CDR: Re: The Ant and the Grasshopper
Mac Norton
mnorton at cavern.uark.edu
Fri Nov 3 16:48:53 PST 2000
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.
>
>
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