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 grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
It starts out the same, but when winter comes, 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 and provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association for the Advancement of Green Bugs) shows up on NightLine and charges the ant with "Green Bias" and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News and tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the "Temperatures of the 80's". Richard Gephardt 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 EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism 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 moms who can only hear cases on Thursday afternoon between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled.
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's in - which just happens to be the ant's old house - crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "Fairness" has dawned in America.
Quickly he was faced with a class action suit for failure to file an environmental impact statement. He was granted a temporary permit for the project, but was stymied with the cease and desist order for the earthly part.
Appearing at the hearing, God was asked why he began his earthly project in the first place. He replied that he just liked to be creative.
Then God said, "Let there be light", and immediately the officials demanded to know how the light would be made. Would there be strip mining? What about thermal pollution? God explained that the light would come from a huge ball of fire. God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire; that he would obtain a building permit; and to conserve energy, would turn the light off half the time. God agreed and said he would call the light "Day" and the darkness "Night". Officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.
God said, "Let the earth bring forth green herb and bear much seed". The EPA agreed so long as native seed was used. Then God said, "Let waters bring forth creeping creatures begetting life; and the fowl that may fly over the earth". Officials pointed out this would require approval from the Department of Game coordinated with the Heavenly Wildlife Federation and the Audubongelic Society.
Everything was O.K. until God said he wanted to complete the project in Six days. Officials said it would take at least 200 days to review the application and impact statement. After that there would be a public hearing. Then there would be a 10-12 month approval period before.............
At this point, God created Hell.
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Kathy Harrig