Meeting The Impossible

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This is not my post about the Martian Chronicles, or not the full post at any rate. Mostly because I’m still at 25%. I’ve been rationing it — it’s not difficult to read — because Bradbury is contagious on the word sense level, and I’m in the middle of a revision that I don’t want full of poetic light and sound.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the poetic vision. On the contrary. But if the middle chapters are THAT people will wonder what good drugs I had for those chapters and why I didn’t take them for the rest of the book.

I will say though when I first read The Martian Chronicles, sometime in the long summer of adolescence, between 12 and 18 or so, and being UTTERLY baffled by it. You see, I was expecting a normal science fiction book about colonizing Mars.

But I liked poetry.

Coming from a long line of poets and people who told epic tales in beautiful language, having been trained to “no, that’s not the right word, try again. That word in that sentence is cacophonic. Try for euphonic.” from the moment I could speak, or at least as far back as I could remember (the injunction was usually more subtle.) poetry worked for me.

Bu the book disturbed me and left me with the sense I’d missed something.

As it turned out, I was right. Though perhaps getting Martian Chronicle the way it’s hitting me this go round takes having immigrated and acculturated, as well as having spent the last thirty years reading tales of first encounters, civilization, discovery, colonization around the world.

Which is weird since Bradbury never did any of that. But then poets are weird. There is a reason it used to be considered one of the poetic gifts. Like prophecy or soothsaying. Their minds are not all in the same dimension, nor do they move in a linear fashion.

Anyway, this brings us to how the stories are hitting me: the lost expeditions, the reactions from the Martians, how things work out…

They hit …. about right, including the flying language reaching for what can’t quite be expressed in words.

Look, even on Earth, when cultures long-separated meet, the misunderstandings, not understanding at all and either imbuing with supernaturally good characteristics or… well, the opposite, go on forever.

And are sometimes lethal. I’ve pointed out before that things like the Boer war with the Zulus stemmed from a fundamental mistake on the part of the Zulus. They were waging perfectly normal, effective war, as our ancestors did in the Neolithic, if the tales of the grave are to be believed.

When a new tribe appears in your territory, or territory you want, you go all our and commit what we’d consider heinous massacres, doing horrible things to everyone, including women and children. This shows the other tribe that you’re scary and mean business. They retreat. (Unless they’re stronger, or can’t, in which case they do the same to you till you retreat.)

But they weren’t prepared for meeting an…. international culture that communicated by writing and was so far from tribal they considered all humans people.

In that light their atrocities weren’t scary. I mean, they were that, but they were more. Enough to make the Westerners looking on wonder if they were human or even had souls.

From then on their loss was spelled out.

The story with Amerindians is the same. (Yes, they are indeed Native Americans. They were born here, most of them. Seriously. Just because their legends say they were here since the Earth and the sky, blah blah blah, we KNOW that’s a lie. I don’t like lies. Maybe they were here forever “spiritually”. It doesn’t matter. Is “Indian” a misnomer based on a mistake. Sure is. What? Are other peoples in the world not misnamed. I’m not at home to this kind of linguistic insanity.) Only they had better PR and Europeans, bedazzled by Rosseau endowed them with “noble savage” clothing. (Savage they indeed were, since they waged neolithic-like war.)

Viewed in that light, what the Palestianians did on 10/7 is the same kind of cultural mistake –but it begs the question: Where did these people come from? Were they imported wholesale from the neolithic? And while on that, why do they think this is their territory? — and is at long last getting the same kind of response from civilized humans. Because cultures don’t change any other way and use humans as mere vessels.

Anyway, now imagine you’re not meeting another human culture, separated a few thousand — or a few hundred — years, but something totally and completely alien, with no frame of reference.

I particularly like the story of the second expedition in Martian Chronicles, in which the Martians never even know an expedition landed because they know these people are crazy and causing infectious hallucinations via telepathy.

That is, of course, unlikely. Or is it? Have you seen some of humanity’s more… interesting explanations for what they don’t understand and which doesn’t fit our frame of reference? To save yourself embarrassment look up “scientific” theories of the past. I bet you we’re doing the same a few places, but of course we’d never know it. Because it’s us doing it.

I laugh, every time I hear announcements that the government is going to “reveal” aliens.

If aliens are here, there’s a good chance they’re so different we’re not aware of them.

And probably they’re not aware of us either.

That light in your house that turns on and off for no reason any of you can figure out?

It’s because the aliens who share your house and think it’s a natural formation like it that way.

70 thoughts on “Meeting The Impossible”

    1. No. that’s later. Story started as a post. Called Golem.
      “Other mothers have Golems that go to Harvard, but oh, no….”
      Golem “Harvard is for zombies moooooooom”

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  2. While “the aliens who are so different that we won’t notice them” might exist, I suspect that the “cultural differences” between aliens and us will be “bigger” than “physical difference”.

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  3. Very good points, and you’re absolutely right about Bradbury and his poetic prose. Sometimes it can disguise the richness of his world building. Interestingly enough, it was his publisher that insisted on putting all those stories in a book because books sell better than short stories. At the time Bradbury claimed he really had no idea how to write a novel. That’s why he wrote Fahrenheit 451 in kind of a fever dream in two weeks on a 10 cents an hour typewriter at UCLA’s library.

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  4. There was one eerie Bradbury story about a settlement on Mars, near a range of hills with abandoned Martian villas and waterworks – where the earthling families settled and were isolated for a number of years because of a war. And the Martian planet itself slowly transmuted the humans into Martians … with dark skin and golden eyes.

    The story is “Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed” – and really creeped me out when I read it in middle school.

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      1. That must be a newer edition. I’m pretty sure that the edition I have didn’t include it, and I was so disappointed because it was one of my faves. Instead, it ends with a story similar in theme, where the settlers stranded after the war are going on a journey to see Martians, and it ends with them at the edge of one of the canals, seeing their reflections and realizing they’re now living on Mars for good, and are the new Martians.

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        1. It’s a family that fled Earth’s war of mutual annihilation, and Dad tells the kids “I’ll show you Martians” before showing them their reflections.

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    2. A.E. Van Vogt did a (probably earlier) story where a a marooned human finds an enigmatic Martian artifacts and tries desperately to make it work. The food it produces makes him sick, the noises it makes are almost unbearable. And then he wakes up and realizes the machinery has adapted to him! The food is wonderful! There’s music playing! And he waddles out on his four feet to enjoy the sun and listen to the endless music…

      (Don’t remember the title of the story or where I read it, but it make an impression.)

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      1. There is another short story where two humans are short of food in their spaceship carefully dividing their last radish (“shall I say grace?”) that stumble upon an alien storehouse planet. The problem was that they can’t read the labels. A translator can get them to another alien language they cannot understand. Translation of that to third alien language can be translated to cryptic Earth (English language) meaning that is twice removed.

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        1. Was that the one where they translated one label as ‘Everybody drinks Voozy!’? Opening the container unleashes some sort of animated liquid that nearly drowns them all. They track down the translation error and figure out that it really means ‘Voozy drinks everybody!’

          Then there’s the ‘all-terrain vehicle’ that’s a huge saber-tooth tiger…

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  6. I’ve been thinking on similar lines viz a viz the Palis. Not recognizing that not all cultures think the way we do is one of the reasons the western clerisy fails at foreign policy so much. As so often, it’s a failure of imagination. How sad it is that western academics define diversity as “people who think exactly as I do but are browner” rather than people who don’t think exactly as I do.

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    1. I’ve been finding myself a bit puzzled and angry in some of my reactions to reactions by Englishmen. Okay, maybe also Irish, Scots, Welsh and/or Cornish, as folks prefer.

      The existence and location of the United Mexican States is a bit of my emotional baseline or expectation. I grew up knowing what the Aztec Triple Alliance did, also that while many had set those ways of thinking and feeling aside, the cartels saw nothing wrong with carrying out those sorts of rituals.

      So I know that the cartels have had an effect, if a quiet one, on how some to many Americans think about stuff like security situations.

      So then I see a thing on some UK national responding to some US political event. Then I am like, “Dude. Dude. You do realize that we have different cultures, don’t you?”

      Lots and lots of academically trained UK nationals seem to have, at a profoudn and deep level, presumed that they had more in common with Americans than they did with, say, the Dutch.

      When they are a long way from Mexico, do not really have any Texican ancestry, haven’t made any study of Sherman’s reasoning, and are not deeply invested in any grudges over the ACW, nor involving the fall out of the ACW.

      The Dutch and the English share some fears that could, in theory, be realized by the Belgians, or the French, and share a style of wishing that those things will not happen.

      Anyway, we did a bunch of stuff that just plain violates UK taboos, and they are shocked and horrified because they previously had their ritual needs met by US persons, and think we will respond like UK persons to the changes in statements/behaviors that they have made. But they had only known us distantly at best, and they are seeing a new side of us, because they had previously been satisfied to see us at a surface level.

      They had really needed for the ‘elites’ of the world to have a shared culture, and for the peasants of the world to be alike in cultures of compliance. Because then their anointed elites could preserve world peace by making all of the correct ritual statements and behaviors.

      It seems very difficult for them to understand that in reality, their rituals were not real to many Americans, that their fears could not be real to many Americans.

      I’m not sure that the UK academics had processed the surprise or lack thereof that Putin, in 2022, was not a big valuer of peace and of transnational consensus and agreements. IE, that many Russians were in reality, culturally alien to them.

      (Certainly, the stabbings seem to be explained by poorly trained elites like Starmer, and their opinions that the people they were bringing in were essentially compatible in culture with the people there. And that Starmer, et al., could implement discriminatory enforcement policy without that having some obvious and negative consequences. )

      Anyhow, I do not know if the UK academics had processed that about the Russians, but it certainly seems to have surprised them that the Americans are also alien.

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    2. All y’all are really tempting me to write the heretical anthropological screed about “how to ethnography.” I just don’t have the time.

      Short and sweet: To understand another culture, first understand your own. And yourself. Then open your mind, but not too much (if your brain falls out, that’s all on you. Suck it up buttercup). Listen and learn as a child, then work your way up. Ask LOTS of whys. Build a model of that culture before you judge it. That’s the tough one.

      Then work to understand that culture through the lens of your own, so you can translate it to your own. A murthering LOT of anthropologists FAIL at this, in little ways and very, very big ones. Everyone that translates, lies at least a little. You have to. Translating culture, this goes double. Take redneck, cop/paramedic humor, or inner city cultures. Those are subcultures of American, which is itself an evolution of Judeo-Christian largely English with a dash of French roots.

      British culture is different. European, very different. Then there are all the others across the world. There are some, a few, Ur cultural bits that are nigh ubiquitous throughout humanity. Those are HOTLY debated amongst anthropologists with a few drinks in.

      Western lefty academics is a subculture, too. Perhaps a cult would be an equally descriptive term, but leave that aside. They are dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to understanding the complexities of culture. Dumber, because they deliberately misconstrue and twist things ON PURPOSE. Because they have an agenda, as nigh all persons do, but theirs is the sick derivative of a failed psyop campaign from the seventies, if not earlier.

      Anyway. All that aside. I do not have any desire to do a proper ethnography on a bunch of murdering, raping, slaving zealots. I would say “no right thinking person really does,” but there is value in understanding an avowed and open foe like that. Still and all, better off to just push them into the sea. Let them beg aid and comfort from the jellyfish, food and medicine from the sharks, and media attention from the dolphins and whales.

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  7. People who are simultaneously spiritually and morally superior by definition, and fragile beings who need protection given by the clerisy.

    Was disgusted by a Twitter post where a policewoman giving a briefing on missing children started it off with an acknowledgement of, “African Nova Scotians,” and their contributions to Nova Scotia.

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      1. Right under the sofa,

        Odd thing is, I don’t remember seeing many -or maybe any – “African Nova Scotians,” when we went there.

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  9. I’ve given some thought about first encounters before, with truly alien beings. I’ve never really been able to get my head around how to communicate with an alien that we don’t even recognize as a higher life form, simply because it truly would be alien. I’ve read some other stories about meeting/interacting with aliens that I’ve enjoyed. Some where the aliens just ignore us because they don’t realize we exist as an intelligent (for varying aspects) beings, but most focus on knowing you’re dealing with an alien, friendly or hostile, and trying to find a way to communicate. But something where they don’t recognize us and we don’t recognize them is beyond my ken and ability to convey in written form. How do you find that touchstone of commonality if you have nothing in common to begin with?

    Most cultures see themselves as the people and everyone else as some sort of other. But even then, it’s just varying degrees of knowing the other is actually human, but they look weird, sound weird, and do weird things, so they aren’t us and can be killed without consequence from within the culture. Sometimes an extensive effort will be made to communicate with the weirdo, but usually it’s safer for your culture to just heinously murder the weirdo in the most visible way so there’s little/no interaction.

    I was not all that impressed when I read The Martian Chronicles years ago. Much of that was likely because I was expecting a coherent novel rather than a collection of short stories written from (IIRC) different points of view. The only story I really remember was the one Celia was talking about, Dark They Were and Golden Eyed. I should probably read the book again and see if it comes across better, me being older, wiser (quit laughing), and having more experience now.

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      1. That was a good one and I thought it was clear that it was a Praying Mantis.

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  10. Most aliens written in science fiction these days are just different human cultures with prosthetics/CGI. And that’s fine; I don’t pretend to be any better about it.

    But if we do meet any aliens, and can detect them? (Leaving aside the invisible aliens already here theory) Then whatever their reaction will be, our reaction will most assuredly be: KILL.

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    1. Oh, the “scream and leap” response?

      Something something about the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine.

      Humans in their IDIC variations have, historically, come up with almost every way to run a functional society (and a few that aren’t functional in the long run), which would explain the fictional cultures with prostheses.

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      1. How many here have read S. M. Stirling’s “Island In The Sea Of Time”?

        IMO the voyage of the Lefties to save their “Little Brown Brothers” is one of the Best Parts of that Novel.

        For those you haven’t read it, none of the Lefties survive. [Very Big Evil Grin]

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        1. Oh, yes. Convinced the Olmecs are, “very spiritual,” and at the same time delicate, so the “helpful,” Nantucketers must be careful not to destroy their culture, all at once. But they did give their all for their ideals, poor schmucks.

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        2. “none of the Lefties survive. [Very Big Evil Grin]“

          –

          Neither do the “Little Brown Brothers” and their civilization, at least long term … All the fault of the “Lefties”.

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            1. Dep may have been thinking of the Olmecs being exposed to the Mumps thanks to them eating the bodies of the dead Lefties.

              Of course, Martha Cofflin could have been mistaken about the long term effects on the Olmecs but then she wanted David Lisketter to kill himself.

              On the other hand, a later book in this series mentions the continued existence of the Olmecs so it’s possible that only one tribe of the Olmecs got wiped out.

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              1. Yes. Mumps.

                Mumps wouldn’t destroy the Olmecs right away. There is a reason why the Olmecs as a civilization were already gone by the time the Europeans showed up in what the Stirling readers call OT (our timeline). As Imaginos said “eating your own children is not a practice conducive to long-term survival.” Plus the non Olmec neighbors take exception to being on the menu too. Implication is that rather than prevent whatever OT history caused the Olmecs to be replaced and forgotten, that the lefties intended, they instead hastened and insured their eventual extinction.

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                1. Minor nit, I don’t remember (in Stirling’s novel) the Olmec cannibalizing their own children and IIRC cannibal tribes mainly ate outsiders.

                  Still, the non-Omec’s dislike of being eaten would be a factor in the real Omecs disappearing.

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                  1. FWIW. I do not remember Stirling mentioning Olmecs eating their own children either. OTOH don’t get that deep of a view into the civilization. We only see what Martha relates during her captivity and rescue, and the accounts of her rescuers as they make landfall, move up the river, effect rescue, and retreat out. Do know they ate the lefty crew, with all that implies for anyone not Olmec, at minimum.

                    Thus willing to concede Olmec might eat their own children, or maybe only the children of slaves. Based on Martha’s description of their high ruler being so different from almost everyone (implying strong inbreeding among the monarch) who is to say who is Olmec and who isn’t. Don’t get enough information to argue one way or another.

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  11. I’ve never read the Martian Chronicles, mostly because the book was recommended by a Junior High English Teacher. At the time I couldn’t imagine any overlap between English teacher recommendations and good SF.

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    1. I read it in the ’90s when working at the airport. I had long periods of sitting and waiting for the next flight. I’d seen small bits of the tv/movie version. I managed to get to the end, but very little sticks to this day.

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  12. The concept of reactions to “the Other” brought to mind a story I read in one of Judith Merrill’s ‘Best Science Fiction of 196x” collections, The Large Ant. So, I went looking for it on the web, to re-read it, and goodness, has it been beaten to death. (Pun not actually intended this time.)

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    1. Howard Fast’s story?

      Of course, Fast was a communist so that something that I’d hold against him.

      Of course, that story implies that somehow the “Large Ant” was superior to humans as it hadn’t attempted to kill the human (and none of the other Large Ants hadn’t tried to kill the other humans who found them).

      Thus, just another story that tries to say that non-humans are superior to humans. 😡

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      1. Yes, that’s the one.

        Given it seems to have fallen onto a lot of high school reading lists, I fear to read any of the commentary DDG pulled up for me.

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  13. Know thyself, or in the original Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, is the beginning of all knowledge. Know God is the beginning of wisdom.

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  14. Could it be that to the Aliens Communism makes sense as it is close to their own feelings and beliefs, but they can’t understand how we can’t see the wonders of Communism, not realizing that we are Human, not Alien? So they keep pushing Communism on us not knowing it will never work with humans. So they are waiting for when we are either evolve to accept Communism or go extinct. That doesn’t absolve the humans who want to use it to enslave others. They need to be hung after trial and burned at the stake.
    To the Aliens it is freedom where we only see Slavery to the state.

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    1. Now that the musings are over for the day, time to pack away winter clothing and bring out the clothes for summer. Thank goodness for space bags, or what I call Ziploc’s for clothes. I don’t use cedar balls or moth balls, but old slivers of soap.

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    1. American from Chicago, Robert Prevost. Will take papal name of Leo XIV.

      “Wow, an American Pope!” is al very well, but is he a progressive or someone who actually cares about tradition and doctrine (not necessarily in that order)?

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        1. Oh, please. Doesn’t look bad so far, and remember this is me speaking, and I was one of the first to say Francis would be a disaster.
          Ignore the Twitter account. He’s a Mathematician. This means he doesn’t use social media in any way known to normal humans. As in retweet might mean “this guy is dumb.” THERE IS A REASON I DON’T ENCOURAGE DAN TO BE ON TWITTER, Ok?
          Right now, the two most solid things we have on him are “Leo” is a conservative name. Look you, not even Francis, he could have gone with Paul VII.
          That’s how popes signal whom they intend to continue the work of. Leo is not bad at all.
          AND he came out in traditional vestments.
          CHILL.

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              1. And more to the point, he’s apparently been serving in Peru for the past couple of decades, so the Chi-town may have been washed out.😉

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          2. I follow Davis and agree with a lot of what he says, but one, he’s an evangelical Protestant right down to his toenails, so he may or may not have a touch of anti-papism in his blood.

            Two, as I said I agree with him on a lot of things, but there are days when St Peter himself might not meet his standards.

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  17. The new Pope is the American originally from Illinois. Do any of the Catholics here have any insight into Leo XIV?

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    1. Here’s a profile of him written before his election: https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/robert-francis-prevost/

      He’s on twitter as @drprevost (put his handle into x.cancel or some version of nitter if you, like me, are a non-tweeter) where he retweets a certain amount of open borders stuff from other people but says little on his own account. He’s expressed disapproval of the idea of female priests (“won’t solve anything, might even cause more problems”). The link above includes links to fairly serious allegations on InfoVaticana about him mishandling sex abuse cases in his time as Archbishop of Chiclayo in Peru; the one thing I will say in his defense is that I cannot imagine a norteamericano, no matter how fluent in the language or popular in his earlier missionary work, being fully in control of a diocese in South America. The diocesan bureaucracy is going to do its own thing, confronted with someone from outside their culture (aaaand, here we are, unexpectedly back on on the original topic of this post).

      If you go further down the rabbit hole of InfoVaticana links about Prevost, you find the episcopal bishops’ conference of Peru making trouble for a priest who acted as a lawyer for the alleged victims (now young women). The Vatican Dicastery for the Clergy (to which Prevost belonged, but which he did not run) censured the priest in question in 2025.

      Leo XIII, from whom Prevost takes his papal name, was never a favorite of the commie-adjacent faction in the clergy, but Leo XIII was also famous for his concept of the “living wage.” Now, the Pope meant something like “in a world where pretty much every adult job is a full time job, employers usually ought to prioritize hiring heads of household and paying them enough to provide for their families,” but today you see it used to imply that fast food restaurant employees automatically deserve a living wage, which I don’t know if Leo XIII would be down with.

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      1. Sigh. I’m willing to wait and see. His degree is in math. I know the kind. Someone suggested he just retweets the things that interest him, whether he agrees or not. I can’t tell you how much this resonates with someone who lives with a mathematician.
        I think we might have Pope Autist.
        Yes, the name chosen is the first indication of whom they intend to succeed so to put it, and Leo is not a bad one. not bad at all.
        As for Peru, they have rules about Bishops having to have citizenship, so….. you know?
        The waters are muddy. Give them time to clear. And if you’re Catholic, pray for the poor man. He just got handed the rock and told to lift it, and the rock is heavy indeed.

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        1. We pretty much have to give the waters time to clear at this point. He’s selected. We can speculate on what he might do, and I think we’re all curious about that after the actions surrounding the last few popes. But we shouldn’t criticize him for actions he hasn’t taken.

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        2. I’ve seen that speculation elsewhere as well: that he was chosen as a good administrative/accounting mind who could maybe straighten out the on-again, off-again mess of Vatican finances.

          He’s comparatively young (turning seventy this year) so we will most likely have him for a while.

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      2. he’s the bishop of Rome, not an American politician. What matters is whether he upholds Catholic doctrine and discipline, not his opinions on transient news of the day.

        I’m really hopeful about Leo because I’m such an admirer of Leo XIII. read Rerum Novarum, read the various contemporary commentaries on it, get a feeling for the Vatican vocabulary and style, read it in Latin or dump it into GoogLe Translate if you have to. There’s so much more to it than living wage, and living wage doesn’t mean what we might think it means today after over 100 years of Marxist cant.

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        1. I agree, and actually the fact that he or his designated twitterer *only* pays attention to open borders stuff while scrupulously ignoring all the other crazy things trendy Catholics say on twitter/X is rather encouraging than otherwise.

          I am also a fan of Leo XIII, and deleted a whole paragraph from my tl;dr about Rerum Novarum’s denunciation of socialism and emphasis on property rights.

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          1. Which is amusing because of course the local TV news station (being part of the MSM) focused on Leo XIII’s apparent allowing of trade unions.

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  18. From Peru by way of Chicago. An Augustinian. His early career seems to be a good, simple priest. Latterly a Vatican bureaucrat overseeing the vetting of bishops. Well educated with a mathematics undergrad. No obvious craziness in his record. 

    The name matters as the popes usually choose one to reflect what they hope their papacy to be. Francis being Francis was an excellent example but don’t get me started on him since he’s before God and I’m before sin. The last Leo was a good ‘un and oversaw a serious intellectual revival in the church. We could use one, they’ve gotten very sloppy and that’s the root of a lot of the nonsense since you can’t uphold what you don’t understand.

    anyway … Gaudamus! Habemus Papem!

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    1. Yes. And Peru seems to be some really weird local thing for Bishops (they have to be subject to local authority.)
      And….. Leo is a good sign, a very, very good sign.
      Pray that the Holy Spirit works in him, and may G-d’s will be done in this as in all things.

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      1. I spoke to a friend of mine, a bishop as it happens but not a cardinal. He says that Leo is a good priest. probably too liberal,for my tastes, but a good priest. They see him as someone who will stop the rot. he’s not going to roll back Francis errors, but then again Francis didn’t actually accomplish much of anything. He talked and blustered, bullied and taunted, but never followed through other than the irregular blessing thing.

        I’d like to see Leo reverse some of Francis intolerance on the Latin Mass. I’m glad that old Jesuit is off by himself in St Mary Major. Early days. All we can do is hope and pray.

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  19. https://babylonbee.com/news/eagle-firing-ar-15-emerges-from-vatican-indicating-an-american-pope-has-ben-selected

    https://babylonbee.com/news/jd-vance-already-making-plans-to-kill-new-pope

    Actually, an American born pope who has not formally renounced citizenship could potentially be executed for treason wrt to conspiracy to violate border controls, if we actually start enforcing the laws again, and if collusion involving Catholic hierarchy in central and South America is found to be a criminal act.

    There’s a hilarious hypothetical that will not happen where a President Vance executes the pope as part of a wider spread border enforcement push.

    Quite a few reasons it will not happen, several involving probably required conditions that directly conflict with other required conditions.

    I’d thought about being respectful, and keeping my dumb mouth shut if I didn’t have anything true and useful to say. Especially given that we shall see.

    Then I saw the Bee’s take, and well, they don’t even talk about whether the pope can run for President. (Probably not, arguably a foreign title, and the stuff of permission of congress. Zero chance we unfraught our politics before Leo passes of natural causes and old age.)

    President Leo may still be more likely, now, than President Hillary.

    Math undergrad is a little interesting, but is a weak predictor. Lots of people have those, and the correlations with a lot of things may be pretty weak. (Well, I would expect a stronger correlation between graduate degrees in mathematics and having had a math undergrad degree, as opposed to a lot of other undergraduate majors.)

    Bee has a type, Ben Selected, and I have a mad vision now of a future pope who is Israeli, or something, and surnamed Ben Selected somehow.

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