The World and Everything in It: August 9, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I'm Emily Kiser and I live with my husband and our four amazing Children in Southwest Virginia. I'm the host of A Delectable Education, a podcast about a distinctly Christian method of education. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday, that controversial final round for boxing gold in the Olympics.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Katie McCoy is standing by to talk about the possibility that the women’s gold medal could be going to a man.

Also today, an appreciation for the artistic vision of filmmaker Werner Herzog.

WERNER HERZOG: And this sense of awe, and this sense of discovery never left me.

And Word Play with George Grant.

BROWN: It’s Friday, August 9th. 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: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS HOST: Trump, Harris agree to debate » Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will square off in at least one presidential debate.

ABC News confirms it’ll host a debate September 10th, though Trump says the two sides still need to work out details.

TRUMP: Audience, some location… which city would be put it into? But, all things that will be settled very easily, very… I think it’ll be very easy. The other side has to agree to the terms.

Anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate.

The vice president says…

HARRIS: I’m looking forward to it and, um, hope he shows up.

Trump says he’s willing to debate up to three times. Harris says she’s happy to talk about having an additional debate after their already-scheduled showdown.

SOUND: [Closing bell]

Economy: good jobs numbers, stocks bounce back » All smiles and cheers as the closing bell rang down on Wall Street’s best day since 2022.

The key reason stocks were way up? A much better than expected jobs report, which eased fears the U.S. economy may be slowing down.

Just Monday, stocks took a massive dive amid concerns over a possible recession. It was Wall Street’s worst day in three years.

Mortgage rates lowest in a year » If you’re hoping to buy a house in the U.S., that goal’s starting to look a little less daunting. Mortgage rates dropped significantly this week.

The average fixed-rate for a 30-year mortgage fell to 6.47%, down from last week’s 6.73%.

That’s the lowest level in more than a year and the biggest drop since December. Economists say this news should boost homebuyers’ purchasing power.

But it’s not all roses. Overall, the housing market’s still tight with demand outpacing supply.

Israel preparing for attack » Israel is still bracing for a possible attack from Iran and its proxies.

Regional tensions have soared after the killing of a top Hamas political leader in Tehran late last month.

Israel is thought to be behind that attack, but hasn’t claimed responsibility.

GALLANT: [Speaking in Hebrew]

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying his country is in a state of high defense readiness. He says Israel has taken precautions, some of which can be seen, while others cannot.

U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller says the Biden Administration is cautioning Iran against doing anything to inflame tensions.

MILLER: We continue to make clear to Iran that they should not escalate this conflict. They should not take any further escalatory steps, that those steps are not in their interests. They're not in the interests of the wider region. And that's a point we will continue to impress in all of our diplomatic engagements in the region.

Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet Israel is already in a multi-front war with Iran and its proxies.

SOUND: [Storm in Bladenboro, N.C.]

Tropical Storm Debby latest » Parts of North Carolina are trying to dry out after a wallop from Tropical Storm Debby earlier this week.

In the town of Bladenboro, people woke up to standing water a few feet deep in some places.

WEST: It was scary, not knowing when the rain was going to stop. That was really scary.

This woman says she never lost power and the water is receding quickly, but the heavy rain left a few stores in the downtown area damaged.

WEST: We are waiting for the water to go down so we can help everybody get their stuff cleaned up and get back in their buildings and see what damage is done. The drains are working pretty good right now. The water's going down really fast. We're just praying that we don't get any more rain.

Forecasters say more flooding’s on the way for parts of eastern South Carolina and southeast North Carolina as the storm moves through.

Lyles wins bronze while racing with COVID » The American sprinter Noah Lyles brought home the bronze yesterday in the men’s 200-meter Olympics finals. But it wasn’t easy for him.

SOUND: [Race beginning]

Audio here courtesy of the International Olympics Committee.

Lyles revealed he was diagnosed with COVID-19 two days before the competition. He says he’s had the chills, aches, and a sore throat, but it didn’t stop him from competing.

Lyles is supposed to compete in the 100-meter relay today, but given his illness, he said he’d leave it up to his teammates to decide whether he runs.

He says he’s at about 90 or 95 percent of peak condition.

I'm Mark Mellinger.

This is The World and Everything in It. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday the 9th of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

And I’m Myrna Brown.

Before we get going, I want to share some good news on the medical front about our friend Mary Reichard, who we’re happy to say has a very good chance of getting to head home today or tomorrow.

EICHER: Yes, because the doctors placed two stents and this staves off a major surgery for now, so lots of answered prayers and we’re grateful for that.

BROWN: Mary’s been keeping an audio diary, so let’s listen now to her most recent update:

MARY REICHARD: Hey, good morning. You know when something happens so gradually, you really don't notice that you’re headed in the wrong direction? It could be some arthritic condition, or maybe you let your kids get away with something they shouldn’t and that behavior becomes acceptable over time.

Well, that’s kind of what happened to me, but I woke up this morning after getting my stents installed in my newly operational heart.

For the first time in a long time, I could breathe easily without having to take huge gulps of air. I mean, I was breathing like that throughout the day, and that had become normal. And I didn’t tell my doctors that I even had shortness of breath until this morning, when suddenly everything improved and I didn’t feel that need to take a huge breath. And, you know, how do you thank somebody for this? All the doctors and nurses and patient care techs, I just want to shout out Rachel, Devlin, Amber, Tracy, and Joan on the 10th floor of Barnes, Jewish Hospital, so wonderful.

And my stent doctors, Dr. Tran and Dr. Thacker are their names. They bring a whole level of expertise. Thanks to all of them, I'm going to be going home soon and start a whole new chapter of following Jesus, a new treating my body like the temple that it is, and not so much like I’m a slum lord. I encourage you all to do the very same.

Life is good and praise the Lord.

BROWN: It’s Culture Friday, and joining us now is author and speaker, Katie McCoy …

Morning Katie!

KATIE MCCOY: Happy Friday!

BROWN: So, Katie, last week, I brought up the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and this weekend we can brace for the closing. Who knows what we’ll see?!

But I’d call your attention to the middle, to the actual games themselves, even there, there’s controversy. And I’m glad we have your credentials in women’s studies because there are questions!

Now, later this afternoon is the gold medal round of a women’s boxing competition that’s been turned upside down by an Algerian competitor named Imane Khelif.

It all blew up last week when an Italian competitor angrily bowed out less than a minute into a match with Khelif, saying she wasn’t going to compete with a man, however ambiguous the reports may be.

I know you’ve been following this closely Katie, but I must say, this is about as controversial an Olympics as I’ve seen.

MCCOY: You're exactly right. Myrna, I can't remember a time when the Olympics was so controversial. And it’s really sad, because this is supposed to be the all good news part of our world where we all come together and just celebrate sports and all of the best of humanity on display.

But one of the things we’re seeing is this collision between LGBTQ ideology and then especially related to the expression of religion. We could have a whole other conversation about how the restrictions on religion, and contrast that with some of the issues related to gender.

Now related to this particular athlete, here's where this all gets very confusing. We don't know the specific condition that he has, but it is overwhelmingly likely that he has something called a developmental sex disorder. What that means, and there are quite a few in the population who have them. It can affect your chromosomes. It can affect your internal reproductive organs or your external reproductive organs.

There are people who do this type of research for a living, and they have said that everything looks likely that this athlete has a condition where he had ambiguous reproductive sexual organs at the time of birth, and then upon puberty, it was revealed that he was, in fact, male. That was confirmed by the existence of XY chromosomes. One of my favorite people to look at on this is a researcher named Deborah Soh. And why I love Deborah Soh is she's a liberal atheist sex researcher, so she's not coming at this from a conservative or a religious ideology. And she posted on X, “Just your reminder that XY chromosomes make someone male.”

So, when we hear all of this conversation about the testosterone levels, which of course, can be varying in person to person that's very different from the chromosomal reality of XY chromosomes, in addition to that elevated testosterone.

We also note that there are two different International Boxing agencies, the International Boxing Association and the World Boxing Association, that disqualified this athlete from competing against females. And in fact, one of them warned the Olympics that there were, in fact, biological males trying to pass as women so that they could compete against females.

EICHER: Katie, if I could jump in here, I know you entered the social-media fray on this—and maybe it’s your reputation for writing the book on the confusion around male-female identity—but you took some fire on this. Are you sure you’re right about this boxer? I saw lots of people coming at you saying you’re wrong.

MCCOY: Yeah, one of the interesting responses in multiple platforms of social media was being asked, so are you going to walk this back or retract what you said. And Nick, I am certainly willing to if I'm proven wrong, but I have not yet been proven wrong on the basis of the facts. And the facts are that we do not have evidence that this person is female.

Now, part of why we don't have evidence is this is from another report that it was Algeria that refused to release the results of that gender test.

And this is something that, first of all, we need to always separate the individual who has a developmental sex disorder and the way that that individual might have been identified in a particular country, exploited, trained, and used to make a lot of money, which is some of what we're seeing as well.

Part of why this has exploded is the collision of facts with ideology. Now, it is true that when we get into developmental sex disorders, this becomes very complicated and a highly specialized field, but I would also note to our listeners that we're talking about a fraction of a percent of the population that is truly sexually ambiguous.

So, what are the odds? Now, certainly, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this particular athlete is genuinely in that fraction of a fraction of a percent. That doesn't change the fact that the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, really dropped the ball at protecting females in the women’s division of boxing, and so this does pose a genuine threat for women. Not only are we talking different testosterone levels, but someone with XY chromosomes is going to have the muscular differences, the fast twitch muscle fiber differences between male and female. So we're not just talking about hormones. We're talking about something that affects and pervades every cell in the human body.

It’s worth taking a step back and making sure that we speak with precision. I include myself in that too, because this is so often politicized. It’s very easy to just listen to the narratives that fit with the framework that we want to hear it from, but at the very least, what we can know is that this individual with XY chromosomes is—and I'm quoting from researchers and people that do this for a living—is male. And we can say that this isn't a transgender issue. This is a developmental sex disorder issue, and it is colliding with ideological confusion about what makes a woman a woman, what makes a man a man.

BROWN: Katie, you alluded to this a moment ago, referring to expressions of religious identity at the Olympics. I’m seeing that despite restrictions on the athletes, some gospel light has broken through. Bethel McGrew had a really good column on this at WORLD—and I’ll link to it in the transcript today—but I know you noticed this, too.

MCCOY: Some of the greatest stories we're seeing are brothers and sisters on the world stage giving glory to God. I remember one athlete recently posted, she was a track and field athlete from the United States who talked about how, you know, medals come and go, human glory comes and goes, but the glory of God is forever.

And then there was also an athlete who reportedly was not able to verbally talk about her faith, and so she communicated in sign language instead. And it's just a wonderful reminder that whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever platform we have—big or small—we can give glory to God right where we are.

And it's just wonderful to see these athletes take the moment when the spotlight is on them and turn that spotlight to the Lord Jesus.

EICHER: Maybe this is a tenuous transition, but I’ll try it, anyway, to move from the competitive sport of the Olympics to the blood sport of American politics. The fight card is all filled out and it’s Trump-Vance versus Harris-Walz. The idea apparently being to have a more moderate look on the Democratic side with the current governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. But he’s got a controversial track record.

MCCOY: Yeah, Tim Walz has this very kind of folksy grandpa vibes demeanor, and I hope that people will look a little beyond that surface to consider the policies that he advocates and in many cases enacted. Most notably, Minnesota became the first what's called Trans refuge state. And that means that under age children can cross state lines and get access to all of these so called gender affirming care that they would like to have, whether that's hormonal or surgical. And then even more, as an attorney was explaining related to this bill is that it conflates the right to gender affirming care with not only a civil right but an issue of child safety. So it at least opens the door for the courts to take emergency custody of the child. This is one of the ways that the gender ideology is driving a wedge between the child and the parent. 

I think of researchers and thinkers like Stella Moravito who had been talking about this for since years ago, about how the confusion, the different definitions of sex and gender was paving the way for precisely this type of thing to happen. This is especially significant when we consider the contrast of states like Minnesota from other European countries, typically even more progressive than the United States that have been walking back, if not completely, reversing and halting their policies and procedures related to so-called gender affirming care for children. And you know, when I think about the difference between Europe and the United States, I think we could sum it up this way, Europe is going based on data. United States is going based on dogma, and it is the dogma that is being protected in states like Minnesota, not the data. If we were only going by the data in this country, we would have a federal ban on all of this by now. But instead, we're seeing state by state, governor by governor, state legislature by state legislature, different ideologies and dogmas play out in the form of language and law.

BROWN: Alright, author and speaker Katie McCoy … Katie’s latest book that we referred to today is titled To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond. Katie, thanks!

MCCOY: Thanks for having me. 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, August 9th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a life of curiosity and wonder on display through the films of Werner Herzog.

Here’s movie reviewer Max Belz.

MAX BELZ: Every summer Timothy Treadwell visited Alaska to film grizzly bears and capture his brushes with them, sometimes getting so close he touched their snouts. He claimed he had a special bond with the animals.

TIMOTHY TREADWELL: I’m out in the prime cut of the big green. Behind me is Ed and Rowdy, members of an up and coming sub-adult gang. They’re challenging everything—including me. Goes with the territory.

This is the premise of the documentary Grizzly Man, and it’s the kind of story filmmaker Werner Herzog, now 81, has told over and over: people teetering on insanity, trying the impossible, and fighting nature to the bitter end.

TREADWELL: Well, I just want to discuss that fight with Mickey Bear right here. He’s right next to me here in the Grizzly Sanctuary on the tide flat, off to camera left.

Werner Herzog may not be a familiar name: He was part of a group of German directors in the 60s and 70s who worked with small budgets and bold themes. Many of his movies are not typical commercial fare. Instead, they bring intense curiosity to strange and wondrous subjects—like Dieter Dengler who escaped from a Laotian prison camp during the Vietnam War.

DIETER DENGLER: I was shot down over Laos 1966 in the early phase of the Vietnam war. I never wanted to go to war. I only got into this because I had one burning desire and that was to fly.

Herzog’s memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All came out in English in December 2023. In it, he writes about his youthful ambitions, "I knew that outside of our tight valley there was a whole world that was dangerous and special. Not that I was afraid of it; I was curious to know it."

WERNER HERZOG: And this sense of awe and this sense of discovery never left me.

Herzog was born in Munich during Nazi rule, and he recollects a poor, but happy childhood, raised by a single mother. His book details a life of adventure.

HERZOG: We took responsibilities and we had no toys, but we invented our toys and we invented our games and it was a wonderful, great childhood.

Much of his early work was inspired by real events. One of those movies is Aguirre the Wrath of God, about a rogue Spanish conquistador. Another is Fitzcarraldo which tells the unbelievable story of a rubber baron who hauls a steamboat over a mountain to reach an untapped rubber forest in Peru.

MAN: We can’t go much further or we’ll run onto a sandbank. That slope may look insignificant, but it’s going to be our destiny.

In fact, the experience of making Fitzcarraldo in the jungle was itself so intense it spawned a documentary called Burden of Dreams. Herzog’s protagonists, like the filmmaker himself, are often men gripped by an unreachable dream.

WOMAN: Herzog is stranded in the jungle with a 300 ton steamship that won’t move. And time is running out. He needs money to move the ship, but no one will invest unless the ship moves first.

His later years produced more documentaries, some of which are fitting for family viewing.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, for example, looks at Siberian trappers and their way of life. Encounters at the End of the World and Cave of Forgotten Dreams take viewers to Antarctica and some of the oldest cave paintings in the world. Many of his movies stream for free at kanopy.com, a service offered through local libraries.

HERZOG: The ice covering the river is still solid, making it easy to travel the vast distances. The trappers need to prepare for their work.

One of the most peculiar stories about him is that he pledged to eat his own shoes to challenge fellow filmmaker Errol Morris to complete—and distribute—his first movie. Morris succeeded, and Herzog held up his end of the deal: in 1979, he ate his cooked shoes in front of a crowd in Berkeley, California.

HERZOG: I didn’t mean to eat this shoe in public. I intended to eat it in the restaurant, but I was pushed a little bit into it. And it makes sense to some extent because it should be an encouragement for all of you who want to make films and who are just scared to start.

This story illustrates Herzog’s support and commitment, and his life’s work is charged with a fascination for the created world. He says the cosmos is full of wonder, and even menace, and he has spent his life using his camera–and sober narration–to bring out these powerful features.

Werner Herzog’s perspective and his subjects–whether grizzly bears or volcanoes–point to the meaning and order of creation in all its fury and beauty. And these things are worthy of our unbroken attention.

I’m Max Belz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, August 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for WORLD’s word guy, George Grant with Word Play.

GEORGE GRANT: The word guy has passed into common English usage as an all-purpose term for a man—except its plural, guys, which can refer to a group of people, regardless of sex. But of course, guy did not start off as a generic masculine noun. It was a name.

Think of Guy Clark, the king of the Texas troubadours, or Guy Burgess, the Soviet double agent and member of the notorious Cambridge Five spy ring. Or think of Guy Lombardo, the renowned big band musician or Guy de Maupassant, the 19th century essayist. Then there are Guy Ritchie and Guy Fieri, contemporary pop culture icons, the former a Hollywood director, the latter a flamboyant TV chef. Saint Guy was a 4th century Christian martyred during the Great Persecution of Diocletian. Guy of Lusignan was the 12th century crusader and King of Jerusalem. Guy of Dampierre was the 13th century Count of Flanders.

Perhaps the most famous Guy in the annals of history was Guy Fawks. He was a provincial English provocateur who in 1605 schemed to assassinate the protestant King James I and to then restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. His plan was to ignite more than a dozen barrels of gunpowder that he and a group of co-conspirators had stockpiled in an undercroft beneath the House of Lords. But the cache of explosives was discovered, Fawkes was captured, and his audacious Gunpowder Plot was foiled.

Ever since, the anniversary of his arrest is commemorated throughout Great Britain as a festival of thanksgiving. Church bells are rung. Bonfires are built. Fireworks are lit. And rag-stuffed effigies of Fawkes, known as “the Guy,” are burnt. Eventually, guy came to be used as a pejorative slang term for any disreputable person—but by the end of the 19th century, guy had lost all its negative connotations.

Now, we have guys and dolls. There are good guys, bad guys, and fall guys. There are big guys, little guys, cable guys, shy guys, and go-to guys. There is the next guy and Mr. Nice Guy. At the Olympics this year, there is even a “pommel horse guy.” There are also guy wires and guy lines—though the origins of these words are unrelated to Fawkes according to etymological wise guys.

More than four centuries after Guy Fawkes made a name for himself, the word he inspired is a part of our everyday nomenclature—and has become a name for just about all of us. I don’t know about you guys, but that absolutely fascinates this guy.

I’m George Grant.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week:

Lindsay Mast, Jenny Rough, David Bahnsen, Mary Reichard, Jill Nelson, Daniel Darling, Carolina Lumetta, Mary Muncy, Amy Lewis, Janie B. Cheaney, Cal Thomas, Katie McCoy, Max Belz, and George Grant.

And two new voices on the program this week: World Journalism Institute graduates Sarah Pugsley and Coltan Scheifer.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Mark Mellinger, Lynde Langdon, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Christina Grube, and Josh Schumacher.

And thanks to the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producer is Harrison Watters.

Our Senior producer is Kristen Flavin and Paul Butler is Executive producer, with additional production assistance from Benj Eicher.

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 Bible says: “Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O LORD.” —Psalm 36:5, 6

Be sure and worship Him with brothers and sisters in Christ in church on the Lord’s day. And Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.