Fables for the president - The Emperor's clothes.....A Boy cried wolf!

UNDYING VALUES ON THE QUALITY OF AMERICAN LEADERSHIP TODAY – (it is no laughing matter when thousands of American and Iraqui lives have perished so far.)

The Emperor’ New Clothes, and a Boy who cried wolf!

Many years ago, there lived an emperor who was full of himself and was always thinking of his own interests and little of his people. Thus, his people were trazined to be governed by this egotistic emperor in this manner. They had no choice but to obey, let they be punished severely. The emperor who cared much about his appearance was particular on the clothes he wore.

One day he heard from two swindlers known in his kingdom approached the emprror and told the gullible emperor that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not seeing the truth. They made the emperor believe their yarn that he “ordered” that majic clothes

Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, his subordinates aware of their emperor’s big ego, neither would admit that they could not see the clothes and even praised it as truly beautiful. And the emperor was proud of it. All the townspeople had also heard of the situation and were therefore interested to learn how it was to view their emperor wearing these “clothes.”

The emperor propelled by his ego then allowed himself to be “dressed in the clothes” for a public procession through town.

The egotistic emperor was obviously stupid to realize that what he was wearing was nothing but he was not afraid that his subject would agree to that he was supposed to be wearing – a beautiful attire.

When he paraded downtown, of course, all the townspeople properly briefed, wildly praised the “magnificent clothes” of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them. This went along until a small child as candid as any child could be cried out loud enough to be heard by everyone hearby.

"But he has nothing on!"

The brief silence of shock from the remark was soon followed by everyone in the crowd liberated by an innocent child who saw the truth and began shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The entire crowd took up the remark and continued to shouot “He has no clothes on!” And followed it with laughter.

The humiliated emperor heard it but did not show his feelings but instead held his head high and did not finish the procession taking refuge inside his spirit broken by the sad truth from the eyes of a child.

This story of the little boy puncturing the pretensions of the emperor's court has parallels from other cultures, categorized as Aarne-Thompson folktale type 1620, although the tale itself has no identified oral sources.^[1]

The expressions The Emperor's new clothes and The Emperor has no clothes are often used with allusion to Andersen's tale.

Most frequently, this story is a metaphor concerning a situation where the overwhelming cowed popular willingly share in a popular trend despite individually recognizing the absurdity.

“The Emperor Has No Clothes" is often used in political and social contexts for any obvious truth denied by the majority despite the evidence of their eyes, especially when proclaimed by the government.

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The Boy Who Cried Wolf is the fable of a bored boy who entertained himself by calling out "wolf". At first, nearby villagers came to his rescue because wolves were destroying the sheep which was the source of livelihood of the community. But the boy enjoyed fooling the villagers who rushed to his cry when they found that the alarms were false and that they'd wasted their time. After several of the false alarms, the disgruntled villagers disliked the boy and spread the word that the boy was not doing good by this act. Later, when the boy was actually confronted by a real live wolf, he once again cried frantically but no one came since the villagers did not believe his cries anymore for help . The boy continued to shout until he was already hoarse and still no one came until the wolf ate his entire flock of sheep. The lesson learned in this fable is:

"when political leaders are proven to be regular liars it becomes difficult for people to believe they are telling the truth, and therefore even then they are no longer believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth." The battle created by America in Iraq is a good example of this fable. Soon many begins to doubt how real or truthful the reason behind the war is.

BARBARA LEE - A GUTSY CONGRESSWOMAN

REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA LEE.

It is so heartwarming to see and read about a woman who appears to be much bolder and braver than her male counterparts in Congress. As the legend goes, the man "is supposed to have the balls".

I am glad to take my hat off to a lady who earns every single penny we the taxpayer pays her for her courage and bold moves as a legislator vis a vis the insane situation our country stumbled into which is termed THE IRAQ WAR.

Bravo Barbara! Sock it to 'em

Good Friday with Pope Benedict XVI

Our Northwest Airlines flight from San Francisco landed in Leonardo da Vinci airport of Rome shortly after noon Friday of Holy Week. We were glad to be in the Eternal City at this time for it was GOOD FRIDAY. After a quick check in at our Holiday Inn hotel, we drove towards the Vatican and joined what looked like several hundred thousands of devotees/tourists in Piazza St. Pietro as well as inside the Cathedral itself.

With my extra long Sony video zoom lens and standing on my toes for long seconds at a time I got to shoot Our Holy Father at the main altar together with his entourage of Cardinals - but Pope Benedict was in bare feet!

They were holding readings in all languages consecutively as appropriate Catholic services during the high point in Our Lord's suffering and death on Good Friday. For the benefit of the people outside there were chairs placed all over as well as flat and large screen HD monitors in strategic places showing what was going on inside the Cathedral.


To Chita and me, Paris and Rome are undying destinations that we will never tire of visiting for as long as we can afford to - for various reasons. This time our trip to Rome was related to a planned cruise around Mediterranean ports in Greece, Turkey, and Italy aboard the CARNIVAL FREEDOM, a brand new cruise ship of CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES only on its second voyage. From April 6 - 20 we enjoyed the on board fun, for "fun" is what Carnival Cruise Lines is known for as we have experienced during the past two others [i.e. Caribbean cruise and the Mexican Riviera cruise].

Among the significant highlights of this cruise was our visit to the place where Our Blessed Virgin Mary lived her final days until she was bodily raised into Heaven [dogma of the Assumption]. The place was Ephesus, in Turkey, which we visited by tour bus together with other tourists from other countries.

Another interesting site we took was by a walking tour of the old mosques and churches in historic Istanbul, Turkey especially in relation to Catholic history, which included the Hagia Sofia.

One major advantage of a sea cruise over a bus and other types of touristic journeys is the fact that one has a "floating hotel" with well planned recreation plus entertainment filled features that one can enjoyo on a cruise ship. One need not have to bother with seeking hotels, packing and unpacking while visiting selected sites as one continues with the tour.

In fact, this third cruise brought out something we failed to notice - and that was the honeymoon element.

During our wedding in 1959 we had no chance to go on a regular honeymoon at all. We both had to go to work the following day.

In the first two cruises we were with our grandsons and then with the other children and their respective families.

If you look closely at our picture you just might notice a sparkle of excitement and love.