The Ant and The Grasshopper

[allthumbs]

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. Grasshopper has no food

or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

 

 

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 he's 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 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. Al Gore exclaims in an interview with

Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper,

and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

Finally, the EOC 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

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:

 

VOTE REPUBLICAN

 

[sk]

LOL

[Sargent_Rock]

So forgive me, but I'm trying to relate this little story to climbing (which I think this site is about): the Ant is the motivated/disciplined climber who gets up a 4AM, has goals and lists, can tick the numbers, and works out from dawn to dark. And the Grasshopper is the climber who gets up late (hungover), smokes pot and drinks coffee until noon, when (beer in hand) he/she finally leaves camp to do a moderate boulder problem in the evening sun... Right?

Well trask, it seems to me there are alot of climbers, most of us climbers who are somewhere between the Grasshopper and the Ant.

How do we vote?

[Ade]

This is the best argument you can come up with for voting republican? That's the best you can do? Ha Ha! How sad. How about, my "story".

 

"Vote Nader, because my dog would if given the chance."

 

This has several key advantages over yours. It tries to ensure that we don't end up with another president who can't say a single sentence without fucking it up. It doesn't misquote anyone, living or dead. It doesn't make the assumption that anyone who is poor got their by being stupid and lazy. Best of all it's short.

 

Did I mention that it's short? That's a good thing because like your story this has nothing to do with climbing.

[lemon]

I like grasshoppers.

woohoo

[MntnrMichael]

[salbrecher]

I thought come winter the grasshopper was going to get a down jacket and play some more, or go ice climbing.