack with the magic harp and the hen, he asked,
"Why are you taking what belongs to me?"

Jack knew he couldn't outrun the giant, so he had to think fast. He
blurted out, "I'm not taking them, my friend. I am merely placing them
in my stewardship so that they can be properly managed and brought to
their fullest potential. Pardon my bluntness, but you giants are too
simple in the head and don't know how to manage your resources
properly. I'm just looking out for your interests. You'll thank me for
this later."

Jack held his breath to see if the bluff would save his skin. The
giant sighed heavily and said, "Yes, you are right. We giants do use
our resources foolishly. Why, we can't even discover a new beanstalk
before we get so excited and pick away at it so much that we pull the
poor thing right out of the ground!"

Jack's heart sank. He turned and looked out the front door of the
castle. Sure enough, the giant had destroyed his beanstalk. Jack grew
frightened and cried, "Now I'm trapped here in the clouds with you
forever!"

The giant said, "Don't worry, my little friend. We are strict
vegetarians up here, and there are always plenty of beans to eat. And
besides, you won't be alone. Thirteen other men of your size have
already climbed up beanstalks to visit us and stayed."

So Jack resigned himself to his fate as a member of the giant's cloud
commune. He didn't miss his mother or their farm much, because up in
the sky there was less work to do and more than enough to eat. And he
gradually learned not to judge people based on their size ever again,
except for those shorter than he.


THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN

The picturesque little town of Hamelin had everything a community
could wish for--non-polluting industries, effective mass transit, and
a well-balanced ethno-religious diversity. In fact, the town leaders
had managed to legislate or intimidate away every element that could
keep the citizens from living a good and sensitive life. Every
element, that is, except the trailer park.

The trailer park on the edge of Hamelin was a civic embarrassment. Not
only was it a terrible eyesore, with its rusted pickup trucks and
trash heaps in every backyard. Within it dwelled some of the most
unregenerate and irredeemable people you could ever imagine--murderers
of nondomestic animals, former clients of the correctional system, and
off-road bikers. With their plastic daisy pinwheels, loud music, and
drunken weekend brawls, they sent a shudder through every respectable
person in town.

One day, after a particularly riotous road rally through the trailer
park, the town leaders had a meeting. After heated debate, they
decided that somehow they had to eradicate the trailer park. But they
were at a loss as to how to do it without ignoring or infringing upon
the rights of the people who lived there. Finally, after even more
oratory, they decided to let that be someone else's worry, since they
were already so burdened with more important concerns, such as
declining property values. So the town leaders decided to advertise
for someone to solve their problems.

Soon after the advertisement was sent out, a man appeared in town. He
was very vertically gifted and of lower-than-average weight for his
size. His clothes were worn in combinations never before seen or
imagined, and his mannerisms and high-pitched voice were certainly
unique. Although he looked like he came from some world other than
(but certainly not unequal to) our own, he gained the trust of the
desperate town leaders.

"I will be able to rid your town of the trailer-park dwellers," said
the man of enhanced strangeness, "but you must promise to pay me 100
pieces of gold."

The town leaders wanted this whole unpleasant business finished as
soon as possible, so they readily assented. The sooner the trailer
park was eliminated, the sooner they could all revert to their
open-minded, progressive selves.

So the man of enhanced strangeness got down to work. He reached into
his tattered knapsack and pulled out a sophisticated, compact
recording machine. The people around him looked on with interest as he
inserted a few tapes, set some knobs, and checked the sound levels.
Then he began mumbling into the built-in microphone. No one could hear
exactly what he was saying, but the man seemed to be lacking in
coherence. Abruptly, he stopped mumbling, stood up, and told the town
leaders that he needed a truck with a public-address system.

The authorities scrambled after this strange request. They managed to
find such a truck at the Department of Public Biodiversity and handed
over the keys to the man of enhanced strangeness. He climbed in and
drove off popping the cassette he had made into the sound system.
Everyone followed the truck as it headed toward the trailer park.

Soon music began to emerge from the slowly moving truck--generally
country music but also occasional classics like "The Ballad of the
Green Berets" and "Ghost Riders in the Sky." The town leaders were
puzzled by this, until they noticed people emerging from their
trailers, tool sheds, and taverns. The people had a certain glassy
expression and talked to themselves as they stumbled along.

"I'm gonna go git me a job," said one. "I hear the carny is hirin'."

"I think I'll join the professional tractor-pull circuit," said
another.

"Do you think I could make a livin' by signin' up for medical
experiments?" asked a third.

The denizens of the trailer park followed the truck as it drove slowly
toward the edge of town. Soon both they and it disappeared over the
horizon, and the town leaders lifted a cheer.

About an hour later the truck returned, minus its entourage. "I led
them all to the highway," said the man of enhanced strangeness as he
alighted from the truck. "They're out thumbing rides for anyplace but
Hamelin. Now the trailer park is free for you to use in whatever way
you want."

"Marvelous!" said one of the authorities, who was serving as a
spokesperson. "Now that they're gone, we can commence with our plans
for a Third-World Refugee Reorientation Center. Thank you, thank you."

"Now if you will kindly pay me the 100 pieces of gold you promised,
I'll be on my way."

"Well, er... Hamelin is striving to establish an economy that is based
on human capital and not the mere exploitation of physical resources.
And so, to this end, we'd like to offer you this coupon book, which
entitles you to such services in Hamelin as free massages and seminars
on releasing your inner child."

The man of enhanced strangeness squinted his eyes. "You promised me
100 pieces of gold," he said, growing visibly angry. "Now pay up or
suffer the consequences."

"If you wish to abandon your responsibility for making the world a
more equitable place," clucked the spokesperson, "so be it. We will
have to give you the official Hamelin IOU, which can be redeemed for a
significant portion of its face value at many of the currency
exchanges and liquor stores in the surrounding towns."

The man of enhanced strangeness paused, then chuckled eerily and
climbed back in the truck. Before anyone could stop him, he began to
drive through all the neighborhoods of Hamelin. As he went, the truck
played a weird, high-pitched music that no one could recognize. Soon,
the children of Hamelin emerged from their houses and streamed from
their playgrounds. With glazed looks, they milled about in the
streets. The town leaders could hear the children talking earnestly to
each other:

"Free markets are the only sure way to give people the personal
incentive to build a better society," said one child.

"We must respect the rights of citizens to preserve the ethnic purity
of their neighborhoods," said another.

"Our only obligation as a society is to make sure everyone has a level
playing field," said a third.

As their children began to form tax protest groups and gun clubs, the
town leaders sadly realized that all their years of careful social
planning would soon come to nothing. The next day, they found the
public-address truck on the outskirts of town, but there was no sign
of the mysterious man whom they had tried to swindle.