Monday, August 27, 2012

The Ant and the Grasshopper - Again

For years, there's been emails going around telling two versions of the old ant & grasshopper story. The "new versions" varied little.
But this one is the most extensive and detailed new version I've yet seen. I think it's quite suitable for posting.
From this one, all the way back to the first one ever written, these are great.
I include the old one just in case you are unfamiliar with the original.

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...'

Occupy the Anthill stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the SEIU group singing,
We shall overcome.

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright
has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake,
while he damns the ants.

President Obama condems the ant and blames
President Bush 43,
President Bush 41, 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 bec ause 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 the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.



MORAL OF THE STORY:


Be careful how you vote in 2012.

Larry King can be found on Hulu as of this writing:

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/20120827larry-king-missed-asking-questions.html 

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