The Ant and The Grasshopper
The Ant & the Grasshopper in 2008
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!
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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.
Hillary and Barack go on national television agreeing that
the plight of the grasshopper is the fault of George Bush.
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.
Obama gets his old law firm to represent the grasshopper in
a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried
before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton
appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
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 very careful how you vote in 2008
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Source: Magazine Name, January 1, 2006