These are the days of miracles and wonders.

I guess everyone's going to link to Peggy Noonan's essay about the new pope, and I wasn't going to pope-blog, but this line jumped out at me:

It is an age of miracles and wonders, of sightings of Mary and warnings, of prophecy, graces and gifts.

Didn't you think of two things?

1. Paul Simon's "Graceland." Was that on purpose? Google says yes. Search for "Paul Simon" and "miracles and wonders" and the first thing that comes up is this old article by none other than Noonan.

2. "Sighting of Mary"? Is Noonan excited about the salt stain on the Chicago underpass? Too bad we can't get a miracle in the form of improving the flow of traffic on the Kennedy Expressway.

UPDATE: Argonautical Ramblings is photoblogging the underpass stain and the assembling crowds. The link is to the blog itself. Each photo is a separate link, unfortunately, but here's the post that begins the series. Thanks to the commenter here who pointed out this site.