In the Beginning

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Quickly, God was faced with a citation from the regulatory board.

God was granted a temporary permit for the project, but was stymied with the cease-and-desist order for the earthly part.

Then God said, "Let there be light!" Immediately, the regulatory board 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 large ball of fire. God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire, that a building permit would be obtained, that there would be conservation of energy, and that the light would be out half the time.

God agreed and offered to call the light "day" and the darkness "night." The officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.

God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, with plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit." The advisory board agreed, so long as only native seed was used

And everything was OK — until God said the project would be completed in six days. The officials said it would take at least 200 days to review the applications and environmental impact statement. After that would be a public hearing. Then it would be 10-12 months before ...

At this point, God created hell.

--Copyright J, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California