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The World and Everything In It
12.11.24 Washington Wednesday, World Tour, and reversing a chemical abortion
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Lindsay Mast
It's world's year end giving drive, as we like to say. Reporting worth supporting. Would you consider a gift Today, everything helps us to bring you the program. Wng.org yearendgift thanks so much and I hope you enjoy today's program. Good morning. DEI and gender confusion bogged down defense funding in Washington. And lawmakers talk government efficiency with the.
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Ken Covington
Doge team, where we can assist in making government leaner, more efficient. That's where we want to have the.
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Nick Eicher
Debate going Washington Wednesday, straight ahead. Also today, world tour and later, a woman who chose life after she'd begun to take it.
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McKenna Greene
She told me, you know, like that she was going to do everything that she could to help me and that she's so glad that I called.
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Nick Eicher
And world commentator Janie B. Cheney with an antidote to brain rot.
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Lindsay Mast
It's Wednesday, December 11th. This is the WORLD and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast.
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Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning.
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Lindsay Mast
Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
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Ken Covington
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
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Nick Eicher
Shabbat.
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Ken Covington
A Syrian woman, one of many still celebrating in the streets of Damascus after the ouster of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad. And the Biden administration, says the United States will recognize and support the new government in Syria provided that it is committed to certain principles. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, respect for the rights of minorities, facilitation of humanitarian assistance, the prevention of Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing as a threat to its neighbors, securing and safely destroying any chemical weapons stockpiles. And those stockpiles of weapons of all varieties have been of great concern to Israeli leaders who are not taking any chances. The Israeli military released video footage that it says shows missile strikes in Syria destroying Syrian military assets. Those strikes have targeted air bases, missile systems and weapons stockpiles and have already destroyed Syria's navy. Israel says those operations are aimed at making sure the assets do not fall into the hands of extremist groups that could threaten Israel's security. And White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters these are exigent operations to eliminate what they believe are imminent threats to their security. And, you know, we certainly recognize that they live in a tough neighborhood and that they have, as always, the right to defend themselves. Israel has also moved ground forces into a buffer zone along Syria's border with Israel to secure the area. Meantime, in Tel Aviv, supporters and detractors of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gathered outside a courthouse where he took the witness stand for the first time in his long running trial on corruption charges. Prosecutors have accused him of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases. Netanyahu vehemently denies any wrongdoing and has described the trial as a witch hunt and a political prosecution. In Washington, Republican senators met with President elect Donald Trump's nominees for various cabinet positions on Tuesday. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune one thing I can tell you coming out of that conference is Republicans united around making sure that President Trump's nominees are put in place and ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work. Among those on hand for the meetings, FBI Director nominee Cash Patel, Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, and Trump's pick for National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard. Some of the nominees are sure to face stiff opposition from Democrats and possibly even some Republicans. But Trump's pick for Secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, is not expected to be among them. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, I look forward to seeing Senator Rubio's hearing in the new year. I've worked closely with him in the past. We've had a good relationship. I think he's qualified for the role and I certainly don't start out with any negative disposition. Nominees need 51 votes to be confirmed. Republicans will control 54 seats in the new Senate. A judge on Tuesday denied bail to the man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week in Manhattan. 26 year old Luigi Mangione faces a weapons charge in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested this week, and prosecutors in New York want him extradited to face a murder charge there. His attorney, Thomas Dickey, though, told reporters.
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Thomas Dickey
We did not waive extradition.
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Ken Covington
We're contesting extradition. We're going to fight this along the.
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Thomas Dickey
Rules and with the constitutional protection that my client has, and that's what we're going to do.
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Ken Covington
But Blair County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Peter Weeks said yesterday, we're in the process now of securing a governor's warrant from the state of New York and you.
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Nick Eicher
Know we'll be prepared when the judge.
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Ken Covington
Schedules the hearing to do what's necessary to get him back to New York. And investigators have learned more about the suspect. They say he was raised in a wealthy Maryland family, graduated from an Ivy League school and worked as a data engineer before last week's attack. In a statement, his family members said they were shocked and that everything they know about Mangione's alleged crimes has come from news outlets In Southern California. A wind driven wildfire has forced thousands of residents to flee their homes. The blaze, which was sparked on Monday, has already consumed roughly 3,000 acres. And Los Angeles County Police Chief Robert Luna is urging everyone in the area to stay alert. Fires can be extremely unpredictable and we.
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Nick Eicher
Highly encourage residents in the fire areas to be prepared to heed our evacuation warnings.
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Ken Covington
And LA County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney said Tuesday that the fire was not at all contained as of yet, with more than 700 firefighters trying to get a handle on it. Because of the difficulties in this particular area, we really time is of the essence for us to grab a hold of the fire and start getting containment. Authorities are not yet sure how the blaze was sparked. Thousands of homes are under threat, but as of last night, there were no reports of any serious injuries. I'm Ken Covington. And straight ahead, a new department is tasked with cutting government waste, but it will need the government's support to make it happen. Plus, one woman's story of trying to stop a chemical abortion before it was too late. This is the WORLD and EVERYTHING in it.
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Lindsay Mast
It's Wednesday, the 11th of December. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the WORLD and Everything IN It. Good morning. I'm Lindsay Mast.
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Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday. Well, today, culture war issues in the 2025 budget. But first, what members of Congress think about President Elect Donald Trump's plans for the Doge, that is the Department of Government Efficiency.
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Lindsay Mast
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to lead the new non governmental task force. They were on Capitol Hill last week to talk about it. Washington Bureau reporter Leo Braceno has the story.
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Thomas Dickey
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy came to Capitol Hill not to lecture, but to listen. That's according to South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson. He spoke with reporters outside of the meeting.
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Ken Covington
Great job. They each spoke for about one minute and then they just opened it up. And members have been offering specific ideas about where can we go make a more efficient government.
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Thomas Dickey
Congressman Johnson said the room went quickly through around nine topics, including technology.
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Ken Covington
There are some areas where the federal government is not utilizing technology well enough. And that that's an area where clearly the federal government lags behind the private sector. And it's one area where the private sector has been able to find some pretty substantial efficiencies.
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Thomas Dickey
So how will two businessmen from the private sector make changes to the federal government? And how much will President Trump have to rely on Congress to make the cuts he's promised? Lawmakers are still figuring that out. Here's Congressman Aaron Bean from Florida. He's the chair of the newly formed Doge Caucus.
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Ken Covington
We just want to be assist. That's my first question. What can Congress do? What do you expect from Congress to how can we help and assist with you?
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Thomas Dickey
And it's not just Republicans. Here's Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz, one of the Democrats who will be on the Doge subcommittee panel next year.
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McKenna Greene
It's a wonderful question.
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Ken Covington
It's probably more better suited to, like an historian.
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Thomas Dickey
So I asked one. David Lewis, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. Lewis studies the presidency and its relationship with government agencies.
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Ken Covington
There's a little bit of disagreement about this, actually. So one thing that everybody's clear on is that, you know, obviously if the President could get Congress's cooperation, they could slash government as much as they'd like. Right? They could, you know, you know, fire employees, eliminate agencies, these kinds of things. But I think your question is, short of them passing legislation to cut budgets or, you know, eliminate authorization, what can the president do?
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Thomas Dickey
Come January, President Trump will only have a few options for reducing the federal workforce on his own without help from Congress.
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Ken Covington
The president doesn't have a ton of flexibility other than to freeze hiring. But they can't, you know, start firing people and reducing the size of government because the money's been authorized to be spent on salaries.
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Thomas Dickey
Trump and his team have suggested that recent Supreme Court decisions have changed the role of agencies in government.
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Ken Covington
And so the belief then would be if these agencies are doing things that they should not be doing, then the employees that should stop working on these things, and if these employees have no work, then they could be removed through a reduction in force.
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Thomas Dickey
Louis says it's an interesting legal theory that the responsibilities of agencies have shrunk and so should their workforce. But that argument really hasn't been tested yet. If that strategy faces too many legal challenges, Congress could delegate some of that government shrinking power directly to the president. Back in 1939, Congress passed a reorganization act that authorized then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to trim and modify executive branch agencies. I asked Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene about that approach. She's leading the House Doge subcommittee panel.
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Ken Covington
That's not something I'm looking at from my committee.
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Thomas Dickey
Other House Republicans would prefer to keep Congress in the driver's seat. Here's Congressman Bean again.
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Ken Covington
I'm a big fan of Congress appropriating money and unappropriating money. I think that should stay. We are directly accountable to the people, but where we can assist in making government leaner more efficient. That's where we want to have the debate going.
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Thomas Dickey
In that case, Professor Lewis says there is a third option. By giving the president's priority special status within the legislative process, lawmakers could fast track collaboration with the White House.
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Ken Covington
Some sort of like reorganization proposals supported by the president would get some privileged process in Congress, you know, sort of votes up or down, you know, top of the, you know, get to the top of the list in terms of agenda. Something like that is feasible, but it would still have to be legislation. It would just happen through a quicker process.
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Thomas Dickey
In any case, President Trump will need Congress on board to approve the massive changes he has in mind. And with the conversations already started, Congressman Dusty Johnson believes the process is off to a good start.
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Ken Covington
It is remarkable how coordinated the efforts between the legislative branch and the incoming executive branch of Ben I think we have an acute understanding that this is a team sport. And if we get mired in standard one branch of government versus another branch of government fighting that, we're not going to get done what we need to get done.
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Thomas Dickey
Reporting for world, I'm Leo Brissano.
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Lindsay Mast
Well, while many are looking ahead to the next Congress, there's still a lot to do in the final weeks of this session. That includes approving next year's defense spending.
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Nick Eicher
The bill contains a lot Republicans and Democrats agree on, but also some sticking points that are sparking debate. Here is World's Carolina Lumeta.
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Carolina Lumeta
Lawmakers have just two weeks to pass the National Defense Reauthorization Act. That's the annual mandatory legislation that determines defense policy for the next fiscal year. The bill has been through a few iterations so far, and on Tuesday, the House Rules Committee discussed a compromise version.
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Lindsay Mast
The Rules Committee will come to order.
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Carolina Lumeta
They're calling it the Service Member Quality of Life Improvement act. The proposed 2025 NDAA rings in at nearly $900 billion. Earlier this year, the Senate passed its own version, but it exceeded spending caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The House version falls within those limits, but also provides a 14% pay increase for junior service members.
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Ken Covington
I'm thrilled at the pay raise for our troops. I think that's the most important thing that we're accomplishing here.
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Carolina Lumeta
Congressman Nick Langworthy of New York told World. The bill also gives military families more housing options and implements shorter wait for healthcare.
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Ken Covington
Is it perfect? No. But it continues to, you know, help our military where it matters the most, which is recruitment and, you know, showing our appreciation for the men and women that keep this country safe and defend our freedom.
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Carolina Lumeta
Where lawmakers disagree is on non defense policies included in the legislation. Democrats say they will not support the bill because it includes a provision that prevents the military health program TRICARE from providing puberty blockers and other transgender procedures to minors. Here's Washington State Congressman Adam Smith.
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Ken Covington
There is a provision that would bar access to health care for minors of service members for very specific care. It goes after treatment for minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
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Carolina Lumeta
Smith helped negotiate this version of the NDAA but urged Rules Committee members to amend the bill to allow body altering procedures aimed at sex change.
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Ken Covington
I mean, to deny what could potentially be life saving health care to children of service members for any political reason is something I don't believe we should do.
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Carolina Lumeta
Democrats on the Rules Committee argued that the policy measure could result in service members leaving to find coverage for these treatments elsewhere. Republicans said it's not an issue for defense policy consideration. Here's Texas Congressman Chip Roy during the hearing.
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Ken Covington
I think these questions need to be pulled out of the debate of defense so we can get back to the business of defending the United States of America without having to deal with social engineering debates.
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Carolina Lumeta
The Republican majority on the Rules Committee shot down two proposed amendments and voted to pass the bill onto the floor without objection.
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Lindsay Mast
The committee is adjourned.
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Carolina Lumeta
While most Republicans support the negotiated ndaa, conservatives had hoped to increase defense spending while cutting social programs. Instead, the compromise version keeps funding levels about the same as the last one. Congressman Roy has an additional concern.
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Ken Covington
It doesn't get rid of the chief Diversity Officer. The DEI provision is not as strong as what we had in the House, roy told World.
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Carolina Lumeta
That worries him.
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Ken Covington
And look, I mean I'll reserve judgment on the floor, but I don't see myself voting for the bill.
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Carolina Lumeta
In order to pass the legislation by a simple majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose four Republican votes assuming all Democrats oppose it. On Tuesday, he praised the final package during a news conference.
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Ken Covington
The safety and security of the American people is our top priority and this year's NDAA ensures our military has the resources and the capabilities needed to remain.
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Nick Eicher
The most powerful fighting force on the planet.
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Ken Covington
I look forward to voting for it later this week and I think you'll have a a large vote on the House floor in affirmation of all this.
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Carolina Lumeta
The bill will come to the floor on Thursday. If it passes, then it's back to the Senate for another vote. Reporting for world, I'm Carolina Lumeta in Washington.
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Ken Covington
Additional support comes from the book Missions On Point, presenting a biblical vision for local church centered missions on Amazon or sendforward.org Missions on point from Ambassadors Impact Network providing faith driven entrepreneurs the opportunity to apply for funding that aligns with their values. More@ambassadorsimpact.com and from Asbury University, coupling academic excellence with a focus on faith and biblical truths. Asbury. Edu.
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Nick Eicher
Coming up next on the World In Everything in It World tour with our reporter in Africa, Onizai Adua.
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Onizi Adua
We begin today on the streets of Ghana's capital Accra, crowds cheered after a former president won a Saturday vote. John Mahama served as president from 2012 to 2017. His weekend victory follows two failed attempts to return to the top office. Current Vice President Mohammadou Bawumia ran as the ruling party's candidate and conceded before the election agency officially announced the winner. The country's economic crisis dominated the polls, with voters blaming the ruling party for the struggles. Many young people are unemployed and the prices of goods have skyrocketed. Akasi Danso joined other supporters of Mahama on the streets.
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Carolina Lumeta
So today if I'm happy, I'm happy.
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Ken Covington
That God Almighty has listened to our prayers and choose the one that Ghanaians need to be the next President of Republic of Ghana. So Ghanaians are happy.
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Onizi Adua
Mahama will be sworn in on January 7th. We head now to Romania, where a last minute court ruling scrapped a presidential runoff vote. Romanians went to the polls for a first round of voting last month. Centrist candidate Elena Lasconi and far right independent Colleen Georgescu came out on top and were set to face each other last Sunday in a second vote. But the Constitutional Court moved to annul the first round of votes over reports of Russian interference. Declassified intelligence documents claim nearly 800 TikTok accounts created by a foreign state were activated shortly before the vote to support the little known rejected the ruling as an attempt to keep him from pah. He says the country has canceled democracy by canceling the vote. But Romanian President Klaus Johannesburg call the issue a matter of national security. He says he will remain in office until a new president is sworn in. Next to the Dominican Republic, where authorities say they have made the largest ever cocaine bust in the Caribbean nation officials discovered more than 9 tons of cocaine hidden in two containers of banana shipments that left Guatemala and were heading for Belgium. Three hundred and twenty bags of drugs spread throughout the shipment arrived at the Causedo port in the capital of Santo Domingo with an estimated street value of $250 million. Carlos de Vares is the spokesman of the country's National Drug Control Directorate. He says the public prosecutor is investigating at least 10 people connected to the port. The drug stash is three times the size of the country's previous record, when authorities uncovered more than 5,600 pounds of cocaine at the same port in 2006. Monitoring agencies have said the Caribbean is becoming a major trafficking route again for drugs entering the European market. We close today in Stockholm, Sweden, with a tribute to the 66 women who have won the Nobel Prize since its inception in 1901. One of the honorees is Marie Sklodowska Curie, who won the award twice, once for physics and then again for chemistry. The leading lights presentation includes colorful light displays, glowing art installations, and animated vignettes projected onto local buildings. Alexis Turchet is the show's artistic director.
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Ken Covington
To create this show, we work with.
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Janie B. Cheney
Around 12 different artists to come from different artistic backgrounds.
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Ken Covington
And we worked also with Nobel Prize Museum, who have helped us a lot with research and what we could use actually during this show to talk about.
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Onizi Adua
That's it for this week's world tour. Reporting for world I'm Onizi Odua in Abuja, Nigeria.
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Nick Eicher
You can forget snakes in the plane. What you need to worry about are snakes in the lane, the fast lane that is down. In Australia, a woman was headed down the freeway when she felt something on her leg. Somehow she was able to hold it together long enough to weave through traffic, pull over and leap out of the car so fast she left her shoe behind. She did flag down some help. Police realized they needed a specialist snake catcher, Tim Naninga. He was able to sniff out the venomous tiger snake and knew just how to charm that charmless reptile. This is audio from Talk Radio 3 AW Melbourne.
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Ken Covington
I was pretty lucky, actually. I had an old Barry White cd, so we had the keys to the car. We put it on and calmed the snake down and crawled towards the back.
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Nick Eicher
Yeah, it must have been a girl snake.
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Ken Covington
My voice is extremely low. It's different than a lot of other guys in the world. Maybe it didn't take all of my.
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Nick Eicher
Life to find it works every single time. That is Barry White and he's a snake charmer.
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Ken Covington
You're not serious, do you? Totally joke.
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Nick Eicher
Totally joke. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Wednesday, December 11th. Thank you for turning to world radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Nick Eicher.
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Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsey Mast. Coming next on the World and everything in it, a second chance at life. Earlier this year, a Colorado woman made a choice she regretted. As World's Leah Savas reports, that mom turned to the Internet for help to make it right.
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McKenna Greene
There'd be one moment where I was like, oh, maybe it's not too late. Maybe you can do something about it.
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Chelsea Minick
That's McKenna Green. She's talking about what was going through her head about a year ago in the 24 hours after she started a chemical abortion.
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McKenna Greene
You know, the other side of me is like, no, you want to be successful, you want to, you know, buy a new house, like, you know, and you can't do those things if you have a new baby. You know, you can't do it.
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Chelsea Minick
McKenna Greene had found out she was pregnant just days earlier.
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McKenna Greene
I have a two and a half year old and I had started a new position at work. I was really wanting to jumpstart my career a little bit. And relationally, you know, me and my boyfriend were, we're not married. It was just more of an unexpected pregnancy.
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Chelsea Minick
At the time, Green was 25. All of those factors played into her decision to Google abortion. Pills delivered to me.
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McKenna Greene
And a couple different agencies popped up and I went with the one that I did go with because they advertised low pricing.
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Chelsea Minick
Green lives in Colorado Springs. Abortion is legal in Colorado through all nine months of pregnancy. So she could have easily gone to an abortion facility for the drugs, but she preferred to order them online.
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McKenna Greene
I didn't have to meet with, you know, a doctor or anything like that, you know, just kind of separating myself from having to meet and get emotional with anybody. And then they also offered like two day shipping, I think. So it was also a matter of, you know, the quicker that I can get it here, the quicker I can get it over with and the quicker I can forget about it.
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Chelsea Minick
Essentially, they arrived within two days, as promised. Two drugs. One to block progesterone, a hormone essential to continuing pregnancy, another to cause contractions. She took the first drugs around 7pm one evening after work. For the next 24 hours leading up to the point when she was supposed to take the second set of drugs, she couldn't stop thinking about what she had done.
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McKenna Greene
So I would just kind of really be battling with myself and then just telling myself, well, it's already too late, so you better, you know, you better get used to it.
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Chelsea Minick
That's when her mom stopped by.
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McKenna Greene
I broke down and I kind of told her what was happening and she's like, well, is there anything we can do about it? And I was like, I don't know.
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Chelsea Minick
That's all it took to prompt Green to do another Google search. How to stop the effects of the Abortion pill. Heartbeat International's abortion pill reversal website was one of the first results. Her mom watched her son in the other room while Green ran into the bathroom to call the hotline.
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McKenna Greene
It was a wreck. And the woman on the phone, she was wonderful. And she told me, you know, like that, you know, no judgment, that, you know, she was gonna do everything that she could to help me and that, you know, you know, she was so glad that I called.
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Chelsea Minick
The rep said that an abortion pill reversal provider would reach out soon to prescribe progesterone to help halt the effects of the abortion drug. Within an hour or two. A nurse practitioner called from nearby Castle Rock. Chelsea Minick Greene updated her on what was going on. And Minick prescribed the progesterone pills. She started taking those pills that same night. Green went to Minik's office for an ultrasound the next day.
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McKenna Greene
She had said that, you know, things look good right now. Again, she didn't make any promises to me that things were going to be 100% or anything.
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Chelsea Minick
@ that point, there was still a chance the baby wouldn't make it. Green kept taking the progesterone and returned to Minnick for her prenatal care for the first 20 weeks. At one of those early appointments, she got to see the little flutter of her baby's heartbeat.
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Janie B. Cheney
Oh, look at that.
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Chelsea Minick
In August, Green sun got to hold his little sister.
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McKenna Greene
That's okay.
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Ken Covington
Hold the baby.
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Thomas Dickey
Okay.
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Lindsay Mast
Hold the baby.
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Chelsea Minick
Aw, look at this.
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McKenna Greene
It's just unfortunate that it's easier to obtain the abortion pill, the chemical abortion pill in process than it was for me to obtain the life saving care of the progesterone or the abortion pill reversal because I actually got to speak with Chelsea, but I didn't have to speak with anybody for the chemical abortion kit. It just was, you know.
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Chelsea Minick
A questioner online, Minick found out soon after she prescribed progesterone for Green that she was under investigation for violating a Colorado law that effectively prohibits prescribing abortion pill reversal treatment. They say it's not scientifically proven and dangerous to women, but providers can prescribe the same hormone to women at risk of miscarrying. Minick has since joined a lawsuit arguing that law is unconstitutional. As someone who saw the treatments as a lifeline for her and her baby, Greene says Colorado sends a sad message.
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McKenna Greene
Colorado is essentially saying right now that only one type of woman gets to save their child. Ones that are high risk for miscarriages. They're also prescribed the same medication that I was, the progesterone. I think that's completely unfair.
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Chelsea Minick
Abortion pill reversal isn't guaranteed to work. Sometimes a baby will survive a chemical abortion attempt even without progesterone. Other times the reversal treatment is ineffective. But Green says Minik didn't give her any guarantees. That night she first prescribed the hormone.
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McKenna Greene
She gave me the hope, you know, that, you know, we'd caught it enough time and that I'd be able to see my baby girl one day. And because of her, I did. And I get to look at her face every day.
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Chelsea Minick
Reporting for World, I'm Leah Savas.
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Lindsay Mast
Today is Wednesday, December 11th. Good morning. This is the World and everything in it. From Listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast.
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Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher. World commentator Janie B. Cheney. Now with a few thoughts on moving beyond the trivial.
- [29:29]
Janie B. Cheney
By now you've heard on this podcast and elsewhere that the 2024 Oxford word of the year is brain rot, which is actually two words, but no point quibbling. It won its distinguished title through a combination of online voting from the public and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers on its website. Oxford University Press defined the condition of brain rot as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overcompensation of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging. The material in question is primarily banal online content. The word of the year is considered a cultural flag and as such attracts comment from social observers. This year, most of them passed along Oxford's reference to Henry David Thoreau, who coined the term in his best known work. Quoting Oxford, Thoreau criticizes society's tendency to devalue complex ideas or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways in favor of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort. In Thoreau's words, while England endeavors to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain rot. I looked up the reference in the concluding chapter of Walden. It's typical of Thoreau. Plain speaking mingled with obscure references and meandering thoughts that make the reader think, hey, wait up while I figure out what you're talking about. Also, the insufferable condescension of a man enjoying a two year vacation with no wife and children to support. The paragraph, paragraph in which brain rot occurs begins with this observation. Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense. The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring. Thoreau also scorned newspapers and regarded the telegraph the harbinger of mass communication as trivial. Why rush to connect Maine to Texas, he asks, when Maine to Texas it may be have nothing to communicate? Much of the commentary about today's brain rot is similarly snarky, some of it connecting brainrot with maga. Of course, the truth is, much of life is consumed by trivia daily to do lists, shopping, eating, bed making, laundry, etc. Ad infinitum. These are the threads that weave our lives into the lives of family and friends and church and school, the little lifts that propel us from one day to the next and on through the years. But we can be choosy about the kind of trivia we consume, and we can carve out little daily waldens for ourselves. One of my friends takes time to list 14 things she's grateful for at the end of every day. Another contemplates a psalm every morning. I watch my share of YouTube videos but also get up ridiculously early to think and pray and write. The noble, admirable, and excellent things Paul advises us to think about in Philippians 4 are ever at hand, and a little mindfulness can stave off a lot of brain rot. I'm Janie Buchaney.
- [32:58]
Nick Eicher
Tomorrow, the state of Florida is changing course when dealing with the homeless will have a republic on what it may mean for the rest of the country, and the incoming administration is promising a crackdown on illegal immigration. What is fact and what is fiction? That and more, tomorrow. I'm Nick Eicher.
- [33:16]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. 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, and just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Verses 27 and 28 of Hebrews chapter 9 go now in grace and peace.