Today is the 60th anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe). It perhaps doesn’t impinge on the collective awareness of the US as much as VJ Day, but there is no more blessed day in European history in the last 100 years. VE Day didn’t solve everything; fighting continued in Japan until the August, and the fallout between the allies lasted until after the fall of the Berlin wall. But on that day, if only for that day, everything was good.

A new Pope has apparently just been chosen. The coverage mentioned that the name he chooses will be an initial signal of his vision (traditionalist, carrying on John-Paul II work, etc.) It made me wonder whether cardinals have their secret pope name that they keep to themselves, reserved for their superhero daydreams.

You may think that you take the long view, that you see the big picture and can follow through on actions over extended periods. You would be wrong. Whoever did this has those qualities; you and I are just fiddling at the margins.

Not sure if this counts as a headline, but let’s go with it. Last week Fox cable news reported that the Pope was dead 26 hours before his actual death. Oops. But the part I liked was this follow up comment correcting their mistake:

The Pope is by all accounts now alive

Not *is alive*, but is *now* alive. As in didn’t used to be.

Quick bonus – a nice image from the Daily Show:
[[image:popevote.jpg:Vote for Pope:center:0]]

I rarely agree with Powerline, what Time magazine called ‘The Blog of the Year’, because, well, I think they’re generally wrong. But this recent post surprised me more than most:

…supporters presented former player Kevin Campbell, a black who was quite unproductive for us during his last few years at Everton, with a trophy and DVD

Now it’s been a few years since I lived in the UK, but the last I heard people weren’t described as ‘a black’. Some variant of ‘a black man’, or ‘a black player’ (i.e. as an adjective) would be pretty common, but in the noun form of ‘a black’? That sounds more like a nineteenth century southern US term, similar to another one that springs readily to mind but my prudishness prevents me from using.