The Ant and the Grasshopper, Modernized for Today's America

In the original version of this tale that we all know so well, 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. The moral of the story is to be responsible for yourself!

There is a new version of the story circulating on the Internet that has updated and modernized the tale to better fit today’s America. In this new version, the ant still works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper still thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. But in today’s America, the lazy Grasshopper is not left out in the cold to die. Come winter, he calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others, like himself, are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide a split-screen image of the shivering grasshopper on one side and the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food on the other.

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?” they cry out. 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.

Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry 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 government.

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.

To quote David Allen Grier, “America, have you lost your damned mind?!"

"How Long Do We Have?" - A Follow Up...

You may recall my article from November 5, “How Long Do We Have?” in which I wrote and cited the following:

“According to Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, the United States of America has already outlived its expiration date. About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, who was studying the rise and fall of democracies wrote:

‘A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.’”

I would like to add to my article of November 5th, the following additional facts that were pointed out in an email I received, which cited a recent BusinessWeek Magazine article:

"Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential election:

-Number of States won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30
-Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000; Republicans: 2,427,000
-Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 143 million
-Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2; Republicans: 2.1"

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens. Democratic territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in rented or government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the ‘complacency and apathy’ phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the ‘governmental dependency’ phase.”

These election results are further proof that not only is our democracy over the hill, we are continuing to accelerate down the other side. I stress again today, as I did on November 5th, that this process is reversible and that we can turn this country back around, but it would be one of the few times in history where a democracy has succeeded in doing so.

No Voter Turnout

Pillsbury Mayor Darrel Brudevold reports that turnout in the city’s primary election is usually fairly high. “I dare say a half-dozen people usually make it to the polls,” he said.

That half-dozen represents about a quarter of the residents in the Barnes County farming community, in southeastern North Dakota. On June 10, 2008, however, no one showed up to vote, not even those on the ballot.

Brudevold ran unopposed for re-election. His wife, Ruth, and Dan Lindseth faced no challengers for their alderman seats. “Everybody has got a job and they’re busy,” Brudevold said. “It just worked out that nobody seemed to go down there to the polls.”

Only about 11 people live in Pillsbury proper, and the remainder of the residents live on farms outside the city. There is no precinct in town, so residents must drive about 12 miles to neighboring Sibley to cast their votes. Brudevold’s wife, Ruth, runs the beauty shop and is the town’s postmaster. She said she was too busy with work to make it to the polls. Brudevold said he intended to vote, but that he had crops to tend.

Barnes County Auditor Ed McGough said those in office can stay there and appoint people, including themselves, to the jobs until the next election. “I presume things will stay the same,” Brudevold said. “We’re just a little village, and when you’re elected to one of those jobs, well, once you get it, you got it.”

The council meets about five times a year, Brudevold said. Members are each paid $48 annually, and a good portion of that goes for doughnuts at the meetings or gas to get there, he said. “Not everybody usually makes it to the meetings, so it really doesn’t get out of hand,” he said. “The only time we really get people to show up is when we want to raise taxes - then everybody shows up.”

They Don't Make Dells Like They Used To

I'm back to blogging after a brief heitus. I won't get too deep into the details that led to a week-long break, but let me just say that they don't make Dells like they used to.

I bought an Inspiron 8200 way back in 2001 and know that it would still be going strong today had I not spilled a bottle of water on the keyboard in September of 2006.

On the other hand, the newer work-horse Inspiron 1300 that I bought in September 2006 to replace my 8200 is already on its way to the green recycling center.

I've converted my everyday "computering" over to the Inspiron 9400 that I bought some three years ago as our home computer, but have used very seldom.

It has a large and beautiful screen, but also has a huge case, and weighs about twice as much as my 1300 did, but I'll make do. We'll see how long the 9400 goes, but we might be switching brands once the 9400 has run its course.

Switching brands is not something I normally do, but like I said, they just don't make Dells like they used to.

Saying Goodbye To A Great American

America's heroes are undoubtedly those who storm beaches in far off lands, and those who rush in to save others at the risk of their own lives, but America's heroes are also those that serve day in and day out in an all-too-thankless capacity, ensuring that the foundation of America stays strong.

Where would we be without the people who step up and do their duty for America each and every day, contributing to their community, serving as a role model, pouring their life's work into making this a better place for all of us?

Today, we are saying goodbye to a great American; one who in my eyes is a true American hero.

Timothy J. Heaslet, Sr. served his community and his country for over thirty years, and I am saddened at his passing, but at the same time, so very happy that I had the opportunity to meet him.

I am comforted in the fact that in his final moments, "The Judge," as he will always be affectionately known as, was surrounded by loved ones.

I can only hope to enjoy the final moments and years of my life surrounded by as much love as I know he was.

Please take a minute to read an article on The Judge that appeared in the Press-Enterprise.

How Long Do We Have?

There is one thing that we in the business community need to clearly worry about as a result of last night's election, and that is whether or not we are going to be seeing an increase in our business taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal, 50% of small businesses could now see their taxes increase in the next four years.

While we would like it to not be the case, when business taxes increase, we need to either cover the additional expense by growing our business, or cutting back on essential spending.

For many businesses, economic conditions like the ones we are facing today make it very difficult to create business growth. Despite the best intentions of politicians, when businesses have to cut back spending, the chances that business will have to reduce work forces greatly increase.

As we take stock of last night's results and take a posture of waiting to see, let me share something with you that made its way to my email inbox this morning:

According to Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, the United States of America has already outlived its expiration date. About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, who was studying the rise and fall of democracies wrote:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.

A Flying-Fish Record Recorded

A Japanese TV crew has filmed what is believed to be the longest flight of a flying fish ever recorded.

The NHK television network said one of its camera crews captured the 45-second flight from a ferry near Kuchino-erabu Island in southwestern Japan.

The crew was reportedly on its way to shoot footage for a nature documentary.

The fish can be seen occasionally beating its tail against the surface of the water to keep itself aloft.

The ferry was traveling at speed of about 20 mph (30 kilometers per hour) during the encounter, NHK said.

More than 50 species of flying fish, in the marine family known as Exocoetidae, are found in warmer ocean waters worldwide. They can rise out of the water to avoid predators underneath, and stretch out their long pectoral fins to glide through the air.

Usually the fish remain airborne for just a few seconds before landing back in the water - but as Monday’s video demonstrated, they can give themselves another boost with their tail fins.

The previous record for a fish’s compound flight was 42 seconds, reported from Florida by a sea captain with a stopwatch in 1928. A 45-second flight may well be close to the physical limit for a flying fish, since the creature must suspend brachial respiration in the air, NHK reported.

Amazing Ship Find

A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the “Holy Grail” shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water.

Shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the HMS Ontario, which was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780.

The 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes.

“To have a Revolutionary War vessel that’s practically intact is unbelievable. It’s an archaeological miracle,” said Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith, who chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, “The Legend of the Lake.”

The finders of the wreck said they regard it as a war grave and have no plans to raise it or remove any of its artifacts. They said the ship is still considered the property of the British Admiralty. Although the vessel sits in an area where the water is up to 500 feet deep and cannot be reached by anyone but the most experienced divers, Kennard and Scoville declined to give its exact location, saying only that it was found off the southern shore.

The sloop was discovered resting partially on its side, with two masts extending more than 70 feet above the lake bottom. “Usually when ships go down in big storms, they get beat up quite a bit. They don’t sink nice and square. This went down in a huge storm, and it still managed to stay intact,” Scoville said. “There are even two windows that aren’t broken. Just going down, the pressure difference, can break the windows. It’s a beautiful ship.”

Smith, who was shown underwater video of the find, said: “If it wasn’t for the zebra mussels, she looks like she only sunk last week.” The dark, cold freshwater acts as a perfect preservative, Smith said.

At that depth, there is no light and no oxygen to hasten decomposition, and little marine life to feed on the wood. The Ontario went down on Oct. 31, 1780, with a garrison of 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians, and possibly about 30 American war prisoners.

The warship had been launched only five months earlier and was used to ferry troops and supplies along upstate New York’s frontier. Although it was the biggest British ship on the Great Lakes at the time, it never saw battle, Smith said.

Speaking From Inside The Egg

Biologists have known that shortly before hatching, crocodiles make noises within their eggs.

A new study, which involved playbacks of the pre-hatching calls, reveals these calls from the egg tell siblings it’s time to hatch and tell moms it’s time to uncover the nest.

Researchers Amélie Vergne and Nicolas Mathevon of the Jean Monnet University in France monitored Nile crocodile eggs that were due to hatch within 10 days.

The eggs were placed into one of three groups, for which the researchers either played recordings of pre-hatching calls, recordings of noise (other than the calls), or no sound.

The group of eggs that got a dose of real crocodile calls responded and moved, as the about finger-sized babies jostled about, more often than the “noise” eggs.

The eggs incubated in silence showed no movement.

All four of the individuals that successfully hatched in the crocodile-call group did so during or within 10 minutes of the playbacks.

The Methuselah Tree

Scientists have grown a tree from what may be the oldest seed ever germinated.

The new sapling was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old date palm excavated in Masada, the site of a cliff-side fortress in Israel where ancient Jews are said to have killed themselves to avoid capture by Roman invaders.

Dubbed the “Methuselah Tree” after the oldest person in the Bible, the new plant has been growing steadily, and after 26 months, the tree was nearly four-feet tall.

The species of tree, called the Judean date, is now extinct in Israel, but researchers are hoping that by reviving the plant they may be able to study its medicinal uses.

“The medicinal plants from this region are very important because they are historically mentioned in the Bible and the Koran,” said Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem, which initiated the experiment to grow the tree as part of its Middle East Medicinal Plant Project. “The Judean date was very valuable and very famous, not just as a source of food but as a source of medicine,” Sallon said. “When I heard there were ancient seeds found in the archeological dig, I thought it would be interesting to see if we could try to grow them.”

Carbon dating of the seeds found at Masada revealed that they date from roughly the time of the ancient fortress’ siege, in A.D. 73.

The seeds were found in storage rooms, and appear to have been stockpiled for the Jews hiding out against the invading Romans.

An Elusive Kitten Stowaway

It was the stereotypical firefighters-try-to-rescue-cat story, but with a twist.

Firefighters from the South Florida city of Weston spent a sopping hour in pouring rain Tuesday trying to extract a kitten squeezed in the undercarriage of a stranger’s Volvo.

The crew tried jacking up the car and taking off a wheel, all for naught.

The feline ducked out of reach at each attempt to grab it.

At some point, the cat escaped undetected, prompting the crew to spend another hour peering in bushes and scouring a Walgreen’s parking lot.

They finally gave up and headed back to the station, answering at least two more calls on their way.

Five hours after the saga began, the elusive cat reappeared: At the station, in their fire truck’s rear wheel well.

This time, firefighters used chunks of meatloaf to try luring it out. It was un-enticed, so the crew resorted to an ultimately successful three-pronged strategy: One firefighter poked the feline in the backside with a Slim Jim, another used a hose to force it into an open compartment so a third person could pull it out.

The feline was dirty but unharmed.

An Amazing Underwater Find

Marine archaeologists will begin work in June to uncover the sand-buried hull of a 2,300 year-old cargo ship thought to have been ferrying wine from the Aegean island of Chios before it sank off Cyprus’ southern coast, researchers said Thursday.

The vessel, dating from the late Classical period (midfourth century B.C.) is one of only a few such ships to have been found so well-preserved, said University of Cyprus visiting marine archaeologist Stella Demesticha.

“The shipwreck looks very promising about shedding light on the nautical and economic history of the period in the east Mediterranean,” Demesticha told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The wreck rests on the seabed at a depth of 144 feet some 1 1/2 miles off the island’s southern coast.

Demesticha said the wreck was also unique because it lies at a depth that divers can easily reach, unlike similar discoveries found in deeper waters.

Unreleased underwater photographs that researchers took of the vessel on initial surveying dives in November show a jumble of dozens of amphorae — clay urns used in antiquity to carry liquids and solid foodstuffs — lying on the seabed in the shape of the ship.

Demesticha said researchers believe the ship’s hull to be buried under tons of sand. The amphorae closely resemble others found to contain Chios wine, but may have been used to transport other goods in ancient sea trade.

The discovery could also provide more clues into Cyprus’s role in maritime trade during the last phases of the Cypriot city-kingdoms, researchers said.

Some Word Origins...

Geek: In the circus, a performer who sank sufficiently low would do horrible things (like biting the heads off live chickens) for booze money. The poor soul was called a geek. How it later came to describe smart people is unknown, but I am sure 80’s movies helped it along.

Two Cent’s Worth: During the Civil War, the cheapest cigar you could but cost two pennies. “Two-center” cigars became synonymous with cheapness, and by the late 1800’s, people who wanted to project fauxhumility would offer their two cent’s worth.

Shoddy: A scandal erupted during the Civil War when some textilers sold the army uniforms made out of the scraps left over from their wool-making process. This cheap fabric was called shoddy. In no time, the noun turned into an adjective.

White Paper: In Victorian England, policy and legislation were delivered to Parliament in gigantic books with blue covers called Blue Papers. Lesser, shorter government business was delivered in smaller books with white covers, called White Papers.

Pundits: Brits who traveled to India met Hindi scholars who taught religion and law. They were knows as pandits. Soon enough, scholarly Londoners were known as pundits.

Kiosks: In Turkey, outdoor pavilions used for public meetings were called kiushks.

Haywire: In the 1800’s, New England loggers took bales of hay into the forest with them to feed their horses. These bales were bound with thin wire that was also used to make small repairs on the loggers’ equipment. The more that stuff broke, the more wire the loggers needed. Logging companies and groups of loggers that ended up using a lot of hay wire on their equipment, they were called haywire outfits. Slowly the term began to describe the actual process of the equipment breaking down and not working properly.

A Sea Turtle Migration Record

Scientists have long been tracking the migration of sea turtles as they work to protect them from extinction.

Their work, at times, has included tracking the migration patterns of individual turtles.

Recently, one leatherback sea turtle traveled 12,774 miles from Indonesia to Oregon, one of the longest recorded migrations of any vertebrate animal and a record for a sea turtle.

Leatherback sea turtles are the largest of all living turtles and are widely distributed throughout the world’s oceans.

They have been seen in the waters off Argentina, Tasmania, Alaska and Nova Scotia. Adult leatherbacks periodically migrate from their temperate foraging grounds to breeding grounds in the tropics.

Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service tracked one female nester, who was tagged on Jamursba-Medi beach in Papua, Indonesia, on her journey back to her foraging grounds off the coast of Oregon.

She was tracked for 647 days covering a distance about equal to two round trips between New York and Los Angeles.

The longest measured annual migration for any animal is the 40,000-mile journey between New Zealand and the North Pacific of the sooty shearwater puffin, a medium-sized seabird.

"Oh, It's The Alkylate's Fault..."

Experts are predicting pump prices, which jumped by almost a dollar a gallon in each of the last two springs in many parts of the United States, will spike again this year as refiners and gas stations switch from winter- to summer-blended fuels.

The increases, starting as early as February in southern California, could push the average national price to a record $3.50 a gallon or more by June. Prices in urban areas on each coast could approach $4 a gallon.

And the reason for the spring price shocks? Analysts say it’s linked to a shortage of alkylate, a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.”

It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago when the potentially cancer-causing additive was found to be seeping into ground water.

The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of (alkylate) will set the price of summer gasoline — not inventory levels,” he said.

Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a by-product of the oil refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output, and alkylate prices today are more than 15 percent higher than spot gasoline prices.

That means overall costs will jump when it is added in larger quantities to summer-blend fuels.

Without additives, gasoline doesn’t burn completely, increasing tailpipe air pollution. And untreated gas evaporates more quickly in hot weather, potentially causing vapor lock when it changes from a liquid to a gas and blocks fuel lines.

The federal government long ago required refiners to boost the oxygen content of summer-blend gasoline to make it burn more completely, a problem that was solved by adding MTBE and, more recently, ethanol.

But ethanol also has a high evaporation rate, so refiners increasingly have turned to alkylate, which Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., calls the “magic bullet” in making summer gasoline.