You could suggest it should worry me which news headline I found interesting today. But I confess that the Sixers making the playoffs was more exciting on a personal level than a new pope being elected. Does that make me a bad person?

You could chalk this up as yet another American mentality with little regard for world news. But I try my best to be honest, even if it is self depreciating from a global standpoint. Ultimately however, since I do not belong to their church or their immediate geography, electing a new pope has no bearing to me. Meanwhile, I grew up 20 minutes from Philadelphia, and have been following the Sixers for many years and am generally happy to see them back in the NBA Playoffs.

This is not to say that I don’t think the pope can do many great humanitarian things around the world in his tenure (and I hope that he does), but he will not be doing anything that directly impacts my way of life. Meanwhile, the Sixers will be providing me with the entertainment of at least 4 games (and maybe more) of playoff basketball. I don’t consider this to necessarily be the path to a higher intellectualism, but then that’s just the way it has to be.

Nevertheless, I wish good luck to both the pope and the Sixers, because no matter where your priorities are, you should let other people be happy about what interests them most. Peace.