A bold trip!

Well, at least the Cowboys won.

--------------

I got a Wii! It's pretty cool. Once I get Zelda: TP in hand, all will be right in the world. For now, Super Monkey Ball it is! I love the monkeys. And my Wii.

--------------

B16 is visiting Turkey this week. This is a huge deal, and there is a LOT going on here. Neuhaus and Weigel, always poignant, have great insight into the significance of this trip.

To me, the most important aspect of this visit is that it serves as a reminder to all of us that there is still a very real, very historical threat to the existence of "the West" as we know it. Lest we forget, for the greater part of a thousand years, the forces of Islam held siege against Europe. Were it not for miraculous victories in Lepanto in 1571, or Vienna in 1683, we would more than likely be speaking Arabic right about now.

As history would have it, though Europe finally managed to turn away the mortal threat posed from the outside, it has since become crippled by a slow and steady process of cultural dissentegration due to intellectual forces originating within. The most tangible results of its loss of a cultural identity - a declining birth rate, hyper-secularism, the perversion of the notion of "tolerance", and Christophobia - have paved the way for Muslim population booms in France, Great Britain, and several other European nations.

Given these circumstances, how else to interpret [99% Muslim] Turkey's pending entry into the EU as anything but history threatening to repeat itself? And so it is fitting that for an ecumenical visit, the pope choose Turkey, which has historically been the most culturally significant and most infamous entry point for invading Muslim forces.

Lepont 1571, Vienna 1683, Istanbul 2006?

An afterthough: I wonder if there are odds on what gesture, if any, B16 will make when he enters the Hagia Sophia.

Probably so. They make odds for everything these days.