Posted on 10/23/2008 9:38:11 PM PDT by stocksthatgoup
One day as the Little Red Hen was scratching in a field, she found a grain of wheat.
"This wheat should be planted," she said. "Who will plant this grain of wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
Soon the wheat grew to be tall and yellow.
"The wheat is ripe," said the Little Red Hen. "Who will cut the wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
When the wheat was cut, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will thresh the wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She took the wheat to the mill and had it ground into flour. Then she said, "Who will make this flour into pie?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She cut some apples and baked the pie. Then she said, "Who will eat this pie?"
"Oh! I will," said the Duck.
"And I will," said the Cat.
"And I will," said the Dog.
"No, No!" said the Little Red Hen. "I will do that." And she did.
Barak Obama time to redistribute the wealth! To that, the crowd struck up the chant “We want pie! We want pie!”
> Barak Obama time to redistribute the wealth! To that, the crowd struck up the chant “We want pie! We want pie!”
But their leader turned on them and said “No! You cannot have any pie until you build for me monuments bigger than the pyramids and more expensive than seven Apollo programs!”
“But who’s going to get our pie!” The crowds shouted.
“I will!” Shouted Bill Ayers, the newly appointed director of Homeland Security.
“And I will!” Shouted Michael Jackson, the newly appointed Director of the Department of Education.
“And I will!” Shouted Jack Murtha, the former congressman, who had been titled the head of the newly created Department of Media Affairs.
Then Gorge Soros smiled as he cut everyone a slice of pie.
The end.
The Incredible Bread Machine
By R.W. Grant
This is the story of a man whose name
Was a household word: a man whose fame
Burst on the world like an atom bomb;
Smith was his last name; first name Tom.
Now, Smith, an inventor, had specialized
In toys, so people were surprized,
When they found that he instead
Of making toys, was BAKING BREAD!
The way to make bread he’d conceived
Cost less than people could believe!
And not just make it! This device,
Could in addition, wrap and slice!
The price per loaf, one loaf or many,
The miniscule sum of under a penny!
Can you imagine what this meant?
Can you comprehend the consequent?
The first time yet the world well fed,
And all because of Tom Smith’s bread.
A citation from the President,
For Smith’s amazing bread,
This and other honours too,
Were heaped upon his head!
But isn’t it a wonderous thing,
How quickly fame is flown?
Smith, the hero of today,
Tommorow, scarcely known!
Yes, the fickle years passed by,
Smith was a millionaire,
But Smith himself was now forgot,
Though bread was everywhere...
People, asked from where it came,
Would very seldom know.
They would simple eat and ask,
“Was not it always so?”
However, Smith cared not a bit,
For millions ate his bread...
And everything is fine, thought he,
I am rich, and they are fed!
Everything was fine, he though,
He reckoned not with fate.
Note the sequence of events,
Starting on the date,
On which the business tax went up.
Then, to a slight extent,
The price on every loaf rose too:
Up to one full cent!
“What’s going on!” the public cried,
“He’s guilty of pure plunder!
He has no right to get so rich
on other peoples hunger!”
(A Prize cartoon depicted Smith,
With fat and drooping jowls,
Snatching bread from hungry babes,
indiferrent to their howls!)
Well, since the public does come first,
It could not be denied
That in matters such as this,
The Public must decide!
So Anti-Trust now took a hand,
Of course, it was appalled
At what it found was going on.
The “Bread Trust” it was called.
Now this was getting serious,
So Smith felt that he must
Have a friendly interview
With the men in Anti-Trust.
So hat in hand, he went to them.
They’d surely been misled;
No Rule of Law had he defied.
But then their lawyer said:
“The Rule of Law, in complex times,
Has proved itself deficient.
We much prefer the Rule of Men,
It’s vastly more efficient!
Now let me state the present rules,”
The lawyer then went on,
“These very simple guidelines,
You can rely upon:
You’re gouging on your prices if
You charge more than the rest.
But it’s unfair competition if
You think you can charge less!
“A second point that we would make
To help avoid confusion...
Don’t try to charge the same amount,
That would be Collusion!
You must compete. But not too much,
For if you do you see,
Then the market would be yours -
And that’s Monopoly!
Price too high?
Or Price too low?
Now, which charge did they make?
Well, they weren’t loath to charging both,
With Public Good at stake!
In fact, they went one better!
They charged “Monopoly!”
No muss, no fuss, oh, woe is us!
Egad, they charged ALL THREE!
“Five Years in jail,” The Judge then said
“You’re lucky it’s not worse!
Robber Barrons must be taught,
Society comes first!”
Now bread is baked by government.
And as might be expected,
Everything is well controlled.
The Public well protected.
True, loaves cost a dollar each,
But our leaders do their best!
The selling price is half a cent..
Taxes pay the rest.
Consider yourself *highly* commended.
(...approving murmurs from the crowd, "How did he DO that?")
Cheers!
I actually had this book when I was little. I don’t think I really absorbed the moral. I understood that the Little Red Hen ate the pie by herself at the end, but it just didn’t represent any sort of lesson to me. The moral that always stuck with me was the right of refusal, “Not I,” said the cat. Yo, cat.
Errata - Arrested = Arrest, man, it’s late.
(I saved this from a FR thread from a few days ago, please excuse no link or commendation to the author)
THE ANT STORY
TRADITIONAL 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 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.’
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.
Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, John Kerry & 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 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 Clinton 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 Clinton 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: Be careful how you vote on November 4th, 2008.
You must not have gotten the memo. The Little Red Hen was sent to a re-education camp at Tyson Foods for sensitivity training, because of her exclusionary treatment of other species which violated the farm’s hate crimes law. She hasn’t been seen since.
Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat.
She called her neighbors and said, “If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?”
“Not I,” said the cow.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Not I,” said the pig.
“Not I,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen, and she did.
The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. “Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Above my pay grade,” said the pig.
“I'd lose my seniority,” said the cow.
“I'd lose my unemployment compensation,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen, and she did.
At last it came time to bake the bread. “Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the little red hen.
“That would be overtime for me,” said the cow.
“I'd lose my welfare benefits,” said the duck.
“I'm a dropout and never learned how,” said the pig.
“If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share.
But the little red hen said, “No, I can eat the five loaves.”
“Excess profits!” cried the cow.
“Capitalist leech!” screamed the duck.
“I demand equal rights!” yelled the goose.
And the pig just grunted.
And they painted “unfair” picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, “You must not be greedy. You must spread the wealth around.”
“But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.
“Exactly,” said the agent. “That is the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide their product with the idle.”
And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I am grateful. I am grateful.”
But her neighbors wondered why she never again baked any more bread.
Obviously you did not have an older brother who baked cookies, then told you, "No, everyone wants the Hen's bread, but no one does the work. You don't get any of the cookies that I baked. Unless you do the dishes NOW."
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