1 May 2005 02:42
Re: White Smoke
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005, Todd Nelson wrote: > > Interesting, BTW, that a Spanish pope was elected in the same year > > that Columbus set sail from Spain and discovered the "new world". :) > > I noticed that as well. However, his biography mentions nothing about > Columbus. He appears to have been one of the more corrupt popes in > history, achieving his position in the Church through nepotism and > bribery (his uncle was the other Spanish pope). He fathered several > children and kept Moors as slaves... Oh my. Mind you, I certainly wasn't meaning to imply that he got the job because of his connection to Columbus or anything like that -- Columbus's discovery wasn't known until a little while later, and if Sir Ridley Scott's film is to be believed, Columbus actually fell into obscurity for a while, and this is why the western hemisphere was named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci instead of Christopher Columbus. (Or maybe the Americas were named after him because he was the first explorer to find the mainland, whereas Columbus never got further than the islands?) On the other hand, 1492 *was* the year in which Ferdinand and Isabella reclaimed all of Spain for Christendom and expelled the Muslims -- so maybe a Spanish pope was elected in honour of *that*...? > > And hey, how common is it that a pope keeps his birth name? > > Well, until 533 they all did. Pope John II was born Mercurius, but he > (and others) didn't feel it was appropriate for the Bishop of Rome to(Continue reading)
I'm not sure what the rules are for Canadians entering the US, but the
changes Karl mentioned earlierm that affect US citizens returning to
the US from foreign countries, are to be phased in starting Dec 31,
2005 and be fully implemented by Dec 31, 2007. The Washington Post has
a decent article explaining the details:
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