The playwright turned hero died on December 18,2011. He was described by CNN as “the shy but iron-willed Czech writer endowed with a playful sense of humor and a powerful [...]
morality
Absurdity is often an excellent way to make a point. Aesop thought so when he created the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. But just how much of a fable was it?
This email updates Aesop’s attempt at absurdity. Unfortunately for the country, other than the anthropomorphic elements, the fable is no longer a fable nor absurd. Much of it has already happened or now is entirely plausible.
THE NEW ANT and the Grasshopper, Two Versions:
**** 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 OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself !
**** MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain 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 he is 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 EasyBeing Green’. Occupy the Anthill stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the SEIU group singing, We Shall Overcome. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake, while he damns the ants.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush 43, President Bush 41, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid 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 GovernmentGreen Czar and given to the grasshopper. The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopperdoesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
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 ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THIS VERSION:Be careful how you vote in 2012.
You might want to send this on to other ants like yourself. Don’t waste time with grasshoppers, they have no incentive to understand.
Dec 272011
Irena Sendler in 2005
Irena Sendler was a true hero. As described by Wikipedia:
Irena Sendler (née Krzyżanowska, commonly referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland; 15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008)[1] was a Polish Catholic social worker who served in the Polish Underground and the Żegota resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw during World War II. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of theWarsaw Ghetto, providing them with false documents, and sheltering them in individual and group children’s homes outside the Ghetto.[2]
Compare her contributions to mankind with those of the phony heroes who get all the newsprint and political accolades. Her omission truly puts the fraud that the Nobel Prize has become into perspective. Compare her accomplishments to recent Nobel prize “winners.”
Thanks for the alert from reader JJC who sent the following:
“I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable.”
- Kurt Hoffman
This is a good story and was forwarded to me by a friend.I remember when it first came out what shame I felt at her having been passed over. She showed fantastic courage and unswerving moral conviction, literally putting her life on the line-day after day- to protect the innocent. Fearlessly snatching infants and children from the grip of Satan’s agents on earth, who among us could claim to show such conviction towards “doing the right thing” and following the commandments of God to love our neighbor, no matter the risk and no matter the cost?Yet, sickeningly, this moral hero and living saint was coldly passed Continue reading »
Dec 262011
If you don’t hold it, you may not own it.
This video is an interview of Ann Barnhardt by Peter Schiff where Ms. Barnhardt expresses in a “no-holds barred” manner her opinions on what is happening.
She is one angry woman with every right to be so. Her views should be heard by every American whether they invest or not. While the interview deals specifically with MF Global, the implications of what happened here are important to us all.
The Rule of Law no longer is honored. Without that, we are no better than a third-world banana republic subject to the whims of a dictator or dictator-class. Contracts and agreements have no meaning without the effective and impartial force of Law.
Every piece of paper is a contract waiting to be abrogated — stocks, bonds etc. Even segregated, identifiable, tagged assets are at risk. Even they were confiscated (stolen).
How many people are aware that brokerage funds are at risk? What about storage accounts at bullion houses? Is there any place where assets are safe other than buried in your backyard? When the government is starving, it goes hunting. We, unfortunately, are the prey. To the ruling class, we are nothing more than the feedstock to keep their plunder going.
Listen to Ms. Barnhardt and be aware of how far down the slippery slope we have already slid.
Dec 262011
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com:
Congress is the ideal American institution: it spends far more than it takes in and borrows the difference. We love that. To heck with the future. It means free money, services, wars, and other goodies. At least some of us get to profit from it. And then we blow it or invest it, and lose it or make money on it. It all adds up to that glorious GDP. It’s the American dream.
Lawmakers are so efficient at it that 36% of every dollar in the budget has to be borrowed…. Oh wait. They don’t do budgets anymore. They’re uncool. They do continuing resolutions. Given this bottomless largesse, mathematically speaking, it’s logical that Congress would have sky-high approval rating. Wait…. Oh no!
Only 11% of the people approve of the Herculean job lawmakers are doing, according to Gallup, which has a knack for peeking at our innermost feelings. It’s the lowest score since Gallup started tracking it in 1974.
How can that be? Didn’t we just learn that it’s a virtuous activity for lawmakers to give out privileged information on pending legislation? Profiting from opportunity is an American principle we cherish. So, a few hedge funds were given tradable information about compromises in the healthcare law just before the announcement on December 8, 2009. According to the Wall Street Journal:
They belong to a select group who pay for early, firsthand Continue reading »
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