Posted on 02/02/2009 3:52:12 AM PST by Vanders9
REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving 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 squirrel is warm and well fed, the shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
THE END
THE U.K. VERSION:
The squirrel 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 squirrel is warm and well fed, but a social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table heavily laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The newly created Grasshopper Action Group demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing 'We shall overcome'.
Some champagne socialist rants in an interview that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his 'fair share'
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the "Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act", retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The squirrel's taxes are reassessed.
He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with free housing, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.
The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain 's apparent love of dogs.
The cats are arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but are immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned, because it was feared they would be killed by the mice.
The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.
A "hard-hitting" BBC documentary special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still weeks away, while the house he is in crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers' drug 'illness'.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in the UK.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry into the whole affair is set up. It eventually costs ten million pounds and states the obvious.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, but the nation's dogs are criticised for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for a government minister to resign.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them that there were mice in the UK.
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
THE END
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The Ant and the Grasshopper, also known as The Grasshopper and the Ant or The Grasshopper and the Ants, is a fable attributed to Aesop, providing a moral lesson about hard work and preparation. In the numbering system established for Aesopic fables by B. E. Perry, it is number 373.[1] The fable has been retold or adapted in a number of modern works.
A modern satirical version of the story, in circulation since at least 2002, has the grasshopper calling a press conference at the beginning of the winter to complain about socio-economic inequity, and being given the ant's house. This version was written in 1994 by Pittsburgh talk show guru, Jim Quinn.[3] Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin also updated the story in connection with the proposed 2008 banking rescue package.[4]
EXAMPLE:
*****MODERN VERSION*****:
http://www.woodburygop.com/node/138
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, 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 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.
The UK: A paragon of absurdity in the West.
But here in the US we've got mostly sheep. "Fleece me, baby!"
I know all about Aesop - obviously this is a parody of it.
By “original work” I meant that it wasnt taken off some newspaper. Perhaps I should have said “unknown author”. I certainly wasnt intending to claim it as my own. Someone sent me that and I hadn’t seen it and I thought it might be a bit of a laugh for people.
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