Deep thoughts about evil
**
If they invited me on one of those radio shows where you choose your top 10 music tracks, I would choose the national anthem 10 times, so that everyone in the country would have to stand up for an hour.
The fact that I would find this incredibly enjoyable is conclusive proof of Original Sin and the fact that humanity is deeply evil at heart. Or at least I am.
***
Life can be hard for people with a naughty streak. Like that American guy who got "devil horns" implanted in his forehead because he thought it looked cool.
Everything was fine until his recent court case where he had to beg the judge to tell the jury that just because the guy in the dock was Satan Incarnate, it didn't automatically mean he was not a nice person.
***
Yet individual pranksters are easy to spot and make allowances for. The danger is when big, slick organizations act wickedly. A recent example: Beijing banker Li Jianhua worked himself to death pulling an all-nighter. His employers, the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission, held him up as an example other staff should follow: "We can all learn from Comrade Li Jianhua who gave an unremitting struggle to perform his best and to sacrifice everything."
Middle managers must have been delighted: "New rules, lads, working yourself to death is now the minimum requirement for promotion."
***
What hope is there? Well, I do believe that God surrounds naturally wicked people with excessively nice people, which is why so many sweet- natured readers have sent me lists of `Things I Am Grateful For' and urged me to follow suit.
I am grateful to Isaac Newton for inventing gravity because it would be so annoying if food and stuff kept floating away.
I am grateful for not being a cat and having to clean my genitals with my tongue every day.
I am grateful for my three wonderful children when I am filling in my annual tax deduction filing.
I am grateful for Halloween, because I don't need to clean the cobwebs from the corners of my room as they kind of fit right in.
I am grateful to Benjamin Franklin for inventing electricity. If he hadn't I'd need a team of runners just to swap a few e-mails with someone.
I am grateful that so many lovely people phone me and I can practice using Caller ID and the ignore button.
I am grateful for Facebook so that I don't have to phone 435 friends to tell them what I just ate.
I am grateful that every year I have less chance of having a bad hair day.
I am grateful for not having to write any more of this column but not half as grateful as you are for not having to read any more of it.