THE POPE AND FOX NEWS

Fox News really did a good ruining one of the most important events of our time. Their coverage of the Pope's death was a nightmare of over kill. They had people talking nonstop about things they knew very little about, with a few experts scattered in. It's too bad they couldn't have covered it more like Sky News did. Sky pretty much went on with news as usual with a runner about the Pope at the bottom of the screen. During the time I watched Sky they didn't have a commentator on the scene saying things that in the end turned out to be inaccurate to say the least. The Fox guy kept saying that when the Pope died the lights in his apartments would be turned out. They weren't. Nit picky as that may be, it was much worse when they declared him dead because they heard a Sky producer mistranslating a Vatican statement on air. The nonstop coverage with a runner about other news. It would have been much better had they done it like Sky. It was frustrating, to say the least to hear someone trying to translate The Lord's Prayer from Latin to English. Heck, even *I* know it by heart(in English and Hebrew) and to hear such a bad partial translation was painful. They also frequently misused terms like Papacy and Pontificate. Fox *is* known for it's lax linguistic standards, but they should have made the effort to at the very least not let their reporters sound like total ignoramuses. Now we'll have to suffer through their half assed reporting of the funeral and the conclave. In the best tradition of modern news services they are already into the prediction business, trying to guess who the next Pope will be. I guess that's pretty inevitable, but I would much rather see them do short biographical pieces on the Cardinals and let us speculate based on that. At least the Catholic commentators they are bringing in, refuse to speculate on that.
For those of you out there who don't believe in G-d or the Deity (either the traditional Biblical Deity or the 'Alien one), I'd like to point out that the late Pope was too much the right man at the right time for his election to have been other than the Hand of The Deity at work. Pope John Paul II could not have been other than divinely inspired. That is not to say that I think the Christians got it right, but that he was such a good man that even if what he believed was based on a man made mistake, it matters not a whit. He was a truly good man and made a difference while he was here.
Bush's statement was the best I've heard so far and I doubt if anyone else will come close to his eloquence on the passing of the Pope. Laura looked like she was on the verge on tears while her husband spoke. I must admit that I went a bit beyond the verge while Bush spoke.
It *has* been interesting listening to personal stories of people who met the Pope especially in light of what my children said after they saw him here. Both were among the Police who secured his trip to Galilee in 2000 and they both felt his power. They were both within touching distance of him different times and I'm sure they will never forget it.