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Despite the bad name he has with liberals these days, Jesus did have the right idea. He'd get right down there on the street and grunt with the people, feeling them all over and healing their boils, feeding them and preaching his ass off while everybody hollered and saw the light as blind men popped open their eyes and lame folks started doing the Dead Sea Macarena. No maintaining a professional distance, no opinion polls for that guy. He just went out there and "got 'er done" in plain sight of everybody. Including the Jewish religious mafia and the Roman super-state thugs of the time -- which is why he got whacked. But he left the world impressed enough that an influential book about his exploits is still on the best seller list today, dispelling publishing industry wisdom that people will not read a book over 300 pages. Jesus seems to have left no heirs to receive royalties, contrary to the speculations of Da Vinci Code readers, The Da Vinci Code being the middle-class equivalent of the Left Behind series. Anyway, Jesus ain't on my shit list and I surely hope I am not on his.
Two thousand years later, the public expects more from their miracles than leprous hides instantly infused with the pink blush of health, or Lazarus dragging his rigor mortis locked bones into a fully upright position, then strolling off down the street as if death itself was no more than a bad case of the flu. Computer animation rendered all that passé decades ago, thus we seculars remain unimpressed. A wardrobe malfunction by Mary Magdalene might punch up the New Testament a little, but it's never going to budge the Neilson numbers, except at Easter and Christmas, and never going to register unless we see it on television or in the cinema, where Jesus on a pole is acceptable, providing he spills enough blood a la Mel Gibson while he is up there.
Call it consumer conditioned numbness, which it is. But it is safe to say most Americans give not a happy damn about the rest of humanity, starving infants, the homeless and whatnot, so long as the unhygienic swarms stay the hell out of our yards and don't bring up that tired commie stuff about our lifestyle being based upon armed global theft and sweatshop misery. In that way, we all test positive for the Devil's hickey.
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