Saturday, January 31, 2009

GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT - THE REAL STORY

I Can't help but pass this along!  -It sounds real to me!

Thomson report
by John Thomson - Story: 44677
Jan 29, 2009 / 5:00 am

I was going through some papers looking at some stuff I had kept from last year and found this story. I'm not sure where I had received this from but got a laugh and thought you would too. The story about the ant and the grasshopper... 

CLASSIC 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 shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. 

THE END 

THE CANADIAN 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. So far, so good, eh? 

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 less 
fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. 

The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, 
with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table 
laden with food. 

Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor 
grasshopper is allowed to suffer while others have plenty. 

The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special 
from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing 'We Shall 
Overcome'. 

Jack Layton rants in an interview with Mike Duffy that the ant has gotten 
rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on 
the ant to make him pay his 'fair share'. 

In response to polls, the Conservative Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. 

The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire 
grasshoppers as helpers. 

Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed 
retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. 

The ant moves to the US, and starts a successful agribiz company. 

The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the 
ant's food, though spring is still months away, while the government house 
he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around 
him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. 

Inadequate government funding is blamed, Bob Rae is appointed to head a 
commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. 

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto Star blames 
it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. 

The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised 
by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, who 
promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community. 

THE END

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