Fuel For Nightmare

This isn’t an article this is just something Jazz wants to point out.

Jazz was reading “Jack and The Bean Stalk” to little Jazz.

Jazz personally loves this story. Jazz loves the characters, the moral and the imagination of the tale but it all comes to a complete stop with “Fee Fi Fo Fum” (Jazz hears loud screeching brakes). When the giant realized that he had been robbed by the little man, he thunders around with his heavy footsteps looking for the little man and says:

Fee .. Fi .. Fo.. Fum
I smell the blood of an English man
Be he alive or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread (درر!)

Heartwarming isn’t it?!! Ha ha and they say Tom and Jerry cartoons are violent … Please … Tom and Jerry cartoons are heavenly! Even Grendizer is angelic!

Jazz doesn’t know where to start but Jazz’ll tell Jazz upfront that this bunch of ruthless words exposes children to countless devastating behaviors such as anger, murder, torture, racism and cannibalism. Let Jazz take it verse by verse.

First the giant smells the blood of the Englishman which implies that the English man has a specific scent to his blood different than any other non-English man, racism? Then the giant expresses his anger by revealing his desire to crush the little man regardless to whether the little man was alive or dead … Torture? Finally, the giant will grind (“grind” really?) his bones to make his bread … Cannibalism?

Goodness gracious! Jazz calls this fuel for nightmare. This is enough material for Jazz’s imagination to take Jazz to sickening destinations, where does Jazz think it would take little Jazz’s imagination? Let alone where it would take it … the question is why would it take it and for what purpose? What good would that do? Couldn’t it just have been…

Fee .. Fi .. Fo.. Fum
I’ve been robbed by an English man
I shall huff and I shall puff
I’ll keep looking till I get back my stuff


(Jazz laughs at this spontaneous production … Could be , couldn’t it? Better?)

Let’s move on to the shocks Jazz faced last year when Jazz discovered the hidden meanings behind many of the loved nursery rhymes Jazz sings to little Jazz.

The biggest shock and only one discussed in this post:

O ring o ring of roses
A pocket full of poises
A tissue A tissue
We all fall down

Familiar? Little Jazz loves it … little Jazz loves to act it out with Jazz. Does Jazz know the routine? If not, that’s how it goes …

Step 1, 2 & 3: Jazzes hold hands, form a circle and go around
Step 4: Jazzes sneeze
Step 5: Jazzes fall to the ground.

To Jazz’s ultimate surprise:

“O’ ring O’ ring o roses” represents the “rosy” rash on the skin of a diseased person as a symptom of the great plague, also known as the Black Death, a massive disease outbreak in the kingdom of England back in 1665. (Step 1, 2 & 3 of the routine)

“A pocket pull of poises”. Poises is an herb carried around in pockets in order to either protect from getting infected by the plague or cover the smell of the infection once spread (Jazz feels Jazz’s guts flip)

“A tissue * A tissue”. A tissue pape used to blow the nose (Step 4 of the routine)

“We all fall down!” Yes, the perfect finale … They all fell down … as in drop DEAD (Step 5 of the routine) (Jazz visualizes the smile on little Jazz’s face as little Jazz falls down, laughs and stands up again asking to do it one more time and feels deceived)


The hidden meanings are ugly. Thank God they are hidden but still, why should little Jazz hum to and sing rhymes that are neither relevant to Jazz nor to Jazz’s history? Why are they still in Jazz’s ears after 400 years of irrelevance? Why can’t all those education guru Jazzes who claim educational excellence in our Arabic and Muslim world and criticize Jazz’s bringing up methods any chance they get, come up with new, decent, relevant and pure rhymes for little Jazz to enjoy?


Little Jazz is entitled to a transparent, pure and positive childhood.

Sincerely yours,

Jazz