Russian Monies!

James Wolcott is becoming one of my favorite daily reads. He filters out the crap and posts informative, juicy bits that can be swallowed whole:

Saturation Droning Posted by James Wolcott
Just a minor note on the slow-drip media deathwatch of Pope John Paul II. I've been hopping from cable channel to channel for hours while working--keeping the TV sound low--and it's been a procession of priest, priest, priest, priest, priest, priest--wall-to-wall white collars. Not a nun in sight, and barely a prominent Catholic laywoman. Some of the conversation touches on the ordination of women, the role of women in the church, the Pope's stand on abortion, but the conversation has been conducted almost exclusively among men. It's like that recent God panel on Meet the Press that consisted of five men theologizing, with Jon Meacham of Newsweek mewing the most awful pious twaddle, at one point using Bush and Dante in the same sentence with a straight face.
Another thing. After all the eulogizing the media have been doing over the last 24 hours, what will be left to say once the Pope actually dies? They've talked his death to death before having the decency to let him expire first.

D'you suppose his body stinks by now? No offense, but maybe that's why everyone pictured in the background of the corpse-pics look so horrified... He wasn't embalmed!!! His viewin' slab is refrigerated, I hear.