World Cup reflections, Trump’s election speech, Middle East update & ‘The Odyssey’ | Ep. 78

Conner Jones: [00:00:02] Hi, I'm Conner Jones.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:03] I'm Micah Tomasella.

Conner Jones: [00:00:04] And this is Culture Brief, a Dinnison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories in news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, and so much more. And Micah, as always, we do it from a Christian perspective. Micah, welcome back to the studio.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:17] Good to be back. Love you all. Love you, Connor.

Conner Jones: [00:00:20] Should I say it back? I don't know. You can say, you can say it later.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:24] We got a loaded show today. Yeah. There's still tons going on in culture, as always. So what can you just give us like a little recap of what we're running through?

Conner Jones: [00:00:31] Yeah, so we're just going to give our World Cup reflections. I mean, the World Cup took over everything here in the US for about six weeks. And we saw a lot of positives come from it. A lot of things that we were told would go wrong, actually went right. And so it really seems like a lot of really great things came out of it. So we're just going to give our overall recap and thoughts on the situation. I think Connor has a hot take for us today. We're also going to talk about Trump's address to the nation last week about voting and fraud and stuff like that. And also talk about things like the Tate brothers getting arrested, the Open Championship this past weekend, the Odyssey came out and so much more. So let's jump into the brief.

Micah Tomasella: [00:01:12] The brief.

Conner Jones: [00:01:17] All right, to start off with the World Cup, we need to just congratulate Spain. They did it. They won the whole thing. Good job, Spain. Yeah. Defeated Argentina in a game that was odd. You know, Spain dominated the entire time. They had possession 65% of the time of the ball. They had 20 shots on goal to Argentina's two shots on goal.

Micah Tomasella: [00:01:36] Which came like in extra time. Right? Like Argentina during the full 90 minutes of the match didn't get one single shot on goal. It was unbelievable to watch.

Conner Jones: [00:01:45] It was like watching a football game where where one team scored or like got down to the end zone every time and then the other team could only get up to third down and had to come off the field. Like they just could never move on to the next phase of the field. So it was an odd game, but it was fun. It was great. It was great to see the celebrations afterwards. Congratulations to Spain. And honestly, this was probably always Spain's to lose. They outscored all of their opponents through the entire World Cup 14 to one. They allowed one goal over eight games. That is crazy.

Micah Tomasella: [00:02:16] Unbelievable.

Conner Jones: [00:02:18] Yeah, their goalie got the uh, I think they call it the Golden glove or something like award for being the best goalie of the tournament. It's like, yeah, I would say so. eight games.

Micah Tomasella: [00:02:25] Golden mitt, maybe.

Conner Jones: [00:02:26] That sounds baseballish. So I don't think so.

Micah Tomasella: [00:02:28] I feel like Golden glove is literally baseball. Like Golden glove. That's literally baseball.

Conner Jones: [00:02:33] I don't know what to tell you. I think it's called the Golden glove award.

Micah Tomasella: [00:02:36] I think it's called the Golden mitt. You guys let us know. Or we can just Google it.

Conner Jones: [00:02:38] We could probably Google it. Yeah, okay. The only blots on Spain's resume getting up to the championship and winning this whole thing was the zero to zero draw against Cape Verde, the island nation that was like the Cinderella team of the tournament who somehow made it to the next round even though tiny little population, just one of those teams that the world got behind. And they literally held the World Cup champions to a zero to zero score, which is just impressive.

Micah Tomasella: [00:03:03] Very.

Conner Jones: [00:03:04] This was also the first World Cup final with a halftime show. It felt very Super Bowlish. Micah, I was curious your thoughts on what we saw at halftime.

Micah Tomasella: [00:03:12] I liked Justin Bieber. He kind of brought the vibe. Like it was kind of weird. It was like upbeat music because wasn't it like Post Malone or did Post Malone do the pregame? I think Post Malone did the pregame. Okay. Right. So it was like Madonna and then Bieber does like an acoustic set. Everything Hallelujah, right? And then I think right after Shakira. So it did kind of feel like we were riding this roller coaster and wave of emotion, but I'm a believer, man. So I mean, I I really do like Justin Bieber's music for the most part. So, I mean, I enjoyed that part. What about you?

Conner Jones: [00:03:42] I thought it was a good show. I mean, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even realize there was going to be a halftime show.

Micah Tomasella: [00:03:46] It's America. You know what I mean? I didn't either and I was like, of course. Yeah, of course, of course we are.

Conner Jones: [00:03:50] Now, Justin Bieber's Canadian, so maybe that was their little contribution there. So, and Coldplay was there. There's the UK popping in. They ended the show. Did you notice that?

Micah Tomasella: [00:03:58] No, I didn't finish the halftime show. Oh, well, that's too bad. It didn't keep my attention the whole time, I guess.

Conner Jones: [00:04:03] Well, the weirdest part for me, I I guess I get it was Ted Lasso showing up. He introduced Justin Bieber, right?

Micah Tomasella: [00:04:08] Yeah, Ted Lasso and Coach Beard from obviously the show.

Conner Jones: [00:04:10] I think that kind of makes sense, right? I mean, they were kind of the representation of soccer in America there for a little bit for a couple years with Ted Lasso, those Americans going over to England to help run a team, something like that.

Micah Tomasella: [00:04:21] Well, the new season comes out in like two weeks, so I'm like,

Conner Jones: [00:04:23] Well, there you go. How much did Apple pay for for Ted Lasso to be in this halftime show?

Micah Tomasella: [00:04:26] A lot. A lot. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [00:04:27] I wanted to give some stats here. So we had 48 teams, 104 games across the US, Mexico and Canada. We've talked about that before. Dude, the financial impact of this World Cup was insane. And we don't know the full numbers. We'll never probably know the exact full numbers. But I wanted to give some numbers here of what this did for America. First off, that record, that final match had a record medium price of $10,835 to get in the door. Tickets were that expensive and it was a sold out stadium.

Micah Tomasella: [00:04:51] Unbelievable.

Conner Jones: [00:04:52] Unbelievable. Argentina and Spain filled the stadium, so good for them. Record revenues across the board. For FIFA, one, they hauled in $15 billion across this whole thing in one and a half months. They pulled in $15 billion. They had projected 11 billion. So 4 billion more. So that tells you people were really into this World Cup. Yeah. In the United States, the Bank of America CEO estimated that the World Cup generated $20 billion in economic activity in the United States, primarily with like restaurants and bars, hotels. Those are kind of the biggest winners, but you can imagine any shops, car ride services.

Micah Tomasella: [00:05:23] Small businesses, you know, people just trying to make it. It's great.

Conner Jones: [00:05:27] Yeah, I mean, this is huge for so many people. Yeah, which is great. You know, even airlines, they they brought in tons of money from people coming around the world and all the car rental companies, all of that. So lots of winners here. Losing stat here, I would say is the prediction markets, Calci and Polymarket. We've talked about them. We don't like them. They are not good for a lot of reasons. And you know, essentially sports betting over there, brought in over $5 billion between the two of them in World Cup trades. So a lot of money put in on that. Somewhere it's estimated around 50 to 60 billion dollars was wagered as a whole on the World Cup worldwide on sports books or or at casinos or wherever. Yeah, man. So sports betting is still huge, especially with the World Cup.

Micah Tomasella: [00:06:09] All right, Micah, we you you mentioned it earlier, just what this cultural moment was for the United States. I I want to just hit on that because it was really cool to see America come together. You know, we were able to get behind our own team for a few weeks there. That was really exciting. America tuned in. Millions upon million. I mean, record numbers of we're talking the highest broadcast levels outside of American football of people tuning in because they got just so into this World Cup. They got so into the US men's team. And so seeing that was really cool. We all got together and got to watch something as one culture and get excited about it, get patriotic about it. But even other countries too, people getting behind their teams. And so we got to see those other cultures come in, the Tartan Army from Scotland taking over Boston, their kilts and just chants and they literally

Conner Jones: [00:06:53] constant singing. Just going to baseball games at Fenway, just singing the whole time.

Micah Tomasella: [00:06:59] Marching through the street, the old colonial streets. It's just awesome. The Norwegian Viking row is one thing that I think will actually probably stick around. People will do that at football games this fall. Really cool stuff. All the chanting, all the all the singing that these people were doing in the stadiums and in the streets from around the world. It was so cool.

Conner Jones: [00:07:14] It was cool.

Micah Tomasella: [00:07:15] Really loved it. I also wanted to point out that, you know, I didn't watch the Telemundo broadcast except for one restaurant I went to where actually you and I were both there. There was a storm and the satellite went out. And so they had to switch over to Peacock where there's Telemundo. And we watched on Telemundo the US men's game against Belgium for the, you know, portion of it.

Conner Jones: [00:07:33] Yeah, but I didn't like it because, you know, Belgium was scoring a lot, right? So we kind of heard the goal, but it was for the wrong for Belgium. And so it wasn't very fun to hear.

Micah Tomasella: [00:07:41] But to your point, the goal. Yeah. I discovered what the longest goal was of the tournament. It was 52 seconds long from Andres Cantor when Curacao scored on Germany, which was a shocking goal. 52 seconds, man. That's wild.

Conner Jones: [00:07:56] That is a long time. That's that's great lung capacity.

Micah Tomasella: [00:07:58] What do you think your length on lung capacity would be to do that?

Conner Jones: [00:08:02] Oh, I mean, I think I'd probably get to 51 seconds easy. Okay. Yeah. I think I'd be right there.

Micah Tomasella: [00:08:05] Okay. Other things we learned. Many of us learned the soccer stars around the world. I know a lot of Americans didn't know them. Anybody watches Premier League over in England or not just England, anywhere in Europe, any of those leagues over there. These guys are superstars around most of the world. But for Americans, it was our introduction to people like Erling Haaland from Norway, just a funny dude. Super funny. Just a menace of a player, but then off the field, like he's just a funny guy posting on social media, very happy guy. Bozinha, the the goalie from Cape Verde who held Spain to zero to zero. Yeah. Went from less than 1 million followers three weeks ago, four weeks ago to over 28 million today. So life-changing for him. Unbelievable. You know, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane over there on England. Kylian Mbappe. That's the name I knew. I think a lot of people knew him. He's known as kind of like the best player in the world now aside from Messi. But to see him just the superstar that he is was really cool. A lot of us got to know who Florian Baligan is. Our own guy after the whole red card scandal with Trump stepping in and getting him reinstated for a game where he didn't even end up making that big of an impact, but he handled that whole situation very gracefully. And so it was really cool to see him do that and America kind of rallied behind Baligan. He's now a star household name in this nation. Yep, yep. He's a great striker. How about Zlatan Ibrahimovic?

Conner Jones: [00:09:19] Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Micah Tomasella: [00:09:21] Yeah, I mean, just a now a media superstar. I mean, that dude.

Conner Jones: [00:09:24] We all know who Zlatan was, though. He's he's an icon even before this.

Micah Tomasella: [00:09:28] I think a lot of people do. I would imagine many Americans don't. But if you've watched Ted Lasso, there's a parody of him, a character in there that's supposed to be kind of a parody of him. He talks in third person. He's got zingers. He's very very kind of brutal in his analysis.

Conner Jones: [00:09:41] He's awesome. Did you see him sign off and he was like, this is my first time and last time on the desk. See you all. Like he literally quit just at the end. He was like, I'm never doing this again. I hope you enjoyed it.

Micah Tomasella: [00:09:52] Yeah, which, you know, you could say that's just him putting leverage out there for the next World Cup saying, I'll do it again, but you got to pay me some more. Right. But I mean, he's a smart guy, so who knows.

Conner Jones: [01:00:00] Who knows.

Micah Tomasella: [01:00:01] And then, of course, you got to give respects to Lionel Messi. Messi. The goat. You know, the the absolute goat. This was most likely his last World Cup. I mean,

Conner Jones: [01:00:09] He's 39.

Micah Tomasella: [01:00:10] You never know. He could pull a Tom Brady here and come back with a late return. But

Conner Jones: [01:00:14] He could play. I mean, they're not going to tell him no. He could play again.

Micah Tomasella: [01:00:17] They wouldn't tell him no. They didn't tell Ronaldo no for Portugal. That didn't really work out great. But man, just the opportunity we had to watch probably the greatest player of all time, maybe. I there's a debate there. Just dominate this World Cup. It was really cool. And just a a great time to see his abilities on full display.

Conner Jones: [01:00:34] Yep.

Micah Tomasella: [01:00:35] So, you know, as a reminder, you mentioned it, Micah, leading up to this World Cup, everybody was like, this is going to be a disaster. Tickets aren't selling, hotels are not booking. Europeans, South Americans, Asians, Africans, they're all scared to come to America because of immigration policies and they're not going to come here and they think that we are a terrible country. It was anything but that. Like literally, we that's not what happened. In reality, it turned out to be like the most massive unifying moment for our nation and for the world that we've seen in a while. I mean, the Olympics kind of do this every four years or every two years as well. But this was just different. It was on another scale.

Conner Jones: [01:01:07] I mean, hosting any of those things here really make a big difference, right? Like it's one thing to rally around your team when they're competing in the winter Olympics in Italy like this last go around, right? It's another thing to root for your team on American soil.

Micah Tomasella: [01:01:18] Which is cool because the next Olympics are in LA. So America's soil.

Conner Jones: [01:01:21] Oh, this is this is a great time to be alive.

Micah Tomasella: [01:01:23] Yeah, and I mean, you know, Americans, I think we just all realized America's just not as bad as we've been told. Wall Street Journal put it perfectly. The best advertisement for America was simply America itself. And so, you know, the world came together around the globe. We saw billions, billions, literally with a B of people watching the same games at the same time. This was like streets and public squares filling with millions upon millions of people sometimes. Mexico City, we saw in Argentina, Buenos Aires, they literally a million plus people kind of in their like time square type spots in those countries filling and crying and singing and chanting. You know, it was really cool. Ultimately, this, I would just say this World Cup was like a a massive refresher for at least from my perspective. I feel refreshed about the state of our nation, the state of our world. Like, hey, yeah, there's there's bad things going on, but ultimately, we're all more alike than you would think. Yeah, you know, like

Conner Jones: [01:02:14] Every country has their issues. Every country has injustices. You can love your country and also still fight for inequalities and things and issues that you see. You can still be patriotic and still want to fix things and change things. But like, you bring up a good point about how we have a lot more in common than than we do have differently because or that, you know, we're different from each other because again, everybody has their own issues and problems. But then you kind of put America on display and you're like, man, America's got, you know, a lot of really great, nice stadiums. It's not so hard to get around. Yeah, things are spread around a little bit more. People in America are generally nice people unless maybe, I don't know, you go to New York or something like that. You know, I I think that's the only like feedback that I got on there. Maybe people weren't super nice there, but otherwise, it's a great place.

Micah Tomasella: [01:03:00] You're just getting the full experience of New York at that point.

Conner Jones: [01:03:02] Yeah, man, you got to.

Micah Tomasella: [01:03:03] Yeah, I mean, we all have national pride. We all have a desire for community. We all love music. We all love sports. It's just really unique to see all of that come together this summer, the last month and a half and reflect on that. You know, and now I wonder if this could even turn into a soccer phenomenon beyond the World Cup here in America. I hope it does. I bet people get more behind it. They've learned the sport. We we all know what VAR is now. We all know what offsides is. We all know we don't like VAR. Yep. We've learned that refs control the entire clock on their own with extra time. We've learned the rules. I think the setup is there for like the MLS or something here in America to take the next step and grow. So we'll see. We'll see what happens and maybe in the future, the US team will actually have the best possible talent and and win this whole thing.

Conner Jones: [01:03:43] I was watching, who was it? I don't think it was like Thierry Henry or Zlatan, but it was somebody, some international soccer legend was like, when America chooses to invest in something and be good at something, they are. So the second we decide we want to beat the world in this, then we will do it. Look at what just happened when the men and women beat the entire world in hockey when it's maybe our fourth or fifth most popular sport. We decided we were going to invest in it. We were going to create a pipeline and then we won it all. We won the gold in both.

Micah Tomasella: [01:04:14] And to be clear, the women's soccer team has won the women's World Cup before. Like we have a great women's team. Our men's team has always been like a step behind them.

Conner Jones: [01:04:21] Several steps. Several steps behind them. Yes.

Micah Tomasella: [01:04:23] Yeah, for whatever reason, the the women's pipeline has always worked well for for soccer.

Conner Jones: [01:04:28] Absolutely right.

Micah Tomasella: [01:04:28] So, anyways, Micah, what else are you thinking about this whole thing?

Conner Jones: [01:04:31] Yeah, so one thing really stood out to me as I watched this tournament unfold. I kind of want to take this a different direction, Connor Jones. For months leading up to the World Cup, right? So many people predicted it was going to be a great disappointment. I know that we mentioned that for a minute there, but I really want to drill in on this. We heard concerns about logistics and security and safety and transportation and whether Americans would even show up. We were hearing, oh, none of the tickets were selling. It's too expensive. Whether soccer would actually capture the country's attention because it normally doesn't. There was a ton of skepticism to the point to where I was like, is this thing going to fall flat on its face? And then immediately, I was like, oh, no. No, it's not. Of course, it's not. It was it was a spectacle even grander in some ways than what we've experienced with the Super Bowl because you have not just two teams facing off with each other that are here in this country like you see in the Super Bowl, you see thousands and some in some cases, millions of people traveling in from one single nation to cheer their team on and their culture collides with ours, but I mean, collide would be the wrong word. It was really more like cultural appreciation, right? We were like appreciating different cultures, but even seeing how much this means, like watching that Argentina crowd as they lose to Spain and they're all just like bawling their eyes out. It reminds me of how Connor and I feel every year when the Dallas Cowboys end their season in a disappointing fashion. Like we hold that type of passion for the Dallas Cowboys that you kind of see in terms of these fans cheering for their country because soccer is their main thing. It's all they've got in that moment, right? But there was just a lot of skepticism. Then almost none of that happened. Instead, for six weeks, millions of people simply enjoyed something together, right? Families gathered around TVs, restaurants and bars were packed again. Fans from every corner of the world were celebrating side by side, getting along generally. Of course, there's outliers, but overall, it went very well. Complete strangers were hugging each other after goals. Millions of people shared genuine joy together. Just like a love of the game and just joy of the nations coming together. The people even around here in DFW that I was meeting. I was meeting people from Sweden and I was meeting people from Japan and they're just around discovering DFW, right? It was it was a really cool experience. Connor, did you meet anybody from international locations while they were?

Micah Tomasella: [01:16:49] You know, I actually didn't. Oddly enough, I was hoping to. Now, where I live is kind of in the northern suburbs of DFW, so I wasn't near the stadium.

Conner Jones: [01:16:56] Same here. I mean, I wasn't running into them walking around my neighborhood, but when I was out and about in DFW, I was running into them.

Micah Tomasella: [01:17:00] Yes, I I never did, but I I was hoping to because I think it's so cool.

Conner Jones: [01:17:02] You don't get out much, do you, Connor?

Micah Tomasella: [01:17:04] Well, I do, but again, I live not anywhere near where the central things. Just kidding. Just kidding. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [01:17:11] So, I mean, I was just really struck by how everybody got along and how there was this genuine joy everybody was experiencing together. And that really struck me the most. But for a few weeks, billions of people experienced something our culture doesn't often experience anymore, shared joy. Yep. So as I thought about this week, I kept coming back to one question. Why did this resonate so powerfully with so many people? Like this worked for everybody. This worked on everybody, right? All of a sudden, all these Americans are gigantic soccer fans, football fans. Even my wife sat down and watched some games. Now, to be honest, I think she was happy when it was over, but I lovingly reminded her, I think we're seven weeks away from college football. So we can't rest on our laurels, but I cannot wait for actual American football to start. But anyway. So, you know, I think it's because people are hungry for something good to celebrate. I think often times we rally around as people what we dislike, what we want to change, what we don't like. People rally around their dislike for America. People rally around their dislike for the political party on the other side or an issue that they're having. We're actually rallying around something good and joyful. And that was unique. But if we're honest, most of our days are filled with headlines about conflict and headlines about division and headlines about disaster and everything that's going wrong in the world. That's what's on the headlines, right? And so if we're not careful, cynicism and negativity just becomes the norm. Yep. We start to unite, we start to just live in this current of negativity, of cynicism. If we're not careful, that's what we become. Then something like the World Cup comes along and for a brief moment, people put a lot of things aside and just celebrate something together. And I don't think that's insignificant. I think it's a reminder that God actually created us for joy, for community, for celebration. Scripture has a lot to say about that. I'm just going to give you one verse here. Paul writes in Philippians 4 verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. That doesn't mean Christians pretend life is not full of suffering. It is. There is suffering in life. There is struggle in life. We don't pretend that. We shouldn't pretend that. But it does mean that we should be the least cynical people on earth. I think Christians have every reason because of our foundation that we should be the least negative and cynical people on earth. And at least here in America, I cannot say that. I cannot say that we're doing a great job at that right now to a certain extent. I think there is a lot of cynicism and negativity in the church. But I would encourage all of us that we actually have every reason to be the least cynical people because we know how it turns out in the end. What do you think about that?

Micah Tomasella: [01:19:53] No, I'm right there with you. I mean, God gives us the joy that we have to go out and share the basically the the joy. I mean, I don't know a better way to put it. Like he gives us joy so we can share joy, right? And not be so cynical. And yeah, I obviously this was a great example last month and a half of joy abounding. Obviously for sports and it's a different sense here, but I'm right there with you, man. I think we've been blessed with the Holy Spirit in our hearts that can help us renew our minds and remind us that he is good. And that is what we stand on. That's what we stand in and that's what brings us our peace and our joy and our our ability to go on and love our families, love our friends, love our communities.

Conner Jones: [01:20:30] I mean, and honestly, Connor, it's one of the reasons we do this podcast every week is because we don't want the headlines shaping our perspective more than scripture does. True. More than what truth has to say. We want scripture to shape how we interpret the headlines, not the other way around. So when the world experiences one of these rare moments of shared joy, I think it's okay to lean into it, celebrate it. Invite your friends over to watch a game. Talk about it with your family, bring it up. Thank God for good gifts like sports that can bring people together. It's not a final solution, but just because it's not a final solution and it's finite, doesn't mean we can't enjoy it, right? So don't don't confuse celebration though with the source of our hope. The World Cup is over, the excitement's already fading. Another news cycle is already taking its place. We're already talking about Iran again. I know we have always been talking about Iran, it feels like for the last several months. But now we're talking about it even more. But the next headline doesn't have to determine your outlook. It doesn't have to. As followers of Christ, we have the privilege at looking at every headline, whether it's tragic or triumphant, and almost always it's tragic, through the lens of scripture, from the foundation of hope that we have been given. That's where our hope comes from. That's where our joy comes from. So let's enjoy moments like the World Cup. Let's celebrate them. Let's thank God for them. But don't let the headlines shape your perspective. Let scripture show you how to interpret those headlines.

Micah Tomasella: [01:21:55] It's exactly what we do here at Dinnison Forum. I mean, that's that's the whole point of this ministry. So many of you read Ryan's the focus articles on Tuesdays. Many of you listen to the Faith and Clarity podcast, listen to this podcast. That is what we are doing. We are taking scripture and applying it to all these headlines and new stories. And you know, we're trying to grow and bring more people on board to help us do that so you guys can read even more, you know, whatever the story is that day, that week, we're trying to tackle that. So, yeah, grateful to be doing that. Grateful for God who gave us scriptures to essentially apply to our lives and all the way down to, yeah, the news and politics and sports and pop culture and everything. So it's great. Thanks, Micah for that reminder. Hope you all enjoyed that kind of like just look back at the last month and a half. This has been such a massive cultural moment. I don't think Americans will forget this for a long time. It was a huge boost.

Conner Jones: [01:22:38] It's going to be in the history books, man.

Micah Tomasella: [01:22:40] Or the history cloud, whatever kids are going to learn from in the future.

Conner Jones: [01:22:43] The history iPads, I guess.

Micah Tomasella: [01:22:45] Yeah. Anyways, okay, let's jump into a hot take real fast. So yeah, Micah, you mentioned it. Clayton gave us a hot take last week and it inspired me to come back with a hot take. We haven't done these in a while.

Conner Jones: [01:22:56] There was some heat for Clayton's. I was seeing on social media, there was some European heat that he was getting from his hot take.

Micah Tomasella: [01:23:04] If you haven't listened, Clayton basically said that America, did you see those comments? Yeah, I read the comments. Clayton basically said that America will never adopt soccer fully because we get up from our bootstraps. We get dirty and we get right back up and like soccer's too weak of a sport for Americans.

Conner Jones: [01:23:19] Well, because of how they flop. I didn't fully disagree with this hot take. I would just say like basketball is America's version of that. And basketball is declining in popularity.

Micah Tomasella: [01:23:29] If you listen to the full episode, which that was that part was not in the clip, but if you listen to the full episode, we did say that. We said basketball.

Conner Jones: [01:23:35] Look at you trying to get clicks, Connor.

Micah Tomasella: [01:23:37] Well, I honestly, that was not even me. I don't Oh, I didn't pull that clip. But that's just how that's the nature of it. You only get 60 seconds on a clip, so you don't get that full context.

Conner Jones: [01:23:45] It was fun.

Micah Tomasella: [01:23:47] It was fun. Yeah, but it got people riled up. So I'm going to bring another hot take because that's it seems to to get people talking here. All right, this one's not nearly that hot. But I just want to say, it's a warm take. It's a warmish take. I despise commercials like on if I'm watching sports or anything on live television. I despise them so much. I I mute them. And people think I'm crazy. Maybe you mute the commercials too. But Micah, I want to hear what you think because I even remember even in like in college, we'd be sitting in like our house with a bunch of guys and I would be watching a football game and I had the remote. I'd mute it and everybody would be like, what are you doing? Why is it so quiet? Why'd you mute the commercials? We like watching the same five commercials every every third, every 15 minutes. Not that they're not annoying or anything.

Conner Jones: [01:24:26] I don't think it's that crazy of a take. I think what makes you crazy about it is like, okay, if you're hosting, that's one thing. If you're it's if it's your TV, but I can think of several times where you're at someone else's home, like you're in a different environment and you are trying to find the remote in order to mute the commercials, right? I think that that's what makes it a little crazy is like even when you're not the one hosting, you will try to take over the remote privileges in order to mute the commercials.

Micah Tomasella: [01:24:52] Well, here's the deal. If we're like in a group setting, I do that because it's like, guys, we're trying to have a conversation here and we get this loud. I don't need this loud Doritos and Taco Bell commercial blasting behind or some sort of like dramatic over the counter drug commercial. Yeah, the last thing I need is all the side effects being listed off while I'm trying to talk to my friends about our lives. You know what I'm saying? That's why I mute them. I think they're so weird and so annoying.

Conner Jones: [01:25:14] It's so funny.

Micah Tomasella: [01:25:16] And they they get louder too. It's like they kicks to commercials and the volume goes up.

Conner Jones: [01:25:19] Do you mute you don't mute during the Super Bowl, do you?

Micah Tomasella: [01:25:21] It's different. The Super Bowl is like the one time because I'm like, okay, I I I'll watch these, but for the most part, man, we're we're muting those bad boys. So

Conner Jones: [01:25:28] Has your wife gotten on board with this too? Is she

Micah Tomasella: [01:25:29] Yeah, well, I she adopted. I mean, when she started like hanging out with me and I was muting commercials, she was like, I kind of like this. It's peaceful. It's like you're watching.

Conner Jones: [01:25:35] This guy's leading his family.

Micah Tomasella: [01:25:37] Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like

Conner Jones: [01:25:38] This guy's leading his family.

Micah Tomasella: [01:25:40] We're commercial muting family. But yeah, ever I don't every time I go to anyone else's house, even my own family's house or what not, it's like we just don't do that. So that's my warm mistake. All right, let's jump into check in real fast. We got other things going on here in culture. Yeah, we we discussed last week that when Clayton and I talked, hey, Trump's going to address the nation on Thursday night. We didn't know what it was going to be about fully. We now know, obviously, he gave the address. I want to break it down from Dr. Ryan Denson. He wrote about it the next day in the daily article on Friday morning, kind of explaining what Trump said. Essentially, he declassified documents pertaining to alleged voter fraud, vulnerabilities in our ballot counting systems, and the quote, acquisition and exploitation of American voter data, end quote, by China. The latter was the closest to new information, though much of it had been leaked before in years prior. And even with China, which he revealed had gained access to 220 million voter files over the last six years, President Trump was clear that they stopped at just acquiring information rather than materially impacting actual votes. So, essentially it was kind of an election fraud speech. He talked a little bit about the economy a little bit, about Iran and saying, hey, our country's doing great. It was clearly a mid-term pitch. It was clearly a pitch for trying to get the save act passed by Congress, which is not seeming willing to pass that. Uh, essentially the idea of this election integrity bill. And so, I don't think that speech really resonated the way that the White House was hoping it would. I think they thought the public would really get behind it, but it kind of faded out of the picture really fast. It didn't stick around. So, Micah, did you I mean, did you have any thoughts there?

Conner Jones: [02:07:17] I just think people are thinking about inflation's ticking back up again. When's this war in the Middle East going to end? There's still social issues swirling around. I mean, I think those are the things that people are really thinking about right now. So like voter fraud is a real issue that does need to be taken care of, but it's just not probably in the top five for people.

Micah Tomasella: [02:07:35] I I'm not sure it's in the top 10 for most people.

Conner Jones: [02:07:37] Well, I mean, I would argue it always should be because election integrity is so important to our democracy and the way that it functions. However, I totally understand what you're saying in terms of this is just not a top issue for people right now. So although it's important, it just feels like the wrong time.

Micah Tomasella: [02:07:53] I don't think people are going to the midterms voting on, you know, election integrity. I I think they're wanting, yeah, you're right. Election integrity does matter. It's huge. We need to have an the comfort of going to the ballot and saying this is going to cast my vote correctly. Yeah, that's correct. And the right people are voting, all of that. It's gotten to a point where I think people are ready to move on with all these other things like you're saying. Speaking of Iran, let's just talk about that real fast. We lost four soldiers over the weekend over in the Middle East. A couple in Jordan, a couple in Iraq.

Conner Jones: [02:08:23] Is it four for certain?

Micah Tomasella: [02:08:24] There's three for certain. And they're searching for a fourth. One's missing, but it's most likely. I they're looking for the remains essentially.

Conner Jones: [02:08:30] Okay, so three confirmed as of recording on Tuesday the 21st of July. Yeah.

Micah Tomasella: [02:08:34] It's most likely going to go up to four, which will bring the total death toll to 18 in this conflict for the United States military, which is just really unfortunate and so sad. And we're we I mean, one of these soldiers is from right around the corner from where we are at right now. She's from Carlton, Texas. And 19 years old. Just tragic in that sense. And we're so grateful for their service and the sacrifices that they made and everybody overseas who's making sacrifices and is serving this nation and serving at the will of the president. That is what they are sworn to do. And so they are over there doing that. And, you know, we continue to pray for a peaceful resolution here, but the Iranians apparently, you know, reports, I've I've read several news reports this week that they took time during the ceasefire to kind of re-move missiles, move different weapons around, get resituated and even adapt their missiles, potentially with the help of either Russia or China. Their missiles are now like changing direction in the last, you know, mile towards the ground. Like they're being able to like avert interceptor missiles that the US has. So these missiles are kind of breaking through our interceptors now. It's intense and it's very real. So we need to just be praying for that conflict.

Conner Jones: [02:09:42] Yep, absolutely. Praying for a peaceful resolution there. I think we're all just wondering like what's next with this conflict. I yeah. It's definitely been complicated and difficult. So, all right, so two other things, big things that happened over this past weekend. The Tate brothers, Andrew and Tristan Tate were both arrested by US Marshals in Miami on Saturday under charges from the UK for rape and sex trafficking. The brothers deny wrongdoing and are fighting extradition to the UK. So they're arrested, but they're still in the US. The brothers are dual US British citizens known for their social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny. These are two of the worst influences on young men in America today. Connor wrote that, but I think that you're probably right.

Micah Tomasella: [02:10:23] I am. I mean, like these guys are just, yeah.

Conner Jones: [02:10:26] I just don't consume the content very often, you know? So it's like

Micah Tomasella: [02:10:28] I don't either. No, but they they have such a big impact, especially with young males who believe that these guys are the role models that they should follow and they are absolutely not good role models. Yeah. And clearly, I mean, if they're guilty of these things, they'll go to prison for a very long time.

Conner Jones: [02:10:41] And if they are, they should, right?

Micah Tomasella: [02:10:42] Yeah, exactly. But the I would just say, you know, a lot of people were like, I can't believe they got arrested all of that. Well, I mean, their lifestyle is not what you should look forward to. They are promoting an empire, like you said, of wealth, of misogyny, of just being a dominant male in a physical sense. Like there are aspects of what they say that people agree with. There are even things that they say that aren't completely wrong, but they take it to a whole another level.

Conner Jones: [02:11:07] Yeah, like working hard and, you know, having male influence and stuff like that. That's not necessarily being masculine isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they just take it way, way, way far. Yeah.

Micah Tomasella: [02:11:17] Here's another thing that happened. The Open Championship happened this past weekend. Really loved watching that. Love watching golf. It's just kind of a peaceful thing to have on. 39-year-old New Zealand golfer Ryan Fox won the British Open. I think he had been in, I think it was something like 29 major championship matches or something like that, right? So there's four majors every year on the PGA tour. I mean, he's golfed in so many of them and has not won. I think he hadn't even had a top 10 finish or something like that. It's kind of crazy. And then he wins on the 18th, sinks a birdie putt. I was kind of hoping for a playoff with Cam Young. He had been sitting on the sideline for about two, two and a half hours. You know, and like a three-hole playoff is always fun to watch, but Ryan Fox was like, nah, I'm just going to go ahead and win this and shut the door on any chances for the competition. So congratulations to Ryan Fox. That was cool to see.

Conner Jones: [02:12:04] Ryan Fox is just a very very

Micah Tomasella: [02:12:07] rugby player, former rugby player, right?

Conner Jones: [02:12:08] Yeah, I know, well, his dad was like the captain of the rugby team or something in New Zealand for New Zealand. Just a an interesting family lineage there. Yeah, one of those guys who kind of came out of the shadows. Nobody was expecting that.

Micah Tomasella: [02:12:18] Speaking of golf, I I got my master's denial letter this week. Yesterday, really, told me I was I was not going to the Masters, which is unfortunate.

Conner Jones: [02:12:25] And we have a a close friend of ours who received information that he did get it. And it's just funny because this guy's just a lucky guy. God bless him. You know.

Micah Tomasella: [02:12:34] He is. Yeah. It seems everything goes his way a lot of the times. Yeah. But good for him. We're happy for him. I'm glad that somebody else in our group gets to join me as the lone person that's been able to go to the Masters.

Conner Jones: [02:12:47] I'll go one day when I whenever I win this Masters lottery. What other sporting event literally denies people? I mean, millions of people apply.

Micah Tomasella: [02:12:52] Millions of people got denied at the same time. We all got the letter yesterday. It was like trending on Twitter. Everyone's like, I got the letter too. I applied too. Post your Masters denial letter. All right. Yep. Oh, man, it's the worst.

Conner Jones: [02:13:02] Okay, last thing we kind of want to just mention here is the Odyssey. And I want to mention this because, you know, we're talking about community and everybody wanting to celebrate the same things together, being in the same spaces together. We're seeing that with sports. We're seeing that with the box office this year. The box office is just taking off. Movie theaters are like thriving. These movies are making tons of money. People are talking about them at the dinner tables, at restaurants, in school, wherever they are, because it's it's good stuff. The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan's latest film that came out this past weekend. I have not had the chance to see it yet. I will see it. I'm going on vacation this week. It's going to be probably next week before I can get around to seeing it. But I would say,

Micah Tomasella: [02:13:38] Connor.

Conner Jones: [02:13:39] I know, shocking. Well, especially since Nolan's my favorite director. Normally I would be like a Friday night guy. I just haven't had time. Uh, it is a long, I mean, it's like a three-hour movie, so you got to dedicate some time to this.

Micah Tomasella: [02:13:48] I heard it's really good, though.

Conner Jones: [02:13:49] It's supposed to be really good. It made $264 million worldwide in its opening weekend. That is huge. Already surpassed its budget of 250. This is his biggest opening. This beat Nolan's Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises opening weekend. I mean, this is those are I mean, those are some of my favorite movies. Dr. Ryan Denson wrote a great review if you want a like good Christian perspective without spoilers. He's got it on Densonforum.org. Go read that. I thought he he broke it down pretty well, gave me a lot of like insights and also there's apparently it's rated R, but it's it's not, I think it's mostly for frightening sequences and violence. It's not going to be for all the language and all the honestly sexual content. I I think there's far less of that than in Oppenheimer, which was Nolan's last film. So that's good news.

Micah Tomasella: [02:14:31] All that to say, guys, it's been a great week. We're grateful for y'all for tuning in and listening. Next week, like I said, I'll be on vacation, but worry not. Micah will hold the fort down and he's going to have on a special guest co-host with him. We'll see whatever the news is next week, Micah, but hope you all have a great show next week.

Conner Jones: [02:14:47] See y'all.

Micah Tomasella: [02:14:48] Bye, guys. Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Culture Brief, a Denson Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned in this episode will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review. All episodes are produced by Sound of a Rose. For more information, you can visit soundofarose.com. See you next Thursday.