This one really irked me. Mostly because it's really bad but also their metaphors are so easy to turn back upon themselves...
My comment and version are below.
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THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different....
Two Different Versions!
Two Different Morals!
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 the ant is 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 the ant is 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 , PBS, CNN, 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.'
Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax h ike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & 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 Green Czar.
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: Be careful how you vote in 2010
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While it is true that many of our poorer citizans abuse the system and need a kick in the rear to get to doing something productive, I’ve always belived that it is better to have millions of poor people abuseing the system than a hand full of corporations abuseing the system by disinformation campaigns, no-bid contracts, bail outs, tax breaks, etc...
Here is my version of the story.
REALITY BASED VERSION:
The worker ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his Queen Ant’s house and laying up supplies for the winter. Supported by no-bid government contracts, won by eliminating competitive bidders through a public relations disinformation campaign, the worker ants march in lock step while blindly saluting their Queen. The Queen gets richer and fatter as the summer continues. She consumes hundreds of times more natural resources than her worker ants. She cares not when hundreds of worker ants die without healthcare as her own health is secured.
The grasshopper thinks the worker ant is a fool to slave away his life for the corporate Ant Queen and laughs, dances and plays the summer away. Enjoying life to its fullest and not hating others for being different the grasshopper goes about her natural life cycle, of six to nine months, laying eggs for future generations.
Come winter the worker ants are all dead since they do not have adequate healthcare and as they only live a few months anyway. The Queen Ant can live several years, thanks to the best healthcare money can buy. She lives on to hatch out a new brood of lock step worker ants to do her bidding and disinformation campaigns another year.
Safe from the winter elements the grasshopper’s eggs will guarantee the next generation to enjoy life to its fullest and not hating others for being different.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Stop listing to everybody else and use your own damn brain.
