jayjay -usually I’d answer that challenge, but it seems to be a string of non-related words…
It’s late afternoon and I’ve been doing sick child duty all day, so I am in a fog or fatigue…
NPR=National Pope Radio!
Yeah…I’m posting at work, so I have one eye behind me for supervisory types, and consequently only one eye to spare for basic communication monitoring duties, so that’s the result. 
Of course, there have been Christians who clamed that Genesis was only true metaphorically since at least the 5th century.
Of course, but that was not the standard view in the mid-19th century.
Yeah, suddenly it seems that the entire media are devote Catholics, really cut up about this old man dying, aching to tell us what a great man he was. And the utter drivel that they have spouted in the last few days has been beyond parody. How can you be, I ask myself, both serene and unconscious? Apparently the Pope managed it.
What makes it all the more risible is that from what some of these commentators are coming out with it’s plain that their concern about the whole story is coming from a position of near complete ignorance. These same people telling us that the World Is Shaken By Monumental Grief one week previously didn’t have the slightest interest in the Catholic faith beyond the next child-fiddling Priest story.
I’ve no personal axe to grind here. I have nothing against Catholics. But the Pope was the head of a non-elective and powerful organisation, with a number of backward and nonsensical policies that, amazingly, millions actually paid attention to. I don’t think he was a great power for good, I can’t think of any one particular example of the Catholic church achieving anything wonderful in the last 30 years at least. Its policy on birth control alone deserves nothing but condemnation.
And I’m not mourning his passing. He was an old man, he had a privileged life and the best care in the world. He doesn’t need my prayers.
I was listening to Alabama Public Radio (APR) today and I loved a clumsy sentence. Here as everywhere is Public Radio’s semiannual beg-a-thon and the announcer was reminding us how much we need Public Radio (because no for-profit news outlet covered the death of the Pope I suppose) and said
“…it cost us almost $2,000 to send our reporter to Rome along with his microphones, satellite phones and other equipment, but because he was there he was able to instantly relay the news and the state of things when the Pope died. When we announced on Saturday that Pope John Paul II was dead, it was thanks to listeners and their pledges.”
Maybe if you send in $5,000, APR will off the public figure of your choice.
Talk about your high-end premiums!
Do you get their head in a tote bag?
I still call it Red China sometimes. It might not be correct but it sounds so much cooler then the People’s Republic of China.
Marc
Sappy glurges are all the rage. I remember when Mao died and there were so many people in the United States singing his praises. I thought they were nuts but I suspect a lot of people just don’t think you should speak ill of the dead whether they deserve it or not.
Marc
The 1950’s, of course. 
Have you seen the clip they played on The Daily Show tonight where someone actually interviewed Tommy Lasorta about the Pope? WTF? If the Dalai Lama kicks, are we going to get the same kind of coverage? I think not.
Hold on there, Baba Looey. By capitalization, you must be referring to the Grateful Dead, of which Terri Schaivo might have been a fan, but was not a member. [/nitpick]
Call me an asshole for skipping the entire thread, if you will.
But I would like to also say that the insufferable media whoring of the pope’s death is also driving me batshit.
Thank you
I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that they’ll interview Richard Gere in that circumstance, though…
I’m really looking forward to the funeral Friday, when the old Pope is put on his funeral pyre and the new Pope rises from the ashes of the old in resplendent golden robes and tall funny hat!
Since when do dead terrorists get honored with the US flag at half staff?
If you’re sick of “pope glurge,” check out Thomas Cahill’s op-ed piece in today’s NY Times. He’s pretty brutal, and the pope ain’t even buried yet!