Mao Zedong published one. So did Ted Kaczynski, Ron Paul, and Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist writer who shot Andy Warhol.

Sigh. It would be so refreshing to pick up the newspaper and see a story about my alma mater on the front page that didn't make me cringe.

Somehow, instinctively perhaps, this year I sensed it was time for Passover before I checked the calendar. The most significant clue was that I had almost run out of matzo.

Three years and a few days ago, I was standing in the middle of St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, eating a cone of hazelnut gelato when smoke began to appear from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.

When I left the house Wednesday morning, it was supposed to be for a quick run to the Walgreens a few blocks away to pick up a prescription. Instead, I found myself driving west on the Eisenhower, headed for my alma mater, Wheaton College.

Sometimes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. This is Pope Benedict XVI's big chance.

'Death can be funny, right?" That's how journalist Jenniffer Weigel inscribed my copy of her book Stay Tuned: Conversations with Dad from the Other Side, a spiritual memoir about the death of her father, longtime Chicago broadcaster Tim Weigel, who died in 2001 at the age of 56.