Favorite headline so far today

CNN.com - Pat Buchanan doused with salad dressing - Apr 1, 2005

Commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cut short an appearance after an opponent of his conservative views doused him with salad dressing.

"Stop the bigotry!" the demonstrator shouted as he hurled the liquid Thursday night during the program at Western Michigan University. The incident came just two days after another noted conservative, William Kristol, was struck by a pie during an appearance at a college in Indiana.

After he was hit, Buchanan cut short his question-and-answer session with the audience, saying, "Thank you all for coming, but I'm going to have to get my hair washed."

That's just unfortunate. I'd expect conservatives to be served with a light vinagrette. (Liberals? French, of course.)

The lost art of closed-captioning

Two interesting oopses so far in the MSNBC coverage's closed-captioning: "...in the age of satellites and cellphones" became "in the anal of satellites and cellphones," which sounds like an April Fools' tech headline to me. Oh, and at least once "Bishop" got transcribed as "bitch," but they did go back and fix it, at least. That's not something you want showing up on Google Video Search. (And the Pope's "kidneys" just became "kid niece," and they have a "you are near tract infection," which are being treated "intraconveniently" with "antibuy ottics." Nnh. And his controversial stance against "contra interception," and when he went to the Holy Land, he visited the "Whaling Wall." Yarrrr!)

I'm very not Catholic and while I disagree with a lot of the church's stances on several issues, I find so much of the ritual involved today deeply fascinating -- the door, the bells, the breaking of the fisherman's ring -- it's all very interesting to me. Of course, you could see this as emblematic of the church's central failing -- an emphasis on ritual before spirituality, a manifestation of the idea that the church is the worst thing to come between God and man.

But few people have changed the world the way Karol Wojtyla has, from the end of Communism to today, and his selection of the church's upper echelons means that his vision will linger longer than I think anyone realizes.

And he was a playwright. I would've liked to talk to him, for that, if nothing else.