It’s been a busy week in news, politics, sports, and pop culture. So join Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella as they brief you on the week’s biggest stories…all from a Christian perspective. This week, they discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine peace talks, the history and legality of executive orders, and a variety of recent events across culture. Highlights include diving into the U.S. deploying military resources against Mexican cartels, recent plane crashes, the SNL50 special, the new Captain America movie’s underwhelming performance, and the thrilling U.S. vs. Canada hockey showdown and so much more!
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Topics
- (01:00): Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks
- (13:34): Executive Orders: History and Impact
- (23:16): Weekly Rundown: Sports, Crashes, and More
- (39:27): Overwhelming News and Spiritual Guidance
- (41:04): Listener Mailbag: Childhood Hobbies and Sports
- (45:59): Upcoming Shows and Events
Resources
- Mailbag: [email protected]
- DenisonForum.org/subscribe
- Culture Brief on Instagram
- First15
- US and Russian officials meet today on war in Ukraine
- Trump says talks to end Ukraine war to start ‘immediately’ after Putin call | South China Morning Post
- Russia and US agree to work toward ending Ukraine war in a remarkable diplomatic shift
- Ukraine will never accept Russia’s ultimatums, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says
- European leaders want a say in talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The US is brushing them off
- European countries clash over sending troops to Ukraine
- Ukraine will never accept Russia’s ultimatums, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says
- Ukraine-US talks in Munich end without agreement on critical minerals deal | Reuters
- US ‘could provide air defence’ to Ukraine peacekeeping force
- What Is an Executive Order?
- Trump’s record number of executive orders are testing the limits of presidential power
- Analysis: Can diversity and inclusion survive Trump’s war on ‘woke’ | Reuters
- ‘This is a coup’: Trump and Musk’s purge is cutting more than costs, say experts
- President Trump says the US government will only recognize two genders – ‘male and female’ (Video) | New York Post
- I work in global health. Trump ditching the World Health Organization might be the wake-up call it needs.
- Executive Order 13563 — Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review | whitehouse.gov
- The Obama Orders: A Quick and Dirty Analysis
- Analysis: How Biden’s new executive order tackles AI risks, and where it falls short | PBS News
- Biden Issues Flurry of Executive Orders in Final Days. Trump Might Roll Them Back.
- Trump is not the radical — he’s simply undoing radical things Dems did
- Executive Orders | The American Presidency Project
- Gulf of Mexico – Wikipedia
- Fox News: Delta Plane Crash Video on X
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Advancement Officer 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 Conner Jones
Conner 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 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 Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
[00:00:00] Conner Jones: I’m Connor Jones and hi, I’m Micah Tomasella and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories in news, politics, sports, pop culture, tech, anything else. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Let me tell you, we got a ton to cover this week.
So Micah, why don’t you give us what’s on the docket for this week?
[00:00:24] Micah Tomasella: Connor, the first thing that’s on the docket is the fact that you and I are matching today. Did we, did we plan this? No, not
[00:00:32] Conner Jones: not at all. We both hopped on here. We were like, oh
[00:00:34] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, but neither of us wanted to change, so it just kind of is what it is.
We’re both wearing the official Denison Ministries pullovers. That’s exciting. Always repping the ministry, but let me tell you what we’re going to dive into today. So we’ve got Russia, Ukraine, peace talks. We’ve got executive orders. We’ve got childhood hobbies and stories and a rundown on everything you need to know this week.
So let’s jump into the brief.
[00:01:00] Conner Jones: Okay, Micah, let’s hit on the big thing happening right now in just the geopolitical world. Yeah. It’s going to be Russia, Ukraine, the war, and then the United States started to kind of initiate negotiation and potential peace talks. So here’s what’s going on currently. Last week, Donald Trump had a call with President Putin of Russia.
That was on Wednesday, I believe, February 12th. What they did was agree to commence immediate negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. This would be a good thing. I mean, obviously we’re going on three years of this terrible conflict when Russia invaded basically a sovereign nation. And has just killed tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, injured and destroyed many, many cities.
And tons of people. Anyways, they did agree to commence those negotiations. Vice President J. D. Vance was in Munich, Germany, this week at the Munich Security Conference. And he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And Zelensky said they had a good meeting with Vance. And that they were ready to move as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace.
I think that’s a good thing, right? Seems positive. But But, here’s the catch I know. U Ukraine is not actually currently involved in any of these negotiation talks. Neither is all of Europe, by the way. Europe’s on the sidelines too. It’s like the two big kids in the room are like. It’s like planning a game and they’re leaving the younger sibling out.
You know what I mean? It’s obviously far more serious than that, but I got left out
[00:02:29] Micah Tomasella: sometimes.
[00:02:30] Conner Jones: Ukraine’s not happy. Europe’s not happy. And Russia and the U. S. are just like I’m sorry, did you say you got left out sometimes? Yeah. Oh, sorry to bring up bad memories. You just ignored it. I just kept going. Yeah, sorry.
Anyways, so the U. S. and Russia have just been kind of doing this on their own. In a way, it makes sense. They’re two of the big superpowers in the world, obviously, Cold War, the many, many years of history here. They met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. That was the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and then the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
They met and had discussions. Sergei, sorry, what did I say? No,
[00:03:06] Micah Tomasella: no, no, I was just like Sergei, like I, like I know who he is. I’ve never heard of him before.
[00:03:11] Conner Jones: Oh he’s like, he’s like Putin’s right hand man. Yeah, there you go. And he does a lot of the, a lot of the just foreign leadership work for Putin. So they did meet in Saudi Arabia as kind of a middle ground and they agreed to start restoring embassy operations in both countries.
And they’re going to try to establish a high level negotiation team dedicated to resolving the Ukrainian conflict and explore avenues for enhanced diplomatic and economic cooperation. Ukrainian officials and European leaders not being invited to these initial talks. Does have them concerned. They are being critical of it.
They’re just worried. They’re like, why are we not involved with this? This is our, our continent. But it’s, you know, Trump and his administration are taking it under their own hand to try to get this solved and done. European leaders like French president Emmanuel Macron emphasize that any peace effort must include strong security guarantees for Ukraine.
And involve European participation, so they called their own emergency summit this week. The European leaders did in France and Paris and they discussed their exclusion from these talks and they started to try to strategize what they can do to ensure their involvement in future negotiations. This led to some of the countries saying that they are willing to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
So remember, Micah, as of right now, no Western troops have actually stepped foot on Ukrainian soil. Right. It’s just been Ukrainian troops and any sort of volunteers that come from foreign countries, but no other military has actually gone in to support Ukraine with boots on the ground.
[00:04:42] Micah Tomasella: Yes, but there has been heavy funding, specifically from the U.
S.
[00:04:48] Conner Jones: So many,
[00:04:49] Micah Tomasella: so many stimulus bills, so much money, billions of dollars sent to Ukraine,
[00:04:55] Conner Jones: tons of weapons, all of that. Yeah. Yeah. These countries have all been supportive. The U. S. has been supportive. Canada, all the NATO nations have been very supportive. The U. S. has
[00:05:02] Micah Tomasella: been the most monetarily supportive, right?
[00:05:05] Conner Jones: Correct. Yeah. Yes. The Ukrainians are using many U. S. Purchased or built weapons and drones, missiles, all of that. Anyways, no one’s had boots on the ground. So some of these European countries suggesting they may be willing to do that. It’s kind of interesting. It’s almost like it feels a little bit like a last ditch effort to be part of these negotiation talks.
All of that to say Ukrainians perspective Zelensky, of course, is. Frustrated over being sidelined in the negotiations. He’s emphasizing that any peace agreement must involve ukraine Now rubio and some of the other leaders in the us have said that ukraine will be brought in at the appropriate time So hey, you guys can come join us when it’s time, but it is their country that’s in the war that was invaded So I totally understand that their desire is to be a part of these Negotiations and figure out a piece on their own terms.
Zelensky definitely cautioned a Russia ceasefire. He did suggest that it could be a benefit to Russia if they are allowed to regroup and stressed that the importance of continued US support is needed for a genuine resolution. Ukrainians definitely see Putin as a terrible, terrible person. Even a lot of them would call him a terrorist.
Zelensky calls him a terrorist. For invading their country and killing so many of their people, you can’t blame them for that. You can’t blame them for being even frustrated that the U. S. is negotiating with Putin. Of course. You know, we’ve always had the mantra of, we don’t negotiate with terrorists, so Ukrainians are asking the U.
S. to have that same stance. And then I don’t know if you saw this, but the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, sparked a significant diplomatic conflict this week by appearing to exclude the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine, which is something that Ukraine has been really begging for us to be included in NATO at the end of this war.
[00:06:47] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, Pete has been coming out with some quick information there. I mean, you know, even a few days before that, he was saying that Ukraine would have to cede some of its border. The one that’s, you know, the, the part that Russia had taken over. And then Pete kind of walked it back. And I mean, he’s, he does that daily video from his office or he does like all of this content, which, you know, is, is interesting to me to see, see this as Secretary of Defense kind of taking a more hands on approach to leadership and like letting people in on his process.
But it does seem yeah, definitely Pete’s been, I don’t know, I don’t know if jumping the gun’s the right word, but he’s definitely been saying some stuff before anybody else is willing to.
[00:07:23] Conner Jones: Yeah, he’s actually, I think, had to walk back some of his comments, so maybe he’s learning fast what it’s like to be one of the top diplomats, not just in America, but in the world.
In the world. It’s a little bit different than being on the news, so he’s learning. Anyways, what does the U. S. want in all of this, Micah? First off, they want normalized relations with Russia. Trump has always said that he’s a friend of Putin, and he wants to have a good relationship with Russia, start, you know, reinvigorating their economy, having more trade.
Reducing the oil sanctions, everything that comes in with that. Trump also wants the U. S., and I think, you know, one of the things with him is himself, to look stronger. And to force Europe to stand on their own without the guarantee of U. S. security in this conflict or any future conflicts. He specifically wants NATO nations to put more of their own GDP into defense spending and not have to rely on the idea that America is going to come in and swoop in and protect them the way that we consistently have over the years and have always said we would.
[00:08:18] Micah Tomasella: I’m sorry, that, that’s fair. That’s fair. I don’t disagree. It’s geographically much closer. It’s, it’s right there. Europe is right there, right? We’re, we’re kind of across the world here. And I mean, even geographically and the resources that Europe has, I mean, I, I see the merit in that for sure.
[00:08:36] Conner Jones: Definitely. Yeah, it makes sense. I, I, I do get that. Okay. But here’s, here’s the kicker. Here’s the last big thing that the U S is wanting. Trump has said that he wants Ukraine to pay for everything that we’ve given them over the last three years through the stimulus bills, like you’re saying, the billions and billions of dollars, the weapons, all of that, that we have quite literally just given them.
He wants repayments, sort of like a loan Hey, we gave you all this now pay it back and here’s how you can do it. So Trump sent over the new U. S. Secretary of the Treasury to meet with Zelensky and lay out a plan for a 500 billion, basically investment in minerals that Ukraine has. as natural resources in their country that are pretty much untapped.
They have all these mines. They have all this underground mineral deposits that is very, very valuable could be worth up to 500 billion. And the U S once that they, they think that it could be very strategic for basically technology, all the tech that’s coming down the line, AI chips, everything, and it would help the U S stay on par with where China is at and technology developments.
And so there, their plan is, Hey, We have helped you, we may even give you some air defenses as a peacekeeping tool to prevent Russia from invading again, but in return, you need to give us access to all of your minerals. Isn’t it like half?
[00:09:51] Micah Tomasella: Wasn’t he asking for like half?
[00:09:53] Conner Jones: Something like that, yeah. It’s not all completely laid out, Zelensky has rebuffed a little bit, but said he’s open to the idea and that they are still having open negotiations on that.
But I’m just saying, there’s a lot going on here, there’s a lot to take in. It’s going to continue to happen over the next few days and really weeks Trump has said he hopes to have a peace negotiated by easter is 60 something days away from now And so that’s not a ton of time. It may be doable. We’ll just see.
Basically, what’s happened now is the talks to start talking like they’re, they’re talking about talking.
[00:10:27] Micah Tomasella: I mean, it started, right? I mean, and that’s, you know, so hopefully the solution comes down the line where. Russia pulls back. Ukraine can be its own free country. And there’s some things set up in the future for Ukraine to be able to take care of themselves.
NATO to do what they need to do. The European nations need to do what they need to do. And, and that there’s less friction with Russia. If, if that’s even possible, I mean, with somebody like Putin in power, I mean, that just, that feels hard to reach, you know, but hopefully there’s a better solution coming down the.
[00:10:58] Conner Jones: Definitely. And there was even an NBC like insider report this week that said Putin. Even though he’s trying to negotiate and start these peace talks is dead set still on having the entirety of Ukraine in Russia. So that’s probably not going to happen, right? So it’s probably not going to happen, but it also may be him just trying to strong hand and say you got to give me more than, you know, he’s, he’s a smart negotiator.
If there’s one thing you can say about him, he is, he does it in very bad will and with a hard darkened heart, but he’s a smart negotiator. So yes, you’re right. Hopefully pieces around the corner. This is like we’ve been saying with all the conflicts around the world, specifically with. In regards to Gaza and Israel, we are praying for peace
[00:11:35] Micah Tomasella: and into
[00:11:36] Conner Jones: this conflict and then into the destruction and devastation on these people in these villages, towns, communities and the death.
And it’s just awful. It’s been hard to watch. And I think, you know, when this war initially broke out, it was a big deal and all of America was watching it and it felt like an attack on a fellow Western nation and all of that. And it was very easy to kind of. Have camaraderie with these people. But over the last three years, I think that’s been distanced and we’ve felt that distance and we’ve felt some anani, like not we specifically, but a lot of Americans have felt animosity towards the conflict and everything.
But we should still pray daily for an end to this conflict. And I wanted to bring up real fast Micah, Dr. Jim Denison and the daily article on Tuesday wrote about Jesus coming to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and questions. He didn’t question it, but he was posing the question. Why is the kingdom of God good news?
We have a king despite the tragedies and challenges of this broken world. There is purpose in order to the cosmos as stated in Colossians 1 16 and 17 and Luke 4 43 says yeah Jesus did come to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and unlike the autocrats and terrorists who seek to rule by force This king knows and loves us.
[00:12:47] Micah Tomasella: Yeah,
[00:12:48] Conner Jones: that includes everyone includes you, me, Ukrainians, Russians, everybody involved in anything around the world. He loves us and we can have that personal relationship with him. That will save and transform us. And I’m grateful for that today, Micah. Just a good reminder that through the midst of everything that we see, even on the homeland or across the world, we know we have a good and loving Father who came to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God.
[00:13:14] Micah Tomasella: Amen. Amen, man. That’s a good reminder. Thank you for taking us through the ever evolving Russia Ukraine peace talks. Really, it should be Russia U. S. peace talks is what we should have called it, because it doesn’t seem like Ukraine is getting to play kickball. Seems like they didn’t get picked to be on the team this time, but we’ll see how all that works out.
Connor, I want to talk about executive orders for a minute. I want to talk about the history, the legality, and the recent use of executive orders. So let’s jump into this next story. Okay. You know, we’ve been hearing executive orders thrown around quite a bit. I did a segment on, on tariffs a couple weeks ago, and I just feel like these, these words have been on the forefront.
Trump was campaigning on these things and then he’s delivering on what he said he was going to do even probably more than people were anticipating. And so let’s talk about the history. But before I do that, I want to hit everybody with a simple definition of an executive order. And this comes from the American Bar Association.
So if you don’t agree with it, let them know. So it says an executive Let the lawyers know. It said an executive order is a signed, written, and published directive for the president from the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. So executive orders or EOs, whatever you want to call them, have been a presidential tool since George Washington used to direct the executive branch without Congress.
First executive order recorded in American history was in 1789 and over time they’ve shaped major U. S. policies like the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. President Abraham Lincoln. issued an executive order to free slaves in confederate states internment of japanese americans in 1942 franklin d roosevelt fdr issued an executive order that authorized the forced relocation of japanese americans during world war ii you had the desegregation of the military in 1948 president harry s truman issued an executive order that ended racial segregation in the armed forces so those are just a few you Executive orders that actually had a profound impact.
It might have just been the start It’s still those laws had to pass congress later But those were really big historical moments that were actually brought about by an executive order. What do you think about that connor?
[00:15:30] Conner Jones: I just think if every executive order had a unique rhyming name like the emancipation proclamation.
Yeah, that’s nice More people would get behind them. You know what I mean? What about internment of
[00:15:39] Micah Tomasella: japanese americans that one doesn’t have a
[00:15:41] Conner Jones: That one didn’t have the ring to it and seemed to actually be the exact opposite of the Emancipation Proclamation. Yeah, right. Seems like a reversal,
[00:15:49] Micah Tomasella: right?
[00:15:49] Conner Jones: It’s very interesting to see kind of the history here of how these have been used over the years and just kind of how powerful the president really is with Just kind of the swipe of a pen signs a piece of paper and these things happen,
[00:16:00] Micah Tomasella: right?
Right. So here’s here’s the legality of it. Here’s where we kind of get executive orders from so executive orders derive authority from article 2 Of the u. s constitution which requires the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed broad. However, they cannot create new laws or override existing ones.
Courts can invalidate executive orders that exceed presidential power. So there was this court case in 1952, Youngstown Sheet and Tuco versus Sawyer. where the Supreme Court blocked Truman’s attempt to seize steel mills during a labor strike. So that’s kind of the basis for what we’re seeing with all of these courts and all of these judges that are freezing what Trump does through an executive order, allowing it to continue stopping it.
So that, that case in 1952 with Harry S. Truman is kind of how, where we get the basis for how the American court system can kind of combat it if, if there’s a belief that it’s actually against the law, what the president’s trying to do. Let’s talk about why presidents issue executive orders. So what’s their reasoning, right?
So presidents issue executive orders to swiftly implement policies, especially when facing congressional gridlock or urgent situations. So for Trump, he has a mapped out first 100 days. And so he’s pushing. And so it’s literally an executive order or two every single day. And so the, the common reasons for why we’ve seen it throughout history, why we’re seeing it now as crisis management needs of national security in order to.
implement certain policies, reversing predecessor policies. There’s been a lot of specifically environmental policies that Trump has immediately come in and reversed. You know, we’ve seen a lot of policies on gender that he’s come in and reversed. And so there’s been a lot of things that he’s focused on to just reverse everything that Biden did.
Just like when Biden came in, he did the same thing to Trump whenever Trump left after his first term. And then, you know, they do it to avoid legislative gridlock as well. And so they, they definitely have their reasons, you know,
[00:17:56] Conner Jones: Yeah you know, and some of it is based off of what they promised on campaign trails, like what Trump is doing with a lot of these.
Yep. Some of it, this is where it gets tricky, is how much of it is just personal desire? How much of it is they’re like, I’m the president, I can do this. That’s where I guess you expect the courts to step in and say, no, we’re gonna, we’re not going to allow that. We’re going to overturn that one. Just interesting stuff.
Thanks for walking us through that.
[00:18:19] Micah Tomasella: Yes. Yes. And so Roosevelt Fdr, let’s go back to him for a second because I just I want to compare and contrast what fdr did Compared to what trump’s doing now. There was this article from politico today And they reminded us and I was reading that roosevelt signed 99 executive orders in his first 100 days More than any other president at that point.
So trump 2. 0 during his second term Could end up smashing that should smash that record at least, but it’s not like we’ve never seen this before. It’s not like we’ve never seen a president come in and immediately get to work in that way and use his additional presidential power to do executive orders.
But the debate that comes up about the legality of it and when to use an executive order and when not to and what has to follow an executive order, those questions are still being answered. But when Barack Obama came in in 2009 and 2017, he issued during his eight years in office, 276 executive orders focused on things like regulatory reform and national security.
Joe Biden and 21 to 25. He signed 162 executive orders, signed a lot of those during his last six months. You know, he did, he had AI regulation, environmental policy, government spending, all kinds of bills had kind of come from him signing those executive orders and then Trump, in his second term, he’s already signed 54 executive orders and we’re just what, a month in or so?
And you know, it’s, he is, he’s off to a feverish pace. He’s done government restructuring, social policies, international policies. These actions have sparked a ton of debate about the balance between executive authority and legislative oversight, as well as concerns over potential overreach and the undermining of democratic institutions.
And when we, you know, went back to what article two of the constitution said, it does seem kind of vague. So this remains a powerful tool and you know, everybody’s just kind of scrambling on the part that executive orders have to play
[00:20:21] Conner Jones: for sure. Yeah. And I know the democratic party right now. It’s still reeling from the just massive losses that they had during this election.
And this just constant barrage of executive orders, and then also a whole bunch of other things. Just, Trump is, and his team are really good about staying in the news quite literally every hour. And just dropping some sort of news or executive order, whatever it is. They’re struggling to fight back on the executive orders in a way that a normal Opposing party would and say, you know, we’re going to get together.
We got to figure out how to fight this in the courts, file lawsuits. I do think that they’re starting to get there. There’s been some lawsuits filed by. Democratic politicians and federal prosecutors and all of that. So we’ll just see, we’ll see,
[00:21:01] Micah Tomasella: we’ll see because, because his plan right now, it’s three weeks from now, he’ll have a whole lot more executive orders, right?
And so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s getting to the point now where they’re filing these lawsuits from executive orders that he signed into law like two weeks ago. And then he’s already doing something. Like first 10 and he’s already at 54. It’s just this insane barrage, but let me give you a spiritual application.
I was really thinking about this. It’s really, really thinking about this and it just kind of hit me. So each president in recent years, as I kind of ran through them pretty quickly has issued more executive actions than the last. It’s just continued to kind of ramp up, especially since Obama, but.
Normalizing a practice never, it was never intended explicitly by the Constitution, I just read you from the Constitution, where they get executive orders from. So with each election, reversing them becomes harder. So likewise, sin gains more power when we allow it. making repentance more difficult. So what begins as justifiable in our minds can quickly entangle us until only God can step in and break the cycle or something happens and we choose to break the cycle and repent.
So his intervention, God’s intervention is often painful, but it’s also merciful. So offering us the chance to turn back before we’re completely lost. So the best way to avoid that hardship is simple. Surrender to his will and walk with him. So executive orders, it just continues to be ramped up. And the more and more that it becomes normal, the more and more difficult it’s going to be to reign it in.
in. And so in the same way, the more that we give into sin and the more that we hide things that we’re struggling with in our lives from those that love us and want the best for us, and the more that we try to hide things from God, which is actually impossible, it’s just going to take you deeper and farther than you ever imagined.
And so the time is now to repent and turn to Jesus, not later.
[00:22:57] Conner Jones: Yeah, man, that’s good. That’s also true. And thank you, Micah, for just kind of the explanation on the executive orders. I just sat here and learned a lot. I mean, kind of one of those terms that you hear all the time, but just don’t know the history of.
And then thank you for that spiritual application. Yeah, that was fun.
[00:23:11] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, that was fun. Thanks, man.
[00:23:15] Conner Jones: What’s next? Micah, I think we need to try something new here. Okay. Let’s, let’s go through. Quite a few things rather than just one big topic and diving into it deeply We’re gonna give a big high level overview.
This is a bunch of stuff that’s happened in this last week. It’s been a busy week We’re gonna hit on it all across the board with entertainment and sports and finance Let’s dive in. Okay, so things you should know Micah first and foremost the Daytona 500 did happen this past Sunday Byron got his second in a row back to back wins I watched the last few laps of that.
It was wild. There was an insane wreck where a car just popped a wheelie and stood in the air forever. I saw that video. That was fun. Dramatic crash. Anyways, that happened. That was fun. What else do we have, Micah?
[00:23:59] Micah Tomasella: All right. So we have the Four Nations Hockey Tournament. If you haven’t heard about this, I think you probably heard of it when you saw what happened with US versus Canada.
So the US. Canada, Finland, and Sweden are these four teams that are competing. They’re four hockey powerhouses. So the U. S. Canada game was nuts. Okay, so three fights broke out in the first nine seconds. And it all started because this game was happening in Canada. And when the Star Spangled Banner played The Canadian crowd booed during the entire Star Spangled Banner, and you can see the American players did not like that whatsoever.
And so what happens is, is they each pick their fight, they drop their gloves, they took turns, and there were three individual fights that happened within the first nine seconds of that game. The game garnered tons of attention with the fights, and the rematch for the championship is set for Thursday. So Thursday night, the day that our episode is premiering, so on Thursday night.
Canada and the US are facing off again for the championship and it’s for blood man. It’s for blood
[00:25:02] Conner Jones: patriotic memes out there on social media are wild Everybody is like just feeling super just juiced up with patriotic.
[00:25:09] Micah Tomasella: Oh, I love love. Oh, I loved it, dude I mean you’re gonna boo our national anthem. Oh, oh
[00:25:15] Conner Jones: See the Babylon be our article that said Canadians boo their own future national anthem because Trump keeps threatening to make Canada the 51st state.
[00:25:27] Micah Tomasella: That’s funny. And for those who don’t know, the Babylon Bee is like a satirical Christian news website. But just go on there and just make yourself laugh. Just do yourself a favor. But my goodness. Yes, Trump keeps joking about making Canada the 51st. Yeah, he’s probably, he’s probably serious. The 51st state, but then, you know, he’ll also, these tariffs, these different things that have kind of happened have, have changed some perception.
And so I think that that’s why the Canadian crowd was booing, but nonetheless, the U. S. hockey players did not appreciate the booing.
[00:25:59] Conner Jones: They did not, and they won that game big time and the fights were
[00:26:01] Micah Tomasella: awesome. So we’ll see what
[00:26:02] Conner Jones: happens Thursday night. Okay. Also this past weekend was something that I don’t think anybody watched.
It was the NBA all star weekend. Yeah, I didn’t watch it. I don’t think anybody enjoyed it. And it seemed to get a lot of flack even from players and other commentators. I’m only bringing it up because it’s interesting to consider what, what just happened with hockey that basically replaced this four nations tournament, replaced the NHL all star week.
And now NBA players, and even some MLB players are saying, Hey, maybe we should take a page out of this book because interest in our own all star games has dwindled the NFL. Pro Bowl is basically a joke now, is this a new way to do it? Put, you know, American players versus European or other foreign nations and make a little world tournament.
Yeah,
[00:26:46] Micah Tomasella: yeah, we were talking about that just a little bit ago, right? Because, you know, in the 90s. European players, players from around the world. I mean, you had Hakeem, the dream Elijah Juan, who was an international player who played for the Rockets. You had Dirk getting drafted in the late nineties, but he didn’t really come into his own until the mid two thousands.
I mean, right. Dirk really broke the mold for European players. And then since then, I mean, you could field a very, very good world team, European team with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic. Victor Wimbenyama. I mean, those are four of maybe the top 12 players in the NBA and they’re not American.
And I think just now recently, the last 10 or so years, 10, 12 years, this game actually would be incredibly interesting if they decided to do that.
[00:27:32] Conner Jones: I think they would juice viewership, get a lot more entertainment than what they just put on the floor the other night. Anyways, moving on. There was a plane crash.
Another one, Micah. And we talked about plane crashes a few weeks ago. There have been so many in the last two months. In Toronto, a Delta Airlines commuter jet with 80 passengers and crew crashed. Thankfully, everybody lived. The videos are absolutely insane. I’ve got a link, I’ll put it in the show notes if you want to see the video of this plane.
Quite literally, hard landing and flipping over on fire. It is upside down on its roof, essentially belly up, and everybody has to get out from the upside down aspect of the plane. No fatalities, right? Yeah. No fatalities, some injuries. Honestly, it’s a, it’s a miracle, but just a wild plane crash and just kind of another wake up call to, man, we got to figure some stuff out with our aviation safety.
[00:28:22] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Yeah. And it just kind of keeps feeling like I keep getting these news alerts about. These small planes crashing these bigger planes crashing. I mean, there’s just so much focus on the FAA right now. So much focus on pilots and air traffic controllers. I mean, we’re just praying for everybody involved in that and that we can figure out a better way because, you know, right now this all just seems to be happening a little bit too much, but Connor and a
[00:28:44] Conner Jones: plane, a plane dropped out of the sky in Alaska the other day, too.
I don’t know if you saw that and that killed 10 people. So it’s just Yeah, that one didn’t make the news that much. Oh, yes. Probably because it was between all these other big accidents in bigger cities. Yes, I did see that.
[00:28:57] Micah Tomasella: It was a smaller plane.
[00:28:58] Conner Jones: Yeah, it was like, you know, one of those bush planes in Alaska, but it had 10 people on board and just went missing.
[00:29:04] Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
[00:29:05] Conner Jones: Crazy stuff. What were we about to say? Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there.
[00:29:07] Micah Tomasella: No, let’s just get to the next one. So we had SNL 50. So Saturday Night Live had 15 million viewers. There were a ton of stars on it. I saw a lot of the highlights. I didn’t watch it. live because it was actually on Sunday night, right?
So it was Sunday night live and there was, you know, a nod to Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and the feud with Baldoni, a story that we covered last week and many viral clips and some funny and others just, you know, flying around social media because people were upset, you know, about certain things that kind of took place on it.
But, you know, did you watch it? Did you watch the thing Live? Did you watch it all? I
[00:29:40] Conner Jones: watched I it the, there’s a lot happening on Sunday night. I don’t know why they put this on Sunday night. I know. I’m trying to watch the final lapse of the Daytona 500. I’m trying to watch
[00:29:47] Micah Tomasella: Right, of course,
[00:29:48] Conner Jones: tune into a little bit of the all star NBA game.
Didn’t even end up making it there. I’m trying to watch a whole bunch of things. I got a, I got a crying baby. It was crazy. Oh man. No, I watched one or two skits, mostly saw the funniest parts on social media, which I’m gonna guess is how most people this’s what I did too. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I did think that the Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively kind of thing was a little awkward and did not land the way they hoped.
No,
[00:30:12] Micah Tomasella: it didn’t. And, but, you know, it was fun to see all those stars return. I mean, you know, there, you forget how many famous people got their start on Saturday Night Live. I mean, you, you forget. What a training ground that really was. I don’t think it’s the same as it used to be, but it catapulted so many careers of people who are A listers.
That’s kind of what I was reminded of when I was watching those clips.
[00:30:35] Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s seriously insane. It was awesome to kind of reflect back on that. Okay, moving on. We did have floods this week in Kentucky. I’m not sure if you saw this, but there have been 12 people killed in flooding in Kentucky. Yeah, really sad stuff.
Be praying for those communities there. Extreme rains. Okay. And then, Micah, I don’t know if you’ve seen that. It’s now come out that the U. S. is spying on Mexican cartels with drones over the country of Mexico, their own sovereign territory. I’m not sure. I, I assume the Mexican government is aware, but this is happening and it’s probably because Trump has designated Mexican cartels, drug cartels, human trafficking cartels, all of that as terrorist organizations.
So now they can use military. U. S. military resources to do whatever they want. This could spell that there’s drone strikes coming in the future if they’re going to try to get drug labs or any top targets or whatnot. So we’ll just see. That’s interesting, right?
[00:31:28] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. The, the executive orders to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations is a big step in what Trump was trying to do.
And this is, it allows The U. S. Government to take it up a notch to combat everything that kind of comes from cartels. That was a big part of the negotiations for Trump with these tariffs with Mexico and Canada that they would declare the cartels terrorist organizations as well. And they have. And so we’ll see what comes from this, but Did you also see what’s going on with the Pope’s health, Connor?
Have you seen some of those updates? He’s got like bad,
[00:32:00] Conner Jones: bad pneumonia. He’s in a bad situation. Yeah,
[00:32:02] Micah Tomasella: yeah. So Pope Francis is, he’s 88, right? And so he was hospitalized this week with pneumonia on both of his lungs with the Vatican saying he has a complex clinical picture requiring adequate hospitalization.
That is an interesting word picture there. So it’s something to keep an eye on. He’s looked to by a whole lot of Catholics around the world as kind of a forerunner for their faith. I mean, this is a big deal for a whole lot of people, and we need to be sympathetic to that. And, you know, obviously don’t want anything to happen to him or for it to end this way.
But he is 88. I didn’t realize he was at that age.
[00:32:36] Conner Jones: I didn’t realize that either. So yeah, we’ll keep an eye on that. Okay, something that’s impacting probably everyone listening to this, Micah. It’s killing me. These egg prices are just, I mean, I eat two eggs every morning. Sometimes three, sometimes four.
Astronomical. Big omelet guy here. And so I am having to cut down because these prices are insane. They have gone up in price 53 percent year over year. So right now an average for a dozen eggs is 4. 95. So just an insane amount of money compared to what we’re used to. And then this is really happening because there’s a big bird flu going around, wiping out just millions of chickens.
So until that gets repopulated, we may be suffering from these high prices for awhile. Maybe everybody needs to just go get their own chickens. I was
[00:33:23] Micah Tomasella: about to say, man, we have friends who have chickens and they’re definitely looking like the smart ones. They’re definitely looking like the smart ones and they’re definitely saving a lot of money too, I think.
[00:33:32] Conner Jones: They’re saving money and they honestly, they could be making money. They really wanted to. They could sell eggs. I’m sure people would pay for.
[00:33:37] Micah Tomasella: That’s right. That’s right. That’s true. Okay. So we’re, so we’re also in, you know, you talked about bird flu. Let’s talk about flu season. So we’re in a severe flu season right now and health officials report that this flu season is the worst in 15 years with estimates of 29 million cases across the country.
So this is, this has been a pretty bad flu season. There’s been entire school districts in the DFW area shut down because of how flu has affected the entire school district. I mean, which has just been kind of crazy.
[00:34:08] Conner Jones: It feels like I know somebody in every facet of my life that has the flu or just got, you know, recovered from the flu.
So bad season. I’ve avoided it so far. Hopefully you do too. Right,
[00:34:20] Micah Tomasella: right.
[00:34:21] Conner Jones: Okay, Micah. Also, big thing, Elon Musk and the Doge Department, Department of Government Efficiency are continuing to just implement serious budget cuts across federal agencies and reducing government spending. And a lot of that is happening through layoffs, so there’s just mass layoffs happening across the government.
People are concerned that things that are extremely important are going to be cut. That’s already happened, actually. They, I think, laid off like 300 nuclear. People from an agency this past weekend and had to rehire them back because they realized that those are the people who manage the nuclear stockpile.
Just something interesting there. And then on top of that, in the private sector, Southwest Airlines, and this is big for the Dallas area because that is where Southwest Airlines is headquartered, announced this week that they are reducing their corporate workforce by 15%. And it equates to almost 2, 000 positions.
This is the first time Southwest Airlines has ever done mass layoffs. A lot of this is because a private equity company came in and bought up a big chunk of their, just, stake in stock. And now So this is kind of the result of that and trying to recalibrate to a new airline and aviation world post COVID.
So my goodness, we’ve got some personal friends that work there and all that. So shout out to all of our Southwest people stay strong.
[00:35:30] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, definitely tough time praying and hoping that they land on their feet. That’s definitely tough. Connor, tell us about what’s going on with the New York mayor.
[00:35:37] Conner Jones: Yeah, I’ll make this brief, but essentially we need to keep an eye on this. Everybody keep an eye on this. Eric Adams. Was charged with and I think September of last year, bribery, fraud, and soliciting foreign campaign donations. Not a great things. He’s the, you know, mayor of New York and that’s a very Big political office bigger than most governorships in America.
So this is very crucial to just that economy and honestly the U. S. Because of that, he took a lot of heat. But then Trump’s Department of Justice went ahead and just cleared him of all those charges and told the federal prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams. Obviously this has been rebuked across the board from Democrat leaders and New York City leaders.
So the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, Is consulting with other Democrat leaders to figure out what they should do. And she does have the power to actually just remove him from office. It’s never happened before, has been considered before, but would obviously be a massive move for something. That’s wow, really, it’s just somebody that millions of people voted for to be the leader of their city.
So we’ll see what happens. She suggested this week that she is. Considering it,
[00:36:41] Micah Tomasella: that would be, that would be very interesting. There’s obviously a lot of things on the peripheral with this, right? There’s, there’s a lot of things of, Hey, Trump is kind of supporting this guy. Trump is letting this guy get off scot free and easy from their perspective.
I mean, all of these things he was accused of, I don’t actually know what the truth is here as far as if he actually did some of those things. Oftentimes it’s, it’s kind of in the middle. You know, it’s like he might have done some of those things, but maybe not all those things, you know, it’s kind of how it ends up.
So that would be really interesting if she did that. But, Conor, let’s talk about, let’s talk about this new Captain America movie. So the latest Captain America film has received an underwhelming response, underwhelming reviews and low, low end box office returns from what’s expected from a Marvel film, specifically a Captain America type Marvel film, not a good omen for the future of Marvel.
And honestly, Conor, I. I saw a preview for a Marvel movie that I hadn’t heard of last week, and I just caught myself rolling my eyes. I am almost just Thunderbolts movie. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. Just like this. This group of people that they were trying to introduce as new heroes. I just found myself like, I’m kind of done.
Marvel had its day. I just kind of feel that way. I think a lot of people do.
[00:37:51] Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s kind of sad. Remember when we used to go to the midnight premieres in college? Oh man, to all those big Marvel movies and they’d come in, now we’re kind of like, and they were always so good. Yeah, they were always so good.
Absolutely zero desire to see this Captain America movie, sadly. Anyways, last thing, I feel like we should mention this. There is an asteroid headed towards Earth. That’s fun. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Trying to, trying to make it sound more positive. News you can use, man. News you can use. Yeah. So basically NASA is saying in 2032, there is a 3.
1 percent chance that this asteroid hits earth. So you’ve got a few years to prep. If you feel like doing that, here’s the kicker. They keep increasing the chances every few days. So two weeks ago, they were saying there was a 1. 2 percent chance this asteroid hits earth. And now it’s 3. 1% and it kind of keeps going up a few percentage points every day.
So hopefully it stops. This is the highest on record at NASA. What’s up?
[00:38:47] Micah Tomasella: Aren’t they calling this asteroid the City Destroyer?
[00:38:52] Conner Jones: I don’t know. Is that what, are we giving it a name now?
[00:38:54] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, they literally were calling it like the City Destroyer, right? Because it’s going to be big enough to wipe out like a large city.
It’s something like
[00:39:01] Conner Jones: 300 feet wide. It’s essentially the size of a football field, which would destroy. A city, my guess is if it did hit earth, it would land in the ocean somewhere, but that could be tsunami. I mean, it’s going to be bad no matter what happens.
[00:39:12] Micah Tomasella: Even if it does hit earth, the odds that it hits a very populated area is low, right?
So I mean, within that 3. 1%, the odds get even smaller if it does impact, but yes.
[00:39:24] Conner Jones: Anyways, keep an eye on that one. Yep. Micah, all this to say, there’s a lot going on just in our world. Obviously, we just went through a whole bunch of things happening this week alone. I would say, I’m very guilty of this. I’m sure a lot of people are.
It’s so easy to be just overwhelmed by it and even let all this stuff be a distraction. And that’s one of the reasons we want to do this podcast. We want to just give it all to you in an hour so that you’ve got, or even less than an hour sometimes so that you’ve got it all and you don’t need to think about it that much more unless you want to take a big spiritual application to it and say, okay, let me pray about this or whatnot.
All that to say in times like this where it just feels like you’re overwhelmed or anxious about everything going on in the world, just draw near to God and he will draw near to you. That’s what James 4, 8 says. If you’re anxious about all that’s happening, Draw near to God. If you’re constantly in like go, go, go mode and have a mind full of thoughts and you’re struggling to sleep And you feel like you can’t separate what from what’s going on in your life and your personal life or just everything in the news And in the world Draw near to God.
I would say if you need help with that, we have a great resource that we could recommend. That’s actually one of our other brands here at Denison Ministries. That’s First15 Devotionals. I think Mike and I can both attest to the fact that that has been a very powerful resource for us individually. I would go to First15.
org. That’s First15. org. I’ll link that in the show notes. It’s daily devotionals. It’s got worship and scripture reflection. And it’s very peaceful. It’s for the first 15 minutes of your day. Couldn’t recommend it more.
All right, Micah, we got a great email this week from a listener. Love to talk about that. Why don’t you take us through it over in the mailbag?
[00:41:04] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s jump into the mailbag. So we want to continue to hear from you all. Please send us your questions or thoughts or topic ideas to culturebrief at denisonforum.org. Our listeners have been so good about this. Continue to send it.
We want to talk about what you want to talk about. So we got this fantastic question in this conversation starter in from one of our listeners this past week. Katharine, thank you for this question, Katharine. All right. So here’s what she says.
Let’s talk about childhood hobbies and sports. Connor, we know you collected coins and stamps. The whole world. I heard this last week that you are an avid coin and stamp collector. You still might be, you didn’t even really say that, but what hobbies and sports did you play Connor and do you play any instruments?
[00:41:49] Conner Jones: Okay. Let’s clarify a few things. I don’t collect those things anymore. I was never like a super avid collector of stamps and coins, but I have a decent, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Some boxes full of those things. Anyways. Today, I don’t play any instruments. You don’t want to hear me sing or try to play an instrument.
My musical talent is basically non existent. Just lives in my head and in the, you know, singing in the shower type of situation. That’s where I’m at with that. I did do theater. Which doesn’t necessarily bode well for somebody with no musical talent, but it was still fun did some and somebody who collected
[00:42:20] Micah Tomasella: coins and
[00:42:20] Conner Jones: stamps yeah fair anyways Sports wise, you know played some basketball played some soccer.
I hey, I played middle school basketball Guess what? I was the starting point guard on the C team of my middle school basketball team not the B team Not the A team, the C team. We were dropping dimes though, man. We were at the bottom of the barrel. You know what I’m saying? Anyways.
[00:42:44] Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
[00:42:44] Conner Jones: Honestly, Micah, I’m such a nerd.
I had two big hobbies when I was kind of a kid and growing up and I was watching movies. Just big, big movie buff and nerd. Watched movies all the time as a kid and as a teenager. And then I loved watching the news. It’s part of why I enjoyed doing something like this podcast because
[00:43:03] Micah Tomasella: I liked, I liked watching the news too.
[00:43:05] Conner Jones: Yeah, it was junkie. And of course sports and all that. But man, if when politics were happening, I’m watching every debate. I’m watching every like primary result roll in, everything there, anything going on in the news. I was watching, yeah, I was watching Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity as a kid on primetime every night.
So that was me. Kind of weird. What about you?
I was like a 40 year old man in an
[00:43:26] Micah Tomasella: eight year old’s body. So the question came in and kind of asked Connor and I the same thing. So Micah, what sports or hobbies did I play when, when I was or what was I involved in when I was a child, a teen, what did I collect and do I play an instrument? So sports played football through junior high, and then I played baseball and basketball throughout my life through high school, went to a small school.
So I’m not even sitting here and saying the fact that I was on those varsity teams was anything impressive, but I always did play sports. I always enjoyed it. It was kind of a big part of how I grew up. I also enjoyed the news as well. One of my hobbies was the news. One of my hobbies was also watching sports.
So some of my greatest memories are going to Rangers games. At the ballpark in Arlington, going to Cowboys games, even when the stadium was in Irving, going to Mavericks games and prime Dirk years you know, even going to stars games. I mean, I just, those are some of my best memories of just watching those games or going to those games.
Whenever I got to go, the few times I got to go or just huge memories and moments for me was big into politics, news, love sports, all of that stuff. Now, did I collect anything? I collected baseball and football cards. When I moved off to college a long time ago, I think my mom got tired of holding on to them, and so we decided to get rid of them.
Maybe I get rid of some valuable cards, I don’t know. Do I play an instrument? I Depending on who you ask, can sing. My mom says I sing like an angel. If you ask anybody else, it’s pretty debatable on if I can sing well or not. It just kind of depends on the day.
[00:45:07] Conner Jones: Why don’t you ask me right now? I can give you an answer.
Ask me. What do I think? Connor, can I sing? You sure you want me to answer that? You told me to ask you. I think you’re okay. You know? Would I hire you to lead a, a, a worship segment at a church? Probably not. Yeah, no, I don’t think I would either. Yeah. Would I do karaoke with you? Yeah, sure. You know, let’s get a shot.
[00:45:35] Micah Tomasella: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll take okay. I think, I think speaking has always kind of been more of a skill that I’m kind of better at than, than singing. So I’ll take that. That was a little bit more about us. Katharine, thank you for that question that allows us to kind of talk a little bit more about us and kind of what’s helped form us and what we’ve been into and what we continue to be into.
But let’s, let’s jump into this tune in section here, Connor, and let’s talk about what’s, what’s coming up. Tell us.
[00:46:00] Conner Jones: Yeah, so this week, here’s what we got. We’ve got quite a few shows coming out. Honestly, it feels like an inundation of just television shows right now. I can’t keep up with everything coming out, but did you see the trailer for the show?
House of David about King David from the Bible coming out
[00:46:15] Micah Tomasella: as on
[00:46:16] Conner Jones: prime?
[00:46:16] Micah Tomasella: I cannot. I cannot wait. It’s an MGM production, but then it’s also through this Christian production company. I mean, and I’ve been reading about it. It looks like it’s going to be legit and pretty biblically accurate. I mean, and if you just think about it, like 2025, a show filmed and shot just the, what we’re going to witness and see the life of David from Goliath to him becoming King to, I mean, I, I am very excited about this show.
[00:46:41] Conner Jones: Me too. I feel like it’s going to be similar to the chosen, but of course this old Testament. character and just awesome to see it lived out. Okay. Also on top of that, we’ve got, I know you’re big into this suits LA. A lot of the country has been waiting for this to come out because after the revival and Netflix, this is the spinoff that’s this weekend, Sunday night on NBC or Peacock, wherever you want to watch that.
So suits la is are any of the characters from the main suits gonna be in that
[00:47:09] Micah Tomasella: I don’t think so But in the trailer, they have a photo of Harvey Specter Who’s like the main character of the original suit show and they’re kind of implying he might make an appearance or two I mean and I’ll tell you what I’ll watch I’ll watch the whole season just to see him pop up once or twice I mean, I’m a big Harvey Specter fan.
[00:47:26] Conner Jones: Yeah, that’ll be fun. Especially if he does show up that’s gonna Probably break the internet. Okay. And then Netflix has the show called zero day coming out starring Robert De Niro something along the lines I like how really watch the trailer. Yeah, it’s like he’s a former president. There’s been a big terrorist attack in the u.
s And they bring him back in to help them figure out how to move the country forward and track down the terrorists, all of that. Interesting concept. I don’t know if it’s going to be any good. That releases, if you’re listening on Thursday, that releases tonight. If you’re listening after that, it’s already out, so go check that out on Netflix.
I mean, on
[00:47:59] Micah Tomasella: concept alone, I mean, that might be something I might check out with all of my spare time. Seriously, yeah. Just kidding, don’t have a whole lot of that, but that does sound like a really interesting concept. Okay, and then we’ve got full swing season. Season three coming out on Tuesday of next week on Netflix.
So full swing is like an all access to, to these players on the PGA tour, the live golf tour. I mean, it is, I mean, there is so many stories that’s going to cover Scotty Shuffler getting arrested there for a second when he was I mean, I just all kinds of stuff with Rory and then his divorce, but then not divorce.
I mean, all the things in that trailer, I was like, my goodness, this was a huge year in golf. I cannot wait to watch it.
[00:48:39] Conner Jones: Yeah, dude, it’s, it’s always been really good. The last two seasons have been great. It’s similar. If you’ve ever watched the F1 show on Netflix, it’s similar to that. Just get an access to the behind the scenes of the sports where you’re seeing the parts that you don’t ever get to
[00:48:52] Micah Tomasella: see.
Yeah. Yeah. Any kind of sports show like hard knocks, you know, they’ve done one called quarterback. They’ve done one called receiver. I mean, it’s, it. It’s definitely just more of an in depth look on the day to day lives of professional athletes. And it’s definitely worth checking out.
[00:49:06] Conner Jones: Yeah. It’s fun.
Even if you don’t like golf, it’s actually, I think for both of us, our wives started to get my wife started watching the show. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. And then the big one, we already mentioned this, but Thursday night, tonight is the U S versus Canada hockey game in this four nations face off tournament. This is the championship game.
Let’s go USA. If you’re from Canada, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably going down. Hopefully we get some good fights and yeah. I’m just, dude, those three fights in nine seconds. I’m like ready to play some like free bird. Let’s get this going.
[00:49:42] Micah Tomasella: You’re going down, Canada. I’m all in on it, man. I’m all, I’m all in.
Go USA. Okay. Guys, thank you so much for joining us for this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please please subscribe, and please rate and review the show wherever you consume the podcast.
And share with a friend. We’ll see you next Thursday.
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