Why is there a goat named Frank? ...and what is he doing shopping?

[kiki_eng]

It's perverse.  It's the five little piggies all over again, exactly.

What on earth does a pig or a goat want with a market?  Search me.  Unless I'm much mistaken and grossly misunderstanding the creatures they're not terribly interested.  I'm not aware of any sort of currency or bartering system.  So why do people keep suggesting that your friendly neighbourhood chipmunk nips out to do her shopping around two?

It's certainly not immediately obvious as a logical thought to be having.  It's a notion just ridiculous enough to get mislabeled as childish.

We can entertain ourselves with anthropomorphism.  It's an interesting way of looking at the world.  It's a bit dangerous, though, really.  What is 'human'?  Capitalism is certainly a human creation but is it a human characteristic?  

When we create imaginary capitalist gophers we assign human ideas to the natural world.  Just as we always think of a single oak tree as being "lonely" can we get to the point where we see a gopher as "capitalist"?

Are we in danger of looking on our economic structures, our political structures, our society as natural?  Are we in danger of ceasing to question our ideas?

There has always been some emphasis placed on having "the right sort of thoughts".  Perhaps Frank is encouraging us to build a better mousetrap when we don't need a mousetrap at all.