The World and Everything in It - April 8, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Culture Friday: the world’s wealthiest man becomes Twitter’s biggest shareholder, in addition to being the social-media giant's biggest nemesis.

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet joins us for a conversation on Elon Musk, the free market, and free speech.

Also today, two dramas about Cold War spycraft with lessons for today.

And two artists reflect on the way decades of life experience shaped their music.

BROWN: It’s Friday, April 8th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BROWN: Time for today’s news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Senate confirms Jackson to Supreme Court » Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the next Supreme Court justice.

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm President Biden’s nominee.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 53. They nays are 47, and this nomination is confirmed.

The 51 year-old appeals court judge will be sworn in when Justice Stephen Breyer retires over the summer.

All Democrats voted in favor of confirming Jackson. And three Republicans crossed party lines to vote “yes”—Senators Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski.

Her confirmation will make Jackson just the third black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas and the first black woman to serve on the high court.

Whitmer sues to protect abortion rights in Michigan » One of the big issues before the high court right now is that of life and abortion. And with that in mind, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sued on Thursday to maintain access to abortion in her state. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Whitmer asked a Michigan court to overturn an existing abortion ban in the state that might take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade later this year.

The Democratic governor filed the preemptive lawsuit against prosecutors in 13 counties with an abortion facility. That came as the nation’s high court considers allowing states to protect unborn lives much earlier in pregnancy and potentially even vacates Roe v. Wade, sending the matter back to the states.

Whitmer, who is up for reelection this year, requested the Michigan Supreme Court quickly take her case rather than let it wind through lower courts.

Michigan is among eight states with an unenforced abortion ban enacted before the 1973 Roe decision legalized abortion nationwide.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

NATO commits to increase military aid to Ukraine » NATO countries agreed Thursday to ramp up the supply of weapons to Ukraine, including hi-tech arms.

The decision came in the wake of disturbing evidence and reports of atrocities against civilians by Russian troops and this urging from Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

KULEBA: Either you help us now—and I’m speaking about days, not weeks—or your help will come too late.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday …

STOLTENBERG: Allies recognize the urgency of providing more support. And that was the main message from allies today.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said “sickening images and accounts coming out of Bucha and other parts of Ukraine” have strengthened the West’s resolve to punish Russia and step up support for Ukraine.

BLINKEN: With each day, more and more credible reports of rape, killings, torture are emerging.

NATO still refuses to send troops or certain weapons to Ukraine or impose a no-fly zone. That is to keep NATO from being drawn into a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

But Western countries have provided anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, as well as equipment and medical supplies.

Texas sending immigrants to Washington » Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week he is authorizing 900 buses to carry migrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border to Washington, D.C.

Abbott said the federal government can better address the needs of the thousands of migrants crossing the porous southern border each day and that the first stop will be the U.S. Capitol steps.

The Republican governor said President Biden has refused to visit the border to see the chaos that his policies have largely created.

ABBOTT: So we’re going to take the border to him by transporting the people that he is dropping off in local communities in the state of Texas and sending them to Washington by plane or by bus.

Abbott plans to announce more measures next week as part of his promised “unprecedented action” to address the immigration crisis.

State troopers near the border will also start stopping and inspecting commercial vehicles that human smugglers are known to use. This is expected to dramatically slow traffic.

State authorities also have orders to form boat blockades on the Rio Grande and install barbed wire in low-river crossings to deter migrants.

Border Patrol officials are preparing for up to 18,000 arrivals daily once Title 42 expires. That is a pandemic health rule that limits migrant crossings.

Big league baseball returns with lockout-delayed Opening Day » Major League Baseball is back. Opening Day was delayed by one week due to a lockout and a months-long labor dispute between owners and the players union.

But the boys of summer were back on the diamond on Thursday, starting with the Chicago Cubs hosting the Milwaukee Brewers.

AUDIO: There goes Ortega. Strike, throw down to second, tag … got him! Omar Narvaez cuts down Rafael Ortega, and that’s how the first inning ends for Chicago.

Twelve other teams took the field Thursday, including Cleveland’s big league ball club wearing new uniforms and a new name. Formerly known as the Indians, the team is now the Cleveland Guardians.

And the reigning World Series Champion Atlanta Braves hosted the Cincinnati Reds at home.

The league ultimately did not cancel any games. It merely delayed them. Teams will play a few scheduled doubleheaders and sacrifice a few off days to make up for the lost week.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Washington puts men in women’s prisons.

Plus, songs from the front porch.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday, April 8th, 2022. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Let’s bring in John Stonestreet. He’s the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast, and he joins us now. Good morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning!

BROWN: John, we just wrapped up season 3 of our Effective Compassion podcast—a compelling look at ways Christians are active in ministering to men and women behind bars.

I can't help but think these mission-minded men and women on the front lines are going to have their hands full, especially after what happened In Washington State this week.

Democratic Governor Jay Inslee signed into law a bill that John, you call the "Can't Ask About Males in the Women's Prisons" bill. What it boils down to is a male inmate, identifying as a woman, can be transferred to a women's prison and information about that man, like his transgender status cannot be released.

Do you see this as primarily a safety issue for inmates or as primarily a cultural issue?

STONESTREET: Well, the answer is yes. It's both right. I mean, we're culturally downstream far enough to a degree in which we are saying things that are—and I don't mean this in any sort of derogatory sense; I mean, this in the legitimate sense of the word—things that would have been considered absurd, a generation ago. We now have headlines and have serious conversations about just bizarre things. You know, we call gender affirmation that which mutilates a body away from its sexual identity. We're doing things in this area that we would never do in any other area, any other sort of body dysphoria, where someone thinks one thing and their body reflects something else, such as eating disorders, we always then try to align the mind with the body. It's only in this case, and there's no other cases where we try to align the body with the mind.

And this is another consequence of that once you start using words in brand new ways, once you start defining things upside down, then you have something that just is absolutely bizarre.

We have cases where males have sexually abused women in prison after identifying as women. We now have knowledge that women are getting pregnant behind bars. And then to turn around and go give a male says that they're a female and they're, you know, sentenced for some sort of crime, even if it's some sort of act of sexual aggression, you can't ask about that. One, what planet does this make sense?

And now yeah, you're creating a safety issue for inmates because it's a cultural issue. In other words, cultural issues very often proceed on the definitions and redefinitions and reuse, and flipping upside down of language. But language doesn't stay in books. We know that the building block of reality itself is language, it's God's language. We know that the language of God's image bearers is incredibly powerful. I mean, we all have the ability, you know, to look at each other in the eye and either make somebody's day or ruin somebody's day. We have that sort of power in our language.

So it shouldn't surprise us that the abuse of language will turn out to be a real safety issue because ideas oftentimes proceed through the redefinition of words.

EICHER: Well, let’s talk about language, and specifically the dissemination of language. This week we learned that Twitter’s most wealthy critic—Elon Musk—became the single biggest shareholder in Twitter.

Do you assume that Elon Musk’s dropping something like 2-1/2 billion dollars to acquire this massive stake in Twitter is going to result in making Twitter a little more libertarian and a little less intolerant of free-speech?

STONESTREET: I think, gosh, there's a lot of outcomes. I think it's going to make it all a lot more entertaining. In other words, I think you know, that's the thing we can all be sure of like, we're all watching going, where's this gonna end? It may end in it becoming a little more libertarian. Certainly Elon Musk, you know, that’s one of his goals. You know, this could be the beginning of the end for Twitter, with such a big shareholder. So that's a possible outcome.

But it's going to be real interesting to see these collisions.

You've got Twitter employees, saying, “I can't work for Elon Musk” and to which it's like, hey, free market. Let Elon Musk buy the stock. You know, the free market allowed Twitter to abuse free speech for a long time, and target conservatives, and the free-market allows you to leave the job whenever you want.

So I will say I think this is a much more clever solution than bringing the state to bear. It's tempting to see something that's patently unfair and abusive, like the way that Twitter treats conservatives and then to say, well, the government needs to step in. You know, I still believe in what Reagan said that it's a scary time when the government says, I'm here to help. They're not the ones you want to solve the free speech problem today.

EICHER: Interesting you’d bring that up, John. There’s a rift among conservatives on the role of government. There’s the use of market muscle, typified by what Elon Musk has done.

And then there’s the “we need to regulate this” approach. Basically, the moment Twitter stopped acting like a phone provider and started acting like a broadcaster, that regulators ought to step in.

I know we may be veering out of your cultural lane, but it sounds like you have some thoughts on that.

STONESTREET: Yeah, I'm still on the, you know, let's not bring the state in to regulate it aside at this point, mainly, because I think that Twitter's reputation for being that important is really overstated. If you look at the actual numbers, very few people are on Twitter, and a very few amount of those that are on Twitter send the vast majority of the tweets right. Now, that said, there are certain discourses that do take place uniquely on Twitter, almost all of them unhelpful, but they're the culturally loud ones. And so, you know, it's played this outsized role in the Arab Spring, it's played this outsized role in passing, you know, information on from developing nations, particularly those that are in the middle of crisis. So there is that. And don't underestimate that. I mean, whenever there's a headline, I go on Twitter right away, because Twitter typically is ahead of the New York Times, The Washington Post, and anything else that can give us headlines just because of the nature of getting now of course, it's quite possible what you're getting is misinformation. You know, I understand like, there's a difference between conservatives and the role of government anyway, you know, what should the government be involved in? And what shouldn't there's a conservatives who think the government is, you know, a necessary evil, and there's those who think that the government is a potential good and an essential, but has to, you know, stay within its to use hyper Abraham Cuypers language, and it's fear. And the problem isn't that the government exists, the problem is that government has transcended its fear, I would probably be in that category. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's probably at the heart of it, there's probably a deep ideological difference. And Twitter is, you know, probably the loudest are not just Twitter, but Facebook is the loudest example. And then what do you how do you decide that? Because, you know, how do you decide if what applies to Twitter applies to Facebook applies to tick tock applies to Snapchat, like, you know, there's so many different platforms with so many different angles and played very different roles among different population segments. So, I don't know. I think there's a lot to figure out, which is one of the reasons I think that the most interesting outcome of Elon Musk is probably the sunset of Twitter. I don't know if it'll be next year or five years from now, but I'd see a future in which Twitter was this thing like MySpace.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Once a week, a Florida Dunkin Donuts drive-through gets a little giddyup.

That’s when cowboy and retired bull rider David Bosselait visits the donut shop on his 8-year-old horse, Jackson.

They only come once a week because it’s a 12-mile round trip from his house and on a horse, that’s a half-day event.

Bosselait told TV station WBBH, he always orders a cup of coffee. And Jackson enjoys the sweets and the attention.

BOSSELAIT: And they like to pat him and scratch him, and they hand him his donut.

So what’s his preference? Bavarian cream?

Jelly-filled?

Nah, Jackson keeps it simple.

BOSSELAIT: His order is just a plain donut.

With apologies to Toby Keith and Willie Nelson.

Coffee for my men, donuts for my horses!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, April 8th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: wartime drama.

Maybe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has got you interested in understanding the Soviet Union and Cold War history. If so, WORLD correspondent Sarah Schweinsberg has two movie recommendations that help bring that history to life.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REVIEWER: Maybe I just didn’t pay attention all that well in my high school history classes. But somewhere between the devastating World Wars, and the bloody Korean and Vietnam Wars—the fear, uncertainty, and longevity of the Cold War got lost on me.

That’s why I appreciated 2020’s The Courier and 2015’s Bridge of Spies. Both movies are available for streaming on Amazon Prime and portray chapters of Cold War history based on true events.

Director Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies stars Tom Hanks as James Donovan, a New York lawyer who managed to negotiate one of the most famous spy swaps in history.

CLIP: We are engaged in a war with the Soviet Union. This war does not for the moment involve men at arms. It involves information.

In 1957, Donovan’s firm asks him to provide legal defense for a Russian man charged with espionage. They describe it as a public service.

CLIP: We have a Soviet spy. We want you to defend him.

I’m an insurance lawyer. I haven’t done criminal work in years.

But James Donovan’s criminal work happened after World War II when he served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

Now, tasked with defending alleged Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel, Donovan does everything he can to give his client the best defense possible, taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Donovan’s vigorous defense of Abel puzzles the American public.

But just like at the Nuremberg Trials, Donovan believes American justice is on display for the world to see. He wants to show that everyone gets a fair shake under the Constitution, unlike the arbitrary and often brutal law enforcement in the Soviet Union.

CLIP: People are scared of this man. He’s a threat to all of us. Do you know how people will look at us? The family of a man trying to free a traitor?

Everyone deserves a defense. Every person matters.

In the end, Donovan’s principles give the U.S. government bargaining power when the Soviets capture a downed Air Force pilot.

The film starts out slow, but picks up speed when Donovan travels behind the newly built Berlin Wall to broker a deal to save the pilot.

The Courier has a similar theme, centering on the true story of an ordinary businessman thrust into the heart of the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union.

Greville Wynne, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a middle-aged British businessman who has never done much of anything. In fact, his drinking and philandering have put his relationship with his long-suffering wife in jeopardy. Then, in 1960, he gets a call.

CLIP: Sounds like work.

No, tell them I’m in my chair.

Yes, he’s just walked in!

Wynne sits down to lunch with a man and woman who reveal themselves to be members of American and British intelligence. They’ve taken an interest in Wynne because he regularly travels through Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union representing British electrical and steel companies.

The agents ask Wynne to begin traveling to Moscow under the guise of developing manufacturing opportunities in Russia. But his real mission will be to pass information back and forth with a Soviet informant high up in the government, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Penkovsky.

CLIP: But I’m just a salesman.

Exactly, you’re a civilian, so the KJB won’t be watching.

It would be a real service to Great Britain.

Wynne reluctantly agrees.

Over the next two years, Wynne forms a deep friendship with his Russian informant and the two create one of the most productive undercover operations in Cold War history.

CLIP: Everyone you meet, assume they are KGB. Every Russian is an eye of the state.

You’ll just be a courier. Just a courier. For Russian secrets?

Bridge of Spies and The Courier both include great storytelling. And both have limited bad language with brief violence and one bare backside shows up in The Courier.

The films give a taste of a war that wasn’t fought on battlefields, but through espionage, military might, and threats. They also paint a picture of the big and small ways men and women on both sides of the Iron Curtain fought the Communist regime.

As George Eliot wrote, “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” Thanks to individuals like Greville Wynn and James Donovan, along with thousands of others, the Berlin Wall eventually fell.

As new regimes come to power today, these stories encourage all of us to ask what small acts of courage we too can take.

I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, April 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The Tennessee musical duo Alathea have been writing songs and performing for more than two decades. WORLD Correspondent Steve West recently talked to the pair about making music and doing life together.

STEVE WEST, CORRESPONDENT: Mandee Langley and Christi Johnson create and perform original and traditional music in what they call front-porch-style, using an assortment of acoustic instruments. They intertwine their melodic voices with engaging stories of life on the road—inspired by nature, family, community, and faith. It’s music that’s taken them across the United States and around the world.

It all began, Mandee says, in an Appalachian mountain cabin near Indian Creek where they lived together for 10 years. She writes about it in a 2003 song of the same name.

MUSIC: “INDIAN CREEK”

MANDEE: We lived in the cabin at the foot of the mountains. And across the street, from the cabin is Indian Creek. Every night, I would walk across the street. And I would sit on this one rock. And I would just watch the sunset over the mountains. And I would listen to the water move across the stream. And it was finally when I got still and when I got quiet that things became clear.

Both Mandee and Cristi credit their Christian faith—their awareness of God’s work in their lives—as instrumental to the music they make. Cristi grew up in Southern Baptist churches but appreciates her broader exposure to many types of churches as a musician.

CRISTI: For whatever reason, when we started we were being invited to all different types of churches. What was interesting as we traveled all around and we were in all these different places is that we could see that there was goodness in each place and that there are also problems. And so it was kind of helpful for us to kind of see …

MUSIC: “HURRICANE”

This song, “Hurricane,” from their 2007 release titled Our Roots Grow Deeper, earned them widespread acclaim—including winning the 2009 John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the Folk Category. Written two months before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf states, it seemed connected to that terrible storm. But Mandee says it’s about a different kind of wind—inspired by Psalm 139.

MANDEE: Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. If I ascend to heaven, you're there. And so, in writing that song, I was thinking about that Psalm and like, we can't go anywhere from God's Spirit. Like, no matter where we wander, God's Spirit will hunt us down. And sometimes God's Spirit finds us with the fury of a hurricane. And sometimes God's Spirit is as gentle as a dove, like how God's Spirit descended on Jesus. But either way, God's Spirit hunts us down.

A lot of water has flowed by Mandee’s rock on Indian Creek since those early years in the cabin. Both women have married, and both have children. They moved into town—Jonesborough, Tennessee—and set up house right next door to each other. They make music and raise their families together. As Mandee explains, their in-town location is inspiring her writing for a new album.

MANDEE: I live now in a great community, we have great neighbors, we have people who support us, our kids can run up and down Main Street. And so a lot of my new material for the next album is just about how I'm finding life, and the big love of God, in my neighbors, in my community, and my children.

MUSIC: “1 2 3 4”

COVID ended the duo’s touring for a time. Like many parents, both women found themselves at home with the kids trying to figure out what to do and when things would go back to normal. But Mandee says the pandemic was also a gift: Their children’s Catholic school hired them as artists in residence.

MANDEE: We've been able to be in the school, playing music, creating music, teaching music, every single day. So we feel like the luckiest musicians on the planet.

Songs don’t always wear well in the minds of their writers. But when I asked Cristi what song continued to resonate for her, she was quick to mention “Common Ground,” off their 2010 album, Tremble.

MUSIC: “COMMON GROUND”

CRISTI: As I get older, I realize we are all the same. And how do we look at each person in the eyes and know that God, God created them. God lives in them and how do we love God back by loving God through the other person, whoever that is in front of us. I think we live in a world where it's really easy to make enemies of people faster than we can make family and it helps me to remember that we are all on common ground.

MUSIC: “MY ROOTS GROW DEEPER”

MANDI: It's been a rough couple of years. But spring is about to do what she does. And all that's been planted, all that's happened underneath the mud, is about to come forth.

It’s a good last word: Spring is here. I’m Steve West. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to thank our talented team:

Mary Reichard, Kent Covington, David Bahnsen, Kristen Flavin, Anna Johansen Brown, Josh Schumacher, Lauren Dunn, Emily Whitten, Whitney Williams, Onize Ohikere, Kim Henderson, Joel Belz, Steve West, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, and Sarah Schweinsberg.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Carl Peetz and Johnny Franklin are the audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Leigh Jones is managing editor, and Paul Butler is our executive producer.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Tenth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

Remember to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ this weekend, and Lord willing, we’ll meet you back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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