The World and Everything in It: July 21, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like all of us! Hola, I'm Javier Bolaños, and I'm teaching at the first World Journalism Institute for Spanish speakers here in Asheville, North Carolina.

And I'm Lee Pitts, teaching the Spanish and the WJI young professionals course have been right alongside WJI español. We hope you enjoy today's program

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: ¡Buenos días! How exciting to see WJI grow and grow!

Today on Culture Friday: a list of states ranked on how well they safeguard religious liberty. The best and the worst may surprise you

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll also talk about the big gathering of Christian conservatives meeting presidential candidates and I’ll ask John Stonestreet about whether the science of AI is getting ahead of the ethics.

AUDIO: Hi, Barbie! Hi, Ken!

The new Barbie movie.

AUDIO: Did you bring your roller blades? I literally go nowhere without them.

The entertainment media are tickled pink, but is Barbie worth seeing?

And Commentator George Grant says it’s time to bring back a few words and phrases our grandparents used.

BROWN: It’s Friday, July 21st. 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, Anna Johansen Brown with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: U.S.-Russia sanctions » The White House on Thursday hit Russia with a new round of sanctions. The penalties will impact roughly 120 firms and people around the world that are helping prop up Russia’s aerospace and military sectors.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:

KIRBY: In coordination with our G7 partners, we have put in place now the largest set of sanctions and export control actions ever imposed on a major economy.

The sanctions target dozens of Russian mining, technology and munitions firms as well as banks. They also hit companies in the UAE and Kyrgyzstan that export technology to Russia.

Ukraine-Russia strikes » Meantime, in Ukraine …

SOUND: [blast]

Ukrainian troops fired artillery shells at Russian positions around the eastern city of Bakhmut. Russian soldiers have largely occupied the city since May.

But elsewhere, Moscow’s forces pounded cities in the south with drones and missiles for a third straight day.

KONASHENKOV: [Speaking Russian]

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russia’s military targeted—quote “Infrastructure for fuel and ammunition depots.”

The strikes killed at least two people in Odesa and wounded 19 in the nearby city of Mykolaiv.

Wagner group » The Russian mercenary Wagner Group is training thousands of soldiers in Belarus on NATO’s doorstep near the country’s border with Poland.

PRIGOZHIN: [Speaking Russian]

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin reportedly told his troops there that they will continue their training in Belarus before receiving their orders. It’s unclear if they’ll return to battle in Ukraine.

Russia banished Prigozhin after a short-lived nonviolent uprising against the Russian military establishment earlier this year.

Many Wagner Group soldiers have followed their leader to Belarus. 10,000 are expected to be in the country in the near future.

Home sales » Sales of existing homes fell in June to the slowest pace since January, and yet, houses don’t seem to be getting any cheaper. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin explains.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The National Association of Realtors says existing home sales fell 3.3% last month from May. And sales are down 23% through the first half of this year.

Rising interest rates have had a chilling effect on sales, but it remains a seller’s market.

That’s because the number of homes available remains near a historic low.

The national median sales price fell by just under 1% from a year earlier. But from May to June of this year, home prices rose once again, reaching the second-highest level on record.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Swedish embassy » The Iraqi government is expelling Sweden’s ambassador to Iraq after authorities in Stockholm gave a protester permission to burn a copy of the Quran.

The demonstrator stomped on the book during a protest on Thursday, but stopped short of burning it.

Hundreds of Iraqi demonstrators stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad early Thursday morning ahead of the planned demonstration. No embassy staff were injured, and several protesters were arrested.

Swedish officials say criticizing religion is part of free speech, even if it is offensive to those who practice the religion.

DeSantis and Tuberville » A Republican presidential contender is throwing his support behind GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville’s blockade on military officer promotions over a military abortion policy. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Senator Tuberville says he’ll end his blockade when the Biden Defense Department ends its controversial practice of paying for the travel expenses of service members crossing state lines to seek an abortion.

And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said he supports the senator’s efforts. The White House hopeful said it’s inappropriate to use tax dollars to fund abortion tourism. He vowed that if elected, that practice will “Go out the window.”

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

I'm Anna Johansen Brown.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, Reviving obsolete phrases in this month’s Word Play.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s the 21st day of July 2023.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Culture Friday.

Joining us now is John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. John, good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

BROWN: John, you’re in Colorado. I’m in Alabama and Nick is in Missouri! None of our three states made it to the top ten list of states upholding religious liberty.

What surprised me is the state ranked #1 for validating religious liberty: Illinois! Last on the list: West Virginia. But, you know, if not this list, what should we be looking for as it relates to states upholding religious rights?

STONESTREET: Wow, I'm still just kind of speechless by the ranking itself. I'm not sure that I buy the system, I mean, there's some really good folks that are behind this, I do want to, you know, acknowledge that. And the ranking is based on some safeguards. And these safeguards have to basically do with the protection of religious practice. What it doesn't really have anything to do with is the public expression of faith in terms of especially areas of commerce. So, I mean, according to this ranking the state of Washington, the state of Washington that waged a 10 year war on Barronelle Stutzman trying to force her to violate her conscience and how she actually entered the public square ranks sixth. Now, what they clearly get right is California, which ranks 48, and Colorado, which ranks 41st, and is an absolute disaster, and is only getting worse and worse and worse and worse. For example, you can't even basically run a pregnancy resource center there without being accused of, you know, basically false advertising. And you actually can't even if you believe that you should, you're not allowed to prescribe the abortion pill reversal in my state. These aren't things that are measured in this index. These are not things that are about safeguards. It's about you know, can we be sure that the government isn't really going to step on your faith. It's not really is the government going to create space for the faithful to enter the public society, although it does say that one of the safeguards includes non-participation of a for-profit business. Well, based on that criteria alone, I'm not sure where Washington fits in, but I'd have to see how the math is done. It's just an odd list to see and an odd ordering. It's kind of like when people are like, you know, name, you know, the 10 greatest NBA players of all time, and you're gonna get a whole lot of different answers based on whether you're asked a boomer, an Xer, or a Gen Z. And of course, I'm the one that has the right answer to that question.

EICHER: John, I hope you paid attention to the Republican candidate forum up in Iowa last weekend, the Family Leader Summit. Six candidates were there, not the frontrunner judging by the polls, former President Trump. But his chief rival Governor DeSantis was. Five others, including the former vice president Mike Pence. Other former Trump officials, Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador. A new voice who’s really getting a good hearing, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator. Asa Hutchison, the former governor of Arkansas. Maybe it’s too early to tell and it’s certainly a hometown crowd, but that’s what a primary contest is. Two observations: First, the governor of Iowa timed the bill signing of the heartbeat pro-life bill to that summit … and second, the one candidate there who’d vetoed a measure to protect kids of transgender procedures … that was ex-governor Hutchison, went over like a lead balloon. But how do you evaluate the field, in terms of the cultural issues we’re paying most attention to?

STONESTREET: Well, look, I've got thoughts on you know who I want to be the nominee out of the GOP field, and you know what that will look like. I think it's early. I think Iowa gets an awful lot of attention but historically hasn't proven to be as important. I mean, you know, Mike Huckabee won the Iowa primaries. So did Rick Santorum if I I remember correctly. But right now, you know, it's going to play a bigger role, because it does signal where a lot of social conservatives are. And, you know, this idea, I think the media narrative that, you know, social conservatives, evangelicals, and I mean, evangelicals was I don't mean, those who are kind of claiming that title now in a weird sort of political affiliation way. But those who actually are committed to an ever joke or faith, these social issues are non negotiable, it's not going to be like, oh, you know, they're going to suddenly change their mind if President Trump says, we should actually, you know, preserve a woman's right to choose now it's a non starter. The fact that some GOP candidates are squishy on the transgender issue and all that that entails, especially when it comes to preserving parental rights and the rights of parents to help their children and the rights of parents not to have to give control of their children to government officials and various departments, this isn't going to be a non negotiable, they're not going to fold on this in order to get behind a particular candidate. That's what you're going to hear from some of the, you know, I think, major media outlets that evangelical voters believe whatever a handful of people say. So you're going to see that kind of excitement about candidates from people who are you know, I think serious about their faith. And that's what this particular event The Family Leader Summit, there in Iowa really represents and you have a very strong faith leader there, you have a very strong faith community that's united around that. And I tell you what, there is a level of moral clarity on abortion, and on the sex and gender issues like there isn't on almost anything else when it comes to the Republican platform. So I think one of the questions is going to be you know, how big of a role are the quote unquote nones, the N-O-N-E's that are, you know, kind of libertarian? Where are they going to come down on this? And even at that point, like America clearly is not ready for this hyper-transing of the world. It's certainly not where many people on the progressive left think, you know, just check out the Bud Light fiasco, if you need evidence of that. And the same sort of tone deafness and blindness that whoever greenlit that campaign has, you see from the media leads as well. So I think there could be surprises in store, you know, down the line, but it is awful early to know.

EICHER: OK, speaking of the candidates, I’ll use this as a transition to our next subject.

So, pay attention to the use of a technology that is much in the news. It’s an ad by a political action committee that supports Governor DeSantis, and it’s completely true, except in one respect. Former President Trump is quoted accurately. It’s something Trump put out. It’s fair game for criticism, but let’s just listen to it.

AUDIO: Governor Kim Reynolds is a conservative champion. So why is Donald Trump attacking her,

I opened up the governor position for Kim Reynolds and when she fell behind, I endorsed her, held big rallies, and she won. Now she wants to remain “neutral.” I don't invite her to events.

The Dispatch deserves credit for pointing this out and noting that the Trump quote is from Truth Social.

But the voice was an AI rendering of Trump, as if he’d vocalized it, which he did not.

As I say, I want to jump off here and ask you about artificial intelligence, John. A few weeks ago, we noted that Congress received some classified briefings on the subject and it appears they’re working on regulatory decisions to come. It seems we’re again in a situation where new technology is taking hold, and the science is way ahead of the ethics. We’re doing this backwards, aren’t we?

STONESTREET: Oh, absolutely, We should ethically figure out anything before we do it when it comes to technology, medicine or anything like that. We never do. We build the plane in the air, so to speak, at least the ethical plane in the air and sometimes the actual plane in the air. And that never works out. Well, I asked a educator actually this past week, very similar question like how is this going to change your job as a college professor? And he said, well, what it probably means is we're going to go back to requiring people to hand in papers that are handwritten, not typed. And I thought, Oh, that's a really interesting thing that you know, has changed the workload for some professors. But you know, what you think about this has to do with what you believe is true about the human person. Is human exceptionalism mimicable and to what degree is it mimicable? And is there someone out there who in his grace is holding back our bad intentions? And Scripture teaches that there is. And Scripture teaches that humans also have an incredible capacity to do almost anything that comes into their mind. You go back to the Bible story. And that's literally God's pronouncement about humans. And it's why he separated them. It's almost as if God saying, you know, they ought not do everything that comes into their minds. So I think AI is going to exceed our imaginations in many ways. But it's also not going to be some perfect problem-solving utopia that some people hope it is. There's not a way that we can actually evolve ourselves beyond the limits that God has created us with. Because if you are created, you have limits. Now God created us with an amazing amount of capacity to expand and to become more intelligent, and so on. So it doesn't mean it's fixed. So that's my best take on it that based on a biblical understanding of who we are, that's probably my best guess. We're going to be able to pull off some crazy things. So people who are just like AI will never happen. Well, it has to many, many degrees, people are like it will be somehow able to get around our human frailties. Well, we know those frailties are moral as much as anything else. And there are limits because of the fall as much as anything else. So we're, we're not going to be able to fully break through. And our best intentions do not make for a perfect world. And our fallen natures cannot be circumvented through technology. So this is kind of a biblical theology approach to it. And I think so those that are panicking and those that are thinking salvation is going to come from Elon Musk. Neither one of those things are true.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is July 21st. 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: Pink is in!

Thanks to its ubiquitous marketing campaign and viral hashtags on social media Barbie has become the most talked about movie of the summer.

EICHER: But does it live up to the hype? Here’s World’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino.

COLLIN GARBARINO: I have three daughters, who own numerous Barbie dolls. I’ve seen more of those schmaltzy animated Barbie movies than I care to admit. And much to my wife’s embarrassment, I positively enjoy the quick-witted, satirical series Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse on Netflix.

For a middle-aged man, I’m something of a Barbie expert. And, in my expert opinion, you shouldn’t take your little girls to see writer/director Greta Gerwig’s new Barbie movie.

No matter what the marketing says, it’s not for kids. And despite some charming elements, it’s not very good either.

The movie begins with an homage to the monkey scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

NARRATOR: Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.

Kids aren’t going to get the reference to 2001—nor many of the other film references Gerwig includes. And the feminist message is pretty clear. Pretending to be a mother and playing with baby dolls is the kind of prehistoric mentality that the progressive Barbie doll supposedly freed little girls from.

After the bizarre intro, the movie cuts to Barbieland, where all the different versions of Barbie and Ken live in harmony. Mostly.

BARBIE: Hi, Barbie.

BARBIE: Hi, Barbie.

BARBIE: Hi, Barbie.

BARBIE: Hi, Barbie.

BARBIE: Hi, Barbie.

KEN: Hi, Barbie.

BARBIE: Hi, Ken.

KEN: Hi, Ken.

In Barbieland, the Barbies rule, and the Kens mostly preen. The Barbies congratulate themselves on being good role models to little girls and bringing female empowerment and equality to the real world. Barbies and Kens spend their days on the beach and their nights at dance parties. Barbieland is an idyllic paradise until the No. 1 Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, has a disturbing thought.

BARBIE: This is the best day ever.

BARBIE: This is the best day ever. So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and everyday from now until forever. You guys ever think about dying?

Dark thoughts aren’t Barbie’s only problems. She also develops flat feet and a patch of cellulite. To fix things, Barbie travels to the real world. Beach Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, decides to tag along.

BARBIE: Ok. Did you bring your rollerblades?

KEN: I literally go nowhere without them.

When they get to the real world, Barbie and Ken are shocked to discover things aren’t what they expected. Barbie’s horrified women don’t enjoy the perfect lives of empowerment she expected. Ken’s excited when he discovers a new concept called patriarchy. He’s always been subservient to the Barbies, but in the real world he’s found a man’s world.

DOCTOR: I won’t let you do just one appendectomy.

KEN: But I’m a man.

DOCTOR: But not a doctor.

KEN: Can I talk to a doctor?

DOCTOR: You are talking to a doctor.

KEN: I need a clicky pen and a sharp thing. There he is! Doctor!

DOCTOR: Somebody get security.

Ken brings patriarchy back to Barbieland, which causes a huge mess. Barbie, and the other Barbies, with the help of a Mattel employee, must find a way to tear down Ken’s new world order.

The movie has plenty of style and silliness with choreographed dance scenes juxtaposed with philosophical discourse. The film showed some promise when Ken experiences existential dread because he can’t define himself apart from Barbie.

KEN: I just don’t know who I am without you.

BARBIE: You’re Ken.

KEN: But it’s Barbie and Ken. There is no just Ken.

The notion that marginalized Kens would assert their rights gave the film the appearance of heading to an interesting pay off, but it goes nowhere.

Instead of offering a reflection of what it means to be a human living alongside other humans, Gerwig falls into a cliched form of existentialism in which life is essentially meaningless, and it’s up to us to assert our own meaning. Barbie must begin her journey to the real world singing the Indigo Girls’ Closer to Fine which claims happiness comes from not thinking about who made you. Toward the end of the movie, Barbie meets her maker, who pretty much tells her the same thing.

The film is rated PG-13 for some suggestive references and a bleeped out foul word. One of the Barbies is played by a biological male pretending to be a woman. That struck me as some ironic patriarchy, but it fits with the movie’s theme. Ignore what you were made to be and create your own meaning. We also get multiple jokes about Barbie and Ken’s lack of anatomy.

KEN: I thought I might stay over tonight.

BARBIE: Why?

KEN: Because we’re girlfriend-boyfriend.

BARBIE: To do what?

KEN: I’m actually not sure.

The angry feminism gets pretty heavy handed in the second half of the film, with one character repeatedly delivering a rant about the double standards modern women are subjected to. Gerwig sort of has a point here. Many of these double standards are real. But as with most of the movie, Gerwig misses the point, too. She can’t see that many of these impossible standards weren’t imposed by the patriarchy, but by feminists who told women they had to have important careers, perfect families, and still have time for female activism.

Gerwig’s answer to the difficulties of womanhood is simply to go your own way and embrace the imperfections of life. But there’s a hollowness at the heart of this film. The kind of hollowness that can only be filled by seeking purpose in one’s creator, a notion this film sadly rejects.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday July 21st. 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. Up next: Word Play for July. Today, we’re going to learn a neologism, a new word, in this case an invented word, “obsologism.”

WORLD Commentator George Grant came up with it. A word describing words that have become obsolete. And while some of them deserve to rest in peace, others might be worth resurrecting.

GEORGE GRANT, COMMENTATOR: Like fashions, words and phrases can come and go. English is a bit of a hodgepodge to begin with—but now that it is an international language, changes in our common parlance can occur at a dizzying pace. With haunting lines taken from his Four Quartets, T.S Eliot reminds us of this:

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

Words and phrases that fall out of favor and out of usage are called “obsologisms” or archaisms. This fate befalls even perfectly good words and phrases—particularly if those words or phrases are slang expressions. But of late, I’ve been thinking that perhaps some of them may well warrant a second look.

My father-in-law would often describe things he really liked as the cat’s pajamas. Coined during the jazz and flapper age of the Roaring Twenties, the phrase connoted something that was surprisingly wonderful, excellent, as good as it gets. My grandmother once dismissed a gossipy ladies’ afternoon tea as “wags drinking scandal water.” Apparently, scandal water was a common Victorian epithet for tea.

Twitterpated sounds like a modern tech term used to describe something trending on social media but it is actually an adjective first cited in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1942 meaning head-over-heels lovestruck.

Tickety-Boo is a phrase still used from time to time in England. First used in 1938, it means “all is well, A-OK.” Someone who is perpetually tickety-boo and always smiling might be described as a gigglemug. While a pang-wangle is someone who is able to grin-and-bear-it despite the fact that all is not tickety-boo.

Fudgel means pretending to work when you’re actually just frittering time away; hideosity is extreme ugliness; Twattle is mindless chatter; to hornswoggle is to swindle or scam; to fuzzle means to confuse; to groak is silently staring at someone as they eat, hoping they will invite you to join them; a growlery is a Dickensian term for “a place where you can retreat from the world when you’re in bad mood.”

There are dozens of great fossil words like ado, avast, and bandy; caboodle, dint, and druthers; eek, fettle, and loggerheads; shrive, shrove, and shrift; sophronize, tarnation, and turpitude. All of these once common slang expressions have fallen out of fashion, out of favor, and out of usage. But I for one think at least a few of them deserve a second chance. So, if you know your onions and are not a hobbledehoy fiddling with your gullyfluff why don’t you help me bring the best of them back—even if only for the sake of auld-slang-syne?

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:

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Bonnie Pritchett, Onize Ohikere, Janie B. Cheaney, Mary Muncy, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Collin Garbarino, and George Grant.

And a new voice this week: Bethel McGrew.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Steve Kloosterman, 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 production team includes Kristen Flavin, Benj Eicher, Emily Whitten, Lillian Hamman, and Bekah McCallum.

Anna Johansen Brown is features editor, and Paul Butler is 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 Gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew chapter 23 verse 12.

Let’s exalt His name in church together this weekend, with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Go now in grace and peace.

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