Happy Anniversary to Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter who on July 7th celebrated 76 years of marriage. Carter was governor of Georgia and President of the United States from 1976 to 1980. He is the longest lived president in American history and they are the longest married presidential couple. At the age of 97 he continues to serve as a deacon and teach Sunday School at his church and Plains, GA, and they still volunteer one week each year at Habitat for Humanity.

“I’m gonna soak up the sun.” That’s what Sheryl Crow said and this would be the week for it. On July 8th, at 7:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 99% of the world’s population was in the sun. About 6.4 billion were in daytime with another 1.2 billion experiencing twilight. Looking at the world clock image it appears only Australia and some Pacific islands were in the dark at that moment. Source: earthsky.org

I started re-sharing the Internet Monk Radio podcast back in the summer of 2020. That project will soon some to an end as I run out of source material in just a few weeks. At the time episode #104 was the earliest I had besides the ones that had been listed on the Internet Monk Radio page dating back to 2010. Some fans shared their own archive files and we were able to come back around to the beginning as it were. Podcast #96 was published Thursday. Michael talked in that episode about shutting down the Internet Monk blog and starting a new project. I posted on Thursday evening more on what his plans were originally compared to what actually transpired.

Thoughtful, expository biblical preaching is getting hard to find these days. I don’t know who to give credit to but I recently saw this statement: Biblical Christianity is unpopular. Popular Christianity is unbiblical. Click here for the full story by Scott Barkley of Baptist Press. I used to contribute to the Christian Index from time to time when Barkley was the editor for our state paper before moving up to the national level. Click here and/or here for examples of mine from back in the day.

James Caan passed away this week at the age of 82. His role in The Godfather has been cited many times but of course I know him better from the Christmas classic Elf. Ed Asner, who passed just last year, played Santa Claus. James Caan and Ed Asner were in another movie together, El Dorado starring John Wayne back in 1966. You also get Robert Mitchum, what’s not to like? That would be a good one to see again this afternoon.

Did you cast your MLB All-Star ballots? Round 2 of voting closed yesterday at 2 PM. The list of starters for each position is up but the full rosters will not be announced until Sunday evening. Shown above is a promotion for this year’s Field of Dreams game to be played in Iowa in August. Last year the Yankees and White Sox played a real MLB game on a field built next to the movie set field. They wore period uniforms, the announcers dressed the part as well, the scored was kept on a wooden board, Kevin Costner showed up and gave a speech, it was a fun night of baseball. After the popular reception by fans (including TV numbers) MLB announced there would be more games in the future. This year the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds of the NL Central will play. Both teams currently have upside down records, 34-50 and 30-54 respectively. The only team with fewer than 30 wins is the Oakland A’s. The game should be fun as a spectacle but pretty much irrelevant otherwise.

Mark Hamill was asked to review the famous blue milk he drank in Star Wars, comparing then and now.