By Jon Bauer / Herald Opinion Editor
White smoke, this time from the tailpipe of the BuzzTruck, means our mechanic can make another boat payment. In other emissions-related news this week:
“Habemus papam” (or in English, “Oh, my Papa”: The conclave of cardinals in Rome selected a new Roman Catholic pontiff on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV, American-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. Some past writings by Prevost on a social media account expressed criticism of deportation policies of the Trump administration and Vice President J.D. Vance, calling his interpretation of Christian doctrine “wrong.” Coincidentally, Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism, was among the last to have an audience with Pope Francis before his death.
J.D., don’t take it personally if you don’t get a Vatican invite for a while. Leo’s going to be busy with moving in, ordering new business cards, sending thank-you notes to the other cardinals (there are 132 of them, after all), getting fitted for new vestments, and updating the Vatican WiFi password.
More proof that the White House is being replaced by a Spirit Halloween store: In the span of a few days this week, President Trump’s Truth Social and White House social media accounts posted AI-generated images of Trump in papal regalia — while a period of mourning was still in effect for Pope Francis — and as a oddly buff Jedi for May the 4th “Star Wars” festivities, although the red lightsaber Trump held would have indicated he was not Jedi but a Sith lord and aligned with the Dark Side. When some raised objections to the image of Trump as pope, he insisted he had nothing to do with the post but that the “fake news media” couldn’t take a joke and that “Catholics loved it.”
Maybe it’s just us, but just then we felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in exasperation and were suddenly sputtering in disgust.
Italian is such an expressive language: Asked about the image of Trump as pope, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York declined to say whether he was personally offended, but “As the Italians say, it was brutta figura,” meaning it left a bad impression.
Coincidentally, Brutta Figura is Trump’s Sith lord name.
Who’s this Al Fresco fellow? And how many $Trump memecoins has he purchased? Included in a recent New York Times story about the apparent absence of First Lady Melanie Trump from the White House, is this detail about a apparent disagreement between the First Couple: “During the first Trump term, Mrs. Trump replanted and restored the Rose Garden. This term, the president plans to pave over it to turn it into a patio so he can entertain al fresco. Mrs. Trump was initially bothered by her husband’s plan… .”
Having seen what Trump did to the Oval Office, who could blame her? We’ve seen plans for the patio that include a gas-fired griddle for Trump’s famous smashburgers, a putting green (of course), an above-ground pool, a huge fire pit, a bunch of bug zappers for ambiance and a couple of cornhole boards (because, for “safety reasons,” the Secret Service killjoys nixed the set of lawn darts.)
The buck stopped on Truman’s desk; the fighter jets not so much on its flight deck: For the second time in two weeks, an F/A 18F Super Hornet, costing $67 million each, went overboard from the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. The crew safely ejected and were recovered. The Truman is patroling in the Red Sea, defending against Houthi missile attacks. In December, friendly fire from a U.S. guided missile cruiser mistakenly shot down a Super Hornet from the Truman, again with both crew members safely recovered.
Boeing, which builds the F/A 18F jets, announced that it was adapting its new advertising tag line from an old Doritos ad: “Crunch all you want; we’ll make more.”
Since when have we had 7-year-old mechanics in pit row? Lego built four working F1 race cars for the Miami Grand Prix with the bodies of each made from 400,000 Lego building blocks. Grand Prix drivers drove the electric cars around the track to wave to fans ahead of Sunday’s race. “They’ll have to sweep the track, there’s quite a bit of Lego debris on the track,” said one driver.
To make sure that all the Lego bricks were found before the Grand Prix, officials sent barefoot fathers out on the track to feel for any missing pieces, cursing when they found any.
The birdbrain of Alcatraz: President Trump’s proposal to reclaim Alcatraz from the National Park Service and resume its use as a federal penitentiary, which was closed in 1963, was met with doubt among tourists visiting the island in San Francisco Bay, pointing out that the buildings are in ruin, are missing roofs and walls and have no working plumbing or sewage system. Still, Trump insisted it could serve as “a symbol of Law, Order and JUSTICE,” even though at is peak it was expensive to run, could hold only 336 prisoners at a time and was vulnerable to escapes.
If it’s notorious island prisons that Trump is looking for, has he considered Azkaban, located in the North Sea? Now, there’s an imposing symbol. Holding the most dangerous wizards and witches, the prison made famous in the Harry Potter books is guarded by Dementors, who drain prisoners of all happiness and leave them with their worst memories, with long sentences leading to insanity and death. Come to think of it, didn’t White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller list a guard posting at Azkaban on his resume?
Email Jon Bauer jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on BlueSky @jontbauer.bsky.social.
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