A quote from a piece by Edward Hoagland which appeared in the Sunday Review Section of the March 24, 2013 edition of the New York Times. Entitled "Pity Earth's Creatures" Hoagland bemoans the potential future loss of Aesop's animal metaphors as we, as Hoagland puts it, "shred our habitat."
Mostly that's over......The tortoise and the hare, the lion saved by the mouse, the monkey who would be king, the dog in the manger, the dog and his shadow, the country mouse and the city mouse, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the raven and the crow, the heron and the fish, the peacock and the crane. From where will we draw replacement similes and language?.........Hogging the spotlight, playing possum, resembling a deer in the headlights, being buffaloed or played like a fish. Will the clarity of what is said hold? A "tiger, a "turtle," a "toad." After the oceans have been vacuumed of protein and people are eating farmed tilapia and caked algae, will Aesop's platform of markers remain?
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