How The World Is Run

[poliphilo]

It happened again. They put the ballot papers on the fire and the smoke coming out the chimney was white. Everybody in the square was jumping up and down, weeping and clapping their hands- we have a new Pope! And then the smoke turned black. Sorry, folks, no Pope today.

Quaint.

But communicating by smoke signals isn't the half of it. We're choosing a man to fill one of the most powerful posts in the world and the electorate consists of a handful of (supposedly) celibate old gents in their seventies.

Why aren't we laughing?

This is the 21st centry, not the 14th.

But I guess you and I don't get to vote for the chairman of Microsoft either.

Comments

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i just posted a bit of an article that i read in a catholic magazine yesterday. an another example of clergy communicating by smoke signal in an age of satellites, i suppose.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like it....

Pity they retired the silver hammer.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

yes, it seems kind of silly that they'd retire the silver hammer but keep the rest of the formal procedures. i wonder how they decide which archaic practices to continue, and which to discontinue.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess they thought the silver hammer laid them open to mockery.

"Bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head,
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that he was dead..."