Today is UPPITY WOMEN'S DAY. Yay, me!

diagnostic
Redundant astringosol paradise, when hyperbolic morraines hop-skip raunchily via androgyne wellness. Oh, the lucidity! I am writing this to check whether people actually read my other entries, or just skip down to the trivia quiz. Newtonian papadums do photosynthesize under tiptoe absolution. When metastasy conglomerates, gerunds too seem derisive.


in the news today
Two German robbers held up a post office in Bonn at gunpoint, and escaped bearing a bag full of... potato salad. The men reportedly walked into the post office, pulled out weapons, and demanded that the safe be opened. After tying up the postal workers, the robbers then proceeded to stuff cash from the safe into a cloth bag they had brought along. But when one of the employees managed to free himself and set off an alarm, the two robbers panicked and ran off, grabbing what turned out to be a lunch bag rather than the loot bag.


Sometimes crime actually doesn't pay. Unless you really, really like potato salad.

TRIVIA QUIZ
What's so special about the phrase 'L.A. Cigar-- too tragical'?


answer to Saturday's question
John Anglicus was a ninth-century English Cardinal who was unanimously elected pope upon the death of Pope Leo IV in 853 A.D. As Pope John VIII, he ruled for two years-- until one day, riding from St. Peter's to the Lateran, he halted the procession by the side of the road and, to general astonishment, gave birth to a child. It turned out that Pope John VIII was in fact a woman, now generally referred to as 'Pope Joan'.


Legend differs as to Pope Joan's final fate. One version states that the people of Rome tied her feet together, dragged her behind a horse, and stoned her to death; while another has it that she was sent to a faraway convent to repent, and that the child she bore grew up to eventually become the Bishop of Ostia. These days the Catholic church strenously denies that Pope Joan ever existed, although a rumor went around for a while that the chairs used during papal consecrations had holes in their seats, so that an official check of the pope's gender could be performed. The first known reference to the woman pope occurs in the thirteenth century, 350 years after her supposed reign. Around the same time her image also began to appear as the High Priestess card in the Tarot deck, a representation that continues to be used to this day.


Cardinal winners: Ariel, Dean, El, Alex, and Katrina. And Vin wears the Smartypants for this one. (Should we check him under the seat to be sure?)