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Topics: Laziness, Rights, Jokes, Preparation
THE CLASSIC 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
he's
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.
THE 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
he's
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, CNN, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of
the
shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home
with a table filled with food.
America and the world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be
that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed
to
suffer so?
Then a representative of the NAAGB (National Association of Green Bugs)
shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with "green bias", and makes
the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of
greenism.
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody
cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green." Bill and Hillary Clinton
make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a
concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the
grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those
who
benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to
it,
the "Temperatures of the 80's."
Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the
ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for
an
immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act".
Retroactive to the beginning of the summer, the ant was 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's in, which just happens
to
be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how
to
maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which
the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are
showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of
compatriots announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in
America.