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Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky is just about everywhere. You can find the distinctive square bottle in bars, liquor stores and supermarkets from Milwaukee to Mumbai.

According to the trade magazine Drinks International, Johnnie Walker is the ninth best-selling brand of distilled spirit in the world. And it's getting bigger.

Afshin Molavi, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, says it's all part of one of the biggest recent trends in global economics: the rapid growth of the middle class.

In Foreign Policy, Molavi writes about how a small general store founded by "a young John Walker" in 1819 transformed into "part of a massive conglomerate" with concerns around the globe. Now, five of Johnnie Walker's top seven global markets are in emerging markets.

Molavi tells NPR's Arun Rath that Johnnie Walker's success has followed the economic rise of countries like Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and India.

"We're looking at another 3 billion people entering the global middle class by the year 2030," says Molavi. "So what are companies like Johnnie Walker's parent company, Diageo, doing? They're chasing that global middle class — as is McDonald's, as is Starbucks."

In particular, Molavi says, companies like Johnnie Walker are targeting the "global aspirational middle classes," groups that are rising economically.

Molavi says a key element of Johnnie Walker's success is its advertising pitch in these countries.

One recent Johnnie Walker commercial in Mexico, for example, doesn't even feature a single shot of whisky. Instead, Molavi says, the "keep walking" tagline is more of a metaphor for Mexico's economic growth.

In the Vatican today, a surreal scene:

Pope Francis cradled the relics during a mass at St. Peter's Square, which marked the end of the global church's Year of Faith. It was also the first time the Catholic Church has displayed the relics in public.

The Guardian reports there is much mystery and intrigue concerning the eight pieces of bone. No pope has ever definitively said the bones are the remains of St. Peter, but in 1968 Pope Paul VI said the bones found underneath St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican had been "identified in a way that we can consider convincing."

The Associated Press reports that archaeologists dispute the finding.

But the story is still alluring. The Guardian bases its story on The Ears of the Vatican, the 2012 book by Bruno Bartoloni. According to the book, the relics were discovered in 1939, as archaeologists were excavating in the grottoes of St. Peter's Basilica to bury Pope Pius XI.

As they worked, they discovered a casket with an engraving in Greek that read, "Peter is here."

The Guardian continues:

"The scholar of Greek antiquities Margherita Guarducci, who had deciphered the engraving, continued to investigate and learned that one of the basilica workers had been given the remains found inside the casket and stored them in a shoe box kept in a cupboard. She reported her findings to Paul VI, who later proclaimed there was a convincing argument that the bones belonged to Peter.

"Leading Vatican Jesuits and other archaeologists strongly denied the claim, but had little recourse.

" 'No pope had ever permitted an exhaustive study, partly because a 1,000-year-old curse attested by secret and apocalyptic documents, threatened anyone who disturbed the peace of Peter's tomb with the worst possible misfortune,' Bartoloni wrote."

University of Notre Dame women's basketball coach Muffet McGraw has led her team to five NCAA Final Fours, is the reigning Naismith College Coach of the Year, and has a spot in the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. On top of all that, she could almost certainly beat most NPR listeners at a game of H-O-R-S-E.

The only other Muffet we've ever met is the Little Miss, so we've invited McGraw to play a game called "So what exactly is a tuffet anyway?" Three questions about nursery rhymes and children's songs.

Consider how many synonyms there are for tedium: boredom, monotony, uniformity, dreariness, ennui, listlessness, each with its own subtle nuances. Perhaps it says something about our society that we must differentiate between the boredom of the office cubicle and of the traffic jam.

None of the authors below set out to write a book about tedium, but hovering always just behind the scenes is that debilitating affliction, sluggish and repetitious, playing a central role in their lives.