it's late...

...and I just marked 2/3rds of 64 assignments carefully printed out by the cute little hands of 64 baby linguists. Awww.

I was thinking today. Two events have passed by. Two events that I would have thought I'd have some sort of opinion or comment. But nothing. I don't want to comment on them. I think, however, I do want to comment on why I don't want to comment.

Pope Benedict. Funny. I know what he said. I know where it was said and why it was said and why ~he~ said it was said. I haven't delved that deeply...it was easy to find out all those things with minimal effort. What do I think? Meh. What is there to think?

Now...I realize that violence broke out and my 'meh' is not in any way meant to down grade or trivialize the impact made my his comments. But it's hard for me to make a comment about something that was so obviously going to happen. Pope Bulldog's job is to say that there are none better than Catholics. I know that's not what he said, but he was thinkin' it. What is not Pope Bulldog's job is finding a way into the hearts and souls of Muslims everywhere and be beloved by those who worship differently. So, do I think his words were very enlightened? No...not particularly. Do I ever really find papal words to be that inspirational or 'on-the-money'? Nope. Did I see this coming? Well, probably I would have had I thought about it...but no. I didn't. But it didn't surprise me.

Now, I've not kept up since the 'apology'...but I have heard that he's mentioned that this ancient text he quoted are not his thoughts but simply his recitition of what another man said about Mohammed, lo so many years ago. As a cardinal, Papa Ratzinger was a professor...not sure of what, but I'm guessing theology. He was one of the top advisors to JPII and, let's face it, you don't just 'get' to be pope. It's like any other top position...strategy, kiddo. Strategy. My point: he's not dumb. So, I'm having a difficult time figuring why he would quote this ancient text without thinking that it would be at least ~taken~ to be his own beliefs. Not sure...would need to do a bit more research on that.

Anyway...it causes violence. He probably should have thought to phrase things differently...those who are rioting should probably stop to think exactly what they are doing and I think we saw the whole mess before when it was drawn in 12 panels of cartoon hilarity (for 'hilarity' read 'lame-ity').

Now...on to Kimveer Gill.

Sad. Sad sad sad sad. Tragic. Awful. I felt a knot in my stomach when I heard.

He's dead. Shot himself, it turns out. So....there's nothing we can do about him. Let him pass because there are far more important people to focus your energy on. The victims and the families of the victims...and, let's give a thought to the Gill family themselves as, as far as we know, they were devastated by the horror their son caused.

These things are terrifying, but we can't let the insane acts of the occassional individual stop us from living our lives and taking the paths we have chosen.

Well..I was going to continue on, but I'm very tired now and bed is looking very inviting. Talk to you kids later.