BobHarris.com - Fun with "Pope Ratzinger"

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

Juan Cole

Fun with "Pope Ratzinger"

Tag it now -

Wednesday, 20 April 2005

Yes, I know, I know, he's not really called "Pope Ratzinger."

But it's much more fun to say, and given the guy's history, his longtime behind-the-scenes role as sort of the Vatican's Tom DeLay, and his overall intense right-winginess, sufficient to earn him the nickname "The Panzer Cardinal"... at this point calling Ratzinger by his papal name feels a bit like calling Philip Morris by its preferred, history-free name of Altria.

Last night I started to write a post that actually had, um, content on the subject, and I noticed that the phrase "Pope Ratzinger" looked like a fun one to anagram: four different vowels, two e's, and all but one of the consonants are frequently used.

So out of curiosity, I started fooling around, assisted by the Internet Anagram Server:

POPE RATZINGER

almost instantly became

ZIPPER NEGATOR

which frankly isn't all that surprising.

There are also at least two references to the church's unwillingness to have another 25-year reign anytime soon:

PANZER GOT RIPE
TAP PRIZE GONER

There's also at least one horror movie scene, where the lab assistant seems to piss off the Almighty:

IGOR, REPENT! ZAP!

And, strangely, a bit of advice Carrot Top seems to have taken entirely too much to heart:

ZANIER? GET PROP

But what does surprise me is just how consistently unfriendly everything I could find was:

GROIN PEEP TZAR
GET PROPER NAZI
PREG? PATRONIZE
I GRAZE PET PORN

So, OK. It must be me, or the invented name "Pope Ratzinger."

So I tried "Cardinal Ratzinger" instead.

CARDINAL RATZINGER

becomes... a lot of things I don't even want to print.

You'll just have to find those yourself.