"For John Paul II being pope seemed to mean never having to say you are sorry."

Pope John Paul II never said he was sorry? That must be why Wikipedia has an entire section on his page titled "Apologies". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Apologies)

On 12 March, 2000 Pope John Paul II took to the the altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and apologized to Jews, heretics, women, Gypsies and native peoples. He said, "I ask forgiveness" twenty five times.

This was not unique, nor the first time. Quoting from Wikipedia:

As Pope, he officially made public apologies for over 100 of these wrongdoings, including:

* The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).

* Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).

* The Church Hierarchy's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).

* The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's rights and for the historical denigration of women (10 July 1995, in a letter to "every woman").

* The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (16 March 1998)

So, yeah, he didn't apologize for the sexual abuse scandal, but to give the impression that he never apologized for anything is either deceitful or ignorant.

"some sort of religious experience that left him in awe of the pageantry and the symbolism of Catholicism."

Because it obviously must have been "pageantry" and "symbolism". It couldn't POSSIBLY have been an authentic religious experience that revealed to him the truth of Catholicism.

I don't get it. How did Opus get into the book? How does this follow from the strips of the last few weeks? It just completely lost me.

I love Arrested Development. I have never once laughed at Achewood. People keep going on and on about it and I keep trying it again, every few months, and it keeps being mindlessly random and stupid.

I seriously think that it's some kind of conspiracy, like the Royal Nonesuch, where the perpetrators pretend to love it in order to fool others into reading it.

"What we need is an average family size of something like 1.6 children over the entire planet."

That's below the replacement rate. Keep that up and the human race eventually dies out completely. How can they say that with a straight face?!

Saying that parents with more kids are selfishly consuming more than their fair share of resources seems dubious to me. It seems unfair to me that my children will be working to pay for the Social Security of childless people.

It is bad for the hardware for a phone to run out of power completely, both for the battery (which can be damaged) and for the memory (which can be corrupted if not allowed to gracefully shut down). It is necessary to program the phones to shut themselves down when their power becomes intolerably low.

http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin' LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation...

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse's asses who kept mumbling "lessgo bac'ta work" over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking dipthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel

summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won't be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I'm just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

I'm with Garv. This is a beautiful article about serendipitous change, about finding ourselves and a better life through love.