Author Archives: Clark Bunch

Satur-deja Vu

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The USA became the first country in modern Olympic history to reach the milestone of winning 3,000 medals on Tuesday. When the four swimmers shown above won silver, that put the total number of medals won at the 3,000 mark. At the Olympic Games in Paris the US has won 9 gold, 18 silver and 16 bronze medals; going into this week, accounting for all medals through the 2022 winter games, the US held 1,175 gold, 951 silver and 833 bronze. Considering all medals from all time gets kind of complicated as some nations have combined or separated over the years. The Soviet Union fell apart in the early 90’s while Germany was reunified. There is no other nation anywhere close to the US record but If you really want to get deep in the weeds there are multiple tables and explanations of how the data is represented on this page.

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Satur-deja Vu

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They don’t teach that in school – Every occupation will have things come up in the real world which the training program did not address. School teachers take courses in educational and developmental psychology but also know that bus monitor and lunchroom duty come with the territory. You went to school to learn the culinary arts but you may have to take a crash course in book keeping in order to pay your other employees. Just because you earned an MBA doesn’t mean you may never be called upon to unload pallets from a truck with a pallet jack. You may think that church pastors preach for an hour on Sunday morning then get paid to study the Bible 5 days a week. I hope no one thinks that but let’s be honest, some poor soul out there probably became a pastor thinking that was the job. Preaching sermons, leading Bible studies and counseling soon to be wed couples are what people see pastors doing. Sometimes, though, they are asked to break into parishioners homes (by the homeowner mind you) or take care of wildlife. Experience is the best teacher and I share some here.

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They Don’t Teach That

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Let me start off by saying that I am thankful to have a group of pastor/preacher friends that met together on a regular basis. Such a group is the exception, not the norm, but there are benefits of gathering with like-minded individuals and sharing. Every Monday morning in our case, a group of 8 or 10 Baptist preachers, the vast majority of whom pastor small churches in rural northwest Georgia, meet to talk about things going on at church, share prayer requests and then hear a sermon. The speaker will be someone from our group or a guest we have brought in, sometimes a missionary or someone from the state office. After the meeting, which starts at 11:30 and lasts about an hour, most of us will go somewhere and eat together. We pitch in and buy the speaker’s lunch. Sometimes the conversation continues at lunch and sometimes it’s kind of loud and you can only speak to one or two people that are closest to you.

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Satur-deja Vu

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It has not been a good year for Francis Scott Key. At top is the Key Bridge, part of which collapsed in March after being struck by a container ship. The harbor is open again but it will be a while before the bridge is repaired. Ingrid Andress was widely planned for what many have called the worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner ever at Monday night’s Home Run Derby. Andress has confessed to being drunk during the performance and checked herself into rehab the next day. I expected her to double down and tell all of her critics where they could go but she has admitted to having a problem and is doing something about that instead. It is only right that we wish her well.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Canadian eh? It’s not uncommon for Canadian coins to be mixed in with ours when giving or receiving change. Most people just ignore it, if they notice at all, and carry on business as usual. I’m sure it happens more in northern states that are near the Canadian border than it does in the Deep South. A couple of days ago I noticed one quarter and two nickels amongst my change. (Technically the Canadians do not have “quarters, dimes or nickels” those are American terms. But many Canadians use those terms, referring to American and Canadian coins, because of the contact they have with our culture.) Several years ago I found a Deutsche Mark coin. That was highly unlikely, and now they have switched to the Euro.

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Satur-deja Vu

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This should have been in Happy Monday. We saved on it for a week or two then did not publish a Happy Monday post this week. We didn’t do anything much on the actual 4th of July; I worked in the yard some that morning while it was cool enough, or at least not oppressively hot, both at home and for a relative. I went through the Cook Out drive through for bacon cheeseburgers and Cajun fries then came home to do some inside work on the house. Do you know about Cook Out? It’s exactly what it sounds like; hamburgers, hot dogs, floats with a red and black table cloth motif inside the dining room. The burgers taste just like they would if you grilled them at home over charcoal. Yesterday I made some homemade pulled pork and almost over did it on the sauce. We’ve got a picnic lunch planned today and a real cookout & fireworks event tonight; this will be our 4th of July, planned and executed by some good friends on their farm.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Artificial Intelligence? In Terminator 2: Judgement Day the T-101 model has a telephone conversation with the T-1000, both of them pretending to be someone else. Arnold does a spot on John Conner impression and outwits the more advanced T-1000 who doesn’t know the name of the family pet. Artificial Intelligence in the Terminator franchise, like The Matrix and I, Robot, has advanced to a level that threatens the existence of humanity. Most of the AI we see today is used to make creepy near-photo realistic pictures that are given away by the fact it doesn’t know how many fingers human beings have on each hand. Have you had AI offer to write for you? AI makes claims that it can boost productivity by creating blog posts and even generate social media buzz by posting to social media on your behalf. The same software that thinks people have between 8 and 12 fingers on one hand wants to write my blog posts. If you read the story above you probably recognize Hulk Hogan in both pictures. Those are real images featuring a fan that met Hogan twice, once as a kid and then recreated the photo years later as an adult. That’s not his son, he is not a computer geek as far as we know, and Hogan’s real first name is Terry. The AI simply made up a fake story but had no idea Hulk Hogan is a celebrity that the vast majority of Americans would recognize whether fans of wrestling or not. It can write words and sentences but just like the images there is always a tell. Maybe AI is not as dangerous as dystopian sci-fi movies led us to believe.

Or maybe that’s what the AI wants us to think.

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The Ten Commandment Law

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The governor of Louisiana recently signed a bill into law that the Ten Commandments shall be posted in every public school K-12 classroom. It’s been in the news this week, I have wanted to say something, but every time I think about it I also feel like “I can’t believe we have to say these things again.” Here is what Jimmy Humphrey of the Jimmy’s Table Podcast had to say on social media and he gladly gave me permission to copy and paste:

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Book Review – Christianity Cracking Up

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I almost decided not to read this book. I have a great sense of humor and often use humor and sarcasm, sometimes bordering on irreverent, both online and in the pulpit. I thought a book about using comedy as a resource for evangelism and fostering unity among Christians would be right in my wheelhouse. While the use of comedy is what Jordan Hathcock is advocating his excessive use of profanity is what almost turned me away completely. On the dedication page, which is only a sentence or two, he refers to himself as “batshit crazy.” On the acknowledgment page he calls himself a “lucky son of a bitch.” One page into the introduction, as he describes the events of human history, he summarizes by saying “we’ve done some f***ed up s***. I’ve added asterisks, he did not. He frequently uses all the words which I found alarming. The back cover explains the premise of the book but doesn’t use any stronger language than “dog doo doo.” The about the author page, found near the back of the book, describes Hathcock as a “father, husband, son, brother, friend, profanity devotee…” Like I said, he makes a case for the use of comedy but says nothing about finding expletives funny yet his bio describes him as being devoted to the use of profanity. He only used the GD phrase once, but it is in there.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Camp Chick-fil-A – I’m gonna chalk this story up to a slow news week. The “news” here is about the social media outrage over a Chick-fil-A in Hammond, LA, offering a 3 hour summer program for kids to learn what it’s like to work at Chick-fil-A. For $35 kids can see what it looks like behind the scenes in Chick-fil-A’s kitchen, meet the cow mascot, meet the owner/operator, and of course get a free meal and a t-shirt. Critics jumped all over the camp announcement post on Facebook talking about child labor, corporate greed and one person even tagged the department of labor. A Chick-fil-A in Houston, TX, started having the camp a few years ago and all 200 spots sell out in a manner of minutes. The Hammond, LA, Chick-fil-A sold out all their spots within 24 hours and added additional dates. Mike Rowe (and many, many others) have come to the defense of Chick-fil-A for offering something fun during the summer that kids enjoy and that offers the “soft skills” young adults need in work environments. Chick-fil-A corporate has responded to the child labor complaints by pointing out that kids in the summer camp program will not be doing the actual work of a team member.

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