CDR: The Ant and the Grasshopper
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, 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. 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, 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 "Its 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. Al Gore 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-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.
right. And then W. comes along and wants to give the newly rich grasshopper a fat tax cut which the remaining ants don't get. Which is why grasshoppers usually vote Republican. Makes sense to me. MacN On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Anonymous wrote:
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, 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.
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, 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 "Its 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.
Al Gore 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-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.
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, 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.
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, 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.
Satire imitates life: I was watching "The Big Comfy Couch" (a children's show on PBS) with my three year old. Their revision of the fable was to have the ants invite the grasshopper in to their home for the winter because they realized they had no music to sing or dances to do. The moral seemed to be 'We need the fools who laugh, sing, dance, and play the summer away, because they are "artists"'. It pissed me off. (I think the Ants singing "Nayah-Nayah-Nayah" while dancing on the Grasshopper's grave would have been sufficient). Neil M. Johnson njohnson@interl.net http://www.interl.net/~njohnson PGP Key Finger Print: 93C0 793F B66E A0C7 CEEA 3E92 6B99 2DCC
On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Neil Johnson wrote:
Satire imitates life:
I was watching "The Big Comfy Couch" (a children's show on PBS) with my three year old. Their revision of the fable was to have the ants invite the grasshopper in to their home for the winter because they realized they had no music to sing or dances to do.
The moral seemed to be 'We need the fools who laugh, sing, dance, and play the summer away, because they are "artists"'.
It pissed me off.
(I think the Ants singing "Nayah-Nayah-Nayah" while dancing on the Grasshopper's grave would have been sufficient).
You're not the only one. It is a sad state of affairs when this level of socialism invades our lives. What they should be teaching is self-respect and self-reliance coupled with a sense of community. Not pity and a 'class oriented' view of life. So much for 'equality' in the democratic sense. In a couple of more generations democracy will have spin-doctor morphed into a completely unrecognizable entity. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
"Neil Johnson" <njohnson@interl.net> wrote:
I was watching "The Big Comfy Couch" (a children's show on PBS) with my three year old. Their revision of the fable was to have the ants invite the grasshopper in to their home for the winter because they realized they had no music to sing or dances to do.
It's his private property and he can invite whoever he wants. Whats your problem? :)
In <Pine.SOL.4.10.10011031843580.39-100000@cavern.uark.edu>, on 11/03/00 at 06:49 PM, Mac Norton <mnorton@cavern.uark.edu> said:
right. And then W. comes along and wants to give the newly rich grasshopper a fat tax cut which the remaining ants don't get. Which is why grasshoppers usually vote Republican. Makes sense to me.
Considering it is the grasshopper that is paying all the taxes it make sense to me too. :) -- --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net Geiger Consulting Data Security & Cryptology Consulting Programming, Networking, Analysis PGP for OS/2: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html E-Secure: http://www.openpgp.net/esecure.html ---------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget that the ants will probably infringe on the Grasshopper's copyrights (via the DMCA) if they try to develop their own song and dance routines :) Neil M. Johnson njohnson@interl.net http://www.interl.net/~njohnson PGP Key Finger Print: 93C0 793F B66E A0C7 CEEA 3E92 6B99 2DCC ----- Original Message ----- From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <cypherpunks@openpgp.net> Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2000 6:17 AM Subject: CDR: Re: The Ant and the Grasshopper
In <Pine.SOL.4.10.10011031843580.39-100000@cavern.uark.edu>, on 11/03/00 at 06:49 PM, Mac Norton <mnorton@cavern.uark.edu> said:
right. And then W. comes along and wants to give the newly rich grasshopper a fat tax cut which the remaining ants don't get. Which is why grasshoppers usually vote Republican. Makes sense to me.
Considering it is the grasshopper that is paying all the taxes it make sense to me too. :)
-- --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net Geiger Consulting
Data Security & Cryptology Consulting Programming, Networking, Analysis
PGP for OS/2: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html E-Secure: http://www.openpgp.net/esecure.html ---------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous wrote:
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, 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.
MODERN VERSION
[...snip...] AMERICAN 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 gool and laughs, dances, and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter. So he calls up his lawyer who drafts a bogus lawsuit. In the end, both the lawyer and the grasshopper are feeding and the ant dies out in the cold.
RUSSIAN 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, dances, and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he calls up his uncle and asks for help. The ants food stores are inspected and found vulnerable to dry rot. A systemic problem among ants. For the benefit of the ant, his food stores are placed in a national storage facility. The grasshopper is given a job managing the facility. The central store rapidly develops dry rot. Millions of ants die. But somehow there always seems enough grains left for the grasshopper. After a while the grosshopper's uncle suggests that the solution to the dry rot problem is de-nationalisation via employee ownership. The facility is sold for one grain to the grasshopper, who then sells it for half a grain to his uncle. The grass-hopper is re-hired as manager. The uncle becomes fantastically rich. The ant gives up collecting grain and finds a personal-security position protecting the uncle from other ants. All three go out to a Moscow night club to celebrate and are gunned down by a group of ants working as corporate-security professionals for Gazcom. Cheers, Julian.
participants (8)
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Anonymous -
Anonymous -
Jim Choate -
Mac Norton -
Neil Johnson -
proff＠suburbia.net -
Tom Vogt -
William H. Geiger III