I love it when you call me Big Poppa

The Pope a.k.a. Benedict XVI a.k.a. the Bishop of Rome a.k.a. Joseph Alois Ratzinger is coming to Spain! He is headed to Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela this weekend. Here is Spain the Pope is known as El Papa which for me is just weird. Allow me explain why, first because for me Papa is my grandpa and always will be even though he passed a while ago. My memories of him include big gold chains (he was Italian of course) and  arguing for hours with my grandmother about whether there were native penguins in Florida. I remember being sort of afraid of him because he teased us when we were little and I recall him bringing us donuts after church on Sundays when my grandparents would come to our house. Wait a minute. Maybe El Papa and my Papa weren´t so different after all. El Papa rocks gold and kind of scares me. He also seems to be unable to admit when he is wrong (see birth control, gay marriage, women´s role in the church etc). He might take a page from my Papa´s book and give out money to everyone on Christmas, that was always a hit and donuts after church wasn´t bad either.
Papa can also mean potato (see solanum tuberosum) in Spanish, though here in Spain they say patata. Sometimes when I hear people talking about El Papa I think of a giant potato blessing a crowd. Usually it makes me hungry.
Big Poppa a.ka. The Notorious B.I.G. a.k.a. Biggie Smalls a.k.a. Christopher George Letore Wallace was a rapper who was murdered in a drive-by shooting in 1997. He was known by many different aliases like the Pope. He also wore big gold chains and was sort of shaped like a potato. He also kind of scares me. There are many conspiracy theories about his unsolved murder and now seeing all the "random" coincidences, I could see how the Church might be involved.
In any case, if I had to rank all of the Papa/Poppas I know it would go a little something like this:
1. My Papa who I love (R.I.P.)
2. Papas especially if they are french fried
3. Papa Noel a.k.a. Santa Claus
4. El Papa because you like to think that as a symbol of the Church he would be doing good things
5. and finally Big Poppa who lived up to the stereotype of violence and degradation of women by rappers and caused Puff Daddy to slaughter a perfectly good Sting song which puts him squarely at the bottom of my list

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