In the past 30 days we have lost John Madden, Betty White, Sidney Poitier, Bob Saget, Meatloaf and Louie Anderson. As far as I know none of these deaths are being blamed on Covid. Betty White was only a few days short of a hundred. Louie Anderson had been admitted to the hospital earlier this week and was fighting late stage cancer. It will be several weeks before the coroner releases any more information on Bob Saget.

Here’s a fun fact I just learned: Louie Anderson was originally cast with Bronson Pinchot in Perfect Strangers. When the show got picked up they didn’t feel the chemistry was right between Anderson and Pinchot and Anderson was replaced by Mark Linn-Baker. The Lou Appleton character became Larry Appleton and the show ran for eight seasons.

What’s with the airline industry’s panic over 5G cell service? 5G has been around for a while now but they were about to launch 5G service in a range of frequencies known as “C band.” They have been working on bringing the enhanced high speed data service to cell users for at least two years, and rolled out 5G in C band in several other countries. They were scheduled to bring the new towers online in the US back in November and then again at the beginning of January. Both delays were caused by the FAA as the airlines freak out that 5G radio signals operating in C band would interfere with things like altimeter displays in passenger and cargo plane cockpits. No one knows this would happen but the federal agency in charge of air traffic is afraid it might. 5G did roll out this week but any towers near airports are still on hold. You can read more in this C-Net article but here is the quote of the week:

“At our sole discretion we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry and the [Federal Aviation Administration] to provide further information about our 5G deployment, since they have not utilized the two years they’ve had to responsibly plan for this deployment,” an AT&T spokesperson said in a statement.  

AT&T and Verizon had terse words as they note that 40 other countries have already done what the United States has not figured out how to do yet, and that’s fully implement 5G.

 

When it says teenagers it means 18 and over. The headline is written for maximum attention grabbing effect. Current federal regulations restrict commercial drivers under the age of 21 from crossing state lines. They are not simply dropping those regulations. The federal program would allow for up to 3,000 young adults to qualify and would last for up to three years. The drivers would get 400 hours of training on the highway working with an experienced driver.

Remember Chondra Pierce? She made a name for herself in the late 90’s as a female Christian stand-up comedian. She released a book in 2019 titled “Unashamed” which is also the name of Phil and Jase Robertson’s podcast. Maybe I should have led with Do you remember Phil and the entire Robertson clan from the series Duck Dynasty? When they have guests, which is not every episode, it’s usually one per broadcast. Ep. 412 is different in that they have two guests, Pierce does not come on until the second half. Despite the preview pic neither guest is in the studio but they do have a video feed from a remote location, which doesn’t matter if you only listening to the podcast. You can watch on their YouTube channel, Blaze TV, or listen in wherever you get your podcasts.

While we’re on the subject of podcasts, Jimmy Humphrey talks this week about church in the age of internet connectivity and social distancing. You can listen to Fiber Optic Preachers at Jimmy’s website, iTunes, Spotify or again wherever you get your podcasts. It might not be a bad idea for the church to get out of the building but Jimmy is right when he warns against Christianity being a product we can consume and easily discard. This episode is short and he doesn’t offer any advice that is prescriptive, only suggests we ask the right kinds of questions. You can sit on your couch and listen to a good sermon in your pajamas. But the body of Christ needs hands that work and feet that go. You can listen to dozens of good sermons all week long but the remote church trend of 2020 only works for so long because the church needs you. Church is more than listening to sermons; the other members of the body need your spiritual gifts brought to the table. That doesn’t necessarily need to happen in a church building… but it does need to happen. You are salt and light, said the greatest preacher that ever lived.

I first learned what a podcast is from the first person I ever met with a blog and that was Michael Spencer. Internet Monk Radio podcast #5 was produced before he had a cover image or a program intro. Episode 5 predates the Internet Monk compound deep beneath the Boar’s Head Tavern in Saint Sadies, Maryland. (If you know, you know.) You can’t get iMonk Radio from the iTunes store or from InternetMonk.com, even though if you listen to the podcast he says you can. I have been re-posting the existing episodes from my own archive over the past several months. We recently ended the run at podcast #167 and if you’re just joining us this is your opportunity to start at the beginning. Well, podcast #5 is actually as close to the beginning as we can get. Mike Bell, Michael Mercer and others have been generous to share what they have and I am working on making everything that still exists available. Episodes are posted every Thursday. #’s 48 – 81 are gathered on this page. Click this link to view all the others I have posted up to this point. Dozens of people download each podcast I share, probably old friends and fans like myself.

Fun Fact: the pool on the Titanic was filled with heated sea water to begin with. So it’s not like chlorinated fresh water was lost and replaced by salt water as the ship sank, technically the pool is still filled with the same stuff it was always filled with.

This was my view from the carport looking across the street on Sunday afternoon. The temp never dropped below freezing here but snow came down, pretty hard at times, for a couple of hours. It was nice to look at, made for a few good pics, then was completely gone just a few hours later.

This illustration is from a patent for standing room only “seats” for domestic flights in the US. Just because a product is patented doesn’t mean it will actually be produced… but it does show the airlines are thinking about it. And you thought the 5G delay was bad.

Here’s an old pic of me with a kid on each knee. Neither the child nor the goat would look at the camera. The oldest rule of show business is never work with children or animals but that’s okay, I’m not in show business.

Last fun fact of the day: If you Google images of “Meatloaf” with no other descriptors or qualifiers, you get a hundred pictures of food with one random image of the singer thrown in there somewhere.