8101tom2

                            PARABLE OF A BEAST 
There was a cell in which 20 prisoners were confined. Each
evening 20 sandwiches and 20 pints of water were placed in the cell by the Jailer*. Now one of the prisoners, the Beast, was very large and very gruesome. He also had a beastly weapon with which he threatened his fellow prisoners. The Beast had ribs of steal ... which no man could pierce ... and, so, of each day's 20 sandwiches and 20 pints of water, the Beast took nearly 1/3, or 6.66 sandwiches and 6.66 pints of water. This left each of the remaining prisoners an average of 0.7021052 sandwich and 0.7021052 pint of water to fight over among themselves.

I say unto ye: All of the other prisoners hated the Beast (although some pretended admiration because of little favors the Beast would bestow when flattered). They hated the Beast because the Beast did not treat them as he himself would have liked to be treated.

                            Interpretation

(Statistical Analysis) The cell is the planet Earth.
The 20 prisoners are the inhabitants of the planet Earth: approximately 5,000,000,000 souls.

The 20 sandwiches and 20 pints of water are the resources of the planet Earth.

The steel ribs of the Beast are industry and technology. The weapon of the Beast is nuclear fission.

The Beast is the population of the United States of America, 1/20th of the total population of the souls on the planet Earth: though this figure may not correspond with that arrived at by the U,S. Census Bureau ... (what were your sins, King David?) those cold, callous computers aren't even sure of their own figures ... so, just for the hell of it we'll say 250,000,000, which is probably far more accurate anyway in view of the fact that nationalism is purely a state of mind, and states of mind can't be measured by body counts.

Some statistician, somewhere, said that the United States of America, its government, and its taxpayers, consume 1/3, or in this case, 6.66, of the resources of the planet Earth.

How Beastly.


* Footnote: The Jailer is God.