The World and Everything in It: November 3rd, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Lorrie Kiefer from the beautiful South Jersey Shore. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Today on Culture Friday: an ideology powerful enough to bring together two camps that in ordinary times would be miles apart.

AUDIO: You’re supporting occupation! You not condemning terrorist? You should be ashamed of yourself.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The Western left making common cause with international terror. We’ll talk it over with Katie McCoy.

Also, a classic high seas adventure turns 20 this year. No, not Pirates of the Caribbean

England is under threat of invasion. And though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home. This ship is England.

And Ask the Editor.

BROWN: It’s Friday, November 3rd, 2023. 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: Israel aid vote » At the Capitol, House Republicans approved a bill that would send nearly $15 billion dollars in aid to Israel.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 226. The nays are 196. The bill is passed.

Only 12 Democrats backed the bill. And that’s largely because that plan calls for cuts in recently expanded IRS funding to pay for that aid.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said don’t bother sending the bill to the upper chamber.

SCHUMER: The Senate will not be considering this deeply flawed proposal from the House GOP.

Schumer said instead, the Senate will work on its own bill that would also include aid for Ukraine, among other things.

House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to tackle those matters separately.

Israel offensive » Meantime, in Gaza:

SOUND: [Gaza war]

Israeli soldiers continue to advance in and around Gaza City.

HAGARI: [Speaking Hebrew]

Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari says troops are engaging in “face-to-face battles with Hamas terrorists.”

The IDF says it has killed 130 militants in the latest battles. But 19 Israeli soldiers have also been killed.

Civilian suffering » And for civilians in both Israel and Gaza, the horrors of the Hamas attacks and subsequent war remain evident.

In Tel Aviv …

SOUND: [Hostage demonstration]

… loved ones of those still being held hostage by Hamas demonstrated Thursday for their return.

CIVILIAN: I have uncles and sisters of my friends. We need them home now. We need them home now.

SOUND: [Gaza suffering]

And in northern Gaza some families wept after a deadly strike near a UN school where displaced Palestinians were sheltering.

SOUND: [Gaza suffering]

Blinken in Israel » U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel today for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said they will discuss—quote—“concrete steps” to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza.

BLINKEN: And this is something that the United States is committed to. I’m not going to get into the details here, but it’s very much on the agenda.

Blinken will make multiple other stops in the Middle East, including in Jordan. He said he’ll stress Israel’s right to defend itself. But he added—quote—“How Israel does this matter.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the White House would like to see a humanitarian pause.

KIRBY: A temporary pause that’s localized that would allow us to get aid in and to get our people out is a good thing for the people of Gaza. It’s a good thing for the Americans that are being held hostage.

He stressed that a temporary pause is not the same thing as a general cease-fire.

Bankman-Fried guilty » A federal jury in Manhattan has found former cryptocurrency mogul and billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of fraud.

But federal prosecutor Damian Williams says this was not just any financial crime.

WILLIAMS: Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, a multi-billion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto.

Prosecutors said he turned his customers’ accounts into his “personal piggy bank” as up to $14 billion disappeared.

Bankman-Fried now awaits a sentencing trial in March of next year.

Bobby Knight obit » Indiana Hoosiers are mourning the loss of legendary Hall of Fame basketball coach Bobby Knight.

AUDIO: The basket is good, and Indiana is the national champion.

Knight led the Indiana University men’s basketball team to win three NCAA championships.

But he came under fire at times for his combustible temper. Some accused him of abusive behavior toward players.

In a 2007 interview, Knight said he only pressed players to get the best out of them.

KNIGHT: I don’t expect you people to have agreed with what I’ve done, and if I did, I would have asked your opinion. And I have never asked the opinions of very many.

Knight’s family says the 83-year-old passed away at his home in Indiana.

Beatles song » The Beatle's have released a new single featuring both the late John Lennon and George Harrison.

MUSIC: [Now and Then]

Lennon recorded a lo-fi demo of the song Now and Then at home more than 50 years ago.

Producers were able to use artificial intelligence to isolate and enhance his vocals for one last Beatle’s hit.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with Katie MCoy. Plus, revisiting the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 3rd of November, 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. Jewish voices on campus at Cornell.

AUDIO: Attacks on Israel are usually followed by an attack on the Jewish people around the world...

We’ve really seen the normalization and acceptance almost of anti-semitism, whether it be professors glorifying violence, or… organizations chanting vocally anti-Semitic slogans.

Police arrested a student at Cornell for making threats against Jews on campus.

AUDIO: Like why would you do that? I think it’s really ridiculous / It’s really an attempt to tear us apart.

And tearing down posters …

SOUND: [RIPPING POSTERS]

… with the names and faces of those taken hostage and held by Hamas. Jewish students paste them up … protesters rip them down …

SOUND: [CONTRONTATION]

… leading to confrontations.

SOUND: [PROTEST IN MINNESOTA]

Anti-Israel rallies have broken out worldwide, but also in the United States. This demonstration was near an appearance by President Biden this week in Minnesota.

Biden had been strong in supporting Israel in its efforts to destroy Hamas after a barbaric attack on Israel on October 7th by Hamas militants.

Now, Biden’s calling on Israel to make what he calls a “humanitarian pause” in the war. But he stops short of calling for a ceasefire.

Well, it’s Culture Friday, and today, the unusual ideology that is bringing together an unlikely alliance: Western sexual liberationists taking up the cause of radical Islam.

Joining us now is Katie McCoy. She has a PhD in theology and is author of the book titled To Be A Woman. Good morning, Katie!

KATIE MCCOY: Good morning, Nick, and Myrna.

BROWN: Katie, I read your social media post saying:

“Same brand of identity politics that can’t condemn Hamas can’t define a woman.

“Yes, they’re related.”

Would you expand? I’m curious how you get there.

MCCOY: Yeah, it seems like such disparate views, doesn't it? But the truth is, October 7th, the attack that we saw done by these Hamas terrorists against the nation of Israel, it caused an eruption of beliefs that had always existed, but maybe they were on the fringes, underneath the surface, perhaps dismissed as extreme. But now we're seeing the fruit of ideas and ideologies. And it's essentially this, that the root cause of injustice in the world is all about power. Who has power and who doesn't? And therefore, like we know from all worldview conversations that how you diagnose the problem of the human condition determines how you prescribe the cure. It also claims that the cure to the problem of the human condition is simply to rearrange who has that power. Essentially, it's reducing all of the human problem to a power conflict or a power dynamic. And when you have that, you categorize people in terms of oppressor and oppressed. So really, what we're seeing here is the effect of social intersectionality. We've talked about intersectionality on this show, and that it's been expanded from being a legal theory back in the 90s as it started out, to being a social theory writ large as we have it today.

EICHER: I wonder whether that accounts for President Biden’s falling poll numbers among Democrats. I half thought he’d benefit from the one-time truism, “politics stops at the water’s edge.” But Democrats, particularly young Democrats, are splitting from Biden over his support for Israel.

I guess it just doesn’t matter, though, does it, that a lot of the intersectional groups: Gays for Gaza, Reproductive Rights Equal Palestinian Rights, that kind of thing, wouldn’t be welcome for one second in a place run by Hamas.

MCCOY: Oh, precisely. It's such an irony. But you know, this is part of what this identity politics, oppressor and oppressed worldview does, is it doesn't have to make logical sense. It certainly doesn't have to make moral sense. It just has to make political sense. And we are seeing supporters of President Biden split by largely generational lines. And it's this more progressive wing that has been influenced by this worldview. That's part of why we're seeing such widespread protests that are anti-Israel on these college campuses. So one thing that stands out to me is this Queers for Palestine. Perhaps you saw that poster? And it's such a head scratcher, because you're going, do they know, do they realize that if they were in Gaza, they would likely be executed? There was a military leader in Hamas who was brutally tortured and eventually killed in 2016 because he was homosexual. Now, these identities conflict, but they don't have to be logically consistent. They just have to claim to stand up against what is either the majority culture, the perceived majority, or anything that would aid or abet it. And that's part of why we see the justification of immorality or the hesitancy to condemn such atrocities. Like we're still learning about what of Hamas did to the people of Israel. That's also why we see The New York Times can justify those who tear down posters of Israeli hostages, many of these hostages women and children, and say that they're just engaging in their own form of protest. So they don't look at the morality or the ethical character of one's actions through the lens of human dignity. Certainly not an absolute sense of right or wrong. But whether it's justified in this power dynamic framework of viewing the whole world.

EICHER: Katie, about when would you say this started to break out into the mainstream of academia? You know, I'm, I'm quite removed by many years from what we're seeing on college campuses. Now, 40 years ago, I was on a State campus moving between the economics department, which was very conservative, and the journalism department which was, I would say, conventionally liberal, but certainly not radical. I did find myself having to take an interdisciplinary course on feminism. And if I'm honest, I just wasn't paying very close attention. Maybe chalk it up to senioritis. But I'm curious when this ideology broke out of those kinds of majors and really into the mainstream of campus life?

MCCOY: Well, that's an interesting question, because my background is more in feminist and gender studies. And so I can point to the critical theory in feminist thought as coming into social consciousness in the 1960s, and 70s. And then it metastasized in the universities in the 1970s, and especially the 80s, 90s and beyond. And so we saw a critical gender theory applied to man and woman, essentially, that if you are born a woman, you are de facto oppressed. And if you don't realize you're oppressed, then there's one of two options: either you just need to have your consciousness raised, and understand how oppressed you truly are, or you are a traitor to your sex. You are part of the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world. And so we saw feminist Critical Theory take root and really grow in the university settings about a generation before mine.

And then Critical Theory simply expanded. And this is where we have different aspects of critical theory applied to economics, to race, to family. And it is essentially anything that is part of the majority is automatically oppressive. And if it is part of that majority oppressive culture, then it needs to be decentered by a minority. And now of course, as we come full circle, talking about queers for Palestine, and things like transgender issues. Now there is a new gender minority in town, so to speak, and we now have transgender. Women who biological men claiming to be women believing themselves to be women, saying that females no longer have the right to their own social spaces. They don't even have the right to their own terms and words, because with critical theory, you're always another minority away from being displaced.

BROWN: Yeah, what I'm seeing Katie on college campuses, this terminology aligning with freedom struggles against settler colonialism, imperialism, and a group of sociologists from universities around the country really, I don't know maybe even around the world, getting together, calling for others to join them as they take this stand. What do you make of that?

MCCOY: Well, here again, it's another irony. But first, let me give a caveat. The history of this region is fraught and complex. And it's the stuff of researchers and dissertations to understand, I wouldn't begin to understand it. What I do know is that any organization or any person that truly does value Palestinian life will be anti-Hamas. So why in the world is it so difficult to get everybody on the same page of condemning it? Why do we have this so-called progressive wing of one of the parties in our country reluctant to condemn this violence? Because again, it's not a moral framework of any type of absolute right and wrong, as in human dignity exists and human life has value no matter what one's race, creed or religion, but instead, all seen through this lens of oppressed versus oppressor.

Now, when we start getting into this conversation about Israel and Palestinians, it gets very complex very quickly. But of all people, not exactly a bastion of conservative thought, Hillary Clinton has recently been in the news talking about how when Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas took over, there's a reason why Palestinians want to go over the border to get medical care in Israel. These things are not something that we can reduce to a quick show except to say that what you're hearing. this rhetoric, words like genocide, apartheid, colonialization these are the new buzzwords, buzzwords that don't require you to think. buzzwords that don't require you to even define what you mean. It's just conjuring up a lot of emotion. Whether it is trans genocide or Palestinian genocide. Again, it doesn't have to come with any facts. It just has to come with a political identity. Truth in our culture is not grounded in evidence. It's grounded in narratives, and that is the effect of what we're seeing today.

BROWN: Alright, Katie McCoy. Her PhD is in theology, and she’s author of a book just released, titled To Be A Woman. Thanks Katie!

MCCOY: Great to be with you all.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 3rd. 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: Another movie celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Back in September, WORLD’s arts and culture editor recommended Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That film won Best Picture of 2003, a movie commendable for its depictions of duty and male friendship.

EICHER: But another movie with similar themes debuted that same winter. The film Master and Commander: Far Side of the World is based on novels by Patrick O’Brian. The movie also features war and friendship, but is it as good as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings? Here now is Collin Garbarino.

CALAMY: We shall beat to quarters!

COLLIN GARBARINO: The year is 1805, and England is fighting for its survival against Napoleon Bonaparte. The royal navy is the only thing keeping the French Empire from completing its subjugation of Europe, and naval battles are underway around the world.

Jack Aubrey is captain of the HMS Surprise, a small 28-gun frigate with a crew of 197 souls aboard. Russell Crowe plays the ship’s duty-bound captain, and Paul Bettany plays his best friend Stephen Maturin, the cultured ship’s doctor and naturalist.

Aubrey and his crew are tasked with intercepting a French warship making its way to the Pacific. But the French captain catches the Surprise unawares.

AUBREY: Down! All hands down!

SOUND: [Men shouting and wood splintering]

The film begins with a bang. The larger, faster French vessel tears into the English frigate. Whizzing cannonballs and splintering wood will quickly dispel viewers’ romantic notions about life on the sea.

So will the gruesome surgery scenes in which Dr. Maturin attempts to piece the crew back together.

SAILOR: Them his brains, doctor?

MATURIN: No, that’s just dried blood. Those are his brains.

CROWD: Oooh.

After that first encounter with the French ship, some officers think the Surprise should abandon her mission.

ALLEN: But even if we did catch up with her—I mean—to take her! She’s out of our class. She’s a 44-gun ship.

But Captain Jack of the HMS Surprise is a man of duty. He’ll follow the French ship at any cost. And the crew will follow their captain to the ends of the earth.

NAGLE: Captain’s not called “Lucky Jack” for no reason. Phantom or no, she’s a privateer, and Lucky Jack’ll have her.

The film depicts the indignities of a 19th-century life at sea, along with the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars. But the narrative rests on the bedrock of Aubrey and Maturin’s friendship. When they’re not figuring out how to defeat the French or save their own sailors, Maturin will play his cello while Aubrey accompanies him on the violin.

SOUND: [Aubrey and Maturin playing together]

But the two friends don’t always agree. The captain focuses on his duty, and sometimes he resents his friend the doctor for reminding him of the cost of that duty.

Master and Commander is such a special movie because these depictions of male friendships are so rare in Hollywood. Everytime I watch it, I’m still astounded that the filmmakers resisted the temptation to add some romance to the film.

AUBREY: To wives and to sweethearts! May they never meet.

Women are scarce on the high seas, and we get the feeling that the Surprise might be Captain Jack’s one true love.

AUBREY: Surprise is not old. No one would call her old. She’s a fine seabird. Weatherly, stiff, and fast.

Master and Commander: Far Side of the World is rated PG-13 for its battle sequences and brief language. It’s definitely a manly movie, with plenty of action, but it’s probably suitable for teenagers who can stomach the violence. It’s instructive to see how many of the ship’s officers were merely teenagers themselves. The royal navy required young men to grow up fast.

There are so many reasons to recommend this movie. I love how the entire story is told from the perspective of the English. The devious French captain is out there on the water somewhere, but he stays off camera, ratcheting up the mystery and tension. When his ship appears on the horizon emotions run high.

AUBREY: Run like smoke and oakum!

ALLEN: We’ll have to bend every sail.

AUBREY: We’ll put up our pocket handkerchiefs if we have to! We must survive this day. Let’s get about it.

Despite getting excellent reviews from both critics and audiences, the movie underperformed at the box office. Why? Well, bad timing mostly. Another seafaring movie about a different Captain Jack debuted a few months earlier.

(Pirates of the Caribbean theme music)

Master and Commander is clearly the better movie, but Pirates of the Caribbean ended up grossing three times as much on a similar sized budget. People must like fantastical pirate romances more than a historically accurate movie about duty, friendship, and love of country.

AUBREY: England is under threat of invasion. And though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home. This ship is England.

And then Return of the King, the biggest movie of the year, came out a month after Master and Commander, blowing Russell Crowe and his crew out of the water. It’s too bad.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World clearly intended to set up a franchise that would explore the depths of the Aubrey–Maturin novels. But without big box-office revenue, a sequel floundered, leaving us with this single excellent movie… which, in my opinion, happens to be the best film of 2003. And since the film is available to rent or purchase on most streaming services, it could very well be your favorite film to watch in 2023.

AUBREY: So it’s every hand to his rope or gun. Quick’s the word, and sharp’s the action. After all, Surprise is on our side.

SAILORS: Huzzah!

I’m Collin Garbarino.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday November 3rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next, Ask the Editor. WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler responds to a couple of recent emails.

PAUL BUTLER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Since late this summer we’ve gotten a lot of email inquiries like this one from Mike and Laura Patrick.

MIKE AND LAURA PATRICK: First, we love The World and Everything In It, World Watch and listen to them every morning. We also love and listen to your other podcasts when they air. Which brings me to my question. What has happened to Legal Docket? We absolutely love Mary and Jenny as they break down the different rulings from the previous Supreme Court session. We have been anticipating the new season. Have we missed something? Thanks for all the wonderful reporting and analysis that you all do. Keep up the great work. Blessings, Mike and Laura.

Mike and Laura, thanks for your encouragement! In the Spring we identified a handful of cases from the last term that we wanted to dive into for Season 4. We’ve done a lot of reporting and interviewing over the last eight months, but with some of the additional projects we’ve been working on this year—and with some personal challenges at home—our team just ran out of steam. We weren’t able to finish them up before the new Supreme Court session began last month. So we’ve made the difficult decision to not produce a formal Legal Docket Podcast season this year as usual.

However, we’re just about finished with one of those episodes. And we plan on releasing it later this month as a stand alone special. It’s the case about the postal worker who refused to work on Sundays. You’ll get to hear directly from the named petitioner Gerald Groff. I know you won’t want to miss it.

We are still planning on releasing stories on the three other cases after the new year…but these stories won’t be presented as the Legal Docket podcast. Rather they will be part of a new World and Everything in It weekend program that we’re currently working on. We think that will be even more appealing as you’ll be able to count on engaging long form stories and interviews every single weekend of the year. Whether important Supreme Court cases, poverty fighting stories, or long-form journalism that causes you to take a second look, but we’ll have more to say about that in the months ahead.

In the meantime, we’re thankful for the many listeners who have asked about Mary and Jenny and we’re sorry that we just couldn’t pull it off this year. But be assured that our in-depth legal coverage isn’t going away, it’ll just appear in slightly different packaging moving forward.

Next, a daily listener wrote in with some suggestions for this program. This is what he writes:

I am a subscriber to several podcasts that I like to work through each day, mostly in the morning while getting ready for and commuting to work. For me, time is of the essence, and I don't like to waste time. The first minute and a half of every podcast seems like wasted time. Plus, there also seem to be random musical interludes that last nearly 30 seconds. I'm sure that you may have reasons for the set up and structure of the program. I took a chance though, just in case you hadn't thought about it and were willing to streamline it a little bit more. Signed, Scott Hollander

Scott, we appreciate listeners like you who join us everyday as a part of your morning routine. You suggest that the opening 90 seconds of the program seems like “wasted time.” We do have a method to our madness, here’s a quick explanation.

As you know, our program begins with a pre-roll. It’s a way for listeners to participate in each episode. That’s important because it helps foster loyalty and “virtual community.” As you hear from fellow listeners, you realize that there are a lot of other people who appreciate the program and support it. I will say the pre-rolls at times do go a little too long, and we’re working on that, but we’re committed to the concept.

After the pre-roll, we have a preview of the program. We call it the “billboard.” It fulfills a handful of functions. There are listeners like you who catch us everyday, but we also have listeners who are checking us out for the first time, and others who only listen a few times a week. The billboard is a way to draw people in. It’s not click-bait, but a sampler that we hope motivates irregular listeners and new ones alike to stick with us. Frankly, it’s also for people like you: listeners who are busy, and may not have time for the whole program. So you can hear what’s coming and decide which segments you want to catch immediately, and which ones you may want to come back to.

Lastly, you mention the thirty second musical interludes. I want to make the case here for actually slowing things down. The music serves that function. Now: I understand if you need to skip ahead to get the whole program in before you arrive at work, but here’s why we do it. In an audio magazine like ours, we cover a lot of stories in each episode. We believe it is important for listeners to have a moment to reflect. For instance: what might I do with what I’ve just heard? Should I look for ways to address the issue in my own life or community? Can I help those featured in the story?

In this day and age, reflection is something that social media and news feeds don’t encourage. They foster endless scrolling, a steady stream of information, for information’s sake. But we seek to do more than inform. We want to inspire and transform our audience. And while it’s only a few seconds, we hope that the music transitions give people just a little bit of time to consider what’s important before moving on to the next thing.

Thanks for your feedback, and we’ll keep working on making the program as valuable as we can for you each day.

That’s this month’s Ask the Editor. I’m Paul Butler.

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

Jenny Rough, David Bahnsen, Emma Perley, Will Inboden, Noah Burgdorf, Andrew Walker, Leo Briceno, Onize Ohikere, Addie Offereins, Grace Snell, Cal Thomas, Clara York, Caleb Welde, Daniel Darling, Katie McCoy, and Collin Garbarino.

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

And, breaking news interns Tobin Jacobson, Johanna Huebscher, and Alex Carmanaty.

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, Lillian Hamman, Mary Muncy, Emily Whitten, 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 Bible says, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” –Jeremiah chapter 32 verse 17

Be sure to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, in church this weekend. And Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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