Islam Fundamentalists Eat Your Heart Out!

I am beginning to wonder what Middle Ages backwater I am living in when the hottest political topic of the week is whether or not to remove and relocate a wooden cross from the front of the Presidential Palace that was erected after The Crash* by some scouts to a more suitable area. Current President wants the cross gone. The conservative whining bitch party wants it to stay. They've even, it appears, hired security guards dressed as praying wet blankies who have come from all over Poland to guard the cross should any hooligan be bold enough to lynch the 'monument' and “Polish icon” (their uniform: long skirt, heeled sandals with stocking sockettes). Um separation of church and state? Nup, at least not east of the European west. After all, it is only 2010.

Photo: Filip Klimaszewski

It gets better. What is required of an investor when wanting to open, say, a new shopping centre in Poland? Building permits? An environmental survey? Market analysis? A big fat loan from the bank? The presence of the clergy of course. The devil needs to be kept at bay when one wants to spend up big time, silly. Enough reason for the holy water to hit the tills and shopping trollies.

Newsagents need a good ol' blessin' too.

so do security beepers

(images courtesy of: http://panorama.media.pl/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=956&pos=5)

And just a last point of interest. This is more of a tourist attraction for the devout. Newly opened and owned by Catholic Poland Pty. Ltd., a modest, simple and austere place of worship for every lamb of God, complete with all the mod coms.

Sanctuary of the Our Lady of Sorrow in Lichen - 100 per cent of its funding came from its followers. Built between 1994-2004

It has such a community feel about it too. When Catholic Poland Pty. Ltd. needed further funding to bring this simple structure into being, it sucked out money from its die-hard followers in a classy fashion. Brainwashing particularly those living in villages, without higher education, or the old, living on their measly government pensions it singled out households with its Catholic Poland Pty. Ltd. newsletter asking for money “because every extra brick counts”. God will love you even more. Even the most incompetent follower had it made easy, with a choice of a money order, card payment, account transfer or a simple envelope drop at the local church. The somewhat forgetful were bombard a couple more times over the course of the months with follow-up payment reminders. Poland simply deserved its very own Taj Mahal.

* The Crash: the presidential plane goes down in Russia, killing the Polish president, his wife, important cronies, dignitaries, heads of military forces, Justyna hides her head in the sand in embarrassment, romantic Poles mourn for two weeks, controversy heats when the dead president is buried in Krakow in Wawel castle (in a crypt containing Polish kings), Justyna develops ulcers from her inability to deal with the absurdity of the whole situation, the plane crash victims' credit cards are stolen from the crash site by Russian soldiers who then go on shopping sprees, AND THEN the TWIN BROTHER of the dead President runs FOR president in the sped up elections. Crikey. Kill me now. Brazilian soap operas have nothing on this.