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 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 so 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 grants 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 Liberal
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
I like the first version.
ReplyDeleteI take no joy in seeing even a lazy grasshopper die, but that is Gods way.
2 Thessalonians 3:9-11
9. not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.
10. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
11. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.