The World and Everything in It — November 7, 2019

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Television content for kids has more and more profanity and violence in it and the T-V ratings stay the same.  But that’s exactly the way Hollywood likes it.

WINTERS: What we’ve learned is that of the 24 members of the oversight monitoring board, 19 are from the television industry.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also a win for sidewalk counselors outside abortion businesses in Pittsburgh. We’ll talk about that.

And a unique opera company in the Chicago suburbs that features puppets instead of humans.

LARA: If they’re going to move somewhere, you turn the head and then you turn the body and then you could make them walk. I don’t know if you can hear that…That’s the sound of them walking.

EICHER: And Cal Thomas on the prosperity gospel influence on the White House.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, November 7th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with the news.

SCHIFF: We will be beginning with the testimony of Ambassador Taylor and Ambassador Kent on Wednesday. And we will have Ambassador Yovanovich testify on Friday. 

Marie Yovanovitch is former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. George Kent is deputy assistant secretary. And William Taylor is a top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, House panels published hundreds of pages of Taylor’s earlier private testimony. Taylor told lawmakers last month that it was his clear understanding … that President Trump had been holding back military aid for Ukraine … until the country agreed to investigate Democrats and a company linked to the Biden family.

GOP Congressman Jim Jordan complained that Democrats are conveniently leaving one witness out of their first public hearing: Kurt Volker.

JORDAN: The professional here, the guy who has been focused on this, who is the special envoy to Ukraine, backed all that up in his testimony, but no, no one wants to talk about that. Democrats don’t want to call him as the first witness, even though he was the first witness to be deposed. 

Volker previously testified that he saw no quid pro quo in dealings with Ukraine. 

Former Attorney Gen. Sessions expected to bid for Senate return » Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce today that he’s running for his old U-S Senate seat in Alabama. That according to the Associated Press, citing two unnamed Republicans. 

The 72-year-old will return to the political stage a year after stepping down as attorney general amid a rocky relationship with the White House. 

Federal judge strikes down conscience rights of clinicians » A federal judge in New York shot down a Trump administration regulation that protected the rights of pro-life healthcare workers. WORLD Radio’s Anna Johansen has more. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: U-S District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled Wednesday that the Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its authority … in crafting a rule to protect First Amendment conscience rights. 

The rule would have allowed medical workers to opt out of participating in abortions or other procedures that violate their moral or religous beliefs. 

Engelmayer based his ruling on the way H-H-S structured and planned to implement the regulation. But he denied a broader argument by plaintiffs. They claimed that allowing people to opt out of taking part in abortions on religious grounds … amounted to a state establishment of religion. The judge’s denial of that argument leaves the door open for redrafting the rule to survive a court challenge.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Anna Johansen.

Twitter workers accused of spying for Saudis » The Saudi government recruited two Twitter employees to spy on users. That according to federal prosecutors on Wednesday. 

A complaint unsealed in U-S District Court in San Francisco detailed the scheme. It said the Saudi government paid Twitter employees to get the personal account information of its critics.

It alleged that the Saudis paid the Twitter workers with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars … funneled into secret bank accounts. 

One of the suspects, Ahmad Abouammo, is in custody in Seattle. The other suspect, Ali Alzabarah flew to Saudi Arabia before authorities had enough evidence to arrest him. Both face multiple charges. 

Turkey captures wife of slain ISIS leader » Turkey has captured a wife of slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made that announcement on Wednesday. 

ERDOGAN (in Turkish): [up from 3.5 to 6.5 sec]

He did not say when or how the woman was captured or identify her by name. Al-Baghdadi was known to have four wives. 

Erdogan also criticized the United States for leading what he called a “communications campaign” about Baghdadi’s slaying.

Erdogan’s announcement comes just days after Turkish forces captured al-Baghdadi’s elder sister, identified as Rasmiya Awad, in northwestern Syria.

U.S. doctors try CRISPR gene editing for cancer » The first attempt in the United States to use a gene editing tool called CRISPR against cancer … appears safe in the three patients who have had it so far. But doctors say it’s still too soon to know how effective it will be. WORLD Radio’s Leigh Jones has that story. 

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The doctors were able to take immune system cells from the patients’ blood and alter them genetically to help them recognize and fight cancer. And they were able to do it with minimal and manageable side effects.

The treatment deletes three genes that might have been hindering these cells’ ability to attack the disease, and adds a new, fourth feature to help them do the job.

This study is not aimed at changing DNA within a person’s body. Instead it seeks to remove, alter, and give back to the patient cells that are super-powered to fight their cancer — a form of immunotherapy.

After two to three months, one patient’s cancer continued to worsen and another was stable. The third patient was treated too recently to know how she’ll fare. The plan is to treat 15 more patients and assess safety and how well the treatment works.

Some cancer specialists say while it’s still very early, they’re incredibly encouraged by the tests so far. 

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Leigh Jones. 

T-Mobile, Sprint set to merge after FCC approval »

SOUND (T-Mobile commercial): Here are even more reasons to join T-Mobile. 

It appears Sprint will soon be joining T-Mobile. 

The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger of the two companies … on one condition: 

T-Mobile and Sprint have to follow through on a promise to expand 5G mobile phone coverage to rural areas once they’ve combined their assets. 

Democratic members of the FCC opposed the merger. They say consolidation and the shrinking number of cellphone providers … means fewer jobs and higher prices for consumers. 

The Federal Trade Commission just announced that another major cellphone provider, AT&T … has to pay customers back $60 million dollars. That’s for slowing data speeds on supposedly unlimited high-speed plans.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the effort to revamp the TV rating system.

Plus, a theater troop in Chicago with very small cast members.

It was over 20 years ago that President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act into law. It required the entertainment industry to set up a rating system for television programs. So Hollywood created the TV Parental Guidelines system.

REICHARD: It has four ratings. Here they are:  TV G is suitable for all ages. Some parental guidance is suggested for TV PG shows. Appropriate for children 14 and up is TV 14. And shows for mature audiences are rated TV MA. A rating appears for 15 seconds at the start of a program.

EICHER: Yes, but some parents say the ratings are misleading. They say the rating system needs reform. 

Here’s WORLD Radio’s Sarah Schweinsberg.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Television has always been a part of Nell Minow’s life. Her father, Newton Minow, chaired the Federal Communications Commission in the 60s under President John F. Kennedy. Newton Minow helped create P-B-S and children’s shows like Sesame Street. 

MINOW: He said, when television is good, nothing is better. Um, not theater, not movies, nothing.

Nell Minow is now a movie critic who calls herself the Movie Mom. She works to help parents find family friendly movies and avoid questionable ones. 

But when it comes to TV, Minow says there’s just too much new content coming out all the time. It’s impossible for a reviewer like her to help parents avoid all the bad. That’s a service the TV Parental Guidelines rating system is supposed to provide. 

MINOW: The number one goal of any rating system is the no bad surprises idea. You give parents the information that they need to make a decision about what’s right for their family, their values, their children.

Minow says the TV rating system has never been entirely effective…but it’s becoming increasingly meaningless. Content has gotten more explicit yet the ratings stay the same. 

MINOW: The rating system was kind of like an umbrella with a lot of holes in it. Now it’s an umbrella with a lot of holes in it and a downpour.

Tim Winter is president of the Parents Television Council. He says it’s not just a gut feeling that TV programs rated as appropriate for children are getting worse. Empirical data proves it. 

WINTER: We record every hour of primetime, broadcast television and we literally have analysts, entertainment analysts who track and monitor and review their video recordings. 

In October, the council released its findings from the 2017-2018 TV season. It found shows rated TV PG contained a nearly 30 percent increase in violence compared to content from a decade ago. TV PG shows also saw a 44 percent increase in profanity. In the TV 14 category, shows had more than twice as much violence compared to 10 years ago. 

What’s behind that content creep? Winter points to two big problems. The first is that the networks get to rate their own shows. The second problem is with the TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board, the group that’s supposed to make sure the ratings are actually correct. The board is made up almost entirely of entertainment executives. 

WINTER: What we’ve learned is that of the 24 members of the oversight monitoring board, uh, there are 19 are from the television industry. 

For example, Winter points to a show called Dating Naked that aired from 2014 to 2016. The show’s title pretty much explains the content … But it was only rated TV 14.

WINTER: I was able to converse directly with the executive who said it was TV 14. She also sits on the television oversight monitoring board. A friend of mine recently described that as being, uh, both the pitcher and the umpire in a baseball game.

The Federal Communications Commission agrees. Earlier this year, Congress called on the agency to examine the ratings system. The FCC report called the oversight board “insufficiently accessible and transparent to the public.” 

Penny Nance is president of Concerned Women for America. It’s a Christian public policy group. She says the congressionally commissioned FCC report was a good first step toward reform. Now, Nance, Winter, and Minow say Congress needs to legislate a change in who can sit on the oversight board. 

NANCE: It should be made up of stakeholders, of parents groups, of public health, groups of private nonprofits, of moms and dads and, and others who are, whose interests lie in protecting children and families.

In the meantime, Nance says it’s best to assume that whatever rating a show has … it’s probably not as family friendly as you think.

NANCE: Parents need to make sure they’ve done due diligence to know what’s the best, what works best for their family.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

STEVE WEST, REPORTER: Hey, good morning Mary.

REICHARD: Start by telling us about the ordinance itself. What’s it say? 

WEST: Well like a lot of other cities, Pittsburgh attempted to regulate pro-life and pro-abortion groups that gather in front of the abortion facilities, uh, by passing an ordinance. And the ordinance just says basically that you can’t come within 15 feet of the facility to congregate, patrol, picket, or demonstrate. Those were the words that the law uses. So they pray in a yellow semicircle on the sidewalk and if you step over it for one of those reasons, you are in violation of the law.

REICHARD: Well, tell us who are these pro-life volunteers who are out there? 

WEST: Well, one of them is Nickki Bruni, she’s the local director of the pro-life organization called 40 Days for Life. And so she and other women from that organization would on any given day come out and stand in front of the abortion facility. They’d each work a two hour shift. And they weren’t picketing or yelling, protesting, that kind of thing. But simply praying silently and attempting to have some conversations with women that went into the clinic. They offered them some resources about fetal development and options other than abortion. And sometimes they were, in fact oftentimes, ignored. Sometimes women would get angry. But sometimes women would change their mind and you know, come back out, uh, talk with them and end up carrying their child to term. She told me about one instance recently where a woman came in with her aunt and her aunt yelled at her, but then she came back out 15 minutes later and apologized and said that she thought the Lord had put her there. So Bruni was able to drive her to a pregnancy life care center nearby. That baby’s due any day.

REICHARD: So a happy ending to that story. What did the court say in issuing this decision?

WEST: Well, the court didn’t strike down the law. But it did limit its application. You know, said it didn’t apply to a peaceful one-on-one conversations on any topic or conducted for any purpose at a normal conversational volume or distance. In other words, use your inside voice and you can try and have a conversation with anybody on the public sidewalk and interpret the law in such a way as to avoid a constitutional issue, which courts often try to do that.

REICHARD: Now does it seem likely the city will try to appeal the decision?

WEST: Well there’s no word about that yet. Of course it’s not time to file the appeal. The deadline hasn’t passed. But  given Supreme Court precedent and odds against the court taking—the Supreme court taking the case, I’d say it’s unlikely.

REICHARD: Steve, Pittsburg isn’t the only city that has tried to enforce an ordinance like this one. And the Supreme Court even took up a challenge to one of them. Remind us what the justices said in that case.

WEST: Yeah, I think you’re thinking about the 2014 case McCullen v. Coakley. And there the court struck down a Massachusetts law. It just, it just flatly prohibited anybody from standing within 35 feet of an abortion facility. There’s no way to construe that law in a constitutional manner. So a unanimous court just struck it down. They didn’t all agree on the rationale, however. And that may make a difference in future cases. That kind of has to do with the level of scrutiny afforded the law. That is how hard a look they give it. And so Chief Justice Roberts said that the law was neutral on its face. It applied to everybody. So only an intermediate level of scrutiny applied. That just means the government has to show it has a reason for the law and that other things that tried to deal with the problem did not work.

So Justice Scalia wrote a concurring opinion. That means he agreed with the result, but he said the rationale was ridiculous, only he said it a little more eloquently than that. He said the state knew that the only ones that are really impacted by the law were abortion protesters. So it really was aimed at content. He would’ve applied what’s called strict scrutiny that requires the government to show a compelling interest and that it used the least restrictive means to get to its objective. That’s a whole lot more difficult. So the bottom line is if Scalia’s view would carry the day, we have a lot less of these restrictive laws and volunteers like Nikki Bruni would have a much easier time talking with women and many more lives would be saved.

REICHARD: Steve West writes the weekly Liberties roundup for WORLD Digital. You can find it at W-N-G.org. Steve, thanks so much for joining us today!

WEST: My pleasure, Mary.

That’s got Spam in it … I don’t like Spam!

Graham Chapman of the Monty Python troupe would be stunned to know this news. But when Hormel Foods rolled out America’s favorite canned meat in its limited-edition Pumpkin-spice variety, it sold out completely.

Sold out on the Hormel website. Sold out at Walmart. 

All gone in just seven hours’ time.

Disappointed customers asked whether Hormel would make more. Alas, it’s already made all the Pumpkin Spice meaty goodness for this year.

BUT … we are reporters:  we checked Ebay. There you’ll find a can with a buy-it-now price of around $19 plus another $6 for shipping! 

And there you can get your ham, sugar, water, salt, modified potato starch, spices, and sodium nitrite slimy, little brick. 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Ecchhh. I don’t like Spam.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

OPERA AMBI: Lot 6-6-6 then. A chandelier in pieces. Some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera. A mystery…

JOHN VENCE, REPORTER: You could call it a puppet show. But that doesn’t quite convey what happens here in the western Chicago suburbs. For the past three and a half decades, these puppets have graced a stage no bigger a dinner table, performing shows like: The Phantom of the Opera. 

OPERA AMBI: For I compose the music of the night…

Lara Rose is the newest puppeteer to join the crew. She started about six months ago.

LARA: And I feel so lucky to demonstrate on Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors today ‘cause he’s pretty cool… 

She demonstrates how she uses a series of rings and wires to make the puppets make little gestures and move around the stage.

LARA: You can also turn the head side to side. So you move his head up and down and make him talk. You could make them walk. I don’t know if you can hear that… 

When you watch this onstage, it’s easy to forget about the real humans manipulating the puppets from below. Justin Snyder, the lead puppeteer, says that’s kind of the point. Even he sometimes forgets the puppets aren’t real. 

JUSTIN: So you have these moments that are almost jarring, or kind of creepy. I totally forgot that I was doing that. I almost feel like I’m just watching a character that’s actually just living. You forget that you’re doing it… 

Justin and his brother, Shayne, joined the team in 2000. The program’s creator, William Fosser, taught them everything he knew. They learned how to puppeteer, how to build sets, how to make 16-inch tall, 4-pound inanimate objects seemingly come to life. 

Twenty years later, they’re still at work. Along with a small crew, Justin plans the shows and Shane makes the puppets. Together, they’re devoted to perpetuating the dream Fosser had over eight decades ago. 

JUSTIN: That has to do with Bill you know, because he really instilled in all of us his love for this craft. It was, it was infectious. It was contagious when you were around bill and you saw how passionate he was about this stuff…

In 1935, Fosser’s aunt bought him his first puppet, and then later took him to his first opera. After that, he developed an obsession. To him, it was the ultimate art form: music, dance, poetry, sculpture, acting, language, all rolled into one. 

And so, 50 years later, Fosser opened the doors of Opera in Focus in 1985. He put on shows every week, and always invited the audience backstage after the show. Here he is in 1999: 

Fosser: She’s from an Opera called La Rondine. She’s a very very very haughty lady. It would be nice if I had four arms. Wouldn’t it. [LAUGHTER] Then I’d have four hands and I could make them do things nobody else could ever, ever do. 

Fosser worked on the show almost every single day. Even after two battles of cancer left him with just a quarter of his right lung. 

JUSTIN: He still came here every day. He still performed, he climbed the ladders. He’d be up and off of the little stool so we all sort of took for granted that he was immortal. 

Bill Fosser died in 2006 from congestive heart failure. He was buried in his company uniform and the Puppeteers of America Lifetime Achievement award he had won the year before. He also requested that his two favorite puppets be placed next to his casket during the funeral. 

JUSTIN: And um, yeah, it was hard coming back after that, after he passed. But we, we promised him we would do it, we’d promised them we’d try. 

Fulfilling Fosser’s dream hasn’t been easy. He was very particular about how the company would operate. For example, he really disliked Mozart, and so they’ve refused to perform anything related to Mozart’s. 

JUSTIN: It would be very popular if we did like the magic flute here. We would sell a lot of tickets. But this is not Justin Snyder’s Opera in Focus, it’s William B Fosser’s Opera in Focus. And so even though Bill’s been gone all these years, we still do things the way that Bill would have wanted them done.

From turning down television publicity, to rejecting certain performance requests—if it doesn’t reflect Fosser’s vision, they don’t do it. And the crew rejects any idea of a museum exhibition that could preserve Fosser’s work. 

That’s because Fosser’s biggest fear was that his puppets would end up in a museum, that they’d be trapped behind glass and propped up on pedestals, unable to perform the way they had been since 1985.  

JUSTIN: Specifically what he said was they’re like musical instruments. And if they’re not being used to perform the purpose that they were created for, which is to perform, then why are we keeping them? 

In fact, Fosser was so afraid of this happening that he made the Snyder brothers promise that, if the puppet opera ever closed down, they would destroy everything. Every tiny prop, every miniature backdrop, and every single puppet. 

Justin says they’re not going to let that happen. 

JUSTIN: These puppets to us are like family members. So the idea of like taking a puppet and throwing it in the garbage is like taking my grandma and I’m like throwing her in a dumpster, you know, like that’s not gonna happen, you know? As long as we have an audience, we will be performing and will be performing the art form exactly as Bill trained us to perform it.

OPERA AMBI: Music of the Night Finale

For WORLD Radio, I’m John Vence reporting from Chicago, Illinois.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 7th. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Last week the White House confirmed it is hiring televangelist Paula White. Her job will be to advise the Faith and Opportunity Initiative. That’s a faith-based office that coordinates outreach to religious communities. 

Here’s Commentator Cal Thomas with some thoughts on the new hire.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: As far as I can tell, no U.S. president hired a spiritual adviser before Richard Nixon. 

It was in the Nixon era that Charles Colson began mobilizing evangelicals to support the president’s agenda. Colson saw evangelicals as just another special interest group, like organized labor has been for Democrats.

After his conversion, Colson told historian Kevin Kruse, as recounted in The Washington Post—quote—“Sure, we used the prayer breakfasts and church services and all that for political ends. One of my jobs in the White House was to romance religious leaders. We would bring them into the White House, and they would be dazzled by the aura of the Oval Office, and I found them to be about the most pliable of any of the special interest groups that we worked with.” End quote. 

Enter TV evangelist Paula White. For 18 years she has claimed to have President Trump’s ear on religious matters. But while some of his policies align with evangelical concerns, there is little evidence her “advice” has had any effect on his personal behavior.

White is unlikely to serve the role Nathan the prophet filled when he confronted King David over his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. That episode led David to write one of the great statements about placing faith in political leaders: “Put not your trust in princes … in whom there is no help.” (Psalm 146:3)

In a Fox News interview Monday night, White responded to critics who call her a heretic. She claimed to believe orthodox biblical teachings. She denied she preaches a “you give to get” prosperity gospel, but her preaching reveals otherwise. 

Here are some direct quotes from videos readily attainable online. Judge for yourself.

WHITE: Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds… I have every right and authority to declare the White House holy ground, because I was standing there and where I stand is holy.

Then there’s a line some might consider idolatrous:

WHITE: To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that.

As for preaching a prosperity gospel, White has said there is a “department of treasury in Heaven.” And because of that, she says—quote—“you need to send in $3,500; you need to send in $35,000; you need to send in that $100,000 check.” End quote. 

She claimed if you don’t send the money, your “dream will die; your call will die.” 

That sounds to me like a spiritual quid pro quo.

White does understand some issues of importance to evangelicals—like protecting religious liberty—but her apparent worship of President Trump far exceeds biblical norms. And her prosperity gospel is no gospel at all. 

This is a great danger for all evangelicals. God forbid that we should be seen as worshipping a false god instead of the One we are supposed to be worshipping and serving.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow … Culture Friday … a fond remembrance of the law professor who converted to Christianity and put Darwin on Trial. 

And Megan Basham reviews the holiday rom-com Last Christmas.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

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

1 Corinthians says no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

Now go, 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.