"A long way out in the deep blue sea there lived a fish."

Thus begins, The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Phister, an award¬winning picture book that has been published in more than 30 languages and is beloved by children around the world.

Yep, you guessed it. I hate The Rainbow Fish. Despise it, in fact. Someone should bait a hook and snare that insipid guppy and cut it into bait at the first opportunity.

At this point, you may be asking, "Is this guy actually going to take some of the precious word allotment afforded him by the publisher to rant about a children's book?"

You had better believe I am!'

None of this will surprise longtime listeners of my radio show. Some of you may even remember, a decade or so ago, the broadcast in which I berated a harmless, sweet, innocent child at some length. That particular on-air rant was triggered by a seemingly innocuous feature story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, recounting the charitable efforts of a young schoolgirl in one of the city's northern suburbs. As I recall, the adorable tyke would regularly canvass her neighborhood, collecting donations for one cause or another. A regular little eleemosynary moppet, she was.

Ok, I admit it. Perhaps I went just a wee bit overboard in discussing this little twit. Just far enough to make station's general manager stomp, snarl and snort - one of my favorite pastimes in those days.2

Whatever could have made the mean, bad man yell at this nice, friendly little do-gooder? Well, I'm afraid we had a somewhat of a philosophical disagreement. Yeah .. that's right. I went ballistic over a philosophical disagreement with an elementary schooler.

You see, the girl explained her charitable inclinations with the brilliant assertion that "everybody ought to have an equal amount of stuff."

Say what? You're kidding me, right? This girl was a plant, the story was a fake. Someone was just to give me something to get riled up about on the air that day... right?

Please tell me this isn't the status of our education system today, although I instinctively know it is. See what billions of dollars spent on government education hath wrought? All this time and money spent and we end up with a sixth-grader who thinks, "Everybody ought to have an equal amount of stuff."

We're left to wonder if this brilliant example of government education and 20th Century parenting thinks she shouldn't be living in a house that is one bit bigger or better than the house any other sixth grader anywhere in the world lives in? Ever been to Nicaragua, kid? How about Uganda? If you're going to pursue this "equal amount of stuff" stuff your work is cut out for you.

Is she ready to give up toys and clothes if she discovers that everyone doesn't have just exactly what she has? What about her

2 Picking on this little girl was viewed as an egregious transgression, while telling the mayor of Atlanta to "Sit down and shut up you son-of-a-bitch!" on the air was not! Go figure. He's probably in jail by now.

next trip to Disney World? Would she give that up if she found out that some child somewhere couldn't go?

How in the wide, wide world of reason does she think we actually get to the point where everybody has an equal amount of stuff? Do we appoint some sort of government agency responsible for measuring and quantifying stuff, and redistributing stuff until everybody has the same stuff as everyone else? Do the stuff police do spot checks on everyone's home to make sure nobody has some stuff that someone else doesn't have?

You see, I'm getting all worked up again, and soon I'll have the boss stomping, snarling and snorting once more. Besides, the kid is 18 years old by now, maybe older, and I'm sure she left Barbie Dolls and philanthropy behind long ago. No doubt, she's spending like a crack fiend just to keep ahead of her classmates in the fashion department. So, enough about Little Miss Equality.

But this does bring me back to the children's book that has my nostrils flaring. It's called "The Rainbow Fish" and it won the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award in 1995.3

Marcus Pfister's anti-individual, anti-property rights tome was published in the United States by North-South Books. Marcus isn't from around here, though. He's from Switzerland, and that's where this noxious little book was first published.

I've been to Switzerland many times. Love the place. And they make great pocketknives. Their railroads are cute and those steamers on Lake Lucerne are to die for.

But in Switzerland you simply won't find the individual sprit and dedication to property rights that you find here in the United States.

3 So now we know that the American Booksellers Association will give you an award for writing the most imbecilic, inane, obtuse, moronic, senseless, unthinking, flakey book of the year. Don't look for Somebody's Got to Say It to be on the awards list.

Just what was it about this book that yanked my chain so hard?

Here's the story... truncated, of course.

It seems we have this fish with really pretty scales. They're blue and green and purple and silver. What a fish! Big deal!

The other fish thought he was really something special. In fact, they called him Der Regenbogenfisch. Nice ring to it, don't you think? It's German for "Rainbow Fish."

Moving right along here:

The plot thickens when some little twerp-fish (probably a baby remora) swims up to the Rainbow Fish and asks him for one of his colorful scales. The twerp-fish's reasoning was that since the Rainbow fish had so many of those scales that he ought to just give one away.

Is this all starting to sound vaguely familiar?

Der Regenbogenfsh said nein! And the vile twerp-fish swam away to tell his fellow twerp-fish that the Rainbow Fish was being ugly.

All of the twerp-fish then shunned the Rainbow fish because he wouldn't give away his scales. The Rainbow Fish, in a fit of depression, ended up in the dark cave of the cranky old octopus4 asking for help. Did the octopus have some advice! Why of course it did!

"Give a glittering scale to each of the other fish. You will no longer be the most beautiful fish in the sea, but you will discover how to be happy."

As the octopus retreated back into the cave, the twerp-fish reappeared and renewed its demands for a scale. This time the Rainbow Fish caved ... and gave one up.

Oh joy!

4 I have it on good authority --- and remember, I'm very well connected in the entertainment industry --- that the voice of the old octopus will be provided by Hillary Clinton when the animated motion picture comes out. If Hillary is otherwise occupied, there's always Helen Thomas.

The book then describes how wonderful the Rainbow Fish felt after giving away some of his stuff! Soon, of course, he was surrounded by twerp-fish and giving away scales left and right! Oh, how happy he felt! What joy! The more he gave away, the happier he was!

In no time flat, the Rainbow Fish was down to one, special scale... and all the other freeloading twerp-fish had one also!5

Well, guess what we have here! Why, everybody had an equal amount of stuff! Paradise! Nirvana! Valhalla! A sixth-grader's irrational fantasy!

So this is where Little Miss Charity got that idea! My guess is she was so bright and special that she read this book before it was even translated into English!

The Rainbow Fish is insidious because it's aimed at human beings who are the very age at which they are most impressionable. This is the age where they actually believe that if mommy kisses your boo-boo it will actually feel better.6 It's the age of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!'

The pathetic part of this whole sordid escapade is that so many American parents don't have any idea as to just what type of message they're imparting to their tricycle motors when they read this garbage to them. Night after night this hideous little utopian fantasy is drummed into their impressionable minds.

Now, believe it or not, someone has even gone through the trouble of producing a stage play based on The Rainbow Fish so that our little rug rats can be brainwashed en mass down at the local performing arts center!

5 Just a reminder. This is not giving back. It is just giving.
6 No... I'm not going there.
' Oops, that reminds me. This footnote is for the author. Don't forget to put a tirade about the "Spring Bunny" in this book somewhere. You can't say "Easter Bunny" anymore.

Obviously, parents need some help ... and I'm just the person to offer it.

The Rainbow Fish is, at its core, anti-private property. It is your child's introduction to a society where the accumulation of wealth is frowned upon, and the redistribution of wealth is praised.

Children will believe pretty much anything a grownup (and only grownups write books, right?) tells them. Ask any child psychologist who isn't busy handing out phony diagnoses of ADD or ADHD and he or she will tell you lessons found in stories like The Rainbow Fish are taken to heart and assimilated.

The adult who wrote this book is telling our children that it is not nice to own something other people want, but don't have. If you do happen to be the proud owner of such an item, it is incumbent upon you to give it away or you won't be liked. On the other hand, if you have squandered every opportunity we're all blessed with in this country, and you have nothing, then it is perfectly legitimate for you to demand of those who have more to fork it over.

The Rainbow Fish ... obviously some species of sucker fish ... sets up our children quite well for a life of wealth-envy. In the wonderful world of The Rainbow Fish you don't have to work to acquire what you want, you merely demand it.

There's something very symbolic about the role of the octopus here. To me, the octopus is government. It's tentacles reaching out in every direction to suck up the fruits of our labors, then telling us that we need to give up what we have left to those who have less.

If I may be so bold as to suggest an alternative story line to Mr. Pfister, perhaps the Rainbow Fish, recognizing there is a demand for his colorful scales, could offer to trade them for something of value to the twerp-fish. Perhaps he could even go into the colorful scale manufacturing business! Clearly, we have a case here where demand exceeded supply. Wouldn't this be a marvelous opportunity to tell our children a story of free enterprise triumphant?

Unfortunately, you aren't going to be able to protect your children from this "everybody ought to have an equal amount of stuff" idiocy simply by banishing the Rainbow Fish from the family aquarium.

I'll explain in the next chapter.