[2755] in Humor
HUMOR: The Ant And The Grasshopper
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Drew Bennett)
Wed Apr 7 15:31:07 1999
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 15:29:33 -0400
To: humor@MIT.EDU
From: Drew Bennett <dbennett@isr.com>
>>> THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER in 1999
>>> - Submitted by Mr.P
>>> _______________________________________
>>>
>>> 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.
