The two are one and shall reign forever and ever.

Dear George,

Evil grounded in passion will eventually exhaust itself. Evil grounded in the intellect continues indefinitely along the linear path of its ideology.

Passion hears the screams of the dying; intellect hears only the hum of an office air conditioner.

The linear evil that goes on and on, driven by its own momentum, is overseen by somber men who grew up in houses with darkened windows in which a smile was considered an inappropriate display of emotion, and anything less than perfection was punished.

Theirs is a sterile evil whose driving force is a fastidious need for perfect order, an order that will tolerate only the straight line and perfect symmetry. It speaks in hushed and measured tones that ooze with sweet reason.

Soldiers say shit rolls downhill. When a somber man raises his eyebrow, thousands die. Their toughness is a toughness nurtured in the hothouse of a bubble that shields them from the real world, making it possible the creation of the virtual world in which their evil flourishes.

They sit in offices bathed in fluorescent lights that cast no shadows, transfixed by the numbers and words dancing across their computer screens, numbers and words that are, for them, the world.

They are our modern-day priests who have restored human sacrifice to its former glory. Where once torn flesh was offered up to the gods, it is how offered up to Mammon, whose appetite is insatiable.

They are practitioners of a new theology that blends God and Mammon. In their eyes there is no difference between the two because John Calvin has told them they are among the blessed, so they believe themselves incapable of committing evil.

They are our Lords and Masters who are leading us into the Valley of Death in which we need fear no evil for their spreadsheets and power points protect us.

Let us continue to offer up burnt offerings that they may grow and prosper.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones