The ANT
AND THE
GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different ......
Two Different Versions .....
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION:
The
ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and
laying up supplies for the winter.
The
grasshopper thinks the
ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the
ant is warm and well fed.
The
grasshopper has no food or shelter,
so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The
ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house
and laying up supplies for the winter.
The
grasshopper thinks the
ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering
grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the
ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and
ABC
show up to provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a video of the
ant in his comfortable home with
a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is
allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on
Oprah
with the
grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green..'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the
ant's house where the news stations film the group singing,
We shall overcome.
Then
Rev. Jeremiah Wright
has the group kneel down to pray for the
grasshopper's sake.
President Obama condemns the
ant
and blames
President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the
grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with
Larry King that the
ant has
gotten rich off the back of the
grasshopper,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant
to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the
EEOC drafts the
Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The
ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of
green bugs and,
having nothing left to pay his retroactive
taxes, his home is confiscated by the
Government Green Czar and given to the
grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the
grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the
ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the
ant's old house, crumbles around them because the
grasshopper doesn't
maintain it.
The
ant has disappeared in the snow,
never to be seen again.
The
grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of
spiders who terrorize and ramshackle, the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire
Nation collapses bringing the rest
of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2012
I've sent this to you because
I believe that you are an ant!
You may wish to pass this on to other ants, but don't bother sending it on to any grasshopper's because they wouldn't understand it, anyway.
