New pope

As you'll see, I have very little to say about it.

I was going out to lunch. Saw a bunch of police cars speeding in the general direction of a large high school which made me nervous. I turned on the radio to see if there was news about anything horrible happening. Instead I heard that they picked a new pope, a South American who would be called "Francis I". Later learned he was from Argentina.

Well, good for him! I don't know anything about him, but he must feel pretty good about being pope.

I don't know how driven Catholic clergy are to become pope. Seems like I saw a TV miniseries with a priest whose family was hoping he'd play his cards right and eventually become pope. Orson Welles turned down a chance to run for Senate because he didn't think there was any point in being a senator unless you had a shot at being president, and he didn't think a divorced actor could be elected to the White House.

I heard the news as part of a talk show on public radio. They went from that story into a continuing series of reports on bullying. They spoke with a guy who had been a neighborhood bully when he was a kid. He was ashamed of it anyway, and he was Catholic so having to talk about it right after hearing about the Pope made it even worse. The poor guy came from a tough neighborhood. He was a victim of bullies and he said he had to see what it was like. Even at the time, he felt bad.

I never did find out what the police cars were for.