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Prem Christo, they are mean because they are stupid. Stupidity has always the shadow of meanness. The more intelligent you are, the less mean you are. The utterly intelligent person cannot have any meanness; it is impossible. He can have only love and compassion.

The stupid person has to be mean because that is the only way he thinks he can win. The intelligent person has no desire to win, the intelligent person is already victorious in his intelligence. The intelligent person is already superior in his intelligence, he has not to compete for it. The stupid person has to continuously compete. And because he is stupid, he cannot rely on his intelligence, he has to rely on something else: he becomes mean, cunning, deceptive, a hypocrite.

To me, stupidity is the only sin, and everything else is just a by-product of it. And intelligence is the only virtue; everything else that we have known as virtue follows it like a shadow.

Two politicians are returning home from the bar, late at night, drunk as usual. As they are making their way down the sidewalk one of them spots a heap of dung in front of them just as they are walking into it. "Stop!" he yells. "What is it?" asks the other. "Look!" says the first. "Shit!" Getting nearer to take a good look at it, the second drunkard examines the dung carefully and says, "No, it isn't, it's mud." "I tell you, it's shit," repeats the first. "No, it isn't," says the other. "It's shit!" "No!"

So finally the first angrily sticks his finger in the dung and puts it to his mouth. After having tasted it, he says, "I tell you, it is shit." So the second politician does the same, and slowly savoring it, says, "Maybe you are right. Hmm." The first politician takes another try to prove his point. "It's shit!" he declares. "Hmm, yes, maybe it is," answers the second, after his second try. Finally, after having had enough of the dung to be sure that it is, they both happily hug each other in friendship, and exclaim, "Wow, I'm certainly glad we didn't step on it!"

Enough for today.