A Small Price to Pay
                                                                                                                                                     copyright © 1999 by Robert L. Blau
    "Jesse!  This is the Lord speaking."
    "Which Lord?  Would that be the CEO of United Tobacconers' Trust, Amalgamated Inhalable Carcinogens, or Nicotar Corporation?"
    "No, Jesse.  The Lord Lord.  God.  The Giver of Life.  The Creator of the Universe.  The Inventor of Space and Time."
    Jesse was confused.  "Hmm.  Not in tobacco, eh?  I'll check my list of corporate contributors."
    "No, no.  Let me make this easy for you.  I'm the CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Universe."
    "So?  Are you a contributor?  My time is valuable.  Have you paid for your share?"
    "I'll put it this way, Jesse.  Without me, you don't get squat.  Do I have your attention?"
    "Undivided," said Jesse.
    "I am displeased with the way human beings have been screwing up my beautiful planet.  It is time to make a fresh start.  I am going to bring a great flood to the earth.  In seven days, it will start to rain.  The rain will continue for forty days and forty nights.  Every living thing on the planet will be destroyed.  Well, except for creatures that live in the water.  And cockroaches.  Even I can't exterminate all the cockroaches.  But I am offering you one chance for survival.  I want you to build an ark."
    "Yes?"
    "But here's the challenge," God continued.  You can't build it alone.  You have to build it in cooperation with Big Bill."
    "You mean Big Bill from the other party?  He won't do it."
    "He has already agreed.  Just listen to what you can accomplish:  If you build the ark together, it will hold everyone.  Nobody has to perish in the flood.  All you have to do is cooperate."
    "You mean you asked him first?"  Jesse was aghast.
    "Yes.  What difference does it make?  What do you say?"
    "He's going to get the credit!"
    "Some of it, yes.  About 50%, if my math is right.  And it is.  I invented math, you know."
    "We couldn't get a building permit in seven days."
    "Don't worry about that.  You have my permission to build."
    "I don't know how to build an ark."
    "I'll help you.  I invented shipbuilding, you know."
    "I have a big tobacco deal to broker."
    "If you don't act, there won't be any tobacco in a week.  I should know.  I created tobacco."
    "There are important trade issues."
    "There won't be any trade.  There won't even be any nations."
    "The agenda's full.  I couldn't possibly fit it in in a week."
    "If you don't do this one thing, you'll never finish anything on your agenda."
    "You know, you're pretty dense for a Supreme Being.  Do I have to spell it out for you?  You don't seem to understand politics at all!"
    "You're right there.  That's one of the few things I didn't invent.  Lucifer's the expert on that."
    "Don't you see that if I cooperate with the other party, I lose face.  It would be a victory for them.  But if I don't, it's a victory for me!"
    "But Jesse," said the Lord, "this so-called victory will cost the lives of untold millions."
    Jesse smiled contentedly.  "It's a small price to pay," he said.

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    While India and Pakistan play a game of nuclear chicken, and international terrorism is on the upswing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is stalled in the Senate.  I wrote a  letter to my two senators asking why this was so.  Here, in part, is the response from Senator Kay B. Hutchison's office:  "Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has already indicated in a letter to the President that due to a full legislative calendar this year, the CTBT is not likely to come to a vote."  So once again, we say clearly to the world that we have no commitment to a nuclear test ban.  Not only is it not our top priority, or one of our 20 top priorities.  It doesn't even make the list.