2nd annual UPYERS previews

"Tom Nakashima" wrote in message
...

After your description Wolf, everyone here in ROFF has some evil in them.

Well, the mere possession of any of those characteristics doesn't
necessarily make one evil. Being a victim of Hansen's disease (leprosy),
for example, is generally conceded these days to be simply a physical
affliction, the result of bacterial infection, rather than a manifestation
of an inherent character defect or God's disfavor. Even the entire
inventory could leave one somewhat short of evil. Consider the case of a
child who is, through no fault of his or her own, dull-witted, cowardly,
short, illiterate, neurotic, indecorous, stinky, flatulent, indecisive,
pimply, piebald, mangy, leprous, scabrous, bespectacled, and illegitimate.
It will come as no surprise that he or she will not be very popular at
school (or even at home) and that he or she might, as a result, acquire the
rest of the list by a natural (if rather unfortunate) process of accretion
over a period of years. By now, a decidedly sour outlook on life is to be
expected. Even so, one can struggle to control or manage what can now be
seen as symptoms rather than inherent flaws......one can be bellicose in
disposition but never act on a warlike impulse. No action, no evil.

In fact, that last bit is the key to the whole thing. Unfortunately, simple
truths are the hardest to sell, and finding evil wherever one wishes to is
still the easiest route to justifying wholesale consignment to mass
graves......well, assuming that one can be bothered to bury the dead.

Wolfgang
who, in fairness, is only occasionally flatulent.