Money Cow

Baseball season is right around the corner. So, like years past, I find myself flipping through Robert Bly's book, The Sibling Society. I've learned that this isn't a conscious thing, it just happens. I would guess it's for the adult male wisdom in it. I'll be working with adolescents and children in one capacity or another on the baseball diamond this year, so it's always nice to get my bearings straight before I go at it. Anyway, while looking for a quote by Dostoyevsky on how adolescence naturally use language like soldiers and sailors I ran across this tale by Bly. I've probably read it a half-a-dozen times or so in the past, but this time it really had an impact on me.

A Curious Tale

Once upon a time there was a country, far north and far south of here, where farmers found a new domestic creature, superior to sheep, pigs, or chickens. It happened just after money had been reclassified as an animal. One day it was a thought; the next day it was real, and had horns and an udder.

The breeders soon found that the new animal needed much air and water; and some of the poor had to be moved to the inner cities and others to the suburbs, to make room. Although it was regrettable that people had to lose their old homes and their security, nothing could be more important, the Senate and the House said, for the future of the nation than this new money cow. What they needed was one great money bull for the development of the line.

A perfect money bull was finally discovered; his name was Bottom. For a while, everyone was satisfied with Bottom, and many gifts were brought to him. Boys wore their caps backward as an honor to Bottom. He finally learned to speak, and his words and his sperm were sent all over the known world.

When Bottom began to demand sacrifices, some people became uneasy. But Congress agreed to his demands. Hundreds of people lined up to be sacrificed to him. This line of people about to die was called Bottom's line.--pg. 153-54

The first people I thought of after reading this tale was Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Wisconsin's very own Governor Scott Walker.

I'd say we've sacrificed a lot to Bottom since 1980.