In this week’s Brief: We’re talking about the global tug-of-war over rare earth minerals and what the U.S. is doing to loosen its reliance on China. We also dive into the daring, Hollywood-worthy heist at the Louvre. And we tackle updates on the government shutdown, the “No Kings” protests, Ukraine and Israel before sharing our World Series predictions. Plus, don’t miss a big announcement at the end of the episode about what’s next for Culture Brief!
From politics and global affairs to pop culture and faith, Conner and Micah offer grounded, thoughtful insight on what’s shaping the world right now—and what it means for believers. Plus, don’t miss a big announcement at the end of the episode about what’s next for Culture Brief!
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Topics
- (00:47): What are rare earth minerals?
- (05:54): US-Australia deal on rare earth minerals
- (11:54): Spiritual application: Planning with faith
- (15:26): The Louvre heist: A Hollywood-style robbery
- (25:46): Reflecting on the value of human life
- (29:16): Mailbag: Responses to last week’s audiobook hot take
- (32:17): Ukraine’s plea for Tomahawk missiles
- (34:24): “No Kings” protest across the country
- (36:41): Government shutdown and economic impact
- (38:58): Fragile ceasefire in the Middle East
- (41:06): World Series and NBA updates
- (43:17): Big announcement!
Resources
- Send us your thoughts, questions, and topic ideas: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Sign-up for Denison Forum’s daily newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
- NOTE – you can catch Conner & Micah on last week’s Faith & Clarity podcast episode discussing the spiritual implications of the AI Bible, euthanasia, congressional term limits and freedom of speech.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Other articles on this week’s top headlines:
- U.S., Australia Deal Advances Critical Minerals Ambitions, While Detail Light – WSJ
- Reuters: ROI US-Australia critical minerals deal
- US and Australia sign critical-minerals agreement as a way to counter China
- Australia and the US have signed a critical minerals deal to take on China’s monopoly. Here’s what you need to know
- Apple inks $500M deal with US-based rare-earth mine operator MP Materials
- United States-Australia Framework For Securing of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths – The White House
- Time is running out to save stolen Napoleonic jewelry – Denison Forum
- Historic jewels stolen in ‘national disaster’ for France: What we know about missing Louvre treasures | CNN
- How the Louvre Jewelry Heist Unfolded – The New York Times
- Louvre Robbery May Have Been More About Stones Than Art, Experts Say
- Politico: ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump bring a street party vibe to cities nationwide
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Director of Advancement at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.
Micah Tomasella : I’m Micah Tomasella.
Conner Jones: And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we are navigating the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, and technology. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Micah, we got a show that is loaded today. You’re back.
We’re all back. We’re back to normal here. Welcome back, Micah.
Micah Tomasella : Back to normal. I’m back. I might be recording from a hotel room. Because, you know, contrary to popular belief, Conner and I both have jobs that require a lot of us just outside of. Recording a fun podcast each week. But I am back and I’m excited to be back.
Plus, we have a big announcement to make at the end of the show, of just an extra iteration of the podcast and some additional things that we’re gonna be doing. But today we’re gonna talk about rare earth minerals and. Lessening our dependence on China. For that, we’re just gonna talk about what rare earth minerals are and why it’s important.
And then Conner is going to cover what [00:01:00] happened at the Louvre and the heist that took place. That’s almost out of a movie. It’s, I mean, it’s just absolutely insane. The intricacy disappearing without a trace. So Conner’s gonna break that down. On top of all of that, we’re gonna have stories about the government shutdown entering its Fort Week fourth week.
No Kings protest. Trump tells Zelensky no and so much more. So let’s jump into the brief. The brief. Alright, so as I mentioned, rare earth minerals and depending less on China with Micah is what I’m calling this segment. This is this like
Conner Jones: a. You feel like a professor and you’re, this is like your lecture for the day.
Yeah. This sounds like a science science corner.
Micah Tomasella : I did something similar with, with tariffs and, you know, just different things. ’cause you know, I just feel like, you know, we hear rare earth minerals a lot and so I just kind of dove in and I’m, I’m like I wanna make sure I know what I’m talking about.
So I’m just gonna explain it pretty much plain as day, why it’s important, what it, you know, is comprised of in China. Their part to play in it and how the US [00:02:00] is trying to make some shifts and some moves that, that we’re not so dependent on China for those things in the future. So this fall, something big happened that most Americans probably missed not oil, not semiconductors.
Rare earth minerals. Conor Jones, the quiet backbone of everything modern is what they call rare earth minerals. It is the quiet backbone of pretty much everything made in modern day. Your phone, your car, even the fighter jets that defend the country all depend on these 17 elements that are buried deep in the earth.
And right now, almost all of them come from one place and one place only. Conner, I’ll let you guess.
Conner Jones: China.
Micah Tomasella : Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. The question is simple. Conner, can America build the future without depending on its rivals to power it? That’s kind of the moves mm, that are be making now.
And that’s just what’s so interesting about this economy and world that we live in, is that countries that we would consider at, [00:03:00] at the very best adversarial. Depend on each other. Mightily. We depend on China and China depends on us. So Conner, how much in your spare time do you focus on rare earth minerals?
Conner Jones: Probably less than 0.1%. It’s not something I give lots of credence or time to I guess when I’m reading a story, but not zero, not zero mostly. ’cause I’ll, I’ll be reading headlines. I’m like, tell me more about this cobalt shortage that we’re having. You know, so I, a little bit, but not much.
Micah Tomasella : Yep. So lemme just give some historical context and just some numbers behind this.
Rare earth elements or rees aren’t actually rare, okay? They’re scattered across the planet, but refining them into a usable form is expensive, toxic, and complex. So that’s why China stepped. A long, long time ago, decades ago, while the US scaled back in rare earth minerals, specifically the process of, you know, actually refining it.
Like I said, it’s expensive, [00:04:00] toxic, and complex. China invested. So today it controls about 90% of the world’s refining capacity for these minerals. Everything from ooh, neodymium and Dispo Seeum. Teter and Atrium. There you go. These elements are the foundation for the magnets inside electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, smartphones, missile guidance systems, and even MRI scanners.
I mean, these things are very important. If you want something lightweight, efficient, and high tech, you need rare earths, right? So when one country dominates that much of the supply chain, it’s not just an economic issue, it’s a national security issue. This is the same
Conner Jones: argument you can make with like chips and Taiwan, right?
Taiwan makes totally the majority of semiconductor chips. Now, I know what you’re saying is that these minerals are what allow Taiwan to actually make those chips. That’s right. That’s right. But when there’s one country that really [00:05:00] controls the supply
Micah Tomasella : Correct. That, that’s their leverage. Correct. Correct.
It’s kind American consumerism. I mean, we, we drive the world economy with how much we we buy and how much we import. China depends on us to buy all of their cheap stuff, basically. And so in the same way, a lot of countries, including America, depend on China to produce cheap products for cheap, you know, and that’s because they can employ children over there and you know, pay them nothing.
They have very little to no labor laws. They exploit their people in order to produce these types of things. And so it’s just an entirely different landscape. So there’s just. So much history that goes into all of this. But yeah, Conner, that’s a, that’s a good comparison.
Conner Jones: And I would guess they’re exploiting their people in labor to pull these rare earths out of the earth, like in these mining Yeah. Facilities and whatnot. I, I do not imagine it’s a safe environment. No.
Micah Tomasella : So let’s talk about this Australia deal that. Kind of, it was [00:06:00] officially official on Monday, October 20th. So on the, on October 20th, the United States and Australia signed a major framework called the Critical Minerals and Rare Earth Supply Agreement.
So it’s designed to build a parallel supply chain that doesn’t run through Beijing anymore. So here are the facts of it. The deal outlines an $8.5 billion pipeline of joint investments to mine. To mine process and refine rare earths and related minerals. Both governments, Australia and the US committed at least a billion dollars each over the next six months to fast track these projects that are already in the works.
The framework includes measures like price flow, protections to counter China’s China’s practice of flooding markets with cheap supply to kill competition. One flagship project is Alcoa’s new gallium plant in Western Australia, a key metal used in semiconductors and defense system, so it’s part of a, a broader United States.
Allied push to make sure the materials behind the clean energy transition and [00:07:00] modern defense technology come from friendly soil, right? Mm-hmm. So it’s not like all of this stuff is gonna necessarily happen in America. There is gonna be some of that. It’s gonna be ramped up. And there’s some companies stepping up to make more investments here in the US that I’m gonna get into here in a little bit.
But if you do something joint with a country like Australia, which is a friendly nation, then you work together and then eventually the goal would be is that you wouldn’t be dependent upon China. Who again has a monopoly on it, having 90% of it you can create this joint venture that allows you to actually acquire those rare earths that are so important for so much modern technology.
But, you know, one thing that I kind of mentioned there was what China has done in the past is anybody who tries to pop up and tries to refine their own rare earths, China’s just we can do it cheaper, we can do it faster. We don’t care about the economic impact. No, sorry, not the economic impact. They do care about the economic impact, the the ecological impact.
Mm-hmm. The natural impact of it. So it, it is a very toxic thing. [00:08:00] It’s a very, it’s very messy. It’s a large project. And so China has just steps stepped in and squashed any competition because they can do it cheaper than anybody else. But this deal signals a really good step moving forward that the US and Allied nations don’t have to depend on China for something as important as rare earth.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. You, you both countries benefit here. The US and Australia are helping an ally. They’re helping an ally. They’re both gonna financially benefit. I think it’s great long-term benefits. Yeah, it makes sense. Think it’s absolutely
Micah Tomasella : great. And you know, it’s in the news this week it was kind of a nowhere, like a, a slower news week, but.
This is, this is really important. Doing this right now sets us up to potentially not be dependent on China in the future. So even though it’s gonna take some time, even though it’s gonna take some investment, even though we might not get there until 10, 20 years, that doesn’t mean you don’t start preparing now.
You don’t start taking those steps now. I think it is an important move and I think it’s a good move by Trump. Alright, so here’s some other deals in US company investments real quick that I’m gonna hit. [00:09:00] So the Australia deal isn’t the only move. There’s a wave of activity right now that shows how serious this strategy has become.
Specifically in America, MP Materials Core, which operates only large scale, rare Earth mi, the only. Large scale, rare Earth mine in the US. At Mountain Pass, California received about $400 million from the Pentagon to expand its processing and magnet manufacturing capacity at home, apple jumped in with a $500 million deal in Greenland Critical Metals Corporation.
Signed a 10 year agreement to shift to ship heavy rare Earth. Concentrate to US funded processing facilities in Louisiana. Linus Rare Earth’s, Australia’s biggest rare earth producer partnered with Novion Magnetics, which is a Texas based firm. So each of these deals is a small piece of a much larger puzzle building, a global network of mines, refineries, and magnet plants that.
Bypass Chinese control. So what’s interesting is you have the government getting, getting involved, but you also have the free market. You have [00:10:00] large organizations and corporations here in the US who are jumping in unprompted, investing a ton billions into this, right? Which is actually kind of great.
Because it’s good for these companies, but it’s also good for America too. And it’s cool that there’s like this natural simpatico thing happening where the government’s investing in it. But so also are these large corporations and companies. All right, so here’s why it matters. Here’s why it’s at stake.
As I wrap up. For decades, America outsourced this process because it was cheaper and cleaner to let somebody else handle it, right? China was the one handling it, but that someone else built a monopoly and is now using it strategically. So there’s a lot of arguments with China right now. Trump gets mad at Qi, QI gets mad at Trump ’cause they’re gonna cut off the rare Earths.
And so it’s just this back and forth. Whenever China gets upset, they can just threaten it and they know they can because they control 90% of it. So China recently tightened, like I said, export controls again, requiring special licenses even for magnets containing [00:11:00] trace Chinese origin material. So that’s leverage.
It means if relations shower sour, they can just choke it off and the, the race isn’t just economic, it’s strategic. It’s about whether America can keep building the technologies of, of the future without relying on a country that could just pull the plug. And a country specifically that we don’t have much trust or much of a good relationship with in China.
So at stake is more than access to minerals. It’s controlled o over the materials that power everything. That modern life depends on. So a decade from now, whoever controls these minerals is going to hold enormous leverage over global manufacturing, green energy policy, and military readiness. The US and its allies are seemingly like they’re finally doing something, they’re pulling their head out of the sand.
But the race is far from over and there’s a lot of ground to make up.
Conner Jones: Yep.
Micah Tomasella : Yep. Alright, so lemme give a spiritual application and challenge from this, and it kind of hit me upside the head. It, it was [00:12:00] kind of obvious you’re, you know, you’re over here thinking like, how on earth can this concept apply to my spiritual life?
I’m gonna tell you. And I think, I think you’re gonna see how it makes a lot of sense to you too. So there’s a bigger picture here. Then just rare earth minerals. It’s about planning for the future. Sometimes Christians hear that word and think it means a lack of faith, as if trusting God means we shouldn’t plan ahead.
But scripture, I believe, tells a different story. Planning is not the opposite of of faith. Having a plan, storing things away for the future, that’s not necessarily the opposite of faith. In fact, I don’t think it is at all planning. Is an expression of our faith. So Proverbs 21 5 says this, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes into poverty.
Proverbs six, six through eight points to the ant who prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food and harvest. [00:13:00] And then Luke 1428 reminds us of this words of Jesus. Which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count. The cost. So wise planning is not about control or fear.
It’s actually about stewardship. God provides for the present, but he also calls us to be faithful for the future. Just as America is working to secure what it needs to, to sustain its people to tomorrow, the the future believers are called to build their lives in wisdom today, trusting God for the outcome.
So here’s the challenge plan, but plan with faith, not fear. Prepare for tomorrow, but depend on God today because real stewardship doesn’t replace trust in God. Real stewardship actually reflects trust in God.
Conner Jones: Yeah. That’s good. I think you know, you’re talking about there’s this warning that Christians put out, like planning is bad or whatnot.
Sometimes I, I think that can be misconstrued. I think typically it’s a reference to the, the [00:14:00] verses, you know, that say you don’t know what tomorrow brings, when Jesus is kind of warning about. Yeah. You know, you could try to predict. The end times where you can try to think about where your life will lead or whatnot, but really, we just don’t fully know what tomorrow brings.
That doesn’t mean don’t plan for things. You know, you’re gonna make a routine, you’re gonna think about your schedule, right? You’re, you’re, you probably everybody listening to this in some form or fashion has a savings account or a retirement account, right? You’re planning for that, right? If you don’t, you
Micah Tomasella : should.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Yeah, I would highly recommend that for sure. Anyways, all that to say, you’re right Micah. I, I, I think it’s smart for these countries to be planning ahead. I think it’s smart for us in faith to be planning ahead in certain ways and being, being wary of that, recognizing we are not promised tomorrow, right?
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We can be thrown a total curve ball or whatnot, and we’re not promised tomorrow. So that’s where salvation comes into play. If you’re not saved. Make sure you are we’ve talked about that plenty of times here as well as salvation and Christ and whatnot, but great application.
Micah. Thank you for taking us through your little science corner of rare [00:15:00] earth Minerals. Let’s go. I loved when you were trying to say some of those mineral names. The the, I was like reading the Bible names that you just can’t read. You have to pause for a second. You’re like, honestly, I
Micah Tomasella : mean, I mean, you’d think I’d practiced them beforehand, but I just think it’s all fun for us to go through the experience together.
We’re real people. You know, with real stuff going on. And so I didn’t, I didn’t go through and practice all of it before, but that just means that we get to go through the process together.
Conner Jones: You know it. Okay guys, let’s talk about the big thing that happened in France this week, and no, I’m not talking about like the fifth Prime Minister in the last six months or whatever it is that they’re doing over there.
They got a right, they’ve got their own political turmoil in France. No, I’m talking about this, this heist at the Louvre, the Louv ra, however you wanna say it. I know the French have a very particular way of saying that word. The Louvre, the Lou. You know, like the Lare. The Louvre. I can’t do it. I’m just gonna say the Louv this whole time, the lure, the Louvre, it is spelt like Louvre, but Louv I think is the right way to say it.
As an American. That’s how I know it. [00:16:00] Yeah. This heist that happened, if you have not heard, I’m gonna detail it, but I’m just gonna preface it. You kinda already said it, Micah, at the beginning of this podcast. It, it feels like something straight out of a Hollywood script. I mean, these guys came, grabbed and went and they did it fast.
So yeah. What happened and what was stolen? Essentially these four dudes, maybe a, there might be a female involved as well, but they’re calling four masked thieves. They arrived at the south side of the Louvre on Sunday morning at 9:30 AM which is already kind of interesting. ’cause normally you would think of a heist happening in the middle of the night, or at least when the museum is closed.
No, this, this museum had been open for 30 minutes already. They showed up, they pulled up a truck with a ladder on the back that kind of one of those motorized ladders, almost like a, in America, it’d be like a cherry picker. But these are small trucks they have over there in Europe that do work on older buildings.
They show up in this truck, they, two of them go up the ladder and they bring out a disc cutter and they cut through a window, smash that window through. They get [00:17:00] into the second floor exhibit where all these jewels are stashed, not stashed, but they’re on display. There are literally people. Patrons looking at things because the museum is open.
They are out there. Doing a normal, open for business plain as day. It is absolutely same. Just the last
Micah Tomasella : thing you’d expect.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Quite literally. Yeah. Can you imagine just you, you’re in like the most famous art museum in the world, one of the most secure in the world, and you just look over in, these dudes are smashing a window and then they’re smashing the glass to grab these jewels and go.
By the way, they were wearing like construction outfits, so they kind of blended in down on the street. When they, they had these like neon vests on, they looked like they were just workers. They pull up in this work truck. That’s, I think that’s why, part of why they got away with this, anyways, they got in, they stole the jewels that they wanted and they, they made out and they got out in eight minutes, 9:30 AM to 9:38 AM They were in and out with these.
Priceless jewels. Wow. I say priceless. That’s what a lot of people have been saying. A prosecutor in Paris did come out today and say [00:18:00] that they believe the value will be around 88 million Euros, a k, a $100 million worth in jewels based off of how they could sell this. We’ll just see what happens with that.
Anyways. What they stole was a Royal Sapphire necklace, a Royal Emerald necklace that contained 1,138 diamonds and was gifted by Napoleon to his second wife, Marie Louise, of Austria, and a diadem worn by Empress Yuin Yi, I think is how you say it. Who was the wife of Napoleon ii? Too far as they were running out, they did drop a gold crown who, that was also worn by Hanni.
And yeah, man, they, they got out with a taking
Micah Tomasella : from Empress Hanni. That’s too far. That’s just that’s just, that’s crossing a line.
Conner Jones: I you’re, you’re making a joke and I agree with you, but the French people actually do, they’re, they’re the ones who are like, that is too far, you know, I know they’re not happy about it.
Yeah. But they, they did [00:19:00] drop this crown on the way out, so they, they left a little bit behind. They also tried to set the truck on fire. They failed to do and that was known because the police arrived and they found that crown on the ground. They found the fuel that they were planning to douse the truck in with but they got away on motorbikes.
They, so the four of them came, got and went on these little motorbikes and nobody knows who they are. They were masked and they got totally away with it. Obviously this is outraged French leaders some have called it a national humiliation, a national embarrassment, a tragedy. Yeah, man, it, it’s hard, you know, the French people, they really like their art and culture and prize possessions of the past, and that’s just part of their culture.
Yeah. So something like this hits them hard and yeah, they’re not happy about it. They, they see it as national embarrassment.
Micah Tomasella : Yeah. Man, I just don’t think the French can catch a break, you know? They tend to be the butt of every joke when you’re talking about any kind of world war or anything like that.
They’re very passionate, romantic people who love the arts. Love, love this history, [00:20:00] and I think that that’s great. I, I just, everything I’ve seen on this story is like every heist movie I’ve ever seen. I mean, from dressing up in costume to cutting the glass, seemingly with some precision to getting away on motorbikes.
I mean, it just, every part of this is just, it. It’s, it’s like they watched. One of the famous heist movies and said, let’s give it a shot.
Conner Jones: And it seemed like something tells me they watched, they probably watched quite a few of those heist movies and they probably scoped out this floor so many times. Yeah.
Game planning, everything. They knew the alarms were gonna go off and the alarms did go off. That did alert the police. Obviously the police just by the time they got there, they were already gone. And then all the guards within the museum, their actual first job I was reading about this. Is to evacuate the patrons.
So their first job is not to run, to find whatever’s being stolen. They’re supposed to protect the safety of everyone in the building. That makes sense. But what that does is it opens up the opportunity, and that’s what these [00:21:00] guys knew. They probably gameplan every second down to how much time it was gonna take to get into the building, grabbed the things, get back outta the building, and onto those bikes and gone down the street.
Yeah, that it’s straight out of a heist movie. And if you watch a heist movie, which you know, there’s plenty of them out there. They game plan every single second and, and you, you know, you have to be so ahead of whatever could be in your way. You have to
Micah Tomasella : practice too. I mean, they probably were practicing somewhere, you know, like exactly how they were gonna do this.
It’s just crazy.
Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s exactly where I was reading this Art Recovery expert. He, he works in the British government and it focuses literally on art crimes. His name’s Arthur Brand. First off, he called this whole thing a national disaster for France, which I just, just pile keep piling on. But anyways, he talked about all the, the implications of what this means, how they could have pulled this off.
But really, he talked about why they would go for jewels instead of art. ’cause when you think of the Louvre. You probably think mostly of paintings and sculptures. Obviously we think of the Mona Lisa, right? That’s the big one there. Yeah, I do. But [00:22:00] like you wouldn’t think that they’d go for the more the, the heavy hitters in the, in the art pieces.
But really what he was saying, what so many of these other experts have been saying is jewels are easier to one to grab. They’re smaller, so you can just grab and go and then two man, you can dismantle the diamonds and then you can melt down the metals, the gold and the silver that they’re all set in.
And basically you’ve got a gold bar and a silver bar, and then these diamonds you can go sell in multiple places and it can’t be traced back to this one Juul, essentially. So that’s, that’s likely what is going to happen with these JUULs. Unless they can be found asap, they’re gonna be, yeah. I
Micah Tomasella : was wondering how they were gonna sell these, you know, with this being such a big story, if they were just gonna sell them as is, like that’s probably how they would get caught.
But then you just said that they could melt ’em down. That’s why you would do this. Makes sense? Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. If you steal
Conner Jones: a piece of art, you either have to have a black market buyer. Like you gotta, you gotta know somebody who’s willing to buy this totally off market that won’t turn you in and all of that.
Or you steal JUULs and you break ’em down and melt them down, and then you can sell [00:23:00] ’em to many different people and you may never be traced back, especially if you go somewhere else in the world and sell them. And now if you’re in France, I, I, I don’t suggest they go to a jeweler in France, you know, who’s this kind of looks like the same color as the one.
That was stolen from the loop. But anyways, right now officials are just trying to figure out who this was. They kind of are pinpointing specific gangs that they think could be behind this, that they, they know have stolen jewels in the past and resell them. They’re also zeroing in on the museum’s alarm system and just.
All the safety stuff. Vernon Rapley, he’s a museum security consultant. He noted that the thieves simply just outsmarted the museum’s safeguards, including by carrying out this operation in the daylight, right? He said that criminals have tended to attack at night believing that that’s when security is at its weakest.
Instead, these Sunday robbers escaped into morning traffic, and in the daylight you can disappear a lot easier than if you do it at 4:30 AM. You just look like someone else in the street, especially when you’re dressed as construction workers. So that was just a smart move on their part. Not trying to give them [00:24:00] too much credence.
I don’t want to celebrate anything like that, but it just, they’re, they were, they were thinking ahead, right? Yeah. Anyways, Michael, we’ve talked about movies a little bit. I, I thought this was just interesting, the New York Times. I went over there today to see what their latest on this whole thing was, and the first article on their homepage was Six Heist movies you Should Watch Yeah.
This week. And I was like, wow. They’re gonna capitalize on this. I think a lot of people are, a lot of people are thinking about heist movies through this as we already have. I mean, do you have a favorite heist movie?
Micah Tomasella : Probably just one of the oceans movies. I mean, you know, those are just, those are classics.
Oceans Eight, maybe. Those are, those are fantastic movies. You know, I think the flyover. Is a news publication that we’ve mentioned before. They say, let’s, let’s cruise the news and land the facts. They just give you the news straight up. I really enjoy reading that every morning, but they always have a poll question to their readers and, you know, that was like their biggest story that they covered.
And the poll question was, you know, what’s your favorite heist movie? I mean, this is just eliciting the same response from mm-hmm. Anybody who’s kind of looking at this. I mean, you know, even the [00:25:00] concept of disappearing into the crowd after you’re being chased, it’s a movie.
Conner Jones: Yeah, every, everyone’s this is straight out of a script.
Yeah, no, I agree. And yeah, I don’t like Oceans Eight. That was the one that was like, came out, I don’t know, less than 10 years ago. They kind of just spin off. I love Oceans 11 though. Yeah, the, where they take over the, oh, that’s a great, or he, the casino, my favorite heist movie, which probably National Treasure.
Oh. It’s also a treasure movie. But you dude, you know, when Nick was, cage looks over and he’s we’re gonna steal the Declaration of Independence.
Micah Tomasella : Amen.
Conner Jones: I get goosebumps. I’m not gonna lie. Have since I was a kid. Anyways, you get goosebumps
Micah Tomasella : when he says that. When Nick Cage says that
Conner Jones: you get goosebumps.
Yeah, dude. When he’s we’re gonna steal the Declaration of Independence. I’m like, let’s go. Let’s get it. Let’s take it. You know,
Micah Tomasella : Let’s see how this works out. Go knit. I,
Conner Jones: you know. All that to say, this is obviously, you know, it’s an unfortunate event. I do hope the jewels are returned and that justice is brought up, you know about upon these thieves.
But you know, Mike, this whole thing had me kind of thinking, ’cause we’re sitting here joking about it a little bit, laughing [00:26:00] about it. I think a lot of people are, they’re kinda like, wow, this is just crazy. This never happens type of thing. At the end of the day, these stories, these kinds of stories, they’re just interesting to me because a lot of us do make jokes or crack jokes online, make memes outta the whole thing.
Related to Hollywood productions, all of that. I think when I think about what separates a story that can do that and what doesn’t, it’s obviously just comes down to no human was harmed here. There was no true it’s victimless
Micah Tomasella : crime in that way. Kind of a victimless crime.
Conner Jones: Yeah. It, it’s a, the victim’s an institution maybe in national Pride.
And obviously there’s a financial implication to it. The Louvre, this stinks for them. Stinks for their whole staff and everybody involved and all that. The whole thing’s not fun. But yeah, there’s no real victim. Not even, even the, the jewels belong to people who lived hundreds of years ago, right?
So this is not something that deeply impacts a human today. I know there are people who have headaches and there are heartaches over this in a way, but it’s just different. And so when something like this happens, it’s always just a more relaxed [00:27:00] response from the world. And I, I honestly, I believe it’s because people inherently recognize.
Maybe they don’t think about it a ton, but there’s just an inherent recognition within each of us that there’s a true value of humanity in life. And that, I mean, God tells us we are all made in his image’s. Good point. In Genesis 1 27, king David, we’ve all heard this verse a lot, especially if you are kind of in the pro-life crowd.
In Psalm 1 39, he said, for you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Amen. And I just honestly, man, I just believe that as much as the world tries to sell that deception, that humans are an accident or that we don’t have that much purpose outside of like our monetary value or status or whatnot.
Man. I just don’t think that’s the case. I, I think people recognize there is so much value to human life. I wish they would recognize it more and that we would not see so much evil and death and destruction and that there would be no [00:28:00] abortion, but that there would be no murder, all of that. But if there were human victims in this story, everyone would treat it totally different and with far more weight.
But because there wasn’t, it lands totally different. I’m just saying sometimes the news and the public’s reaction to headlines. Actually kind of gives a little nod to the reality that we have a loving God who cares far more about his children than priceless jewels or crowns and that have no eternal value.
Those, those jewels and crowns don’t have eternal value. He cares. God does about a different crown. Right? James one 12 lays it out for us. Blesses the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test. He will receive the crown. Of life, which God has promised to those who love him. We know there’s crown jewels and eternal life and all of that.
And we talk about that a lot. And you know, when, when a Christian does pass away, you, you read, go wear your crown of jewels. Now you’ve done your, you’ve done your job good and faithful servant, right? So yeah, just a lot there. All that to say, this is an interesting [00:29:00] story. We kind of have fun with it, but I think there’s a reason we have fun with it.
I, I would just say as you read headlines, think about that, that there’s ways we see even in the news. People inherently recognize there’s value to human life.
Micah Tomasella : Amen. Yeah, that’s a good point, Conner.
Conner Jones: Appreciate that. All of that is just a wrap up of some of the bigger headlines this week, but let’s jump into a few other things here.
We’re we’ll hit on checking and tone. Tune in in a second, in a second, but I want to jump into the mailbag real fast because we got some responses to the hot take that Alex gave last week, which by the way, thank you to Alex for jumping on last week with me. Yeah,
Micah Tomasella : she, she did a great job, Alex. Thank you.
Conner Jones: That was a, that was a fun episode. If you have not listened, I would suggest gonna listen to that. But Alex did bring a hot take. We like it when we have co-hosts come on. We asked them to bring a hot take for us. She brought the hot take. That audio books should count as reading. You know, if you’re, if you’ve read, if you’ve listened to a book through your headphones or whatnot, did you actually read the book?
She says yes. And we got some responses to that. I also posted a [00:30:00] poll on our Instagram page. What did you, I will give you the results. I kind of lean towards No. And I, I, I leaned to the, you know, I listen to podcasts. That doesn’t mean I read a podcast type of vibe. I get that. It’s different though.
There are no
Micah Tomasella : written podcasts.
Conner Jones: That’s correct. You know, so a
Micah Tomasella : Alex is a hundred percent in the right. Okay. If, if listening to audio books is not reading a book, I rarely read books. I consume a lot of my books through audio. ‘Cause I’m an auditory learner and so I, it hasn’t even dawned on me that this is a debate of, of course it’s reading a book in my opinion.
Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s definitely your opinion. I don’t think I fully agree, but then again, I’ve, I’ve just never engaged in an audio book. Here’s what the people said. Thank you to everybody who, who reached back out on Instagram on the poll. 56% of people agree with you, Micah, and agree with Alex, that it does count as reading.
44% said no, it’s not reading a book. So it’s almost even there. [00:31:00] I mean, that’s, you know, we’re close to 50 50 tie, but technically your side is winning that. We got a comment on Spotify that said, I’m leaning towards audio books not being a book that you’ve read. Usually I’m multitasking when listening. I’m not able to make highlights or be able to be as fully engaged.
It is still a great avenue for personal learning and growth. I just think it’s a different activity from quiet, fully engaged reading. I, you know, I get that. And then Annette, she emailed in and said, nothing like having a book in your hand to read. However, I have to agree with Alex, especially since the eyes get very tired as we age.
I do believe that we all learn somewhat differently and I would consider an audio book a read. Helps when our time is scarce due to just life itself. Wow. That’s true.
Micah Tomasella : Wow, Annette, that’s a very grounded answer, Annette. Thank you.
Conner Jones: Yeah, that, that was all, all great responses. Thank you to everybody. If you have thoughts on this, let us know if you have a hot take we should discuss on the podcast.
We’ll take your hot take and we’ll talk about it here and put it out to the audience. Let’s not send us your hot take. Send it to culture [00:32:00] [email protected] or shoot us a message on Instagram. You can follow us or DM us at Culture Brief Podcast on Instagram, drop us comment, and Spotify, if that’s where you listen.
All of that to say Hot takes are fun and reach out to us. Let’s jump into Checkin real fast.
Micah Tomasella : Yep.
Conner Jones: Micah, I don’t know if you saw last week, we kind of, Alex and I touched on it briefly, Zelensky president of Ukraine was coming to the White House to meet with Trump. About potentially getting tomahawk missiles from the us.
Yeah. Tomahawk missiles would allow basically Ukraine to do further strikes into Russian territory. They want to aim at more energy sectors, oil plants, weapons, manufacturing facilities, all of that. And Zelensky ISS coming to the White House to basically pitch this cause and say, we really need this. This will allow us to gain more ground back in Ukraine.
All of that. And it apparently became a pretty tense meeting and Trump kind of really shut it down. And said, no, you need to just end the war. It’s a little bit of change of tune from last month when he was kinda like, I think Ukraine might have a chance at getting their land back. Now Trump doesn’t seem to think [00:33:00] that.
And then he said he was gonna meet with Putin this upcoming week in Hungary. That meeting as of today, as we’re recording, that meeting got canceled. So that’s apparently not happening anymore. I don’t know. It feels like it’s all a stalemate. And Trump was basically like to, to Zelensky. You need to just cut it off in the war.
Give Putin and Russia the land that you’ve lost. Keep what you have in the same Yeah, specifically
Micah Tomasella : the region of donuts, I believe is what it’s called. It’s like the, it’s like a major shipping port. So Russia’s taken that over and that’s like a big, that’s kind of a big talking point of if Ukraine is willing to seed, that is Russia, is Putin gonna be willing to end the war?
However, what I would say is, is the meeting kind of being canceled outta the blue after there being some optimism? Trump didn’t give the tomahawks because he thought he was going to be meeting with Putin to potentially put some sort of agreement down. So I do wonder over this next week if that meeting was truly canceled.
I think we’ll find out more information on it, and then I’m thinking maybe that does [00:34:00] change Trump’s tune and then we do end up giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, but. I don’t even, I don’t know that, get into how I feel about all that. So all
Conner Jones: I’m saying is apparently this meeting kind of went similar to that Oval Office meeting in I think it was February when Trump and Zelensky kind of went at it.
Yeah. It just wasn’t, wasn’t
Micah Tomasella : public. Yeah,
Conner Jones: This wasn’t on camera, which is probably a good thing. Sometimes those meetings should be off camera, so Yes, agreed. Yeah. Who knows where this is headed. We continue to pray for peace there. Also, this past weekend, everybody probably saw the images coming out of just different cities across the country of the No Kings protest.
Yeah. They’re saying five to 7 million people showed up around the country to these protests. I don’t know the, I mean, we don’t know the official number. Some cities, I think Chicago had 250,000 people at theirs, Boston. Detroit, New York, la, all those definitely I would say Blue Cities had big, big turnouts.
This was not as big of a thing in the south, although there were definitely demonstrations even here in our hometown of Dallas, some of the suburbs, they had their own little protests. When I was in, I was in Maine two weeks ago. This is not even the official week. I was in the [00:35:00] town of Bath, Maine, which is a tiny little town.
I’m driving on the main road and there was a group, the main road
Micah Tomasella : in Maine.
Conner Jones: The main road in Maine. Yeah. There was a in, in Bath, Maine specifically. Just a lot of weird words here. Yeah. There was a small group that was doing a No Kings protest. They had all their no king sign. I was like, whoa, this, that’s just weird.
It’s just so random. So it’s, it is definitely a movement. And basically they’re protesting, I guess, just Trump and they’re saying he has too much power and he’s becoming king. Like I, I don’t fully know everything behind that, but just, you know, something to keep an eye on because I think they plan to keep on doing this and hope it continues to grow and strength well,
Micah Tomasella : I mean, you know, I’m glad it was peaceful.
It was
Conner Jones: peaceful. Yeah. There were, there were only 15 people across the country that were detained. I don’t even know if there were any actual arrests. There was no violence that, yeah,
Micah Tomasella : we’re well within our, we’re well within our constitutional rights as a people to do something like that. So I’m glad that we live in a country where that can take place and people can express themselves in that way.
We just can’t be crossing the line with all the rioting and looting and, and violence. So I’m glad that that’s not really what took place overall.
Conner Jones: This is [00:36:00] the way to do it. And something else to just keep an eye on is Venezuela. Apparently the US is just putting even more pressure and they’ve alerted certain allies to the fact that they may start performing military action in the Caribbean and Venezuelan territory.
So keep an eye on that. As you know, there’s just this war on narco terrorists as the Department of Defense. AKA Department of War puts it.
Micah Tomasella : This is a legit war on drugs. You know how, there was like a war on drugs like in the eighties and stuff, and in the nineties, this is a legit war on drugs, actually, like full scale military, like full on like
Conner Jones: our Navy and Uhhuh Air Force is down there.
Marines are like prepping to like land. It’s just insane
Micah Tomasella : blowing up drug boats. I mean literally crazy. Alright, so the government is still shut down people and we’re entering our fourth week now. So according to the Treasury Department, the economic cost could reach. Up to 15 billion per week in lost output if we don’t open this.[00:37:00]
Government back up. I talk about prediction markets because I think a prediction market like poly market and its peers is really interesting. In times like this, it gives us a good idea of really what people are saying out there, people who are connected, who get inside tips of how long this is gonna last.
So there was recently kind of a shift in some of the betting odds on poly market, but specifically right now poly market is predicting a mid-November end date to this shutdown. Oh man. With around 44% of traders expect the shut down to last beyond November 16th. So meanwhile, the political stalemate continues, right?
With Republicans considering a longer stop gap resolution, and Democrats are insisting on guarantees for health insurance subsidies before even reopening the government. Can we just, can we just open the government back up please? Yeah.
Conner Jones: No kidding. What is it? Blockbuster
Micah Tomasella : work for the government who are furloughed.
You know, people are worried about if they’re going to get back pay. If this goes on, it’s [00:38:00] gonna, it’s gonna affect air travel. It’s gonna become really inconvenient for people. Can we just open the government back up? I really, I really have a hard time squaring this when I’m looking at Democrats and Republicans.
It’s, it is just political theater. And it is costing the everyday American, not all of us like we’re not all directly affected in that way, but 15 billion in lost output per week as a country. That should be motivating too.
Conner Jones: This is if you’re a business leader and your business is closed because you can’t come to a deal, you would never let that happen, right?
It’s, this is your one business, your one business with the government. It’s frustrating. Is to be open and do your services and they need to get it done. I, I don’t know what needs to happen. I don’t know who needs to sit down in a room. I don’t know if Trump needs to get involved, but somebody needs to do something because this is, he does, he does need to
Micah Tomasella : get involved.
He does need to get involved. And something’s gotta change because more Democrats need to vote to open up the government. And so something’s gotta give.
Conner Jones: This is correct.
Micah Tomasella : Alright. Another update. [00:39:00] Ceasefire in the Middle East is. I would call it coming under fire. Okay. It’s fragile. Yeah. JD Vance, our vice president, arrived in Israel this week this week.
A boy, a board, air Force two, if you didn’t know, there’s an Air Force one for the president, and there’s an Air Force two for the vice president. I’m sure most of you, most of our loyal culture, brief audience knew that, but I think that’s interesting. So he arrived on Air Force Two to bolster the very fragile ceasefire between Hamas.
And Israel and everything that’s going on in the Gaza Strip to advance the next phase of the negotiations under the US brokered plan, which we have detailed at length already. His agenda Vance while he is there, includes meeting with BB Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, meeting with hostage families and US Envoys such as Steve Woff and Jared Kushner, who really get to kind of.
Take a lot of credit for this happening in the first place. Meanwhile, the ceasefire has already been tested. So here’s just a few things that have happened. After an explosion that killed two Israeli [00:40:00] soldiers near Rafa Israel responded with widespread airstrikes in Gaza, which Palestinians say, killed about 40 people and injured even more than that.
We are praying fervently for this peace to somehow, some way be sustained the hand of God, an act of God, God doing only what he can do. This is kinda what we talked about before, right? You can put a ceasefire in place, you can put, you can put together this, this 20 point plan. I remember a couple weeks ago I went over all the points of the 20 point plan, the pros and cons.
But then what you and I talked about Conner, was you are talking about getting people who have never gotten along for thousands of years of built up hatred to get along. It’s and that’s just coming off these last two years of, of all out war. So it’s going to take an act of God and that’s, that’s what we’re praying for an act of God that would bring peace and lasting peace to that region so that innocent people can stop dying.
I think that we can all agree that we
Conner Jones: want that to
Micah Tomasella : stop. That’s
Conner Jones: absolutely the prayer, so join us in praying for that. I, I, yeah. I [00:41:00] just really hope this holds and that the violence would just end and that there’s more. Yep. Peace. Okay. A couple things to tune into. First and foremost, the World Series. It’s here.
We now know who’s playing in it. It will be the Toronto Blue Jays versus the Los Angeles Dodgers. Game. One of the whole World Series is Friday night, 8:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Central. This is gonna be the first time in the World Series for the Blue Jay since 1993, which they won. Yep. They also won in 1992.
It’s also 1993 is also the last time a Canadian team actually won the Stanley Cup in hockey. So the Blue Jays have already done it and gone back before a hockey team from Canada made it to the Stanley or won a Stanley Cup. Just kind of sad. Come on, Canada, get your stuff together. Canada.
Micah Tomasella : Hey, I think Canada needs this World Series, man.
Conner Jones: Yeah, they probably do. I don’t think they, okay, here we go. What’s, what’s your prediction? Because right now I’m thinking the Dodgers win this, right? I mean, they got this billion dollar roster.
Micah Tomasella : Yeah, I think, I think, I think Dodgers and six, I don’t want the Dodgers to win. [00:42:00] I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily root for the Blue Jays unless absolutely had to, but the, but the Dodgers are like turning into the Yankees.
They’re kinda like the death star, the Darth Vader. The, you know, they’re, they’re just kind of turning into like the evil empire with how they just have unlimited money and spend it seemingly frivolously to build super teams. And, and the, so I’m definitely, I’m, I’m definitely rooting for the Blue Jays, but I think the Dodgers are gonna win.
Conner Jones: They’ve got their like Darth Vader, right? They’ve shhe Tani probably this past weekend. I’m sure you watched the game, had the best baseball game in history. He pitched how many innings, like six innings. Pitched great and had three home runs. Just unreal. I mean, he dude’s a specimen like he made in a lab.
Just unreal. The new star of baseball. I mean, he’s been around for a few years, but like he is the star and face of the sport. Yeah. And will be of the World Series.
Micah Tomasella : Yeah. He’s unbelievable. Also, the NBA is back, back in full swing. So your favorite NBA team. We’ll probably already have tipped off for their first game before this [00:43:00] episode even releases.
And so if you’re into some na, national Basketball Association and you like to watch basketball, I do. Conner does not.
Conner Jones: I, I like it. I just, I don’t think the NBA’s the same. Yeah. I don’t watch that as much.
Micah Tomasella : Yeah. I’m, I like the NBA. So NBA’s back tune in.
Conner Jones: Let’s go. Okay. Something else. Last week, Mike and I got to join the Faith and Clarity podcast. We talked to Dr. Ryan Denison and Dr. Mark Turman about several different things, including the AI, Bible that whole Instagram and YouTube channel. Yeah. Euthanasia. Congressional term limits something Micah is very passionate about.
Man, he dropped his, yeah, listen, his takes on congressional term limits and then also freedom of speech. Just an all around man lot to talk about on that episode. That was a good one. Good episode. It was fun was that was fun to talk with them about that stuff. So go listen to that. We’ll link in the show notes, but also you can go find the Faith and Clarity podcast.
And that was gonna be last week’s episode. And then guys, big news for, for culture brief here. If all goes according to plan next week we will be launching on YouTube, our video [00:44:00] podcast, so you will actually be able to watch this podcast. You will see Micah and I and for I guess just a few if you really wanna do that, you definitely can.
We will be there. Yeah. On YouTube posting this as a full video. You, you can of course still listen, just the audio version on Spotify and Apple. Actually the video will be on Spotify too, so you can watch it there or on YouTube. Yeah, there’s a whole lot of podcasts doing this. This is the new thing. You can go, just sit and watch your favorite podcast.
It’s not just a listening device anymore. So we are making that move. Hoping to launch next week. We’ll give you more details as we get closer to that and fantastic on next week’s episode. But that’s fantastic. That’s gonna be fun, Micah.
Micah Tomasella : I am very much looking forward to it. It’s gonna be fun to kind of invite you guys into our process of all, I mean, there is so much attention to detail and there’s a lot of preparation, but at the same time, hopefully it just lets you guys see even a little bit more in depth about how.
We interact, our facial reactions, you know, all those things. So hopefully that’s fun for, for everybody. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. [00:45:00] Check the show notes for all referenced articles, the mailbag, email address, and our Instagram page. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please please subscribe and rate and review the show and please share it with a friend, and we’ll see you next Thursday.
See you next Thursday.
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