Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!
OLD VERSION:The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building hishouse and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays thesummer 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 houseand laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays thesummer away.Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference anddemands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed whileothers are cold and starving.CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shiveringgrasshopper next to a video of the antin his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America isstunned by the sharp contrast.How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper isallowed to suffer so?Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody crieswhen they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where thenews stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse thenhasthe group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that theant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for animmediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Actretroactive to the beginning of the summer.The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugsand, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscatedby the government.Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamationsuit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judgesthat Bill Clinton appointed from alist of single-parent welfare recipients.The ant loses the case.The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of theant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to bethe ant's old house, crumbles around him because hedoesn't maintain it.The ant has disappeared in the snow.The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, nowabandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the oncepeaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:Be careful how you vote in 2008
