The Ant and the Grasshopper

Aesop's Fable
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!
________________________________

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 VERY careful how you vote in 2010



"For those who voted for hope and change, bend over and prepare to receive your bounty."