The Ant and the Grasshopper
Publisher John DelRosario, Jr. mentions the fable of the ant and the
grasshopper from time to time. Now a politically correct version is
making the rounds through the Internet, and I figured I’d share a slightly
edited version of it with you.
Unfortunately, I don’t know who to attribute the new fable to. The version
I got came from a supporter of George Walker Bush for President, so I don’t
think they’ll mind a bit of publicity for their opinions. I have no
opinion on Bush or anyone else–I couldn’t care less– but I’m mentioning
Bush in fairness because it was from his camp that I received the fable.
ORIGINAL 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.
MODERN 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
fool and plays darts and drinks Budweiser all summer long. 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 it be that, in a country
of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a
representative of the NAGB (The 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 benefitted unfairly during the Reagan summers.
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 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.
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 announcing that a new era of “fairness” has dawned in America.
