At the Bottom of the Cliff, With No Pope

MARCH FIRST HAS ARRIVED, the pope is no longer the pope, and the united states has fallen off the cliff, again, or, as our half breed president says, its gone down a steep incline, or something like that. Half breed? Of course. Nothing derogatory intended. If the term was good enough for cherokee-irish americans in previous american history, it'll do just fine now.

Either way, it makes no sense, just like it makes no sense to abuse a perfectly good currency system, or place unreasonable requirements upon people, such as priests. A lot of what we the human species does makes less sense than it should, it might be agreed.

And it almost seems as if the world is continuing to turn. Can you imagine a papal election every , say, four years, a billion catholics registering and voting, with world wide election campaigns featuring mass advertising, pep rallies in full stadiums, the whole works?

"Crush the infamous thing!" said francois marie arouet, aka voltaire, in reference to the catholic church. That might be going a bit too far, particularly since he said it in seventeenth century france, but, his point is well made; we must not overly fear change.

We could eliminate annual cost of living increases for social security, ease the retirement age up just a smidge, use means testing for medicare, cut the military significantly without harming america's safety in the least, and pretty much be on our way out of this mess.

Can you imagine a priest, promising to remain celibate for life, and then, later on, finding out that, oh my, notwithstanding pledges and contracts, he is still human, in every conceivable way. What on earth could ever be done about that?

If we are not even remotely willing to give consideration to solutions which loom conspicuously before our smiling faces, then what hope have we to escape  future entrapments of our own creation?

 they all are, you know.  "so often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key." (the eagles). Congratulations are in order for pope benedict 16, who found the key. May we all be so fortunate.