The king wanted to go fishing, and he asked the royal weather forecaster the forecast for the next few hours.
The palace meteorologist assured him that there was no chance of rain.
So the king and the queen went fishing. On the way he met a man with a fishing pole riding on a donkey, and he asked the man if the fish were biting.
The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, you should return to the palace!
In just a short time I expect a huge rain storm”
The king replied: “I hold the palace meteorologist in high regard. He is an educated and experienced professional. Besides, I pay him very high wages. He gave me a very different forecast. I trust him.”
So the king continued on his way.
However, in a short time a torrential rain fell from the sky. The King and Queen were totally soaked.
Furious, the king returned to the palace and gave the order to fire the meteorologist.
Then he summoned the fisherman and offered him the prestigious position of royal forecaster.
The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. I obtain my information from my donkey. If I see my donkey’s ears drooping, it means with certainty that it will rain.”
So the king hired the donkey.
And thus began the practice of hiring dumb asses to work in influential positions of government. The practice is unbroken to this date, and thus the democrat party symbol was born.
Source: unknown, circulating on Facebook and email
Here is the original:
Long ago, there was a king who ruled over a large kingdom. The king lived high on a mountain in his castle. From his window, he could look down on the towns and fields which surrounded his castle on three sides. On the fourth side, the king could see the sea, and endless blue ribbon stretching out toward the horizon. It was a beautiful view from the castle, and so the king assumed that everyone lived as happy a life as he. Down in the valley, however, there was great unhappiness. Little rain had fallen in more than a year. The drought brought hunger, because the crops were meager that year. The people were hungry and feared starvation. The king’s granaries, however, were full. He treasury was filled with gold, and his royal pantry was well-stocked with foods from all over the world, including a hundred different delicacies. The king was unaware of what was happening in his kingdom, because he rarely spoke with his people and did not care much about their lives.
The people in the kingdom worried. No rain fell, the crops dried up, and the people grew hungrier and hungrier. They knew that the king’s granaries were full, and some people suggested that they approach the king and ask for food, but everyone was afraid to go to the castle.
Finally, in desperation, an old fisherman volunteered to go speak with the king. “Why not?” he reasoned, “I am old and will soon die, anyway. If I don’t die of old age, I will surely die of starvation.” And so he set out, trudging up the mountain to the castle.
The king received the man graciously. After all, he rarely had visitors from among his subjects. The old fisherman described to the king what was happening in the towns and villages of his kingdom, how the drought had affected the crops, how the people were hungry, and how they feared starvation.
The king yawned, looking bored, and replied, “That’s not my concern. I don’t feel hungry and I don’t feel their hunger.”
The old fisherman could feel anger welling up inside him. He thought he would explode with anger, but he realized that this would accomplish nothing. He thought quickly. Then he responded, “I see your point, Your Majesty. And, naturally, you are right. And just so that you know I mean you only well, I would like to invited you come fishing with me. I have heard that you love to go fishing, and I know the most wonderful spot. The water is stiff with fish, and you will have a wonderful time.”
Now the king couldn’t resist an invitation like this, and so he went with the fisherman. They got into the fisherman’s tiny, delapidated, rowboat. The old fisherman rowed hard, and the king rested, sunning himself. Finally, after an hour of rowing along the shore, they arrived at a beautiful little inlet. The king looked around, but saw nothing but rocks and seaweed.
“This is the spot from which we head out to sea, Your Majesty,” said the old fisherman, and he rowed straight out away from from shore for another half hour. Then the old fisherman pulled his oars into the boat, took an awl out of his back pocket, and began chipping a hold in the bottom of the boat under his seat.
“What are you doing, old man?” exclaimed the king in alarm. “Stop that this instant! Do your realize what you’re doing? You’re going to sink the boat!”
“Yes, I know. That is what I intend to do,” responded the old man quietly. “I am trying the sink the boat. I am so hungry, like all the people in your kingdom, that I want to die.”
“But I do not want to die!!” shouted the king.
“No, Your Majesty. I know that. That is why I am only making a hole under my seat in the boat, at my end of the boat. What happens at your end of the boat is not my concern.”
The king’s anger turned to laughing, and then to sadness. “I see what you are saying, my good man. You have made your point well. I have closed my eyes to what others feel because I did not feel it myself. Please row me back to shore — safely — and I will open my granaries to everyone. And I thank you, old man, for your great wisdom in teaching me a lesson I sorely needed to learn.”
The king made the old fisherman his trusted advisor, and the old fisherman was placed in charge of the granaries where, like Joseph of old, he dispensed food and kept everyone alive until the drought ended. The king and the old fisherman became good friends, and frequently went out fishing together.
Three old guys go for a walk. The first says, “It’s windy.” The second says, “No, it’s Thursday”. The third says, “Yep, me too, let’s go get a beer”. And we did. And we all had multithousand dollar hearing aids on.
Know the feeling !! (or hearing)
At least you ended up in the right place.
In my better moments I recall we are all making huge decisions with almost no quantifiable data. Makes me want to befriend a soul who’s perception is diametrically opposed to mine and never once tell them they are wrong. Life is to short to insist on accuracy at all times
There are times when a good enemy would be more valuable to you than the best of friends.
The first version does not work with British spelling.
Both sound very much like ancient Chinese Taoist tales.
Yes, and all sound just like old European tales of wisdom and caution…which is what they are. They are no longer needed for the education of children in this enlightened age…they have socialism now…general knowledge, history and any alternative societal wisdoms are strictly verboten. See Berkley.
I thought this was gonna be the one about the guy seated by his donkey lifting up the test a cles of the donkey. The fisherman asks someone if it will rain, and they direct the fisherman to go ask the guy sitting by his donkey.
“You can tell the weather by lifting up a donkey’s test a cles?”
“No, but I can’t see the clouds if the test a cles are in the way. So, I just lift them and look at the horizon.”
The way I heard it he was asked what time it was. So he readjusted the burro’s testicles so he could see the town clock tower.
The more likely ending: the king, having convince the old man to take him to shore, promptly had the old man and all his family tortured and put to death. From that point onwards the people forgot about their hunger and were thankful they didn’t end up like the old man and his family.
In this fashion the king made the people grateful while preserving the wealth of the nation.
The first fable is the winner. I believe the moral of the story is “Close observation of dumb asses leads to constructive policy decisions while following the advice of experts leads to disaster.” which leads to my favorite dumb ass joke: Did you hear what happened to the butcher whom backed into the meat grinder? He got a little behind in his work! But his wife’s case was even worse… She backed into the fan… Dis assed her!
I was told the latter as ‘Did you hear about the lady that backed into the airplane prop?, It dis-assed her!’
King Al Gore heard not
The Kings chief advisor who built the hockey stick graph kept his fingers in his well funded ears
Thus the ways of donkey Democrats
Still trying to figure out if the climate alarmists are the frog or the scorpion.
Just so you know: the donkey is one of the smartest animal. Unlike it’s reputation.
The King, the Mice, and the Cheese is a good tale of the times. You should partake of this reading with your milk and cookies, but the general rebus is
[a:] Mice -> Cats -> Dogs -> Lions -> Elephants -> [a]
I find the story applicable to climate and energy politics. A series of proposed solutions, each one clever and innovative and cherry-picked by lobbyists, is applied to an initial problem, each requiring (glossed-over) external inputs of manufacturing overhead and effort. After unaccountably massive losses and many foreseen and unforeseen circumstances we are returned once again to face the initial problem A different but simpler solution is offered.
When ever I hear about the disaster of ethanol or irreliables where a flawed concept is deceptively cloaked by pretend ‘intricacies’… or the clownlike techno-apparatchiks who are fronting coal powered electric cars as a solution to anything… I am reminded of this tale.
The Wise Men in the tale represent the contingent who would rather bring in grandiose untested ideas to foist their intellectual property on everyone — rather than work to refine old and familiar processes for peak efficiency.
Hopefully the old man advised the king to dig reservoirs and irrigation ditches.
BTW, doesn’t the King sound like the Norks Kim Sung Unhinged? Socialism: the authentic Trickle Down Economic System
In the original fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants, the slacker grasshopper starves come winter. In kinder versions of the tale, the productive ants extend charity.
In a socialist version, the scheming locusts would rob food from the ants, drop a little down to the grasshoppers, and keep most of it for themselves. The grasshoppers decry the ants as greedy speciesists and hail the locusts as champions of the poor and downtrodden. As the ants start to run out of food and go hungry, the grasshoppers, with encouragement from the locusts, haughtily dismiss their plight as the distress of the privileged. When the ants finally get fed up with the whole thing and revolt, the locusts abscond with their ill-gotten gains and leave the shocked, indignant grasshoppers holding the bag. Everybody but the locusts goes hungry that winter.
Once, on an extended backpacking trek, we came to a river where a canoeist provided crossings. First person we’d seen in a while, so I asked him what the weather forecast was:
“Hard tellin’, not knowin'”
was all he said.
Eventually, the donkey learned that when he drooped his ears, he got to stay inside and have food brought to him, and he so he kept his ears drooped all the time.
An African American Baptist Minister, a Jewish Rabbi, and a Catholic Priest walked into a voting station . . . and they all voted for Trump!
A democrat, walking down the street, walked into a bar … so he said “ouch”.
[Then sued the bar, the owner of the bar, the regulators who didn’t control the bar the way she wanted it controlled, and the city which did not force the bar to move out of her way before she got there. .mod]
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, but he will still vote for the politician who promises free fish.
A vital part missing in the story.
This line: “The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. I obtain my information from my donkey. If I see my donkey’s ears drooping, it means with certainty that it will rain.”
Should read:
The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. The donkey told me.”
The King replied: “The donkey is a dumb animal and can not speak.”
“True,” said the fisherman, “but, if his ears droop, it means with certainty that it will rain.”
There; fixed it.