The World and Everything in It: March 10, 2023

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Culture Friday we’ll talk about how euthanasia expands and how the Toronto Raptors shrink  from the truth.

NICK EICHER, HOST: 

We’ll talk about with John Stonestreet today..

Plus Collin Garbarino introduces us to three worthy streaming options for families with kids.

And Steve West reviews a unique bluegrass group.

BROWN: It’s Friday, March 10th. 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, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Russian missile barrage »

SOUND: [Ukraine NATS]

Ukrainian troops fire shells at invading Russian troops as Moscow’s forces continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine.

More than 80 Russian missiles and exploding drones rained down on residential buildings in numerous cities across Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least six people.

ZELENSKYY: [Ukrainian]

In a video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Ukraine will not yield and will “never be in chains.”

Russian missile barrage / Zaporizhzhia concerns » The largest such attack in three weeks also put Europe’s largest nuclear plant at risk by knocking it off the power grid once again.

The Zaporizhzhia plant needs external power to operate cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.

UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi:

GROSSI: This is the largest nuclear power station in Europe operating for the sixth time under emergency diesel generators. What are we doing?

U.N. secretary general Antonio Guterres is once again calling for a demilitarized safezone around nuclear power plant.

Biden budget » President Biden unveiled his federal budget on Thursday.

BIDEN: My budget reflects what we can do to lift the burden on hardworking Americans. And there’s more than one way to do that.

His budget blueprint aims to cut the deficit by $3 trillion dollars over 10 years.

He says he’d pay for it by raising taxes on corporations and high-income Americans. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called that a really bad idea.

MCCARTHY: Raising taxes in this economy is wrong. You’ve got more revenue than at any time. You’re spending under the Democrats increased by 30 percent.

The nonpsartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that deficit reduction is a welcomed start, but nothing more.

The deficit is the amount of money the government overspends each year. And the committee says the president’s budget would still have Uncle Sam adding $19 trillion dollars to the national debt over a decade.

Norfolk Southern testimony » The CEO of rail giant Norfolk Southern was in the hotseat on Capitol hill Thursday after three of its trains derailed in just over a month’s time.

SHAW: I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this derailment has had on the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities.

The wreck in East Palestine, Ohio caused a spill of toxic chemicals.

Shaw vowed to pay for the cleanup and to take care of those impacted by the chemical spill. But Sen. Bernie Sanders asked the CEO to explain exactly what that means.

SANDERS: Does that include paying for their healthcare needs? All of their healthcare needs?
SHAW: Senator, we’re going to do what’s right.

Officials say a second crash in Ohio and a derailment in Alabama this week did not cause any serious injuries or threats to the environment.

Lawmakers are crafting legislation that would tighten safety standards for hauling toxic cargo and increase fines for violations.

College enrollment dropping » Fewer young people are going to college today than five years ago and not just because of the pandemic.

Between 2020 and 2022, college enrollment dropped by roughly 9 percent. Tens of thousands of fewer students are going to college even after in-person classes have returned.

Vicki Bunch is Chief Workforce Development Officer for Jackson, Tennessee. She says many graduates prefer to make money over going to classes.

VICKI BUNCH: What we’re seeing is that students can’t seem to resist sign-on bonuses and wages that far exceed any they’ve seen before.

But that could threaten the labor market with a shortage of workers in fields such as technology and medicine.

Ken Cuccinelli DeSantis pac » A former senior official in the Trump administration is now throwing his support behind a different Republican.

Former Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli is launching a super PAC calling on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to jump into the race.

CUCCINELLI: Governor DeSantis, today I’m asking you to run for president. You’ve had our back. Now we will have yours. It’s time for fresh conservative leadership.

An average of recent polls gives Trump an early double-digit lead over second-place DeSantis among Republican voters. But for now, those numbers are hypothetical as DeSantis has given no indication as to when he will announce his plans.

Mexican Cartel Letter » A letter purportedly written by Mexican cartel leaders apologizes for the abduction of four Americans last week.

Two of the Americans were killed after their group crossed the border from Texas into Matamoros, Mexico. In the letter, the cartel condemns the crime and says it is handing over the members responsible.

Since then, Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to designate the cartels as terrorists.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, however, says doing that will only exacerbate the immigration crisis at America’s southern border by making many more people eligible for asylum.

CRENSHAW: Are they obviously terrorists? Of course. They act like terrorists, but if you designate them that way you will make our immigration crisis much worse.

The two survivors of last week’s attack have returned to the United States.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Plus, Dominican friars playing bluegrass music.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s the 10th day of March 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, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: Well, John, it appears the Canadian government has pulled back from the brink on extending its euthanasia program. There's a push and there has been a push for this policy change, to extend it and make it available to those suffering from mental illness. The policy change had been set to take effect next week. But now it appears it's delayed for a year or so. So the plan now is for this time next year, that so called medical assistance in dying in Canada will be available for those with mental illness.

Now, you know, the progression on this, but I want to read a BBC report. It's an extraordinary piece. It quotes a psychiatrist who works on MAiD cases - medical assistance in dying - works on those cases up in Canada. Her name is Dr. Madeline Li. She's recalling the first patient she ever helped to die was about a month after Canada first legalized euthanasia. The year was 2016. I remember, she says, I remember just how surreal it was. She's a psychiatrist at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. She's recalling checking her patient that day, asking, do you have the right music? Do you have the final meal? Are you sure you want to go ahead? The patient was in her mid 60s She was suffering from ovarian cancer. She said Indeed she was and the story goes on. Five minutes later, the woman was dead. It was like stepping off a cliff that first one Dr. Lee said then time passes. And it normalizes. She has since overseen hundreds of medically assisted dying cases. But Dr. Lee has significant concerns about the expansion of Canada's euthanasia and assisted dying program beyond the terminally ill and she is not alone. Now, John, is that an ethically sustainable position? We've got a patchwork of laws in this country on assisted suicide. Do you think this is in our future?

STONESTREET: Yeah, anytime that anything, whatever we call it, Doctor assisted suicide, euthanasia, medical assistance in dying, there's a million euphemisms for this. And all of them are a slippery slope. And as Joni Erickson Tada once said, you know, even though slippery slopes are not considered to be valid logical arguments, if the slope is truly sloped, and it's greased, then you're going to slide down and every single place that doctor-assisted death has been tried, what began as a so called right to die devolved into a duty to die pressured to die. There are economic factors either from the family or from the state that cannot be denied there are expansion from what starts as, quote, unquote, help for people with terminal illnesses, to quote unquote, help for people with a hopeless diagnosis. In other words, it moves from so called medical care for someone who's going to die to medical care for someone who's never going to get better. That's a very significant shift.

And then it shifts from the physical to the emotional. And that's already happened in Canada. In fact, as you put it here, this move, pulling back from the brink, is the first time that this particular nation has put any brakes at all on medical assistance and dying. I mean, we are getting reports, there was an article not too long ago, where someone said I am the face and medical assistance and dying, and basically saying, Look, my insurance company will cover death, my insurance company will not cover my treatment, and I want to live I don't want to die. She's not the only one that said that. We have a story that has come out of Canada of someone who was sexually assaulted in her 20s, a horrific, not a physical condition that she faces, but purely a mental condition that she faces. And of course, we seen that in the United States. Oregon, for example, was one of the first states to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. And it's always argued for on the basis of, you know, being merciful and helping people deal with physical pain. And yet 20 years after in Oregon, the number one reason by far that people list for choosing this is some form of a psychological condition. They don't want to be a burden. This is number one of the top reasons they don't want to be a burden on their family members. That is either coming from a place of psychological distress, or that's coming from a place of psychological torture on behalf of the family.

Now, when you add a nationalized health care like you have in Canada, then there's a completely different entity that plays a role and that's the state and what the state is willing to cover and not willing to cover, we also have significant shifts in Canada already towards allowing minors to choose medical assistance and dying. We have had several advocates both in the medical community and from the government's basically saying, Look, if you can't sign on to perform this service, you should not be a doctor or a nurse in Canada. And so now we have conscience rights being restricted. And, you know, look, doesn't mean it has to come here. But we already have more and more and more states that are moving that way in the United States. And it is a step off a cliff. And I just was so struck by Dr. Lee's words, that it first feels like stepping off a cliff and then it normalizes, do you want a, a long fall off of a cliff to ever been normalized? I mean, to normalize killing, look, that's what we're normalizing here and normalizing a new understanding of medicine, from do no harm, and provide care and comfort to actually ending someone's life. That's what's being normalized.

EICHER: John, the pro-basketball team Toronto Raptors posted one of these little social-media videos you find sports teams doing. This 11-second video last Friday was in celebration of women’s history month—which of course, is this month.

The question posed to Raptors’ players was the following:

“Beyonce said girls run the world. Why do you think that's true?”

Here’s the whole clip:

PLAYER: Girls run the world because they're the only ones that can procreate. They birth everybody. All women are great because they're all queens.

Just in case you had a hard time hearing their responses, “Girls run the world because they're the only ones that can procreate. They birth everybody. All women are great because they’re all queens.”

Got it? Good, because the Raptors took the video down and issued an apology. I’ll read it:

“Our sincerest apologies to our players, staff, and fans. We’re an organization that prides itself on doing the right thing when it comes to inclusion and representation and we made a mistake.”

John, did you spot the mistake?

STONESTREET: Yeah, the mistake is on the cowardice of the Raptors organization to take this video down, because some people got mad, because they dared to say that women are the ones that give birth. This is not a controversial statement, except in the, you know, the 21st century and the Western world that has so much decadence, and so much money and so much elbow room to do whatever the heck we want, that we actually think we can reframe reality according to our desires, and anybody who gets in the way of that is actually a perpetrator of evil.

Carl Truman, of course, in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self talks about how we got here, kind of philosophically, historically, and so on. But there's a really short history that has a lot to do with the author of Harry Potter named J.K. Rowling. And there's a new podcast series coming out of the free press, which is Bari Weiss's group featuring J.K. Rowling, and it's called The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and just talking about kind of in a shorter run, how we got here, and the role for example, that social media played in it and the the the MO of activist to not actually ever have to make arguments. That's what's so bizarre about this, is that here you have a group of people saying things that are patently absurd, and observably not true. And no one makes them defend their position, they just immediately roll over and play dead anytime somebody yells at them from the Trans activist community. So look, I'll say it. Girls are the only ones that can procreate. They birth everybody. The fact that this is a controversial statement says far more about the state of our culture than the state of reality.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Several weeks ago Albuquerque Police rescued a Bengal tiger cub and turned him over to staff at the Albuquerque BioPark.

They nursed him to health and transferred “Duke” to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado.

Duke has become a fan favorite on the sanctuary Twitter page. Photos of him cuddling with stuffed animals could just about break the internet.

Staff will eventually settle him into his four acre home later this year.

What does Duke think of his friends at the Colorado Wild Animal Sanctuary?

They're great!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, March 10th. 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: worthwhile kids shows.

It seems like everyday we hear about kids’ programs undermining traditional values or pushing a progressive political agenda. There’s a lot of rubbish out there. It’s hard for parents to sift through everything to find the gems.

Here’s Collin Garbarino with suggestions for shows that offer kids—and their parents—some timely and entertaining lessons.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Today I want to talk about three kids’ cartoons that explore the nature of virtue and the individual’s relationship to government. But don’t worry. These shows aren’t boring civics lessons.

MUSIC: LIBERTY’S KIDS THEME SONG

Some of our listeners in their late twenties and early thirties will remember that theme song. It’s from Liberty’s Kids, which originally aired on PBS 20 years ago.

The series follows the adventures of teenagers James and Sarah who befriend Ben Franklin during the American Revolution. In 40 episodes, the narrative weaves the fictional adventures of the kids with the historical events of America’s founding. It’s an engaging—sometimes nail biting—story, and it doesn’t hurt that the voice cast includes some heavy hitters. An entire generation knows the voice of Walter Cronkite as Ben Franklin.

BEN FRANKLIN: Leaving England convinced me that a fight between the colonies and the crown is now inevitable.

MOSES: Being here would have convinced you of the same thing. British soldiers fired on our people at Lexington and Concord.

BEN FRANKLIN: The crown’s men fired upon her own subjects? Unthinkable. Tell me everything, Moses.

MOSES: Here. You can read all about it.

BEN FRANKLIN: The Shot Heard ‘Round the World. By James Hiller and Sarah Phillips. I’m very proud of them. And now we must prepare for war.

I appreciate Liberty’s Kids’ attention to detail and nuance. It’s definitely a patriotic series, but at the same time we see the birthing pains of a nation in which not every American wanted independence and not all Americans got freedom. You can stream the complete series for free on YouTube.

Now my next pick doesn’t have a lot of nuance.

MUSIC: TUTTLE TWINS THEME SONG

But it’s got plenty of spunk and it’s definitely teaching some lessons about freedom and personal responsibility. Tuttle Twins is a series from Angel Studios that feels like a cross between The Magic School Bus, Phineas and Ferb, and Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

The show is about two kids and their Cuban grandma who hates socialism.

TWINS: Grandma Gabby!

GRANDMA GABBY: Smaller copies of my DNA! Hvow are you, amorcitos?

MOM: Kids, Grandma Gabby’s going to be moving in with us. Her retirement community doesn’t allow illegal pets.

GRANDMA GABBY: HOAs are full of communists, isn’t that right Derek?

Oh, and she also has a time machine, which she uses to visit men like John Locke and Ben Franklin to teach the grandkids about liberty and sound economics.

The show is fast-paced and a little sassy with plenty of jokes aimed at both kids and parents. If you check it out, maybe consider skipping the second episode about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. It seems to say all religions teach the same morality. The series has a definite libertarian streak to it. But even if you don’t agree with every lesson, it offers amusing counterprogramming to other kids’ shows and it might provoke some lively conversations.

ETHAN: You can start a business with a cool idea? Whoah! I wanna be an entrepreneur!

MOM: Absolutely, anyone can be an entrepreneur! Unless you live in a totalitarian regime where they oppress people, resources, and ideas—you know, like North Korea or California.

Season Two debuted earlier this week. You can stream all the episodes for free on the Angel Studios website or using the Angel Studios app.

My final suggestion, and probably my favorite, is The Long Long Holiday. It’s a French animated series that first aired in 2015. It’s currently available on Amazon’s Prime Video.

COLETTE: Granny, I missed you!

GRANNYLI: Oh, I missed you too, my Colette.

ERNEST: Hello, Granpalou.

GRANDPALOU: Hello there, young man.

COLETTE: Grandpalou!

GRANDPALOU: Oh, you’ve gotten heavy, my darling.

It’s 1939, and two Parisian children visit their grandparents in Normandy. Their short vacation turns into a long stay when Germans invade, and the children can’t get back to their parents.

The series is beautiful, yet a little heavy. It depicts the Nazi occupation of France through the eyes of children.

COLETTE: It isn’t much.

ALL: Nope.

ERNEST: With all the requisitioning, I don’t know what we’re going to do.

BOY: No more fabric, no more shoes, no more bicycle tires, and now almost nothing left to eat, except turnips and Jerusalem artichokes. Yuck.

OTHER BOY: Yeah, everything Tissier has, he sells really expensively on the black market.

Juxtaposing the joys of childhood with the sorrows of war makes for an emotionally moving story. A veneer of darkness is on the land, but The Long Long Holiday tells a story about friendship, heroism, and solidarity. Ultimately, it’s a story about love and hope.

These shows remind us that small virtuous actions can make a big difference in our world. We shouldn’t wait for the government to fix our problems. But each of us can make the world a little better through perseverance and kindness.

MUSIC: LIBERTY’S KIDS THEME SONG

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: A musical band with a heavenly calling.

When we think of bluegrass music we might recall the traditional sounds of Bill Monroe or Doc Watson or the more contemporary sound of musicians like Allison Krauss.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Right but when you think about all that, you might not think about Dominican friars.

WORLD reviewer Steve West says one group of holy men is stretching the genre in ways worth tuning in to.

MUSIC: [SING REDEEMING LOVE]

STEVE WEST, REPORTER: Father Jonah told me that he knew it was God’s grace when he stood with others in the band on the storied Grand Ole Opry stage at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. It’s a place where so many historic performances by the likes of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline occurred.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: Oh, man, it was awesome. It was so much fun. We just loaded up in a pretty smelly 15-passenger Chevy--not the greatest rental but it got the job done. I think the biggest show we played was at the Grand Ole Opry, which was just, I mean, what a pinnacle. What an incredible experience. I still can't believe we got to do that.

MUSIC: [OUR HELP IS IN THE NAME OF THE LORD]

Father Jonah is just one of eight men in a band called the Hillbilly Thomists. They’re part of a Catholic Order of Preachers—also called Dominicans—which originated in medieval France with a Spanish priest, Saint Dominic. Mostly they do what Dominican friars are called to do: pray, study, write, teach, and preach. But, as Father Justin explains, they’ve also embraced music as part of their call.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: So when St. Dominic founded us about 800 years ago, he was inspired to found an order that would study the truth. Love the source of truth, who is God and our Lord Jesus. We write a lot of our own music, but we also like to play traditional tunes, and kind of reveal, yeah, the gospel and certain truths through this music.

AUDIO: [HOLY GHOST POWER]

The songs the band plays are firmly in the bluegrass gospel genre, rooted in the stuff of life–things like false promises, lost hope, and unfulfilled dreams–familiar topics for country or bluegrass songs. And yet wherever the songs begin, they resolve in hope, in the promise of the Gospel.

That’s as it should be, says Father Jonah.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: I think that the songs in large part are about grace, are about God’s taking initiative in your life with his love, which is transformative. Drawing you closer to him, breaking your life open, so that his light can pour in.

AUDIO: [HOLY GHOST POWER]

On the band’s website, there’s a quote from the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor, in which she calls herself, “ a hillbilly Thomist.” I asked Father Justin what O’Connor was talking about and why the band adopted her term.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: She wanted to explore the ways that grace will kind of fall sometimes into someone's life violently, or in a way that disrupts. We Dominicans are like writer O'Connor, students of St. Thomas Aquinas. And then this music that we're playing is hillbilly music. Both bluegrass gospel. And so I thought it'd be fun and appropriate to call ourselves the Hillbilly Thomists.

AUDIO: [HOLY GHOST POWER]

That’s the title track from the band’s latest album, Holy Ghost Power, which came out last summer. The vocals on some songs may be too rough-hewn for some listeners, but that earthiness is part of their appeal. Father Jonah said they record much of their music live, with little overdubbing, and while they enjoy jamming musically, their favorite part is harmonizing together.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: So for us as friars, there are four or five times a day that we're all coming together in the chapel and singing hymns together and chanting Psalms. So a large part of your life is just sorta standing next to your brothers and singing. So we've developed a real ease in just kind of knowing the voice next to you and singing with it and blending with it.

AUDIO: [KEEP YOUR LAMPS TRIMMED]

Yet the brothers explained that they weren’t so holy that they never had a disagreement.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: Well, I'm always right. So, no disagreements. Yeah, I am too. We live lives of mutual mercy in this religious life. It's like you've entered into this life together as friars, as brothers, seeking God together. And that means that you have to seek God together, which means there's a certain patience you need to have with each other, and an understanding that, like, your brother is here with a disposition of mercy towards you.

AUDIO: [GOOD TREE]

The brothers say they will be recording again this summer. And that’s good news for music lovers who also love the Gospel.

HILLBILLY THOMISTS: So that's kind of what we're about as Dominicans: preaching the truth, the truth of the gospel, the saving truth of the gospel. We're bound to each other in fraternity. And, and like Father Jonah said, in mercy. So in one sense, the stakes are high. Like you're saying, we want this to sound good. We really love doing it. But then we also keep in mind the bigger picture.

AUDIO: [GOOD TREE]

I’m Steve West.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week: Emma Freire, Kim Henderson, Cal Thomas, Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Onize Ohikere, Janie B. Cheaney, Steve West, Emily Whitten, Whitney Williams, Collin Garbarino, and John Stonestreet.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Steve Kloosterman, Lauren Canterberry, Mary Muncy, Josh Schumacher, Anna Mandin, and Elias Ferenczy.

And our 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 with production assistance from Anna Johansen Brown, Lillian Hamman and Benj Eicher.

Paul Butler is our Executive Producer.

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

The Bible says: O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come. When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Psalm 65:2-3

Remember to worship the Lord this weekend with your brothers and sisters in Christ! 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.