I received this email from a blog friend in Florida and thought to share it. It's titled the 'Ant and the grasshopper."
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!
TODAY'S 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.'
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 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 & 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.
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.
My friend this time, though respecting your freedom of expression, you, your blooger friend that is, have gone overboard.
ReplyDeleteWell, I didn't write it. Yes, I published it, but I publish plenty of stuff I disagree with.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a way of trying to increase traffic. If you notice, I try all sorts of language, style and content to gauge who comes here. Alas, I suck at it.
Why is it over board?
I hear far more ridiculous claims in the mainstream media than this.
Moreover, if Michael Moore can make outrageous claims why can't I publish an article to which many people believe?
That is a nice twist. Why should anyone promote, by publishing or other means, ideas he or she does not share. Comment on them, yes, just spreading, no.
ReplyDeleteA newspaper editor or media editor, for information sake will do that. Unless I totally misunderstand blogging, that is not our cup of of tea, non?
Hm. Never looked at it that way. Honestly. I don't promote specific ideas. I don't want to be tied down. Sure sometimes I take a stand but overall the purpose of this blog can't really be defined and I like that.
ReplyDeleteWhich explains why this blog is often turned down for various publishing networks.
I try to introduce stuff people may not have thought of or thought to seek out. Moreover, this goes for sports, movies etc. I've linked to arts articles I don't understand but it doesn't mean readers here wouldn't like it.
The way I see it, I have the courage to publish and link articles that are not in line with my beliefs, values etc. I'd rather promote ideas. However, I do draw the line. I'm aware there are limits. I just don't see what the hubba-bub was about this one. Again, seen and heard far worse even in the MSM.
I probably should be more focused, but I think I'll stick to this method for now.
If anything, it keeps things interesting.
In a way you and Tony Kondaksakis have one thing in common: once on a track you keep going like a train.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is not dull, to say the least, provocative, yes, annoying, sometimes.
As far as I'm concerned, this one is offensive inthat it generalises and say basically that every destitute person has only him or herself to balme and is just a society exploiter.
I agree some are, but not all. For me that is what the hubub is about.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think the point is not blaming the individual per se but that rather, we go overboard in trying to use government to help even those who can't be helped.
ReplyDeleteIt makes a valid point. In my smallish brain. No seriously, I have a small head.
How far can we go?
As for the one track mind. Meh.
Annoying? "Meaning" you disagree with. Well, I take that as a good thing.
It's funny, you single out me and Kondaks. Me and Tony believe in the individual and we believe our outlook on (American) political matters are closer in line with what they were intended to be.
There's no way in hell the founding fathers would have agreed with the pure crap that goes on today. We're the ones who challenge the present orthodoxy but for some reason we're seen as "rigid." What rubbish.
I respectfully disagree on this one.
Amen
ReplyDelete