Subject: 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: Vote Republican

I like it but it's missing a few things. In reality the Grasshopper would accuse the ant of being a liar and create a few conspiracy theories to explain things. He would then enlist the opinion of Academics and movie stars to bolster his theories. Once that was done he would look for other species that whish to eat the Ant and get them to condem Ant principals.

Neato story.

Does the GOP have a team of writers that thinks up these neato stories ?

I'm glad they keep it on a storybook level so the GOP voters can understand it. :p

This one has been around awhile. As one of those ants, I have been sick of being held hostage by all those grasshoppers out there for years.

Vote Republican

I usually just step on ants and grasshoppers.

Just vote.

Have a fun trip KK.

I'm sure while you're up there, the last thing on your mind will be politics.........but we can get you back into it when you get back.

Good luck up there............

I wouldn't recommend saying stuff like that out loud in Alaska. Most folks up there are intelligent and have a pretty firm grip on reality and therefore, obviously, are Republican.

Perhaps Cuba would be a more appropriate vacation destination for you, KK. You'd find lots of like-minded friends there!

(just kidding - I'm just jealous )

Great story SlabQuest,

But you forgot to mention that John Kerry was actually against the grasshopper before he decided he supported it (because one of his focus groups suggested that he might gain a couple of points in the tracking polls by changing his position).


Hey K.K.,

Have fun up in the land of fish and honey-

We'll continue to solve all the world problems until you get back. And always remember what Frank said, "don't fool yourself girl--it's ..... ........ .. .... .... ..... ".

She threw aside her rancid poncho......

http://www.zappa.com


If Frank were still with us, I'd probably be working on his presidential campaign.

And I'd bet he'd WIN, TOO!!