THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
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 STORY: Be responsible
for yourself!
TODAY'S MODERN 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 shivering
grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant
should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are 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.'
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration
in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group
singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has the group kneel down to
pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry 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.
The story ends as we see the
grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the
government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old
house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
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 the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2010.
A for effort though geezer.
