Wait, what? We’re not saying that anymore? Lake Superior State University has released their annual list of the words and phrases most of us are tired of hearing and the rest of us need to drop. If Jimmy Humphrey were in fact to stop using at the end of the day the Jimmy’s Table podcast would drop from 30 minutes to only 10. While the list makes a humorous commentary on our culture at a given moment in time I do not recognize their authority in this matter. At the end of the day appeared on their list a decade ago and you may notice that people still say it. At best Lake Superior operates at an advisory capacity with no enforcement whatsoever.

The pope said what? Pope Francis said this week that people choosing to have pets instead of children is selfish and takes away our humanity. My theory has long been that no news is good news and the fact that CBS News, CNN, The New York Times and others covered this story means that Ukraine has not been invaded, an airport has not been bombed by terrorists, etc. Never question why news outlets are covering a puff piece. The lack of real news equates to good news for the rest of us. Now to the issue of people not having children: the population of the world will soon reach 8 billion. When the sheer number of human beings exceed the earth’s capacity to produce food for them all, you are going to see selfish behavior that diminishes our humanity for real.

Twitter icon Lloyd Legalist has been suspended. In confirming this report first hand I did find some other accounts, such as Lloyd Legalist’s Lawyer and…

… the Prodigal Son of Lloyd Legalist. These didn’t just pop up but have been around for years. My suspicion is that they are all functions of the same person but don’t put Twitter wise to it all.

Here’s some real news. I didn’t follow all of the televised court proceedings but did watch live on Friday afternoon as the judge issued sentencing for the three men already convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Judge Timothy Walmsley, as expected, used what discretion he could to give William Bryan the possibility of parole after 30 years. The McMichaels were given nearly the full sentence allowed by law. The McMichael’s claimed self defense in their trial after fatally shooting the unarmed Ahmaud Arbery while trying to make a citizen’s arrest. The laws in Georgia have already been changed to end the citizen’s arrest practice.

The village of Pompeii is famous for being buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted suddenly and without warning in AD 79. The ruins were discovered late in the 16th century and careful excavation and preservation techniques give us something of a time capsule view of life in southern Italy in the first century. Frescos, large paintings on the interior walls of buildings, were well preserved in addition to food on the table and many objects. What you see above is a plaster cast of a citizen of Pompeii. The people living in Pompeii were not killed by lava flows. The entire village was buried by a few meters of soot and ash when the top of Vesuvius exploded. Over time the bodies of people, pets, anything organic, decayed and the ashy slowly solidified. The void spaces left behind were like negative molds of whatever had been there. Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a process of filling the void spaces with plaster then carefully carving away the soft stone around each plaster casting. The bodies of those living in Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were not fossilized; those are plaster casts that represent real people and animals on the day of their demise. (It’s a common misunderstanding and I’m writing about it now because of a conversation I had with some folks just this week.) After being preserved underground for over a thousand years, the entire village has been unearthed and carefully studied. Ironically earthquakes threaten to level the historic walls and have to periodically be reinforced with wooden frames.

I asked this question earlier this week at a ministerial alliance meeting and the general consensus was no, leftovers have already been blessed. All joking aside I do think offering thanks for leftovers is appropriate. There are folks with no food to eat that be very thankful for the reheated leftovers I am blessed to enjoy.

40 percent of American homes still have a landline but very few of those homes have only a landline. Over half of American households have only wireless phone service, which has been us since 2015.

Let me just add that he has been married over 20 years to the same woman. So that’s weird in a different kind of way.

Every now and then you will see this image online and someone tried to set the facts straight. Failing to realize that the United States is not the only country in the world, the fact-checker will assert that FDR had not been president at the time of WWI and so his face was not yet on the dime. The US had very little involvement in WWI and not until near the end. Those coins are Belgian and the story of how Optatius Buyssens was saved by them is well documented. Except sometimes the story is about a British soldier that saved by a breast pocket full of coins, as reported by BBC. At any rate, those are not American coins so you cannot dismiss the claim out of hand.

A janitor put his hand into the enclosure, in an attempt to either feed the animal or pet it. The tiger clamped onto his arm and wouldn’t let go. The young man, 26 year old River Rosenquist, managed to call 911 himself and when deputies arrived he pleaded with them to shoot the animal. The cleaning company is contracted to clean restrooms and the gift shops, not animal enclosures. Rosenquist breached a barrier to get close enough to even reach inside the bars in the first place. Charges are still being considered for Rosenquist and this would not be his first criminal offense.

And finally

CD sales are up for the first time in 17 years. And December was the best month for vinyl record sales since 1991. Let the record show.