Sic transit gloria mundi. By Megan McArdle. April 9, 2008. Share. Save. So Pope Benedict is visiting DC soon. There is a big push to get people to metro to the event.

In the mid-1930s, many a U.S. housewife without so much as a Cadillac to call her own wrung her hands in anguish over the plight of a pathetic, ten-year-old waif named Gloria Vanderbilt.