Month: April 2005

(Translation: We have a pope! Where can I get a hat like that?)

Congratulations to the man formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger, now

known as Pope Benedict XVI, or, if you’re into 1337-speak, P0P3

B3N3D1C7 0x10 (0x10 means “10” in hexadecimal, which is 16 in decimal).

I’ll confess to a little home-team favourtism and say that I’d have

preferred Jaime Cadrinal Sin of the Philippines, who played a pretty

important role in the People Power/EDSA Revolution of 1986, in which

President Marcos was ousted. He’s also a friend of the family, and it

never hurts to have a major religious leader on your rolodex.

I think AKMA (who, by the bye, will be one of the officiants at my wedding) said it best:

For clarity’s sake, I should say that he was very far from being my

favorite candidate, and the decision to elevate to the pontificate the

cardinal who was Rome’s point man relative to the priest-pedophilia

scandal in the U.S. strikes me as an indicator of the Vatican’s

characteristic deafness on this issue.

On the other hand, I’m a little perplexed that anyone feels shocked

at this turn of events. The Vatican is not a hotbed of liberalism, and

the cardinals whom John Paul II appointed reflect his characteristic

conservatism (if not his personal magnetism). If the world honored John

Paul II with weeks of attention and veneration, in what respect do we

anticipate that Benedict XVI — a personal friend and theological soul

mate to John Paul II — will be any less praiseworthy? I’m with Hans Küng,

who has as much reason as anyone to mistrust the new pontiff: “he

compared it to an American presidential election and said people

‘should allow the pope 100 days to learn’.”

Of course, the best solution would be that the next time

’round, they should elect me as “Pope Awesome I”. I’m not sure how the

church would fare under my leadership, but you can be damned sure it’ll

be fun and that the Catholic Church ad from The Simpsons [1.1MB, QuickTime] would become a reality…

Click the picture to see the video.

If you are a reasonably intelligent person who has a little more

ambition in life than to just mark time and collect your bi-weekly

paycheque (or, as the case may be, monthly welfare cheque), “news” that

is generally — and often breathlessly — covered in Time magazine should be old hat to you. A journalist friend of mine who’s written for Time magazine came up with my favourite phrase to describe its preferred reporting style: sustained obviousness.

Inspired by this fact and so-looney-she-makes-The Shotgun-seem-sane

Ann Coulter’s appearance on the current issue, someone came up with the

parody shown below. You can click on the picture to see the graphic in

full size.

John Allison’s webcomic Scary Go Round, which descended from his original webcomic, Bobbins, is currently running a storyline about a mayoral election in the fictitious town of Tackleford, England.

Strangely enough, the candidates seem rather like the parties that

could be vying for the Canadian federal election that could take place

soon  given how the current minortiy government is mired in

scandal (the current government is a minority government; a vote of “no

confidence” in parliament would result in a general election).

When reading this, please keep in

mind that: (a) this is just one ‘umble Canadian blogger’s view of

Canadian party politics; (b) on the average, said blogger is smarter,

better-looking and gets more pageviews than most.

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Tackeford’s Mayor, Mayor Mayor, is rather reminiscent of the Liberal

Party (generally the party you vote for if you are the hard-working

accordion-playing immigrant high-tech industry son of hard-working

immigrant doctors, at least before the scandal…)

Scary Go Round, April 11, 2005. Artist John Allison went back to his pen-and-ink style for a day. Click to see the full comic.

Scary Go Round, April 12, 2005. Click to see the full comic.

Then there’s Mr. Quorn, who’s sort of like the Conservative Party,

recently reconstituted from the Progressive Conservative Party

(generally fiscal conservatives, but socially all over the spectrum)

and the Reform Party (a distressing number of whom see hard-working high-tech accordion-playing high-tech immigrant sons as hard-working salt-mining equipment)…

Scary Go Round, April 13, 2005. Click to see the full comic.

…and finally, Tackleford’s Progressive Party sounds a bit like the New Democratic Party, for whom I shall refrain from comment for the time being:

Scary Go Round, April 13, 2005. Click to see the full comic.