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Drowning mercy in a wave of cool compassion. This piece is also found on the Calgary Herald website.This is the most offensive op-ed piece anyone could write about the Tsunami charity drive. Ready? Taken as a whole, we have nothing to be proud of for how we've managed our giving in the past few weeks. We've let fashion rather than compassion steer our hearts, and we've let mania rather than mercy guide our choices. In the end, the UN has almost five times as much money and support as it said it needed, while one of our neighbors froze to death alone under some bridge in this spoiled rich city. The spirit of the new west. Bravo Calgary. I tip my white hat to you. Here's something you will disagree with because it's too late to even allow yourself to think about why to agree: Tsunami aid is the cool thing to do. It's as expected of you as enrolling your kids in soccer or belonging to the right gym is. It was what biologist Richard Dawkins calls a meme (Google it), and we let our me-too selves get swept up in it the way we all wore jeans during Stampede, stuck a Flames flag on our car, and cried on cue when Canada wins gold in name-your-sport. Caring for our neighbors? That's not as cool. In fact in times like these it's almost unacceptably un-cool. You lose me-too points when you say you're taking a flat of bottled water down to the food bank, "at a time like this!" Here's the thing. Ever wonder why the flight attendant tells us to put our own air mask on before we put one on a kid or travelmate? Sounds cruel and self-absorbed doesn't it? Well only to the short sighted. Mean, pragmatic people figured out that if you pass out halfway through putting a mask on your kid, that both of you will die. The same principle applies with charity. A society that loses it's merciful care for its countrymen can not possibly hope to keep up its long-term compassion for foreigners. Mercy versus compassion? Wow, someone's being fussy with words. Yes, I am. Here's another ugly truth that's a taboo but has to be said: We don't think those bums in the homeless shelter deserve our help. We made it! We got through school and tough times and a recession and bad parents and cavities and addiction to smokes, so tough beans for them if someone needs it more than they do! Right? Wrong. Mercy is giving something to someone who may or may not deserve it. Why be merciful? Because mercy takes more love than compassion ever will. Mercy takes sucking up your anger, resent, and distrust and still managing to fund the rehab program and the beds and the meals eve if they're a money pit. The love we train up in ourselves from giving mercy goes on to fuel our compassion. Imagine a country so stoked up on merciful love, that it was willing to do more than just write 400 million in one-time donations. Imagine a Canada that said it's wrong for Indonesians to grow coffee for us slave prices. Imagine a Canada that said it's wrong that our resort stay in Sri Lanka was dirt cheap because the staff make scrap wages. Imagine a Canada that said, "Hey Tsunami People, let's re-jig the whole long term deal to make sure you have the kind of solid money footing to take care of yourselves even before our DART and Red Cross gear can arrive. We'll be there too, but we want to be sure you're never stuck waiting for us." Well, just keep imagining, because a merciless Canada will never think like that. We'll just jump around looking for the next 'meme' me-too cool cause to throw some spare dough at. All you need is love, but all we want is cool. I'm sorry. Posted by Bella at 8:36 PM# 1 Comments: Bingo! My dear Mr. Watson! I think she's got it! By
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