Stop Koalemos!

Note: Dear readers, perhaps it is useful to study Cipolla’s Laws before reading this editorial. Law No. 5 is especially relevant. Easy to find them on the Web.

STOP KOALEMOS!

Perhaps the greatest surprise I had ever was an Internet message I  received in July 2007.

 “Peter- I want to reward the faithful admiration and adoration you have shown me for at least 60 years now. I have decided to reveal to you, and only to you, the darkest secret of our Age so you can be prepared and can warn your friends about what will come. However, be aware that nobody will ever believe you; you will have the same fate as that unhappy Priamos’ child, Cassandra. But you are wise enough, my chosen chevalier, to continue even if your success is nil and to accept what Moros has designed for you. You will not need illusory successes and fame to continue your work...

I will be at he airport of your town, the coming Thursday between two flights. from 16.00 to 17.30. Compose some intelligent question for this meeting- our first and last one.

Athena Z.- your all favorite Greek Goddess)

As everybody else I am more bound to my privileges than to my (and other’s) rights- I was honored and very happy to be noticed by the Greatest Lady of All and to have the huge privilege to discuss with Her.

We met at the waiting space of he Cluj airport, Athena was embodied as a very elegant and beautiful lady from the over-sixty category. I have kissed her hand due respect, she gave me a present a little ceramic owl, her owl! - a treasure for me.

First of all I asked her what means that letter Z. attached to her surname.

“Many years ago at the Bayreuther Festspiele I have met the Nordic Gods- very pessimistic gentlemen and excessively rounded girls- they called me nicely  “Atenchen Zeusdotter”- because I am the daughter of Zeus. I travel much and I need a passport as everybody else- please look to it – so I am using now the name Athena Zusdo.”

She started to complain against atheism: more than 99.9999%

of the people do not believe in her and in her fellow gods- this gives her a very bad feeling.  Only because she is wise, she does not plan any revenge “you, humans are self-destructive and unhappy enough” she told.

Athena: “But I wanted to meet you in order to demonstrate you that Mankind is in a deadly danger – not some Aztec idiocies that will appear soon- no, the enemy is inside. We are the victims of atheism, no god can protect him- or herself, some people do not know any limit. Even, you my close-minded bisinisencephalian friend, how many gods do you believe in?

OK. I have to recognize that we, the gods, also have our part of the fault. Sometimes we are so much like you and we even are hybridizable with you- that makes highly suspect that we are not better than you, mortals. And perhaps some off you do not understand well why we want, first of all, obedience from you, before good deeds. And some gods are really  cruel.

When you became very bad- both my Daddy and the One ruling now had organized Floods and millions of people were drowned except  Defkalion’s and the Noah’s families, respectively. Only they, the greatest gods know why exactly these people were saved. And why they were saved- sometimes I am thinking that the Earth, would be a better place without humans.

But the great wisdom is to be able to distinguish truth from reality. (I have not understood this well, but I knew that it is not wise to ask stupid questions from the Goddess of Wisdom.)

I forgive you Homo sapiens for all terrible weaknesses and crimes for what you have created in Technology. I am the Goddess of Technology too

“But now about the important things. Even I am not perfect- wisdom has its very limits and it is wise to accept that even wisdom cannot solve everything. Your mentor and benefactor, Arthur C. Clarke was one of the few humans from which I had to learn. Arthur did not liked much the Gods he thought that

“It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.” And he also told me this: “Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not prediction- each grows from the preceding one and we need all” Arthur tells here politely that I may understand, even deeply what happens now but I cannot tell what will happen in the future. It is true, so many times the future has surprised me absolutely. For example the case of Koalemos was a terrible shock for me!

(I have asked who is this Koalemos- I never heard about him before.)

Athena: It was your fault humans! It is about what you have done with the religions during the last 2000 years- when you ceased to believe in us, Greek Gods- the most real of all. If it exists a verb opposite to “castrate”- that’s what you have done with the world! Before your age the goddesses were  equal in number and influence and power with the gods but you have masculinized and de-feminized and paternalized everything! You have broken the natural equilibrium of the World. The goddesses had been marginalized, they lost all spirituality and power and prestige. Only Aphrodite is still popular, but I ask you, can we call that perverse, siliconized nymphomaniac still a goddess?

And this situation, the asymmetrical and sick world order was seized by the Gang of the Three – three ambitious god-fellows lacking any scruples and decency: Ares, Hermes and Koalemos- this troika had easily conquered the world.

Athena has presented the CVs of these three gods. For my readers less familiar with mythology I add some basic Web information.

Ares (http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Ares.html) is my half-brother unfortunately, a bully and a sadist, god of the stupid wars, who loves fights for the sake of the fights, saturated with hatred, fully deserving a straitjacket. He respects me because I have hit him many times with my spears over his nasty muzzle, when he was young. You cannot use logic with this insane, all he wants is blood, more and more blood! You are making so many sacrifices to Ares,

You have spoiled him and the idiot has achieved the habit of extermination of whole nations and has the passion of organizing  great style wars – everybody against everybody and vice-versa; he succeeded to do this two times. The third time, only I could stop him because there are so many deadly weapons that your species and many others can be easily (ex)terminated.

Ares is by no way a “deus otiosus”- an idle retired god,  he is popular, he creates and educates people just to kill them

He (Ares) is extremely well adapted to your new brave world..

Hermes – is also my half-brother (we, Greek Gods had a rather complicated family life, sorry but you already know it). I have a single reason to be proud of him- he is immensely popular in your world even more that Ares. But what a career and character he has! http://www.theoi.com/Summary/Hermes.html ) The youngest cattle thief for history, then our (gods’) messenger. Hee always had an irresistible attraction to the properties, goods of others, gods or humans alike. Admirably fast moving. The Romans called him Mercur and tried to embellish his image, named him the god of commerce and information- but at the root he is a smiling fraud and a gangster. Hermes has an overwhelming influence, your mass media continuously sings him hymns of glory (the short ones are called advertisments the long ones commercials) and prays for his benevolence. He can achieve everything he wants and believes sincerely that “greed is good” He owns your souls, people! From Apollo he has stolen all the ine Muses, from me he tries to take away Science and Education. With pieces of papers and coins he conquers new and new territories.

He (Hermes)  is the spiritual leader of your new brave world.

However, both Ares and Hermes could not achieve world domination without the help of Koalemos.

http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Koalemos.html  He was completely ignored in our time, a third category god of dubious origin (it is said that his mother is Nyx- the night- nobody knows who was his father or fathers there is nothing certain about this moron. Even the most chlorotic nymph of the last tiny spring wouldn’t have accepted his courtship and he was never admitted on the Olympos even as a tourist. He is missing from the most mythology books, being so obscure, a genuine nobody!

And look-  now he has made a fantastic career in your world, Google is a failure compared to him. He is the adviser of many of the most important people from your planet, has the greatest number of worshippers and fans (disgusting word!) and he transcends all the cultures, subcultures, incultures, countercultures, spiritualities, ideologies, generations and borders. And this has happened only because you have rejected and wasted the greatest present received from us (I did not dared to ask Athena what is she speaking about- but I guess it was about Reason). You prefer the most damaging forms of drunkeness- with no alcohol and no material drugs.

But we, the gods also were not vigilant and so the dwarf became a giant, a Titan. We have forgotten the warning of a smart clairvoyant German poet, Fritz Schiller who has stated that all gods together are not able to defeat Koalemos and their fight will be in vain. Monuments and temples are built in the honor of Koalemos his cult is blooming and I can only look in astonishment and humiliation how Koalemos manages to force people to believe the most incredible foolish stories and unbelievable ideas and make you his happy and grateful slaves. Now he wants to transform the schools in his churches. Surely, I, Athena am his first target, he wants me to shut up for good and all. I am ready to fight but he is a coward and runs away.

He (Koalemos) adapts your brave new world to himself.

Athena continued: “ It is a great shame that you didn’t knew about Koalemos despite his huge impact and influence. Luckily, you have friends who are more informed than you. For example, Valeriu Butulescu is an expert in the Koalemos phenomenon- his aphorisms which are all dedicated to me tell a lot about Koalemos.

Valeriu is sad when says: ‘you can live only bad where Koalemos reigns” apocalyptic “if the follower of Koalemos will get wings,

they will darken the sky” and resigned “intelligence is only a very small county in the great, shining, omnipresent empire of Koalemos”

The situation is bad but will be worse soon, you will live in the times of a great Crisis (helas, she was right!) if you let that naughty

idiot Koalemos to poison, wash and subdue your brains you will live soon in an Age compared with which the darkest Middle Age

will look as a thousand mega –reflectors shining in the same time.

This 21st century looks already as the 12th in disguise.

The very spirit of Koalemos roams everywhere, overcomes obstacles and barriers, can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, given, taken, shared, accepted, refused, implemented, politicized...and so on. It became a part of humanity and of man. It lives in hundreds of strong, indestructible killer memes. It seems easier to calm down the waves of the ocean or even a tsunami than to stop Koalemos.

Do not forget, koalemositis is kontagious, but you still can stop the great epidemics. Kalemosian thinking is one of the strongest factors of social cohesion. Koalemosians of all countries unite! (they are!)

Athena was very persuasive, I was shocked and confused and desperate.

She told me Xaire! – her next flight has arrived. And I understood how deadly a working combination of Violence, Greed and Stupidity can be. Today, I am aware that the Goddess of Wisdom was actually an optimist.

Peter Gluck