Hypocrisy Vulgaris

"No religion, no money," says God to the poor Europeans, and to us in the Balkans He fatherly says that it is healthy to eat shit on bread, just let us go to church and accommodate the pope, at the elections let's vote for the most pious political perverts, let us make as many different sects and cherish the fratricidal conflicts. And we should never enter into union with the godless Europeans, because we will be better so than them.


Yeah, right...

It's not the idiot who bash down such a things in public, but the one who believes it. Stuart Varney is sufficiently seasoned pro, but he still spitted through TV FOX Business that he would never have agreed to follow the European economic model, because the Europeans are "a pack of pagan losers" and therefore they still suffer the recession (!). When the storm rose, Varney has called an American priest from the Vatican in his studio and asked him the question "Is the tendency to secularism, turning away from Christianity have anything to do with the economic problems of Europe?" Then the sweet church mercenary acted a short sermon and the topic by the end of the program remained suspended "in the air".

It was a move of a professional entertainer. Stuart Varney knows too well how to manipulate religious viewers using only two elements: 1) fable about capitalism with Christian ethics, 2) concealing the fact that a recession spread from USA like the plague. First of all, Max Weber released his hypothesis about the capitalism with the Protestant ethic somewhere between the works of Marx's materialistic capitalism and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", right between reality and fantasy, just when the formation of the majority religious sects known today completed. Weber's fable was kindled among the religious, and the smarter among them knew how to use it for their benefit. When he saw that the industrialists and bankers from different churches use their "brotherly" ties for their own immediate benefit and that of their community (and even that of their race!), Weber came out with the statement that he rejected deterministic approaches, and presented the Protestant Ethic as merely one in a number of 'elective affinities' leading toward capitalist modernity, thus leaving the space for materialism. Fair enough.

Secondly, the damned recession we  still recovering of not only started in USA, but the American hypocritical moral is a fact that will remain forever etched in world's history. In the last century, parallel with the proliferation of evangelization as a business Americans put more bloody military pressure on the world, got more poorer healthcare and more poor and discontented people. During that time, Sweden, Norway and others honestly assessed their capitalism based on materialism, perfected socialism, improved standards of living, built an excellent system of healthcare and education raised to the heights. But statistics from the year 2005 (statistics is also a whore) states that those are exactly the countries with a minimum of residents who claim to believe in God (see picture).

To Jesus are attributed the words: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth..." (Matthew 6:19). If this is not the opposite of capitalist principles, then the Filipinos and other Christians are the richest, with the highest standard, without any external debt, America has never had a recession, and the godless Europeans are really a pack of losers and pious Balkans have nothing to look for at these poor European countries! However... The kingdom of heaven is still invisible, so we do not know how to live there, but in this world, in the midst of a materialistic struggle for survival, it turns out that Jesus' golden rule "love your neighbor" is actually louder in European countries whose citizens do not go to church than from pulpits around the world. Even in Japan, Shinto country, because everyone knows  how to "scratch back" of residents, workers and peasants in order for the country's welfare. Even a pack of baboons know for that golden rule while they groom parasites from each other's fur!

"No religion, no money" God is threatening - this is not true, ask the Swedes and your neighbors' guest workers who ran to the Gentiles from our pious country. Why Christian Balkans together with the Filipinos and many poor Americans put shit on bread? Because no one is doing what they preach. Simply, Hypocrisy Vulgaris. The more religious and political chatter, the less altruism in relationships. The less we care for loved ones, we exploit them more. And it cannot go in such a way forever. We either are going to banish religious and political hypocrites and learn to "scratch each other's back", or the Americans will come with tanks to teach us the principles of a fundamentalist Christianity. In the latter case, we will continue to eat shit on bread, with addition of a few extra TV channels with infertile sermons over current TV programs with incapable politicians. Do we really need it?

The Angel

What does a real angel look like? Finally someone made it and showed it to the public! After a thousand years of religious myths of naked winged babies and fagots in white robes we finally have a model of a being that watch over people!

On that day, in just a few minutes of panic, under concrete boulders are crushed about 10,000 students together with their teachers. Double that number of parents for days after the earthquake dug away concrete, bricks, windows and furniture  using only their bare hands in order to reach flabby bloody bodies of their dead children. Dusty air was filled by sobbing of those who dug out cold bodies of their sisters, parents ...

At the same time on a nearby playground among the ruins of the city quietly flourished life. Students and teachers of one school obediently were gathered and lined up in rows, only a few minutes after the disastrous earthquake of  May 12th, 2008. The principal was wiping tears and dust from his face and called out the names - all were there, 2323 of them, none absent. Living, healthy, obviously frightened of terrible tremors and collapse of the city, but obediently lined up in rows in front of their savior, as they have practiced and learned it before.

"Angel of Sichuan," Ye Zhiping, the principal of a high school in Sangzao, in Sichuan province, China, years before the disaster knew the ground where the city and the school whose students have been entrusted to him was built upon. When he received his duty in 1990-ies, he reviewed the building and figured that it would cost around $58.000 to improve the school building against earthquake. The district authorities did not have much money, and no sense for his warnings. They gave him only a part, and the rest he collected by his own efforts and skill from various donors. The money is invested in a new reinforced concrete columns and other elements of the school building. So, one man knew, one man thought, one man believed, one man did all he could. On that fateful day 2323 people entered the school and after the cataclysm all of them had left the building, as if nothing had happened.

When you divide money invested in improving school buildings by the number of survivors, you get about $25 per student. Here in Croatia, that amount is worth two lunches in the restaurant for employees of my firm with average incomes. That money worth very modest dinner for one politician or a manager or a real estate dealer. How much would you pay in order to your brain from your smashed skull not being collected from the dust with a spoon? Or for being hugged tightly by your living child instead to place it in a plastic bag, while still shrugs the dust around you?

Of what faith is and to which religion belongs good, smart principal Ye Zhiping? Was it that for the assessment of school building he was prompted by some of the spirits of his dead ancestors or some written advice of the Buddha or a visit to Mecca or the voice of the Holy Spirit while he was on his knees praying to Jesus? We do not know. But there are more options than these mentioned - the man was seriously took the facts of the unstable area where the school was built, he used a specialist engineering knowledge and had a sense of responsibility towards the people. He has not spent his time playing "Solitaire" at the workplace, he had not calculated what pope is the Antichrist, and he was not deceived donors to buy a new Lexus hybrid or thought of how to forge a tax card to conceal the houses and other property. His reputation has been compromised asking donors in the impoverished and corrupt country to raise money for the very temple of life - a school that fosters knowledge and hope for the future.

Do you want to know what does a real angel look like? Just think about people like the principal Ye Zhiping, you have more of such around. And not so far away as China. And they do not have wings. Do you want to know what the real angel does? If you are intelligent enough to read this, then there is no sense for me to write about it any further...

Please, stare at her legs

"What is a sexy body? ... I mean, people, Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do and nobody is calling her disabled!" With that statement Aimee Mullins provoked laughter and applause from the audience at the TED conference, a woman born without both the fibula, those other bones in the legs. Because of this lack doctors have her legs amputated for her first birthday's gift. Since that surgery she devoted all the time to exercise walking on a variety of prostheses and she eventually became the actress, athlete and a photo model.

I've met Kresimir Butkovic through Facebook. Before I learned he is a quadriplegic, I've read his poetry, read some of his columns on the portals, and I liked his style. And then Kreso swam Barbat channel, Adriatic Sea, said the news (use Google Translate, please). So what then? What these idle journalists are babbling about? Only then I, a fool, realized that he was disabled man who swam only using his hands and beat the sea where he was injured many years ago.

Aimee tells about how she was supposed to speak in front of 300 youngsters, and before she entered the hall she heard their teachers whispering to the kids: "Do not stare at her legs, she may be embarrassed." She asked the adults to leave her for a few minutes alone with the children and then encouraged the youngsters to look at her legs. She inspired their imagination to help her make an prosthetics like an animal legs to make her a super-woman, and to allow her to jump over the house. After enumerating the various animals that jump and run, one child said "Why wouldn't you want to fly?" All were delighted at the hall. It requires a completely different view, just one moment in our mind and we do not have any pity for disabled people, but we are starting to see their potential.

Kreso lives in a country that has standards and moronic policies that trample even on ill people (see the article about the law that denied a remedy for severe disease of my friend Fred, use Google Translate, please), and Aimee lives in a country that made her special carbon fiber prosthetics modeled on the legs of cheetah. Neither of the two people do not see themselves as disabled, and I do not see them in a such way, either. Kreso swims in 'dangerous' waters that ruined his many opportunities, and Aimee is running on the legs that were supposed to lie helplessly in the bed for ever, and won prizes in athletics.

Society is changing, let us evokes the words of Aimee's encouraging speech. No longer do we talk about how to overcome deficiencies and how should we just maintain care for disabled people. We are increasingly talking about how to improve the man, to augment people. We are now thinking about the potential every human being has in himself/herself. That's the reason Japanese engineers are working on getting better types of exoskeleton in order to give disabled people the ability to make moves ten times harder than they might do. Prosthetics no longer fills the lack of something – it is a symbol, just as well as Kreso's swimming, that man is the architect of his own identity. The worst thing we can do is not look at the disabled, to avoid staring at them. On the contrary - look at her feet and do not regret the Kreso's inability and appreciate the potential that we all have.

Let's finish quoting Shakespeare: " If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh?" Yes, Pamela Anderson has even more prosthetics in herself than Aimee Mullins, both are bleeding, both are laughing. The only difference is in how we look at their legs.