There's a fun survey and study of the regional variations between "pop", "soda", "coke" etc. I know when we moved out to NH eight years ago, one of the things I had to stop saying was "pop". NH is very much "soda" country. But you can tell by their map that in Chicago where I grew up it's "pop" country. This is true for much of the rust belt. When I went to college in southern Indiana I started to just hear "coke". Few things give away that “you're not from around here, are you?” like what you call carbonated beverages.
UK Times has a headline reporting Mel Gibson launches scathing attack on the Vatican and yet it doesn't seem that Mel is all that critical when you read the body of the article. Where he is critical is not where you'd expect it. It's not that he's pro-choice, or pro-gay, or something like most Hollywood critics of the Church. Mel is actually a fairly conservative Catholic — married more than 20 years with eight children with weekly Latin Mass attendence. He was critical of the hierarchy, especially for being so tight fisted about allowing Latin Masses after the second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Mel is shooting a film titled Passion that tries to explore the real human side of the suffering Jesus had in his Passion and Death.
New Hampshire had it's primary elections this past week on the 10th. There were two major Republican upsets in this primary. First, incumbant US senator Bob Smith did not receive the primary nomination to run against the Democrat nominee, Jean Shaheen. That is so rare! Instead John E. Sununu did. Yes, John E Sununu is the son of the famous John H Sununu — are Sununus becoming NH's Kennedys? Jean Shaheen is currently our governor and hoping to move up to US Senator this November. Second, because her governor seat was opening up, there were three Republican candidates running for the position. Two candidates, Benson and Humphrey, each spent millions on their primary campaigns — amazing when you consider how small NH is. Quietly a third candiate, Keough, pushed his message. In the end Benson won the primary but surprisingly it was Keough who was right behind him. Humphrey was a distant third place, probably because of his attack ads.