You remember Babar, don’t you? He was the little elephant who went to Paris and lived in an apartment with The Old Lady, who was fond of little elephants. Cut that out! The Babar books were written in a more innocent age. We are not talking about a cougar who is into bestiality, and is particularly attracted to elephants because of their long, firm trunks. No! The Old Lady is a sweet little grandmotherly type. And Babar trots through book after book, living a peaceful life except for one incident when he finds himself in a war with the rhinoceroses. How nice!

But let us return for a moment to the first page of the first Babar book. What happens? Babar’s daddy is blown away by a hunter! How do you think that made Babar feel? Lousy, to be sure, but he never takes revenge on the human species.

Until now.

Fox News has reliably reported that a Mr. Solomon Manjoro was smeared uniformly over the grass in Zimbabwe during a poaching expedition. The culprit? Babar, or a reasonable facsimile thereof!

It is unclear why Babar forsook his erstwhile tolerant attitude toward people trying to kill him and remove his tusks. It may be that he saw the video posted on YouTube showing a South African safari guide charging an elephant to the cheers of his drunken comrades. But a more likely explanation is that Babar has joined the animal mainstream. The domesticated and semi-domesticated animals are in revolt!

Roy of Siegfried and Roy was attacked by his tiger. Grizzly Adams was eaten by (surprise!) a grizzly bear. Everywhere we turn, another former friend of man has become a consumer of man.

This is great!

We now have the opportunity to rewrite all those puerile children’s stories with cute cuddly little beasties to more accurately reflect contemporary reality.  For example, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” can be rewritten to conclude with a bear feast at which Goldilocks is served to the assembled guests with an apple in her mouth. Winnie the Pooh will rend Christopher Robin limb from limb.

We can finish off the PETA people, too. We will present them with pets – carnivorous pets! Poisonous pets! The ferocious pets will probably form their own PETA organization: Pets for the Eating of Thickheaded Asses.

We can revive the circus – not the Barnum and Bailey type – the Roman type! We will not throw the Christians to the lions. We will throw the politicians to the lions!

Good idea, no?