In "human tradition"????

Man Amos, I think I'll send that one to Jon Stewart!

The "speak no ill of the dead" is a human SUPERSTITION. And a persistent one at that. Many, many folk superstitions become ensconsed in "tradition" to be given an air of legitimacy they otherwise don't have, much less deserve. Ensconcing something in "tradition" is how the status quo gets maintained, culutral beliefs get enforced as "truth", etc.

Eulogizing is for the funeral. These claims that world leaders shouldn't have their legacies scrutinized at the time of their deaths is pure bullshit, especially in the era of global media manipulation, and the web's ability to counter that manipulation by challenging the tyranny of mawkish sentimentalism always present and to the forefront of all public remembrances in this media obsessed age.

Nobody is going to come back here 8 months from now and generate the heat the current discussions of the pope have had, by saying "now that ample time has passed for grieving..."

This is the internet, and people are going to call a spade a spade. The expression of phony mourning by people in internet chat forums will NEVER occur unchallenged. Never. Especially when the public figure was a controversial, divisive personality like JPII. There are many American Catholics, especially on the progessive end of the spectrum, who didn't like this pope, period. The pope is, at the end of the day, Catholic. It is his job to bring global attention to human suffering, hence the "official" position on both Iraq wars, on ministering to the poor and suffering, etc.

But this pope didn't make a peep about the devastating effects of capitalist globalization and exploitation upon the planet and especially it's poorest inhabitants. No--he had to be a rabid anti-communist right wing ideologue instead.