Why do-gooders always make me suspicious
As I listen to the do-gooders touting their latest program or project or grant to help us live a better, more harmonious life — health care reform, cap and trade, education grants, Social Security, Medicare, higher gasoline mileage, etc. — I am reminded of that 1950 science fiction short story by Damon Knight that I read as a teen: “To Serve Man.”
These aliens show up one day and start doling out goodies — cheap and unlimited power supply, fertilizer to end famine, medicines and the like. A U.N. translator gets his hands on a book one of the aliens was carrying, and, using some of the language picked up from the visiting outer spacers, quickly translates the title as “To Serve Man.”
But it is not until one of the main human characters is getting on a space ship bound for the alien home planet that another person races up and blurts out that the first chapter of the book has been translated and it’s a …
Well, watch this Twilight Zone clip and see for yourself:
