The World and Everything in It - November 12, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The White House is marketing its Build Back Better Plan with a cradle-to-grave vision of American Life.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about that on Culture Friday.

Plus a review of the movie The Electric Life of Louis Wain.

And the new album of modern hymns from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

REICHARD: It’s Friday, November 12th. 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 here’s Kristen Flavin with today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden administration to study lung conditions in veterans » The Biden administration announced a new initiative Thursday to study the effects of toxic exposure on military veterans.

President Biden noted the effort during the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

BIDEN: We’re going to work with Congress, Republicans and Democrats together, to make sure our veterans receive the world-class benefits that they’ve earned, and meet the sacred and specific care, specific needs, that they each, individually need. That means expanding presumptive conditions for toxic exposure.

The new initiative focuses on lung problems suffered by troops exposed to toxins and poor air quality. It will also examine links between rare cancers and time spent on overseas deployments.

The president’s son, Beau Biden, served in Iraq and later died of aggressive brain cancer. The president has suggested a potential link between his son’s cancer and the toxins released by burn pits the military uses to dispose of waste.

BIDEN: We have many obligations, but one truly sacred obligation: to properly prepare those and equip those who we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families while they’re both deployed and when they return home.

The new initiative will make it easier for service members to make claims based on their symptoms. And it changes the way the government determines which symptoms count, and why.

States sue over healthcare worker vax mandate » Ten states are suing the Biden administration over its requirement for healthcare workers to get the COVID-19 vaccination. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The lawsuit filed in federal court in Missouri contends the vaccine mandate could “exacerbate an alarming shortage” of healthcare workers, especially in rural communities.

It challenges a rule issued last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The new vaccine requirement covers more than 17 million workers in health care facilities and home health care providers that get federal funding.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed the lawsuit. He called the mandate “a blatant attempt to federalize public health issues involving vaccination that belong within the States’ police power.”

Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming joined Missouri in filing the lawsuit.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Boeing accepts liability in Ethiopian Airways crash » Boeing has agreed to accept responsibility for the 2019 crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.

The Ethiopian Airways flight lost control shortly after takeoff from the airport in Addis Ababa. Investigators blamed faulty software on the 737-Max aircraft that forced the plane into a nosedive. Pilots tried unsuccessfully to regain control before the crash.

In court documents filed Wednesday, the company admitted the software caused the crash and that the 737-Max was not safe to fly. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the planes for two years while the company worked to fix the problem.

During a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, FAA administrator Steve Dickson said the agency is keeping a much closer eye on the manufacturer.

DICKSON: Boeing is not the same as it was two years ago, but they have more work to do.

Boeing’s admission of responsibility in the Ethiopia crash clears the way for victims' families to pursue individual claims in U.S. courts. The company also faces lawsuits stemming from another 737-Max crash six months earlier in Indonesia. It killed 189 people.

F.W. de Klerk dies » F.W. de Klerk—the former president who ended apartheid in South Africa—has died. He was 85 years old.

De Klerk had only been in office for five months when he announced the end of white minority rule in February 1990. In a speech to parliament, de Klerk said he would free Nelson Mandela from prison and lift the ban on anti-apartheid political parties.

Four years later, black South Africans voted for the first time and Mandela became the country’s first black president.

The two men shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Despite international recognition for his efforts, de Klerk remained a controversial figure. In a video address recorded not long before his death, de Klerk addressed his critics.

DE KLERK: I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to Black, Brown and Indians in South Africa.

Current South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the apartheid policies de Klerk's National Party enforced wreaked havoc on millions. But he said de Klerk would be remembered for the courage he showed in stepping away from that path.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: the expansion of government into civil society.

Plus, the new album from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Friday, November 12th, 2021. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. 

Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

The Biden Administration is working to promote its “Build Back Better” plan—also known as a tax-and-spend-bill that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says will add an estimated $200 billion to the national debt over the next decade.

It’s not yet gone through the Senate nor even passed the House, but in the meantime the White House is smartly marketing the plan for the masses.

REICHARD: Yeah, it’s pretty clever: seven colorful illustrations in storyboard form about a fictional single mother named Linda and her unborn son Leo—so there’s a little pro-life messaging in it, interesting.

But the idea is to personify beneficiaries of the spending plan with a narrative of lifetime government support, cradle to grave. It’s comprehensive: tax credits for the young mom, free schooling for Leo and then government subsidized jobs for him, and ends up with government assistance for Linda’s health problems when she gets old.

EICHER: A recent piece in WORLD Opinions pointed out what’s missing from the Linda-and-Leo story—and that’s pretty much everything that’s not government. Dan Darling wrote the piece and here’s a passage:

“Imagine how Linda’s life and Leo’s life would be enriched in this story”—he writes—“if there were images of a loving church community, selfless neighbors, and a loose network of private social institutions? The government might offer a necessary safety net, but a faceless bureaucracy cannot play catch with Leo in the backyard, it cannot drive Leo to Sunday school, it cannot console Leo in those lonely moments when he wishes his father was in his life.”

REICHARD: Well, it’s Culture Friday. We want to welcome John Stonestreet to talk about this. He’s the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning. 

REICHARD: Now John, I realize reasonable people can differ on federal spending programs. You’ve talked a lot about “mediating institutions” and about the importance of intact families. Here’s my question: does a government program like this one tend to drive out family and civil society? Or do they just fill in where family and civil society have broken down? Or maybe it’s all of the above?

STONESTREET: Well as a big fan of Abraham Kuyper and his idea of sphere sovereignty, I'm about to just get so nerdy and explain the whole thing because it does explain this entire conversation that Dan was having on world opinions. And it's just a tremendous article and he hits it right on the head. When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America and, you know, looked at the American experiment, he noted that there was far more at work in an individual's life than just the state. That in between the individual citizen and the state were all of these layers of what had been called intermediary institutions. These are things that allow individuals to govern themselves, to be self sufficient to not be reliant on the State. And by the State, I mean capital as big State. But that also applies that, you know, individual states and local governments also provide an additional layer. But there are certainly some people who think that the State is the entire society, and that everything else is a part of the State. There are certainly examples in history of governments that see individuals as being just mere cogs in the larger machine that is the State. And there's this whole spectrum that exists between having a vision of freedom and not having a vision of freedom. Now, where Abraham Kuyper comes in, as he suggests this idea that God in His created design, and he quotes here, in Genesis where the scripture says that God created every animal after its own kind, he takes that to mean that there is a diversity of existence in the created order, including structurally. And yet it all works towards a common purpose - God's glory, though, the big theological word and I should win a prize for saying this: pluriformity, that was Cuypers idea. You have these various fears at work all working towards the same unified purpose. And the State functions well, when it stays within its sphere. It has a purpose. We're not anarchists. The family functions well when it stays in its sphere. But when one sphere jumps out of its God ordained space into another, you have problems. And when one sphere abandons its God ordained space, then another sphere has to pick up the weight. So the answer to your question is yes. So this is, you know, what you have is this, I think, an absolutely convinced progressive end of the political spectrum right now that the State really is all there is and that everything else serves the State. But you also have to place blame at the failure of the family. You know, you have dads in the picture. I think it was just a couple weeks ago when we talked about that wonderful story of the dads that showed up at the school and made sure their kids weren't fighting, and kind of turned the whole school culture around. That proves that there are there's this thing called fathers that actually exist and have to be part of the story for a healthy society to go forward. And there are other things as well. But yeah, this is an image of the world given by the White House as if the State is all there is.

EICHER: Okay, last topic today, John.

Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting story about the CEO of McDonalds, whose text message to the mayor of Chicago recently became a matter of public record. It all flowed out of the killing several months ago of a little girl caught in a gang shootout in a McDonalds’ parking lot. The bullets were meant for her dad—a member of a rival gang—and ended up killing his little girl instead. What the McDonalds chief executive said about this killing and one other similar to it was this, quoting here: “the parents failed those kids, which I know is something you can’t say. Even harder to fix.”

So now that the text is out in the public, the CEO is in a real public-relations jam and he’s apologizing for it.

REICHARD: Really interesting piece. Jason Riley said the CEO said nothing wrong, and it’s discouraging that we can’t address issues like these forthrightly—namely, You can’t be a gang-banger and a good parent, no matter how much you love your kids.

Riley wrote that solving these cultural problems is “less likely to happen if well-intentioned people can’t state simple truths in public without having their character assassinated and their livelihood threatened.”

EICHER: John, is Riley off base or does he have a point?

STONESTREET: Riley absolutely has a point. And listen, I'm old enough to remember the former mayor of Chicago, saying something not unlike this and getting absolutely crucified in the press, Rahm Emanuel. I love how we're going back to, you know, the 2000s in our conversation today. But this is exactly what happened. You remember Rahm Emanuel was talking about the damage that was done really by five or six zip codes within the larger city of Chicago that contributed to the incredibly high murder rate that is in that city, and, and how it's unfixable outside of dads and he was absolutely crucified. This is what the CEO of McDonald's was saying, to to not be able to say this, or to reject something like this is an example in my mind, an idea that I've just come across, Nick, from a Cambridge academic named Rob Henderson, it's called luxury beliefs. What Rob is arguing is, is that what fashion accessories and kind of no use, you know, sort of things that we would buy in a generation past would mark a certain social status and wealth class, in the past certain beliefs, beliefs that you can state out loud, but you don't actually have to live, you know, like, for example, that marriage doesn't matter, or you know, something like that, that hard work is, you know, culturally bigoted, or you know, that dads really don't have a role to play in the safety and well being of a community. Those are beliefs that only the wealthy have the luxury of stating. But when those who don't have well don't have resources, don't have a safety net of you know, unlimited attorneys, or a trust fund to fall back on. And when they actually live it out, you know, like a no dad life, then you actually get communities like we see that are devastated in certain parts of the country, like certain neighborhoods, in the Chicago area. Luxury beliefs, that whole concept is one of the most useful ones that I've heard in a long time, because it refers to those beliefs that you have to say out loud, to be socially acceptable among a certain group of people. But to actually live it out, you have to have a certain level of wealth to avoid the consequences of it. And neighborhoods like the one that the CEO of McDonald's in Chicago was talking about, most people in that neighborhood don't have that same luxury.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Why show up at a wedding or another big event in a limousine when you can arrive in a tank?!

EICHER: Why indeed? I have no answer…

REICHARD: Well, right, because there is no reason! A man in England has a pretty cool new side hustle after he bought a tank online for the equivalent of $35,000 U.S.

Great idea, really. Merlin Batchelor is his name. He drives people around in what he calls his “Tank Taxi.”

EICHER: Now there’s no mounted gun on the vehicle, this is England—not America—so is it actually a tank?

BATCHELOR: Technically, it isn’t. It’s an armored personnel carrier.

REICHARD: Aha! See? But aside from the missing gun, it looks just like a tank. Besides, “Armored Personnel Carrier Taxi” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

And as Batchelor told CBS News, most people don’t know the difference.

BATCHELOR: They’re pure entertainment, and as you’re driving along the street, there are so many people smiling, laughing, pointing.

EICHER: You, too, can ride in Tank Taxi for a cool $1,000 per event.

REICHARD: I want that. It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday, November 12th. 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. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: cats and the man who made them socially acceptable. He did?

REICHARD: But are they really?

EICHER: Well, I guess it depends who you ask. But the eccentric 19th century artist Louis Wain certainly thought they were special. And a new movie about his life shows how he elevated the humble mouser into the pampered pets we know and love today. Or at least some people do.

Here’s reviewer Collin Garbarino.

HG Wells: The artist Louis Wain made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. Cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves. But that is not what is important. What is important is that Louis Wain devoted his life to making all our lives happier, and cattier. In doing so, he undoubtedly raised up the cat in society and he changed our world for the better.

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: Those words from author HG Wells introduce The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, a new movie streaming on Amazon Prime. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the title character, an illustrator in Victorian England who devotes much of his life to creating fanciful pictures of furry felines. But just like a house cat, Louis’ story is complicated and at times frustrating.

Louis Wain is the eldest of six siblings in a well-to-do family. And as the only son, he finds himself expected to provide for his family after his father’s death. Young Louis has many talents, but he doesn’t know how to make any of them profitable. At his sister’s urging, he takes a job as a magazine illustrator. It’s a job he’s particularly suited for since he has the remarkable ability to speedily sketch with both hands simultaneously.

Sir William: “Well, I’ll start you off on poverty wages, as is standard, but they will be regular. And I’m afraid we can’t pay you for holidays or expenses at the moment. Will those terms be to your satisfaction, Mr. Wain?

His family’s fortunes sink further when Louis falls in love with his sisters’ governess, Emily, played by the charming Claire Foy. Emily is an older woman from a lower class, and their marriage provokes a scandal in London’s polite society.

Emily: “I might have accidentally looked in your journal.”

Louis: “Well, that… that was nosy.”

Emily: “I’m afraid it’s one of my many flaws.”

Louis: “Nosiness?”

Emily:“I’m very nosy, yes. It’s partly why I chose to become a governess.”

With the advent of photography, Louis’ professional life crumbles. His personal life follows suit when Emily develops terminal breast cancer after a few years of marriage. But Louis and his dying wife find some solace in a stray cat they name Peter.

[meow]

Emily: “What was that?”

Louis: “Strange.”

[meowing]

Emily: “Oh, Louis, look.”

Louis: “Hello there, little thing.”

Emily: “Hello.”

Louis: “Hello there, cat.”

Emily: “You’re soaking wet, you poor little thing. Why don’t you come in the warm with us.”

To cope with the grief of losing Emily, Louis imbues Peter with personality and showers him with affection. Peter becomes Louis’ muse, sparking a career characterized by anthropomorphized cat pictures. Colorful illustrations of cats dancing and cats reading and cats drinking tea may seem self-evidently cute to modern eyes. But that wasn’t the case at the end of the 19th century. The English appreciated a cat’s ability to control the mouse population, but few people thought of cats as pets.

Sir William: “I have two pages earmarked in the Christmas edition reserved for a bit of festive frivolity. Something to raise the spirits of our readers. I’d like you to fill them with cats.”

Louis: “With… cats?”

Sir William: “Yes. With cats.”

Louis: “Don’t you think perhaps a spread of silly dogs would be more appealing to your readership?”

Sir William: “I’ve seen dogs before. And you capture something of the cat, Louis. Perhaps because you yourself are a bit of a renegade. An outcast, dare I say. How you’ve managed to conjure images of such delight at such a dark time, I don’t know.”

The unexpected success of Louis’ whimsical cats changed the population’s perception, opening English homes to house cats.

But Louis never manages to turn his new-found popularity into financial prosperity. And his lack of money and personal grief aren’t his only battles. Louis continuously struggles with his eccentric brain. He suffers from anxiety throughout his life, and Cumberbatch depicts the polymathic Louis as having Asperger syndrome. Louis becomes preoccupied with electricity, seeing the electrification of the modern world as ushering in a new age for humanity. He comes to believe in a mystical electrical field that will cure mental illness and teach cats to talk.

Louis: “Electricity. I feel electricity. Can you feel it?

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a beautiful film with a talented cast, but much like Louis Wain himself, the film struggles to stay focused and, in the end, has trouble finding its way. It contains some muddled messaging about art, love, social class, and mental health. It’s tonally uneven, at times, promising some hope, but never quite finding it. The early scenes contain some jarring foul language—earning the film a PG-13 rating. The unnecessary profanity clashes with the setting and subject matter. Cumberbatch gives an enjoyably quirky performance, but he’s never really believable as Louis in his early 20s. What’s more, Emily is supposed to be 10 years older than Louis. But Foy looks 10 years younger than Cumberbatch, because she is.

Louis is a broken and often piteous protagonist, and melancholy hangs over the whole film. It’s not a perfect movie, but it asks viewers to look closely at this broken world and behold its splendor, even in the humble stray cat.

Emily: “One day, I don’t think it’ll be so peculiar to have a cat in the house as a little pet.”

I’m Collin Garbarino.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 12th. 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.

Keith and Kristyn Getty have a new album out, and that is sure to delight lovers of modern hymns. WORLD senior correspondent Myrna Brown gave it a listen and then talked with Keith about how the project came together.

SONG: IS HE WORTHY: Does the Father truly love us? He does...does the spirit move amount us? It He does

MYRNA BROWN, REVIEWER: In 20-20 Keith and Kristyn Getty recorded this live rendition of Is He Worthy with two of their four daughters. Then, the Gettys decided to embark on another kind of family-worship adventure: Ten months in a small seaside town in their homeland of Northern Ireland.

KEITH GETTY: Life slowed down. And it was the happiest year of our lives where we were able to introduce our girls to the land and the family and the places and the music.

SONG: WAULKING SONG

Keith Getty says during that year-long sabbatical, they took a deep dive into their Irish heritage. But their daughters aren’t the only benefactors. The Gettys’ latest album, Confessio: Irish-American Roots, is a collection of songs about those authentic experiences.

SONG: WAULKING SONG

This track for instance—The Waulking Song—comes straight from the mountains of the Scottish Highlands.

Waulking songs are traditionally written and performed in the Scotch-Irish dialect. Waulking is a unique work-flow where groups of women take woven tweed and rhythmically beat the fabric to repel water.

SONG: FAREWELL TO BALLYMONEY

The beauty of Confessio is in the instrumentation. Both Irish and American instruments create a melodic Celtic feel throughout the album.

GETTY: We use some of the Irish instruments like pipes and whistles and harp. But we also used some of the American sounds like banjo and dobro.

But the most memorable moments from this project are the delightfully unhurried musical preludes that precede classic hymns like, This Is My Father’s House …..

SONG: THIS IS MY FATHER’S HOUSE

… and When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.

SONG: WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDROUS CROSS

The Gettys are modern hymn writers who reinvigorate timeless classics like Come Thou Almighty King.

SONG: COME THOU ALMIGHTY KING

In this rendition, they added a new chorus. So, I asked Getty whether he had any hesitation over embellishing the hymn.

GETTY: I don’t. I mean honestly I don’t really try and change the arrangements. We do very unique arrangements. They are keeping the original versions. Something like Come Thou Almighty King isn’t used in most churches and so to me adding the chorus really made it more workable.

In 2001, Keith Getty co-wrote In Christ Alone and helped fuel a resurgence of singing and writing theologically sound modern hymns. Two decades later, songs like Pass The Promise continue to reflect just the right combination of theology and melody.

SONG: PASS THE PROMISE: Pass the promise to our sons and daughters. God most high. God our Father. We bear witness.

In this buoyant anthem Kristyn Getty and guest artists sing about our responsibility to pass on the promise to the next generation, as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:7 “You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise”.

SONG: AMAZING GRACE

Perfect in every way and one of my favorites on the project is John Newton’s classic hymn. And I’m willing to predict you’ll also be captivated by this rendition of Amazing Grace. Perhaps the strong musical collaboration between Keith Getty and saxophonist Kirk Whalum will draw you in.

GETTY: Kirk Whalum and I have this argument about Amazing Grace. So I believe Amazing Grace is a Scotch-Irish tune and he thinks it’s an African spiritual.

Or maybe it will be Kristyn Getty’s strikingly tender vocals. Her voice flawlessly blends with the soulful sound of jazz/folk singer Dana Masters.

SONG: AMAZING GRACE

But more likely what will keep you coming back to this song, will be the simple promise of the Father’s redemptive love and amazing grace for His children.

I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to thank the dedicated team that made this week’s programs possible, in no particular order:

Joel Belz, Myrna Brown, Collin Garbarino, Kent Covington, Caleb Bailey, Katie Gaultney, Kristen Flavin, Kim Henderson, Emily Whitten, Steve West, Onize Ohikere, Josh Schumacher, Sarah Schweinsberg, and Whitney Williams.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Carl Peetz and Johnny Franklin are the audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Leigh Jones is managing editor. Paul Butler is executive producer, and Marvin Olasky is editor in chief.

And thank you, because your giving makes possible independent Christian journalism. If you’ve never given before, November’s the month for you to become a brand new donor, please this month join the army of more than 10,000 others who give regularly to keep all of our journalism strong and supplied.

The Bible says God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

I hope you’ll worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ this weekend.

Lord willing, we’ll meet you back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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