The World and Everything in It: December 26, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

This week, 2022 news in review: the biggest story of the year—appropriately enough—is on the Legal Docket: the landmark decision that overturned Roe v Wade, the Dobbs case.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat with economist David Bahnsen.

Plus we remember prominent people in the fields of medicine, science, and business who died in 2022.

And answered prayers. 

REICHARD: It’s Monday, December 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Now news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Weather » A monster winter storm claimed dozens of lives over the Christmas weekend.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul:

HOCHUL: This one is for the ages. And we’re still in the middle of it. We still have people who need to be rescued. We have people with their power off in their communities and buildings where their pipes are bursting and flooding is occurring, as is occurring, as is happening in my own home right now.

Snow-buried regions around the Great Lakes have seen the worst of it, but Richard Otto with the National Weather Service said Sunday …

OTTO: Cold numbers go all the way down to the Gulf Coast where much of the Deep South is below freezing this morning. Central and northern Florida, they are also below freezing this morning.

About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning over the weekend.

Travel » And, of course, the severe winter weather caused nightmares for holiday travelers.

After tens of thousands of flight cancellations, many found themselves stranded at airports on Christmas Day. One traveler at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport said he was hoping for the best.

AUDIO: I have my fingers crossed that we’re able to kind of pull off something exciting here and get somewhere, other than Atlanta.

Starting Friday and into Saturday, the entire Seattle-Tacoma airport was shut down with all of its runways iced over.

Gas » But for holiday road-trippers in areas where the roads are safe to drive, they’re enjoying lower prices at the pump.

Patrick De Haan with Gasbuddy.com…

DE HAAN: The national average up just slightly overnight to $3.09 per gallon. That’s still 47 cents a gallon less than a month ago. And prices now 20 cents lower than they were last Christmas.

AAA says Texans are paying the lowest per-gallon average in the nation at $2.65.

California still has the most expensive gas in the continental US at $4.36 a gallon.

Omnibus reactions » Many Republicans are blasting the massive spending bill that Congress passed before Christmas. The 4,000-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus bill funds the government through September.

Florida Congressman Michael Walz said the omnibus package was the combination of 12 different appropriations bills.

WALZ: We should be voting on every one of those individually. Defense of course, Department of Homeland Security, Labor, and on down the list of federal agencies.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised it as an aggressive investment in America. And some Republicans supported it, including 18 GOP senators. But most said it’s loaded with pork and wasteful spending.

And Texas Congressman Pat Fallon said …

FALLON: There was nearly a half a billion dollars for securing the border in countries like Egypt and Jordan and [SIC] and nothing for our border.

New border numbers » And Homeland Security numbers suggest that even though the Title 42 rule has not yet next expired, the border crisis is already getting worse.

Border authorities last month detained more than 230,000 migrants who crossed illegally. That is a record for the month of November.

The Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to let Title 42 expire after Christmas. The rule allows the government to more easily expel some migrants who cross the border.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the biggest legal story of the year.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday, December 26th, and you’re listening to The World and Everything in It from WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Today for Legal Docket, we’ll take time to review the most consequential Supreme Court decision of the year. It’s the one that overturned the court’s decision from 1973 that has been responsible for more than 60 million abortions to this point.

ROBERTS: We will hear argument this morning in Case 19-1392, Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization.

That decision in Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health meticulously dismantled the legal reasoning of Roe v Wade. Roe challenged a Texas law that allowed abortion only to save the life of the mother.

Even the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticized Roe. Listen to her in October 2019 on Bloomberg TV:

GINSBURG: I thought Roe v Wade was an easy case and the Supreme Court could have held that extreme law unconstitutional and put down its pen. Instead, the court wrote an opinion that made every abortion restriction in the country illegal in one fell swoop, and that was not the way the court ordinarily operates.

REICHARD: The Supreme Court does not ordinarily operate that way.

In the Dobbs decision, Justice Samuel Alito for the majority six justices wrote the following: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

EICHER: The reference to Casey is Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey, which the Supreme Court decided in 1992.

Here’s Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announcing the Casey opinion, reaffirming Roe’s outcome permitting abortion prior to fetal viability.

O'CONNOR: We also reaffirm the State's power to restrict abortion after fetal viability if exceptions are made when the woman's life or her health is in danger. We also hold the State has legitimate interest from the outset of pregnancy and protecting the health of the mother and the life of the fetus that may become a child, and that the State may further these interests so long as it does not unduly burden the woman's right to choose.

REICHARD: That phrase, “unduly burden,” sparked years of litigation to figure out what it means. Are waiting periods permissible? Is informed consent okay? What about licensure requirements? Even the width of hallways in an abortion facility became subject to litigation.

GIPSON: But I do think it's interesting that that America, the United States of America is one of only four countries in the world that allows unfettered abortion after 12 weeks. Two of the other four are China and North Korea. Do we really want to be in the company of these folks?

And a heated exchange between bill sponsor Becky Currie, a registered nurse, and Representative Adrienne Wooten:

WOOTEN Let me ask you this. Why would you force a woman to have a child who has decided that she does not want to have that child? Tell me what right the state has to force a woman to do something like that?

CURRIE: Lady, I do believe that life is precious.

WOOTEN: I believe that also.

CURRIE: I believe that children are a gift from God.

WOOTEN: I believe that also.

CURRIE: And I think that if you have a child and you don't want it, that there's somebody else that does want it and will love it.

WOOTEN: Well, then why then if there's somebody else is going to want this child, why do we have children and Child Protective Services right now that can’t even be placed? We have children that actually aged out of Child Protective Services, because nobody wants them.

Despite that opposition, the bill became law. Within hours, the state’s only abortion facility along with one of its doctors sued to stop it.

The sole legal question was whether Mississippi’s 15 week law was unconstitutional.

One lawyer who wrote a friend of the court brief in support of the abortion facility is Erica Harris. I spoke to her in April:

HARRIS: I would like to emphasize that this case is about individual liberty. I think most Americans agree that our country is premised on ideals of individual liberty. That no one, not even the state has the right to force someone to practice a particular religion, to subscribe to a particular morality, or to use their body in a particular way. As the brief demonstrates, there are a multitude of reasons why people choose to terminate a pregnancy. Your listeners may morally object to some or all of those reasons. But according to our constitutional case law, neither they nor the state have the power to impose their views in that regard to deprive individuals of their right to make those decisions for themselves, and exercise autonomy over their body.

EICHER: For the pro-choice side, the strongest legal argument was precedent. In other words: The court must stand by a decision millions of women depend upon.

For the pro-life side: strict adherence to the Constitution was the argument. If abortion isn’t there, then Roe and Casey made bad law. Therefore, the court ought to overturn.

During oral argument in Dobbs, the idea that the constitution says anything at all about abortion was a point of contention among the justices.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

SOTOMAYOR: Counsel, there's so much that's not in the Constitution, including the fact that we have the last word. Marbury versus Madison. There is not anything in the Constitution that says that the Court, the Supreme Court, is the last word on what the Constitution means. It was totally novel at that time. And yet, what the Court did was reason from the structure of the Constitution that that's what was intended.

Justice Stephen Breyer:

BREYER: To overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason, to reexamine a watershed decision, would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question.

REICHARD: But the high court has overturned many of its poor decisions. Justice Brett Kavanaugh ticked them off: Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 said separate but equal education for black and white students was constitutional. But in Brown v Board of Education nearly 60 years later, the court said it wasn’t.

Listen to his exchange with Julie Rikelman, lawyer for the abortion business:

KAVANAUGH: ...why then doesn't the history of this Court's practice with respect to those cases tell us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality and not stick with those precedents in the same way that all those other cases didn't?

RIKELMAN: Because the view that a previous precedent is wrong, Your Honor, has never been enough for this Court to overrule...

Justice Kavanaugh also said this:

KAVANAUGH: The Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice on the question of abortion, but leaves the issue to the people of the states or perhaps Congress to resolve in the democratic process.

That turned out to be the final opinion. Dobbs didn’t end abortion across the country; it returned the matter to the individual states.

I called up WORLD’s reporter on the life beat, Leah Savas, to find out what’s next in the pro life movement. And I began by asking her, now that Roe is gone, how will the pro life effort change?

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: In some ways, it’s a lot of the same that we’ve been seeing since Roe, and even before, but there’s a sense of urgency now that states have the power to legislate on this issue.

REICHARD: How so?

SAVAS: The overturn of Roe v Wade definitely unleashed a 50-state battle on the abortion issue. And we’ve seen that play out on several different levels already. Lawsuits are playing out in the court over existing pro-life laws. Already in special sessions we saw even majority pro-life legislatures sparring over what kinds of protections for the unborn to enact. They’re trying to figure out what exceptions to include. We’ll probably see more of this in the upcoming year as states move towards further protections.

REICHARD: You’ve got an entire book coming out about the history of abortion in America. Based on the research you did for that, what might we expect to see going forward, post Roe?

SAVAS: In states that already have abortion bans, we might see attempts to clarify past legislation, but we’re also already seeing pro abortion groups push to put abortion rights amendments on state ballots, since the three in November were so successful. These especially will be important to watch. They’d have to make it onto ballots in pro-life states and the majority of voters would have to approve them. But if they do these amendments would nullify existing protections for the unborn. Because these questions come down to voters, I think prolife groups will be focusing a lot on education and simply informing voters on the reality of abortion and the importance of protecting unborn life.

REICHARD: Thank you, Leah.

SAVAS: It’s great being here. Thanks, Mary!

REICHARD: Again, we’ll link to the two-part Legal Docket Podcast in today’s transcript. The titles: Overruling Roe, Dobbs I and Overruling Roe, Dobbs II. That’s this week’s Legal Docket.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen.

He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, hey, we're in year-in-review mode this week on The World and Everything in It. So let's do the same here and and talk a bit about what you think are the top stories of the year in a few different areas? And maybe let's begin with the markets. That's your work. What did you consider kind of the top story of the year in the markets and 2022, David?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that there's no question it was the impact of rising interest rates. And then that story, if you just headline it that way, carries with it a number of different kinds of sub stories, you know, the fact that the stock market and bond market were negative in the same year, it's an incredibly rare event, the degree to which the bond market was negative now that that did change a lot in the last six weeks, the bond market has had quite a comeback. But I mean, it was it's still significantly down, even if it's not down as much as it was. And then I think just the way in which the rising interest rate environment went with the bursting of the bubble around some of the silliest and frothiest of assets. So you know, the s&p being down 15 to 20%. That happens, on average, every four years, the NASDAQ being down over 30%. That's a more significant story. But then you have things like all of those kind of COVID stocks that were down 70 or 80%, things in the cloud things that were kind of work from home related. Obviously, we know about the whole crypto implosion. So you had a lot of assets that were really bubbled up out of 2020 and 2021. That just got destroyed and 22. And so all of these stories kind of, in a way, come back to rising interest rates. But I think it was a year in which the markets did what markets do, they purged out what we call malinvestment, a mis allocation of capital that had to kind of get righted. And I think that capital right now is better resource than it was a year ago. And I see that as a good thing going forward.

EICHER: What about in the economy overall, David? There's that's got to be kind of a difficult one. You mentioned the rising interest rates. And there was a lot of—you've called it an unhealthy obsession with the Fed for awhile. But that story, the Fed story, got a lot of ink in 2022. I wonder whether that labor force story, though, is the bigger one in the economy overall, because that goes to the heart of your view on economics, beginning with that imperative of work and production. What about that?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I mean, I would argue that the story of our declining labor force is the story of the last 15 years, it began rather aggressively post financial crisis out of 2008 were like in any recession, let alone a really bad recession, you lose a ton of jobs, and you lose people out of the workforce. But the difference was they didn't come back, there was a significant amount of people that left the workforce permanently. That was beginning, just to put some numbers around that we had somewhere around 68% of our population in the workforce, pretty consistently, it went up or down less than a point from like, 2000 to 2009, then all of a sudden, that number dipped to 62%. And really stayed there. And you talked about a 567 percent difference in a population, our size, it's massive. And near the end of 2019, all of a sudden, we were in a two year period, 2018 and 19 have a slow, but not good enough, but still right direction of improving labor force, and then COVID came. And so then the reason that story has come back, Nick is that obviously, a ton of people left the labor force during COVID. And then a ton came back right away. But the number went up about half. It didn't come back to pre COVID levels. Jobs came back, the economy came back profits came back, but the labor force stayed one to 2%. And it sits there now about one and a half percent below where it was pre COVID. That's three to 4 million people. And so I think that that is not necessarily the key economic story of 2022 Because certainly the Fed is going to be wrapped into all of that, but it's a key economic story of the decade we just came out of and the decade where We're now in this is going to prove to be a 20 year cultural and economic story. And it's largely centered around men, but not exclusively, and largely centered around very young men, you know, kind of late teenager, early 20s, that normally it would be entering the workforce and or delaying it. And then it's a lot of people in between 55 and 65, that are still theoretically in a very able portion of their career, and I think valuable time of life to provide mentorship to, you know, bring an apprentice under them and share three decades of work experience and skill. They're leaving the workforce. So I have an article on this that is coming out this week on National Review, it's this whole subject is the subject of my next book, that book won't be out for a year, but it's what I'm working on writing over the next six months. And it's kind of a major topic economically. But also, I believe, spiritually, I think that there is such an incredibly forgotten theology of work. And now we're seeing the fruits of that play out in the data.

EICHER: David, before we go, I do want to hit policy. Because I'm thinking about that in light of what the Congress did at the end of the year with the passage of another one of these omnibus bills, $1.7 trillion, in one 4,000-plus page swipe that nobody read. That seems like a significant policy story. But what was your sense of policy overall in 2022?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think we got the benefits of divided government. That was a huge story in 2021, that build back better died four or $5 trillion spending package died. There just really wasn't a lot that got done. Now, legislatively, they did that smaller act that they very cynically ended up calling the inflation Reduction Act. And there are a few climate things in there and other social benefits I don't believe in but it was really more of a posture than an actual significant piece of legislation. This omnibus bill, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about it's an atrocity. And I'm vehemently against it both in the methodology and the content. But I just think people have to understand they were debating as to whether or not they were going to pass this now or in a few weeks, they were not going to not fund the government. And so as long as you have a bunch of people in government that want to spend, they're going to be spending and the only debate was whether they did it now in the lame duck, or did it later. But any of those past attempts where folks say we're going to shut down government, it never lasts very long, and it never usually goes very well. So the politics of that whole thing are very tricky. People say, Well, what would you like to see? Well, of course, what I like to see as a smaller government, and a larger self government, meaning a more virtuous discipline, responsible citizenry. So what I want out of spending in government is going to take decades, I want a balanced budget, I don't want to spend more than we generate, I want to chip away at the national debt, I want to do a whole bunch of things that neither party wants to do. Now, one party does seem to like talking about it. That's the Republicans when a Democrat is president, but they don't seem to care much about it when a Republican is president. So there's my little bipartisan jab here, but it's factual. So this omnibus bill is an atrocity. But nevertheless, we have a large government right now, because this is the nature of the relationship between citizen and state that we have created for about 75 years in our country.

EICHER: So I'm old enough to remember appropriations bills, the appropriations process, my first job out of college was on Capitol Hill. So I'll put in my little commercial for regular legislative order. But, you know...

BAHNSEN: Yeah, that requires, Nick, a Congress that wants to legislate, right, and we have a Congress that doesn't want to legislate. Now, they're really some of them have gotten good at doing interviews, and saying everything that they think is bad. It's more performative. But the hard sausage-making the legislative process that leads to appropriations and debate and specific decision making and trade offs, there's absolutely no will for that whatsoever in the Congress, none.

EICHER: David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. His personal website is Bahnsen.com. David, thank you.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, December 26th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: remembering those who died in 2022.

We say it each year, but it’s important to remember…every person is an image-bearer of Christ—and in that sense, everyone is notable to God. And you may have lost this year a person who is notable to you.

But these deaths we call your attention to this year are notables in the sense that they are widely known, for good or ill.

REICHARD: All this week you will hear about notable deaths in five broad categories: politics, religion, sports and music, stage and screen, and science and business.

The business world lost several well-known figures this year—fashion and business mogul Leonardo Del Vecchio who made millions on eyeglasses, skier-turned-businesswoman Ivana Trump, restaurateur Sylvia Wu, and the co-founder of the energy drink Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz.

EICHER: Here’s WORLD reporter Mary Muncy.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Johan Hultin helped discover the origins of the 1918 Spanish flu. One remote Alaska village had been decimated by the illness—72 of the 80 residents died within five days.

In 1951, Hultin flew to that village to gather tissue samples from the corpses of flu victims. He exhumed several bodies. The first one was a little girl.

Here’s Hultin in an interview with Loud Voices Silent Streets.

HULTIN: She was wearing a blue dress and had a ribbon in her hair. It was heartbreaking really.

Hultin took several samples back to his Iowa lab, but couldn’t recreate viable cultures. He gave up the project and went back to school. But he kept tabs on the research.

Almost 50 years later, he learned someone had partially recreated the Spanish flu’s genetic code. Hultin wrote to that scientist and within a week, he flew back to Alaska on his own dime to gather more samples.

He sent them to the scientist and within 10 years, that lab had decoded the Spanish flu’s genetic code.

HULTIN: I almost talked myself into believing that nothing would ever come of it… but you know you really shouldn’t ever lose your passion or belief.

Hultin died in January. He was 97.

From a historic virus to an active one. Luc Montagnier is widely credited with discovering the virus that causes HIV.

He grew up in France and remembered the country’s liberation from Germany.

The discovery of the virus that causes AIDS started with a sheep, then horses, then cows. Montagnier noticed it was the same virus infecting them and causing long-lasting problems… even though the animals did not have an immune deficiency.

After that, he organized a team and got to work identifying the virus that would eventually be named HIV.

In 2008, Montagnier was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery.

MOTAGIER: Our effort has been a collective effort involving many collaborators. Rest assured This is not the work of one person, or of a few people, but really the work of many people.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier questioned COVID’s origins and raised concerns over potential new vaccine dangers. One of his most widely reported claims was that the vaccine would end up causing new COVID variants. Many doctors disagreed with him, saying there were new variants before the vaccine’s invention.

Montagnier died in February. He was 89.

AUDIO: [RONALD MCDONALD HOSPITAL AD]

Until Doctor Audrey Evans, there was very little anyone could do for a child with cancer other than comfort them.

But Evans pioneered new treatments for neuroblastoma, a cancer commonly found in infants. During her career, neuroblastoma deaths dropped by half—nearly 80 percent of children now survive.

She also co-founded the first Ronald McDonald House in 1974. Ronald McDonald Houses are found near cancer treatment centers and offer affordable housing for families with sick children.

EVANS: The center of treatment for a child with cancer is the family. A family with a sick child is a sick family.

Evans told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she learned to talk to children about death. She said one of the best things you can do is share.

She told one girl that there would be flowers in heaven, and sat with a boy until 4 am—granting his last wish for chocolate cake.

She would let the children bring their animals into treatment. One child brought a bunny, the other a parakeet.

She died in her home in September. She was 97.

From cancer treatment to medical deterrence.

Jeremiah Stamler is widely considered to be the father of preventive cardiology. He started his research by studying the way different foods affected chickens’ hearts.

When Stamler started his research in the 1970s. Many thought heart disease was a symptom of age, not something that could be prevented by a healthy lifestyle.

His mantra was “firm, steady pressure.” He spent years analyzing case studies and then years convincing the powers that be to listen.

In an interview with Northwestern University Feinberg school of medicine, Stamler promotes being proactive medicine, rather than reactive.

STAMLER: In all aspects of medicine I think prevention primary prevention and primordial prevention are very important and I think they’re applicable in every place.

At 98, Stamler told his stepson Michael that he didn’t know how much longer he could go on. The next time Michael saw him, Stamler said “I got a grant renewal! I’m living to 102!” and sure enough, Stamler died in January, at age 102.

Moving now from medicine, to science:

Robert Curl’s parents bought him a chemistry set for Christmas when he was 9 years old. Within a week, he’d decided to become a chemist.

Here’s Curl in an interview with Academic Influence.

CURL: I particularly liked things that combusted spontaneously, things that made explosions, things that smell bad… fortunately I was not a good enough chemist to blow myself up.

That was in 1943, forty years later he had gone through many more years of school and was working at the Rice Institute. He worked with a group of graduate students and scientists on a project to recreate carbon found in deep space.

And they did it. But Curl didn’t let them publish right away. He took his time verifying the results before announcing the discovery.

They believed that they’d found Carbon 60—a soccer ball shape of 60 carbon atoms bonded together. Many dismissed the discovery, but years later other scientists in Germany figured out how to create larger quantities and analyze them.

Curl and two colleagues shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996.

CURL: I still don’t regard myself as actually being a scientist, I just like doing it— I like the work.

Curl died in July. He was 88.

Staying in space…

SOUND: [Parker rocket launch]

NASA’s Eugene Parker solar probe blasted off in 2018. It was the first NASA rocket bearing the name of a then-living person.

Here’s Parker after the launch.

PARKER: I greatly admire the scientists and engineers whose patient efforts together converted the Solar Probe concept into a functioning reality ready to do battle with the solar elements.

In 1958, Parker theorized the existence of solar wind, a supersonic flow of particles off the sun’s surface.

At first his theory was widely criticized and even mocked. But in 1962, a NASA mission to Venus proved that solar wind affected the universe.

When asked to give advice to young scientists, he said, if you do something new, expect trouble.

Parker died in March. He was 94.

From science to business.

COMMERCIAL: [“Just Do It” song]

Dan Wieden, the creator of Nike’s slogan “Just Do It,” started his career after his writing job fired him. He says he walked into his basement where his wife was doing laundry. She was pregnant with their fourth child.

She asked how his day went and he told her he’d been fired. She looked up and said “something will come up.”

Here’s Weiden.

WIEDEN: She gave me what I could not give myself, and that was permission to fail… You have to be able to fail if you’re going to do anything worthwhile.

After that, he and his business partner founded Wieden and Kennedy in 1982. They had a few chairs, some cardboard file cabinets, and one client—Nike.

Before their first pitch meeting, Weiden and Kennedy had many different commercials in mind but needed something to tie them together—something the casual walker and the most hard-core athlete could relate to. “Just do it” was born.

Now, Weiden and Kennedy is the world’s largest independent advertising agency.

Weiden died in October. He was 77.

And we end today with an inventor.

In the 1960s Clayton Jacobson II found himself sitting in a ditch in southern California. He’d just fallen off his dirtbike, again.

As he sat on the ground picking rocks out of his skin he thought: “there’s got to be a better way.”

He decided he wanted to enjoy a motorcycle without the risk of hitting the ground at high speeds.

So he built what he called a “motorcycle on the water.”

SOUND: [Motorcycle on water]

That sound is Clayton doing a body slide on what he called a Sea-Doo.

But it never quite took off. Then he signed a new deal with Kawalski in 1973 and the newly named Jetski, well, that took off.

AUDIO: [Kawalski commercial]

The Jetski became so popular that Bombardier relaunched the Sea-Doo in 1988 and it became one of the world’s most popular boating brands.

Clayton died at his home in Australia in August. He was 88.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, December 26th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. At WORLD, we know God hears and answers prayer. So, to close out 2022, we’ve put together a week-long series highlighting just that–the faithful, sometimes mundane, other times miraculous ways, God has answered our prayers this year. We hope these stories from our staff and listeners will prompt you to thank God for His many blessings and encourage you to keep praying.

LESTER AND BONNIE TWILLY: Hello, this is Lester and Bonnie Twilley near the Mason Dixon Cornerstone on Maryland's eastern shore. We give thanks daily for undeserved blessings, and one of them is for the joy and relaxation we receive from horseback riding. Two horses are on the farm these days, and this story concerns a 16 hand 16 year old quarter horse named Bear. July 11th was a typical day until we observed Bear in pain from colic. The hours towards midnight had us praying and helping our veterinarian. Our only hope was emergency surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's new Bolton center in Kennett square. We arrived just after 4am and Bear was taken for surgery. I was giving thanks for special memories and asking that Bear continue to be my equine pal. Releasing it all to the care of our Heavenly Father, I was allowed to see Bear when he was out of recovery. His large colon had been deprived of blood and oxygen for many hours, and his surgeons made it clear the next 72 hours would be critical. Twice each day we received an update call from new Bolton and two days after surgery, Bear had not only survived, he was making an astounding recovery. His surgeons couldn't explain it, although we knew their healing hands were used in answered prayers. To the delight of all, Bear was released early to continue his recovery at home. And each day a predawn whinnying reminds us to be thankful for blessings that are new every morning.

HANNAH BOURGEOIS: My name is Hannah bourgeois, and I am so thankful this year for the Lord giving me my life back. I have struggled with long COVID Since March of 2020. And God was so gracious to provide a very thoughtful physician who researched treatment for long COVID that has led to a truly miraculous recovery. I still have a ways to go. And the research is always improving. And we are learning more each day. But we know that God has brought us this far and will continue to do so in His way and His perfect time. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: 2022 news in review, this time in the realm of religious liberty.

And, prominent people in sport and music who died this year.

Plus, more answered prayers.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

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