December 31, 2004

• THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

  
  

   

  
  

  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 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.
  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 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, NBC, 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.

  
  

  Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings

  
  

  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 and

  
  

  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. Hillary gets her 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 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: Don't vote for the Poodle.

  • 10:21 am
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