The Pope's birthday lunch

How does he keep his girlish figure?

Can those of us along his itinerary use this thread to talk about the non-stop coverage of pope-related events?

I don't mind that the visits and public events of the world's most prominent religious leader are deemed newsworthy -- they totally are -- but it's a little irritating to have people do all-day live coverage of dull events as a sort of feel-good Catholic celebrity programming. (Not like I think NYC-area stations could ever do anything else, but still.) If you're considering the guy a world leader and newsmaker, journalism would dictate that you talk about his positions/agenda and include criticism of his ideas. If you're considering him something like a massive-scale version of the Puerto Rican Day parade, or something -- which is the closest parallel, really, just general soft-news pieces on some area demographic having a big unifying event -- then just run with that, and quit trying on the solemn tones of an important news event.

I am mostly complaining because my early-Sunday "lying around and half-watching sitcoms" time was interrupted by the most deadly dull pope coverage ever, which I was too amazed by to change: the "waiting for the pope to arrive" time went on so long that eventually the on-site correspondent ran out of stuff to say and actually asked, "Jim, Kaitie, do you have any, umm, questions? About anything?"

P.S.: Are there any oddballs or discontents who actually go out and protest pope events?

Yup, I read a couple of random stories about same over the last week.

you can bet reverend phelps is planning something

Colly Cibber still mad pissed, I hear.

Omar, so cynical...oh wait:

http://benedictinamerica.blogspot.com/2008/04/westboro-baptist-to-protest-papal-visit.html

Haha I guess I was trying to imagine slightly less oddball/discontent than that -- more like "oddball in that they bother protesting pope events," but they have non-insane motivations for doing so

You know, like Trojan Man

nabisco you probably already know this but guess what maureen dowd, chris matthews, tim russert, brian williams, jack welch (g.e. chairman and ceo for 20 years) and bob wright (his successor) have in common?

Trojan brand preference

oh wait

lol

Seriously, though: I know this is a lame and obvious thing to actually go on about, and I know mainstream coverage of this stuff is based around the facts that Catholics are (a) interested in watching it and (b) turned off by criticisms of their belief system. (All of which is perfectly sensible and valid.) It's just weird how hard it is to come up with any coherent explanation of the treatment -- how an institution's ideas can be newsworthy but also outside the sphere of debate and scrutiny.

Obviously there's a difference between advocating something and just theology -- a pronouncement from the Vatican is not a policy suggestion, it's the clarification of a religious stance, dictated by God and not by an idea someone is presenting. But even that line gets really fuzzy, considering that the newsworthiness of the pope is based on the way that theology does have social importance,* and the Vatican does make statements suggesting social courses of action for Catholics! Mainstream coverage of it always seems to be ... fudging. A lot.

(* Coverage of it does not involve some arcane theological discussions between people with varying scriptural viewpoints)

Sandy Bates: It's crazy. The town is jammed. I don't know, is the Pope in town, or some other show business figure?

lol @ catholic cabal running media (murdoch is a crypto-catholic too)

something out loud @ history of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment in U.S. leading people to keep thinking of it as the kind of distinct cultural identity one doesn't debate (despite Catholicism actually having more cultural diversity than any unified religious institution I can think of, by a BILLION miles)

there's a guy here in DC who protests every day outside the Vatican embassy and he was *missing* last week. But then he showed up again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603848.html

That's terrific: "I have things to do!"