Why NOT Bracco?
I was listening to Howard Stern one day, as I am wont to do, when Robin revealed to Howard that she had gone to see “Bracco The Gazer”.
It seems that Robin, always the yin to Howard’s curmudgeonly yang, had coughed up the 8 bucks it used to take to have this dude Bracco stare at her. The idea is that he is some sort of mystic and that his gaze holds healing powers.
If you have a little time, you can watch this procedure. I’ll admit that I think it is weird and I also think it is bullshit, but if people want to cough up 8 bucks to stand around and get stared at and convince themselves it helps, it ain’t my business.
The part of Bracco that really interested me was that religious friends of mine mocked and laughed at Bracco, as though their personal beliefs make any more sense or are any more valid than those endorsed by the Bracco army.
For example, Catholics think nothing of walking around with ashes on their heads on Ash Wednesday or eating a little wafer that has magically turned into “the body of Christ”. Personally, I find getting stared at by a weird hippie a lot more rational than eating some dude’s body, but again, so log as it doesn’t infringe on my life, people can do whatever they want as far as I go.
The interesting thing is that the customs that would seem bizarre only don’t because we are familiar with them. Hanging a crucifix with a man nailed to it in your house would be terrifying to someone who doesn’t know the custom, and someone unfamiliar with Christianity would probably think that anyone who put such an icon in their house has something very wrong with them.
So, if you are religious, just recognize that to those of us who aren’t the ceremonies and customs that you embrace are just as pointless and invalid as Bracco may seem to you.
It always astounds me that people who have faith, which literally means belief without evidence, somehow often feel superior to those who hold different faiths or none at all.
I am not knocking faith. I have tried to have it, but I cannot do it at the expense of what I see as common sense. If a 12 year old is raped, of course she should have the right to have an abortion. If it isn’t your child, it isn’t your business, and to inject yourself into someone else’s tragedy on the strength of beliefs that can never be validated is savage to put it bluntly. Also, if you have a priest who is molesting kids, you don’t hide him, you protect the people who have bought into what you are selling and punish the person who is supposed to teach your product but committed the ultimate act of betrayal.
So people may ask “Why Bracco” , but I as “Why NOT Bracco?”. It makes just as little sense as anything else.