It's News to Me

I love the French. Don't worry, though -- not in any kind of Biblical way or anything like that. I just love how they always manage to stand out in some ridiculous way even when united with the rest of the world in some common goal.

Stay with me, here. The Olympic torch is having a lot of trouble making its way across the world to China where the 2008 Olympic Games are to be held, thanks mostly to the persistence of ugly protesters bothering beautiful people. Sure, the protesters' motives seem pure -- the Chinese oppression of Tibet is a serious issue -- but why take it out on the torch?

I'll tell you exactly why: It creates an opportunity for the world to see French police on inline skates struggle with angry aggressors. Let me be clear: the French police are on inline skates. The last time I saw someone on inline skates, I was watching classic made-for-TV Disney film Brink!, which is undoubtedly the world's most underrated, Oscar-overlooked film ever.

But I don't mean to digress. Let's go back to French police on inline skates because I believe that I know what you're thinking: "I know how to evade the Roller-cops. You can just wait till the procession begins working uphill and then run right past the police as they needlessly strain their quadriceps to make it uphill on wheels."

Sorry, the French are two steps ahead of you. Desperate not to have a security force void of Roller-cops, the French also used officers on horseback, motorbikes, boats and, yes, the human foot. So I'm sure by now you can understand the obvious necessity of police on inline skates, who fill some capacity that the other police cannot. I'm not yet sure what that capacity is, but I'm not sleeping tonight until it hits me.

--Matt

As Pope Benedict XVI gets set to tour the United States, we figured people may want to brush up on their pope knowledge. Learn about the man in the hat with our Official Pope Benedict XVI Quiz*. All questions are simple true or false.
1. The Pope's cat has written a biography of the Pope, titled "Joseph and Chico."
2. The following quote refers to the Pope: "He stood there, petting [cats] and talking to them, for quite a long time. He visited the cats whenever he visited the church. His love for cats is quite famous."
3. Pope Benedict is the first Pope to ever speak on a mobile phone.
4. Pope Benedict is the first Pope to ever post on his own fan forum.
5. Pope Benedict likes to drink beer.
6. The Pope owns a specially engraved white iPod and a pair of red Prada loafers.
7. The Pope is an organ donor.
8. The Pope played Emperor Palpatine in the original Star Wars trilogy.
9. The Pope never owned a cat while he lived in Germany. He just fed strays and collected cat plates with his brother.
10. It is ridiculous that so many of these questions are about cats. If it weren't for cats, the Pope would be a pretty boring guy.
Answer Key:
1. True.
2. True.
3. True.
4. False, unless we're missing it or he's using an alias.
5. Of course, he's Bavarian. His favorite beer is Franziskaner Weissbeer.
6. True.
7. True.
8. Officially false, but we've got our doubts.
9. True.
10. True. Seriously, what's with all the cats.
Ratings:
10: Perfect. You know as much about the Pope as his cat!
5-9: Good, but not great. Consider yourself in Pope trivia purgatory.
1-4: Not so good; better brush up on that Pope knowledge!
0: Whoops. Is it just me or are things getting hot?
*Note: This quiz is in no way official.

"Vive Papa!" and "Benedicto!" filled New York Yankees' Stadium this past Sunday as I sat in section 53, Row G in left field. Thousands waited patiently through the "Concert of Hope" to see the successor of St. Peter and Pope John Paul II.

This is the Pope that I was hesitant to accept after I grew up with John Paul II and knew of his overflowing love for the Church. John Paul was a saintly man who tried to pave new paths for the Catholic Church.

The "new" Pope was said to be a conservative who would change the church back to the older ways. However, the more I learned about Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, the more I realized he wasn't the scary German guy that I originally thought he was.

The first thing I learned was his love for cats (courtesy of this blog). I am a cat lover myself, so we have something in common.

Second, he did not come to the United States stressing the evils of abortion, contraceptives, homosexuality or other on-the-fence ideas that American Catholics face every day. Instead, he spoke a lot about the clergy sexual abuse scandals and how they "shame" the Catholic Church.

In his homily during Mass at Yankees' Stadium, he talked about finding hope in Jesus Christ, living out the faith in public and being prepared for the Second Coming.

He seemed to want to continue breaking down the barriers of religion by visiting an American Jewish synagogue during his trip and baptizing a Muslim convert on Easter. Unfortunately, some people did not buy that and proceeded to protest outside the stadium on Sunday, trying to stir the hearts of the thousands of Catholics waiting to see the Pope. They said things such as Catholics are focusing on the present world, not the world to come, and that the priesthood was an "evil sect" of the Catholic Church.

But it did not seem to stop anyone from going in to see the Pope on Sunday.

"In the short term, the trip was an enormous success, probably beyond anyone's expectations, including those of the Pope himself," said Russell Shaw, a Catholic writer and former spokesman for the U.S. bishops' conference, according to The Associated Press. "Whether the trip is going to have a significant outcome regarding the large problems facing American Catholicism, that's anyone guess."

Suddenly, this man I was afraid of looked gentile, docile and full of love. Benedict, playfully called the German Shepherd, came to America to revive the Catholic Church and as he left on the "Shepherd One" Italian jet, he put the responsibility back onto American Catholics. What will happen next I will patiently wait, and pray, for.

--Bethany

It's fitting that we're ending the semester with a news story that's front page worthy and quite disturbing as well. Usually we scour the most obscure corners of the Internet trying to find the (hopefully) most fascinating stories we can, but not this week. This week the story we've chosen is one your bound to have heard about already as it's been making waves in everything from daily newspapers to gossip blogs.

According to The Associated Press, a retired electrician has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children with her in a windowless cell sealed by an electronic keyless-entry system, police said Monday. The children locked in the basement never saw the light of day for years.

As wrong as this already is on so many levels, it only gets more twisted and convoluted.

One of the children died in infancy and was tossed into the furnace of what stunned Austrians have labeled a "house of horrors," officials said. The suspect owned the gray stone apartment building, lived there with his family, and rented the other units to relatives.

This case may bring to mind one of a similar nature from two years ago.

According to the story, Austria is still scandalized by a 2006 case involving a girl who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement outside Vienna for more than eight years, and residents of this working class town west of the capital were puzzled as to how the latest instance could go undetected for so long.

Questions were being raised as to how the suspect -- identified as Josef Fritzl, 73 -- deceived neighbors, social workers and police for so long.

Fritzl was placed in pretrial detention and faces up to 15 years in prison if charged, tried and convicted on rape charges, the most grave of his alleged offenses under Austrian law.

Police released Fritzl's full name and photograph at a news conference Monday, after his identity was widely reported by media in Austria and elsewhere in Europe.

To anyone who saw his mug shot, he is one scary looking dude.

Fritzl was born in 1935 and was a young child when the Nazis annexed Austria before World War II.

His daughter, now 42, was 18 when she was imprisoned in the cell constructed deep beneath the family's apartment in the building, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs.

"He admitted that he locked his daughter ... in the cellar, that he repeatedly had sex with her, and that he is the father of her seven children," Polzer told The Associated Press.

According to police, Elisabeth said she gave birth to twins in 1996 but one died several days later. Police said the surviving children are three boys and three girls, the youngest of whom is 5. The oldest child is 19. DNA tests were expected to determine whether Fritzl is the father of the children, as he claims.

Investigators said they were trying to determine how the victims could have been hidden away for so long from other families in the building and everyone else in the town of 23,000 people.

Fritzl "managed to deceive everyone," including his wife, Rosemarie, who apparently was unaware of the existence of the children in the cellar, Polzer said.

Fritzl had seven other children with Rosemarie, police said.

Officials said three of the secret children -- aged 19, 18 and 5 -- "never saw sunlight" until they were freed a few days ago.

The daughter, Elisabeth, had been missing since 1984, and authorities said her father had concocted a cover story that she had joined a cult and disappeared. She was found by police in Amstetten on Saturday evening after police received a tip.

Police released several photos showing parts of the cramped basement cell, with a gaily decorated small bathroom and a narrow passageway leading to a tiny bedroom. Investigators said the keyless-entry system apparently kept the daughter from escaping.

Authorities said the victims and Fritzl's wife were under psychiatric care in an undisclosed location.

This story is the kind you can't read without getting a little queasy, but we wanted to end our last blog of the year with a decisive bang. So to those of you are as news-obsessed as we are, thanks for reading and we wish you a summer full of crazy current events.