The World and Everything in It - September 24, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

The second-largest U.S.-based employer is pushing for nationwide legalization of marijuana.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about that and other things today on Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Also a new kids movie about resolving petty conflicts.

And Ask the Editor.

BROWN: It’s Friday, September 24th. 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: News is next! Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden admin. under fire from both sides over border crisis » The Biden administration is taking fire from both sides of the aisle now over its handling of the border crisis.

The administration’s special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned Thursday in protest as U.S. officials have expelled thousands of Haitian migrants, flying them back to Haiti.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are also blasting the expulsions. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters...

WATERS: I’m unhappy with the administration. We are following the Trump policy.

U.S. officials are expelling the migrants under the CDC’s Title 42 public health rule. But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki disagreed with Waters’ assessment of Biden’s border policies.

PSAKI: We could not see it as any more different from the policy of the prior administration.

And on that point, Republicans agree with the White House that it couldn’t be any more different. Florida Senator Marco Rubio:

RUBIO: Joe Biden sent a very clear message in his campaign and as president, ‘I am not going to enforce our immigration laws.’

Republicans say Biden’s policies have served as a magnet, triggering an unprecedented surge of traffic at the border. They also note that the Biden administration is now releasing many Haitian migrants from a border encampment in El Paso, Texas inside the United States. Officials are giving those migrants orders to appear in an immigration court in 60 days.

Psaki announced on Thursday that DHS is ordering the Border Patrol to no longer use horses in their patrols of the border in El Paso. That after some mounted agents were accused of lashing at migrants with leather reins.

Jobless claims rise for second straight week » The number of Americans applying for unemployment aid rose for a second straight week. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The Labor Department reports that jobless claims rose nearly 5 percent from the previous week to about 351,000. 

Analysts at Contingent Macro Advisors concluded that technical problems in processing the claims could explain the recent rise in newly reported filings. For now, they said, “the jump in claims in the last two weeks is not yet alarming.”

The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week swings, registered its sixth straight drop — to a pandemic low of 336,000.

Jobless claims still remain elevated: Before the virus tore through the economy in March 2020, they generally numbered about 220,000 a week.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Federal Reserve to taper economic support » The Federal Reserve this week announced plans to fight inflation.

The Fed’s policy-making arm, the Federal Open Market Committee, said economic growth exceeded expectations. And it will start dialing down its pandemic stimulus measures such as monthly bond purchases as early as November.

The committee is also thinking about raising benchmark interest rates next year despite prior projections that it wouldn’t need to do that until 2023.

When the pandemic started, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to close to zero and started buying assets each month to relieve the strain on the economy.

China sends 24 fighter jets toward Taiwan in show of force » China on Thursday sent fighter jets toward Taiwan in a show of force as the United States and its allies mount a more assertive response to a rising China.. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The U.S., U.K., and Australia recently announced a new defense agreement as Western allies build a stronger presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

China has bristled at the moves. But at the U.N. General Assembly this week, President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping chose calming language, saying they don’t want a new Cold War.

Still, China continues to build up its military outposts as it presses its maritime claims over critical sea lanes. And Western allies are growing louder in their support of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

On Thursday, China sent 24 fighter jets toward Taiwan after the island announced its intention to join a Pacific trade group.

Today, Biden will host the leaders of Japan, India, and Australia for in-person talks on several matters, including how to keep the Indo-Pacific region—quote—“free and open.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

CDC panel endorses Pfizer booster shots for older, at-risk Americans » A CDC advisory panel voted Thursday to give its stamp of approval to a third booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for many vulnerable Americans.

That would include anyone over the age of 64, as well as high risk individuals.

That vote cleared the way for a quick final approval by the CDC.

No word yet on when or if the panel will vote on booster shots for all Americans.

Pfizer Senior Vice President Dr. Bill Gruber said results from booster shot trials have been very encouraging. He said the antibody response continues to rise between seven days and one month after a third shot and, in his view, that means a booster shot...

GRUBER: Is likely to not only provide protection comparable to what is seen after two doses, but maybe improved protection as well as greater durability of protection.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are also testing the response to additional booster shots.

Britain and Israel are already rolling out a third round of shots. The World Health Organization strongly objects, however, complaining that poor countries don't have enough for their initial doses.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Amazon’s push to legalize marijuana nation-wide.

Plus, the importance of Biblically objective journalism.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, September 24th, 2021. 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. I want to welcome John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. 

Morning, John.

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: I’ve been paying attention to the job market coming out of Covid lockdowns and government unemployment benefits, John, and what we understand as a continuing labor shortage.

Related to this, I want to note a move by Amazon, and a sign of desperation there. The company has now stopped screening many job applicants for marijuana use. Quoting one of Amazon’s HR executives: “We've found that eliminating pre-employment testing for cannabis allows us to expand our applicant pool.”

Amazon is also lobbying Congress to legalize marijuana at the national level. It seems in part because some Amazon jobs require Department of Transportation approval and marijuana use in such positions remains a no-no.

Now, Amazon is positioning this—and it may be true—as a issue of racial equity, saying that marijuana tests disproportionately affect minority communities.

You have your own experience there in Colorado with marijuana legalization, but now we’re seeing pressure from a major employer in this country to nationalize marijuana policy. Maybe well intentioned, but talk about possible unintended consequences.

STONESTREET: Well, it's not well thought out. And the mainly because the labor problems that Amazon is trying to deal with are, they're not dependent on this Marijuana Policy. This is part of a larger cultural thing in which we're struggling to get particularly entry level jobs and others filled by applicants for all kinds of reasons, there has been an incredible disruption, because of the COVID pandemic in the labor market, everybody knows that. And even interestingly enough, some of the financial incentives aren't quite pulling off what people would expect. I mean, there's a McDonald's within a driving distance from my house that's hiring at 18 bucks an hour, at McDonald's. And let me just say, as a bitter, you know, former teenager, my first job was $3.25 an hour at a farm. Alright, I mean, this is just, there's something else going on here. And so there's a solution that's being offered, that doesn't match the problem. And of course, that never works in public policy. In other words, there's a problem with the Employment and Labor Market, and let's do all kinds of other things in which to incentivize workers, even if it's not actually directly related to the problem itself. That's been the approach from the very beginning, by the way, for the government is the incentivization of this sort of thing. You know, it's sold to a state with financial benefits, without a full understanding of the social costs. One of the social costs in Colorado has been on the roads, there is a direct correlation between the spike in traffic accidents and the legalization of marijuana several years ago. And, you know, one of the, that's widely assumed the number of people that are driving with, you know, still traces in their system of having used or, you know, marijuana is very, very high. I mean, the numbers are actually stunning. Another unintended consequence has to do with schools. The law is a teacher, when you teach that this thing is okay. Then you get consequences. And I know everyone compares it to alcohol and everything else, it is possible to indulge in almost all the other vices of which this is typically compared without actually getting to that point of drunkenness being, you know, basically unmotivated. The point of using this, except in specific medical situations is to get high, there's not a middle ground. The point is to be disincentivized from doing anything productive. So, you know, look, the cats out of the bag when it comes to public policy, I'm not sure how you're going to put it back in. That's tells you something else about the role of law and culture. We often talk about the law being downstream from culture, sometimes its upstream and the rest of the world, many aspects of culture weren't ready for marijuana. But thanks to states like ours, you know, we're essentially driving it and forcing it on the rest of you.

EICHER: John, Democrats and Republicans in Congress had been talking about a compromise measure to bring police reform and I just read that the talks had broken down. The Democrat side—Senator Cory Booker—called up the Republican side—Senator Tim Scott—and said the Democrats are done negotiating. What do you take as the broader meaning here? At one time, this was the story.

STONESTREET: Well, I mean, if you're asking me, what's the broader story of Republicans and Democrats not getting anywhere, I'd say, you know, welcome to another day. But I know let me point to this—there is a fundamental worldview difference that can be seen and what people think are the problem, and therefore what people think are the solution. What's the fundamental problem here that needs to be solved? And what's the fundamental solution is going to be based on that, and when it comes to and that's reflective on what one thinks is wrong with the world and wrong with individual citizens, there's going to be a fundamental disagreement in worldviews here, between the Democrats and the Republicans. You know, you have a one group that's being largely informed now by a vision of reality that says that moral guilt and moral superiority is the result of an accidental consequence of how you were born, whether you were born black or white, that is a dominant theory that is actually, you know, influencing what we think then is the problem. That's a very different thing than if you think the problem has to do with some deeper cultural issues within because of socio economic status, lack of moral formation, or all those other things. It's just a different way of seeing the problem. One side says that the definition of right and wrong is racially determined. The other one does not.

BROWN: John, in the latest edition of WORLD Magazine, our colleague Leah Savas wrote a compelling story about so called “Abortion Shouters” - radical abortion activists who insist it’s no longer enough to be pro-choice. The emphasis now is on being proudly and loudly pro-abortion.

On top of that, they’re also pushing the moral high ground for abortion, claiming that people who have had abortions are more holy and that people who create access to abortions that are safe for women are morally right people and are doing Jesus-work.

All of this despite the heart-breaking stories from women who are struggling with drugs, alcohol, anger, depression and shame and realize it’s due to post-abortion trauma

John what do you make of what appears to be the tightening of battle lines in the abortion movement?

STONESTREET: It is interesting, I mean, long gone are the safe, legal and rare days of this on a political agenda side, but when you start getting into the more extreme sides of the activist, it is pretty stunning. We're seeing things now, in the United States that we have seen in Italy and other places around the world where that basic conflict is seen as being so stark that the activism is extreme. In one sense, there is this degree to which, when the cultural darkness is in fact, the darkest than the light is the brightest. And for far too long, the evil of abortion, the abject horror of what actually happens when an abortion is performed, to an image bearer of God, it has been hidden, it's been hidden by euphemism. It's been hidden by language, it's been hidden by things that have kept it from being seen for what it really is. I think very often, people who care about life can quote the abortionist themselves, the abortion activists themselves. And in a sense, they're making the case that this is really what happens. Now, we're going to be mistaken if we think that this is going to convince people to join our side, because as I said, I think before, the problem is not that it's not become more clear what abortion actually is. The problem is, is that it's become more and more clear, in a cultural dominated by relativism. So to not prefer abortion because it's icky, or it's yucky, or it's even, I think it's actually wrong. It's not the same thing as saying abortion itself is fundamentally wrong. And it should therefore be stopped in any and every way that we possibly can. So in other words, this is, I think, something else that is usable, exploitable by those of us who want life to be defended, but it can never do the work for us that we're called to do ourselves.

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

STONESTREET: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: By the way, next week, we’ll be recording Culture Friday—recording the entire program, for that matter—in front of a live audience up in the Minneapolis area at the Free Lutheran Bible College in Plymouth, MN. There are a few seats still available, so if you live near the Twin Cities, we’d love to meet you. Myrna and I will be there—along with other members of the radio team: Leigh Jones and our fearless leader Paul Butler, as well as our WORLD Watch colleagues: the Big Bash (Brian Basham) and Hannah Harris will be there, too. Great fun for all. So it’s next Thursday, September 30th , no more beautiful place than Minnesota in the fall, can’t wait.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST:  We’ll place a link in today’s program transcript so you can sign up and there’s no charge, but we do need for you to sign up. You can find info on our podcast page online, just click on live events and you’ll find it.

EICHER: So glad to be doing live events again. Good riddance, Covid!

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, high speed chases certainly aren’t unheard of in law enforcement, but this one was quite unusual.

That’s because the vessel that authorities in St. Petersburg, Florida, were chasing, had no driver.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department recently received a call about a runaway boat.

RADIO: Yeah, eagle, I’ve got eyes on that boat. We’re still about four and half miles out.

This is actually a little terrifying.

The driver of the small boat had fallen overboard, about a half mile from shore, and the boat was speeding around in circles.

RADIO: Eagle 2, when you get down there, it looks like there’s some people in the water close to the beach. You might want to get on the PA or yell over to them to get out of the water so they don’t get hit by this boat.

Marine deputies pulled the man overboard to safety and then some others carefully maneuvered alongside the runaway boat and boarded the craft and stopped it.

The sheriff’s office said the incident serves as a good reminder to always wear a cut-off switch, or "kill cord" when boating.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, September 24th. 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: Can’t we all just get along? 

That never-ending question has found its way in a new animated children’s flick about ponies and peace. 

Here’s WORLD reviewer, Collin Garbarino.

Twilight Sparkle: Hurry, friends. It’s time for another adventure.
Rainbow Dash: Adventure? I’m in!
Applejack: Whoo hoo! Let’s go ponies!

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: If you’ve had an elementary-aged girl in your house during the last 10 years, chances are you’ve seen at least a couple episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It’s a cute TV show featuring colorful ponies having adventures and learning lessons about getting along. The newest pony movie gallops onto Netflix today. But this time there’s no friendship and no magic.

Sunny: I wish I had a friend who could fly around or float things. Why can’t we be friends any more.

Argyle: That my darling is a big question. And maybe one day, we’ll figure it out. Together. We’ll do our part, hoof to heart.

My Little Pony: A New Generation is set long after the previous series. As it begins, we learn some terrible unexplained event has robbed the land of Equestria of its pony magic. Even worse, the friendship is gone because all the pony tribes have turned on each other. The unicorns, the pegasi, and the earth ponies—that’s ponies without horns or wings—hate each other and never mingle.

The earth ponies live in fear of the other ponies, building up defenses against them.

Phyliss: We here at Canterlogic are so thrilled to create perfect products that protect ponies like you from ponies like that. And like I always say: To be scared is to be prepared. Oh, I love it!

But an earth pony named Sunny dreams of uniting the various ponies in friendship, and things start to get exciting when a unicorn suddenly appears in her hometown.

Izzy: Hi, new friend! My name’s Izzy!
Sunny: Unicorn! [screams]
Izzy: Is everypony playing hide and seek? I see you!

It turns out that while the earth ponies have been telling lies about the unicorns, the unicorns have been lying about the earth ponies.

Izzy: I was told all you earth ponies smell like rotten sardines, but you do not.
Sunny: What else do unicorns say about earth ponies?
Izzy: Oh, just that you’re lazy and not the brightest crystals in the forest. Sunny: Charming.
Izzy: Nope. Just those three.

Sunny and Izzy eventually team up with a pegasus named Zip. The three new friends set out on an adventure to collect special crystals to bring magic back to their land.

Sunny: I don’t play. I win.
Alphabittle: Is that so.
Sunny: Yeah. It is, and I challenge you for that.
Alphabittle: You think you can beat me?
Sunny: Only one way to find out.
Alphabittle: Big talk for a little pony.
Sunny: I think you’ll find I’m average height.

Paramount originally slated My Little Pony: A New Generation for a theatrical release. But the studio sold it to Netflix because of the pandemic. The computer animated movie boasts relatively high production values and has well-known actors like Vanessa Hudgens, Sofia Carson, and Jane Krakowski voicing the ponies. But the story doesn’t break any new ground. It sticks to the well-worn path Disney blazed 30 years ago: head-strong, independent female lead, amusing sidekicks, transformational ending, and five original songs.

MUSIC: [SONG]

And of course, in true pony fashion, we’re supposed to learn a lesson about getting along with those who are different from us.

If there’s a villain, other than the general feeling of distrust, it’s Sprout, an earth pony voiced by comedian Ken Jeong. He uses the crowd’s fear of unicorns and pegasi to promote his own leadership, setting himself up as a dictator over the easily led earth ponies.

MUSIC: [SONG]

It’s probably not a coincidence that Sprout is a wealthy, self-absorbed pony with a reddish orange body and a blonde mane comb-over. Parents won’t miss this jab at President Trump. But I doubt the kids will notice.

Like all pony media, this movie promotes friendship and fun, and for the most part there’s nothing wrong with that. But the message is too simplistic. It suggests all distrust is unfounded, and that everyone could get along if we just decided to get along.

Hitch: You did it, Sunny.
Sunny: No, we did it. Together.
Izzy: Now we never have to be apart!
All: Hooves to Heart!

No matter how much understanding we practice in this world, different groups of people will be left with real, consequential disagreements. And sometimes, those will keep us from living peaceably. Evil and sin are real. Pretending they’re not doesn’t help anypony—I mean—anybody.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, September 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

As we near the end of today’s program, a reminder: Do yourself a favor and make time this weekend to listen to the conclusion of Les Sillars’s special report: The Freedom Show.

It’s excellent. Tomorrow, the conclusion, the second of a two-part long-form story on a band of unlikely North Korean dissidents and how they’re not only countering North Korean propaganda via shortwave, but broadcasting hope and the gospel across the DMZ.

I’m not doing it justice here, because it’s just an extraordinary piece of reporting. Les is the head of the journalism program at Patrick Henry College and when I called him after the first episode dropped—called to congratulate him—he told me it was really one of the most exciting projects he’d done in journalism. And that’s saying something.

So look for it this weekend right here in your podcast feed where you get this program. The Freedom Show by Les Sillars and our team here at WORLD Radio.

BROWN: Agree! It is really great work. Well, speaking of the importance of Biblically objective journalism, here is this month’s Ask the Editor, with Marvin Olasky.

MARVIN OLASKY, EDITOR IN CHIEF: I get letters all the time asking for my opinion about this or that. Since I’ve edited WORLD for 29 years, that’s natural. I am honored to be asked. When I was young I wanted to be a cracker barrel philosopher, able to crack wise about anything and everything. Now, at age 71, I have my cracker barrel—and that’s a potential danger.

Why? Opining is a temptation for old guys. Popular culture is full of examples of older people giving opinions, and younger people rolling their eyes. But opining is also a temptation for younger people. We live in an opinionated age of subjectivity.

Here’s an example: On September 1st a new Texas abortion law went into effect. The law protects unborn children once doctors can detect an unborn baby’s heartbeat. That’s about at 6 weeks. It has a unique enforcement opportunity involving individuals rather than government officials.

So far the nine Supreme Court justices have not struck it down, but thousands of people on the left and right have offered opinions about the law. WORLD is strongly pro-life, but instead of just opining, we did something different. Our reporter Leah Savas talked to people at pro-life counseling centers around the state to find out what was happening—how women in Texas were responding to the law.

What she discovered through her interviews was complicated. And that’s what she reported. Some women were angry. Some women were panicked. The story showed the challenges and opportunities that pro-life counselors face.

Reporting of that sort is increasingly rare. Sometimes we wonder in this age of clicks and hot takes if there’s an audience for good reporting. So I was encouraged by a note from Sam Lee. He’s a pro-life leader in Missouri who has given three decades of his life to the work there.

Sam read Leah’s article and wanted to commend it. He appreciated that we did not “cherrypick quotes” to come to some “predetermined outcome.” He said it would have been convenient to portray all the women in the stories as happy and ready to carry their babies to term. But he wrote, “that would not have been the truth.”

WORLD’s job is to tell the truth—to provide biblically objective reporting, not subjective opining.

Here’s another example: we recently reported how the Chinese government’s crackdown on Christians has affected a church in Chengdu, China—Early Rain Presbyterian Church. I knew the pastor was in jail. We might assume the congregation was withering. Or we might imagine that everyone is being heroic. Our reporting again showed a more complicated picture: Difficulties, but a church persevering through pressure much greater than anything we face in the United States.

I admire the apostle Luke, the first Christian journalist. He starts off his gospel by explaining why he wrote down an orderly account of all that had happened in Christ’s ministry. He said, “so you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”

WORLD is not writing inspired gospel accounts, but I believe our reporting accomplishes some similar things. The Bible shows how sin infects everything. It shows how Jesus came to make all things new. Good reporting illustrates the truth of that Biblical understanding.

Our reporters are eyewitnesses to the reality of sin—and to the incredible mercies of God. They show us God at work in hard places, through ordinary people, empowered by his grace.

I’m Marvin Olasky.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to thank the team of people who helped put together this week’s programs.

Mary Reichard, Kent Covington, Katie Gaultney, Kristen Flavin, Anna Johansen Brown, Sarah Schweinsberg, Whitney Williams, Onize Ohikere, Jill Nelson, Janie B. Cheaney, Bonnie Pritchett, and Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz are our 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.

The Psalmist says, The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.

May your heart be open and ready to hear from God’s word this weekend as you gather together with His people.

Lord willing, we’ll meet you 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.