Fab Four. We all know who they are. Then there were the four famous storytellers-- Aesop (NOT a sop), Joel Chandler Harris (NOT harass) and the brothers Grimm (NOT grim). Whose childhood was not replete with the fables of the Greek (a former slave), the African-based folk tales of Uncle Remus (a former slave) and now the slavish adherence to the notion that "to be truly a Golden Retriever, the dog must be truly gold in color?" And who has missed or can possibly forget Walt Disney's Schneewittchen or Aschenputtel based upon the stories gathered by the Grimm boys? Fables have filled our lives, often accepted blindly as fact. The Frenchman Voltaire claimed that history was largely the fable agreed upon. Some have attributed that remark to Napoleon Bonaparte though it appeared in Voltaire's
Jeannot et Colin , published in 1764-- five years prior to the birth of the would-be emperor of France. No matter. And, for that matter, fabulist Aesop may never have actually existed at all-- a being as fictitious as the characters in his tales. And of course, Harris' Uncle Remus was a literary creation as well. Truth be told (or not) Aesop even slept with the wife of his first slaveowner and ended his life when he was forced to jump from a cliff to his death in Delphi. And many of the stories collected and reintroduced by the Grimms were quite grim indeed, often cruel and violent. Thank God, we children could enjoy Santa, that jolly old elf-- though he did put coal in many a stocking-- certainly no friend of the environment or showing any concern for global warming. And the Easter Bunny. Some even claim that he lays chocolate eggs for the holiday. We lie to our children. Or do we simply tell stories? A fabulist is defined as both a creator of fables OR a liar.
My concern is with the less-than-fabulous fabulists at the GRCA, and their rewriting of history (reworking the British breed standard so that cream is simply a shade of gold) and rewriting their own AKC-sanctioned breed standard (by claiming that it states cream-coated Goldens are undesirable," though the word "cream" is nowhere to be found in the document). Their humbuggery is left unchallenged-- either by the Brits or good-thinking Americans. Opinion IS fable IS fact. Who are the best fabulators? The GRCA is not duping education-challenged children but rather adults on both sides of The Pond. What was it that President Bush tried to say-- so ineptly --"FOOL me once...?"
