• Image courtesy of Shutterstock

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!” Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke those words in order to perk up the peeps during the depths of the depression.

It’s a great line, but it’s not true. People have phobias. Lots of them, as it turns out. Last week’s Word Odyssey column was devoted to English words from Greek myths, including phobia from the god of fearsome dreams. While researching the word, I found out that there are phobias of just about everything.

Kids say the most offensive things. One father thought it would be a good idea to record his son spewing out every curse word he knows. Thankfully, the lad isn't well versed but he'll get there one day. Totally safe for work, unless your boss and co-workers don't like butt jokes.

Holy religious sister, Batman! Sister Cristina, 21-year-old nun, has captivated the world's attention for her exceptional performance on Thursday night's episode of the Italian reality television singing show The Voice. The sister performed Alicia Key's No One and everyone went wild. Even her fellow nuns were jumping and screaming like they were at the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

"If I had found you at Mass I would always be in church," joked one of the panel, an Italian rapper known as J-Ax, who then added: "You and me are like the devil and holy water."

• Image courtesy of Shutterstock

To mark their victory over the Ottoman Empire that had ruled them for centuries, the Greeks celebrate March 25th as their Independence Day. In honor of their Independence Day, this week’s column will feed your inner nerd with English words that trace back to those wonderful Greek myths. What word should I start with? Well, Odyssey, of course!

We use it to refer to long, wandering journeys, usually involving hardship. That’s from The Odyssey, the epic poem attributed to Homer, the blind Greek poet, around the 9th century B.C., about the adventures of Odysseus on his way home from the Trojan war. It’s the first adult book I read to my son when he was a boy, so it holds a dear place in my heart, and gives this column its title.

• Image courtesy of Shutterstock

George Bernard Shaw once said about marriage: "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition until death do them part."

This weekend my friends Corby and Andrea will so swear, and I have the privilege of solemnizing the marriage. I’d never heard of solemnize until I was called upon to do it, but as it happens, in Arizona that’s the official legal term for the role usually performed by a preacher or a justice of the peace: to render the ceremony serious, somber and dignified. I’ll give it a whirl.

)

This Star Wars mashup with Pharrell's Happy is so much fun that it even makes a Tusken Raider clap along. The Youtube video was created by a Tunisian Star Wars fan club, and it looks like they filmed on the actual set with movie authentic retro costumes. Click here to like their Facebook page.

Sometimes oversharing moms deliver Youtube comedy gold. A reddit user found this video of two children eating their english meals (beans and toast) and freaking out when they hear the ice van coming rolling by the neighborhood. Both of the toddlers just topple over and one of them starts bawling his eyes out.

I can't wait for their Tosh.0 web redemption then years from now.

• Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

International Women’s Day is coming up on March 8th, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to clear up a couple of common misconceptions about the origins of some gender words.

YouTube wizard Yousef Saleh Erakat decided to wear yoga pants in public to test a theory about men and their wandering eyes. Not only did he prove his lady friend's point, but the video has attracted over a million views in less than 24 hours. How could the world resist staring at his man cakes in those tight black yoga pants?

• The first Best of Tucson issue, from July 1987.

Best of Tucson™ voting kicks off tomorrow (don't worry, we'll send out approximately eight hundred reminders to vote before the process is finished), but hey, let's give you, the reader, one last chance to get a new category added before the ballot goes live.

Is there something we're missing? You can see the categories on our page of last year's issue (just click on the sections to the left) and if there's some sort of superlative we should include, say so in the comments. Who knows? Your "Best Tucson [fill in the blank]" could be on this year's ballot.