252 Last Sunday: A Different Feed
“Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting.” ~ Psalm 93
A Different Feed
You don’t have to be on the shop floor to know what’s happening during break time. The room is quiet, except for the hum of scrolling. Thumbs flick, eyes glaze, and yet the hunger remains. The infinite scroll never satisfies. It can’t. Its design is not to fill you but to addict you.
There’s another feed—older, richer, eternal. Its pages don’t refresh; they renew. It’s called the Bible, and it’s the most revolutionary book you’ll ever read. It doesn’t just inform; it transforms. Every word is a seed, and every seed is meant to grow. The question is, are we feeding our souls or starving them?
For generations, the church has known this truth: what you consume shapes who you become. That’s why Sons of Solomon is so radical.
It's simple.
A calls to men, to prayer, to Scripture, to the discipleship by Psalms, Proverbs, and the name of Jesus Christ.
In this age of distraction, reading the Bible is the ultimate act of rebellion. It’s more than a discipline; it’s a declaration of war against the empty calories of the infinite scroll. It’s the GoodSpell that reclaims not only your soul but your family, your neighberhood, and generations to come.
Where to from here?
In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
R.J.M.F
In this edition:
Bathroom wars on Capitol Hill
Trump’s case on hold
A new pick for Attorney General
All the biz about anti-trust, anti-trans, anti-vax and more!
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A Wyoming judge has struck down bans on the use of abortion pills and also a law that protected babies in the womb. Judge Melissa Owens ruled the bans are unconsititoinal, so abortions in the state will be legal until “viability”, usually around 23 or 24 weeks. (WNG)
We’ve seen this horror movie before: Planned Parenthood has been selling aborted babies to a California university to harvest for tissue for use in experiments. (The Federalist)
The great bathroom debate reaches Washington:
Lower prices, online influences and changing norms mean many kids today have more toys than they can play with. “Playing is what makes a toy a toy — if nobody plays with it, it’s just part of the plastic graveyard.” A small collection of simple toys may be all they need to fuel their childhood: “The toys that kids return to again and again are the ones that “require attention, imagination, and creativity.” (Vox)
Crime and Punishment
US District Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing Donald Trump indefinitely and agreed to let him file a motion to dismiss the fraud “hush money” case against him. New York prosecutors have indicated they are not willing to toss the case but are giving consideration “to shelving the case until after he’s out of office”. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records earlier this year. (Just the News, AP)
A forensic pathologist has testified at the trial of Daniel Penny, agreeing that Penny’s chokehold on Jordan Neely was not the sole cause of his death on a New York subway last year. “The combined effects of sickle-cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana” all contributed to an “increased risk of sudden cardiac death.” (The Blaze)
Actor Jussie Smollett, who was charged with felonies connected to making up a hate crime, has had his conviction overturned. An Illinois judge ruled that a state inquiry into the hoax violated Smollett’s rights by retrying the case. In 2019, Smollet paid men to pretend to be MAGA supporters and beat him up in a fake racially-motivated crime. (Variety)
Dozens of pro-Palestine protestors have been arrested by Capitol police after invading the Hart Senate Office building. (WNG)
A crowd of angry residents has attended a town hall in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, to call for the resignation of the County Commissioner who said she would ignore Supreme Court rulings and count illegal ballots. (The Federalist)
Coming to America
The illegal immigrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, has been charged with her murder. Jose Ibarra, who is Venezuelan and a member of the gang known as Tren de Aragua crossed through America’s open border in 2022. Ibarra had chosen to take a government-funded flight from New York to Georgia as part of the city’s plan to alleviate its illegal immigrant crisis. He killed Riley after she fought back against his attempts to rape her. (The Blaze, New York Post)
Coyotes and other human traffickers are reportedly urging hopeful migrants to hurry up and get to the border while President Biden is still in office. It seems that the administration is doing everything it can to fast track immigrants’ entering the country, with a new app which relaxes security screening and helps migrants contest monitoring requirements. (Wall Street Journal, New York Post)
Up north, Canadian immigration chiefs say they are bracing for a surge in “irregular” immigration if Trump’s administration acts on its promises of deporting illegal immigrants from the US. (Canadian Government)
A Muslim man has been apprehended by police in Washington state after strangling his daughter in an attempted “honor killing”. The 17 year-old had reportedly refused to go to Iraq to be married to an older man. (FPM)
Education
Texas public schools now have the option to use a curriculum written by the state which incorporates Bible reading into language lessons for elementary students. The state’s school board voted to adopt the new curriculum which also mentions texts from other religions. “The curriculum also focuses on the book of Genesis in a lesson about art appreciation, and incorporates individual psalms into a fifth grade poetry unit.” Given that the Bible was the key to the foundation of the West, it makes sense that children should know it as well as they know Shakespeare or any other great work! (KETV, WNG)
The National Association of Scholars, a non-profit which seeks to reform higher education in a classical direction has endorsed Linda McMahon as Donald Trump’s pick to head up education department. She is a known advocate of school choice. NAS hopes she will weed out the Department’s “profligacy, mediocrity, and radicalism.” (NAS)
Politics
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrew himself from consideration for the position of Attorney-General in the incoming Trump administration. Gaetz said the likely media and political circus around his confirmation hearing would distract from the Trump-Vance agenda and potentially delay the administration from having a cabinet in place and ready to go. Donald Trump has named Florida Attorney-General, Pam Bondi as his next pick. (Red State, AP)
The head of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Director Deanne Criswell has thrown whistleblower Marn’i Washington under the bus, denying her allegations that Agency staff skipped over offering help to homes with Trump signs. (The Federalist)
Michigan Senate Democrats have proposed a law which would see people who “intentionally and knowingly” say something false or misleading about elections a fineable offence. Republicans have raised concerns about how “intention” is measured and potential clashes with the First Amendment. (The Federalist, Yahoo)
Staff at a Minnesota hospital have been triggered after someone bought Chik-Fil-A for them. (Not the Bee)
The Digital Age
According to a new report, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is urging the judge presiding over its anti-trust case against Google to force it to sell off its world-dominating Chrome browser. The DOJ is also looking to make Google break off its partnership with AI company, Anthropic. Although Anthropic is a competitor to Google’s own Gemini AI, the Department seems intent on stopping Google from teaming up with (or acquiring) any tech which could boost its AI technology. (BBC, MSN)
Ninantic has announced it is working on what it calls a Large Geospatial Model, which sounds like Google maps with AI to fill in gaps and stitch it all together. Data collected from Pokemon GO users will be used to train an “AI model which helps computers understand and navigate the physical world.” (Pokemon Go Hub)
A dozen AI-powered robots in China were persuaded by another to leave their posts and head “home” with it. The company thought their robots had been stolen. (New York Post)
Money, Markets and Jobs
Budget airline, Spirit, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. The airline had sought to merge with JetBlue earlier this year, but the Justice Department blocked the move on anti-trust grounds. “The airlines had argued that they needed to combine to better compete with the larger airlines that control most of the U.S. market” but a judge ruled that the merger would “harm cost-conscious travelers who rely on Spirit’s low fares.” (CNBC, CNBC)
America has a permit problem. Legislation introduced by President Nixon has snowballed into a paralyzing need to “litigation proof” every project and building. But “what matters is whether building projects actually follow the law, not whether they promise to in advance.” (New Atlantis)
McDonalds is spending millions to bring customers back after E. coli outbreak. (CNN)
Religion and the Church
Eastern Orthodox writer, Paul Kingsnorth has written about the change in mindset from his days as an environmentalist: “Being an activist was easier than being a Christian.” But unlike activists who look for a Big Idea, a solution to fix the world, Christians know walking away from the world is precisely the beginning of saving it! "Stand up for the truth in love. Practice what we claim to believe. Loving our enemies implies that we have enemies - and we have them because we stand for something. Being called out of the world tends to make you unpopular.” (Abbey of Misrule)
The Megiddo Mosaic, which was found under the floor of an Israeli prison is the oldest known confession of Jesus’ divinity. The large tile will be on display in Washington DC’s Museum of the Bible until 2025. (GB News)
Target has apologized to an employee who was fired for writing a Christian message on her name badge. The retail company has reportedly offered to reinstate North Dakota woman, Denise Kendrick to her old job. (Valley News, The Blaze)
Arts, History and Sport
A new experiment where participants were given a random selection of poetry – some written by humans and others generated by AI – found that people mistook the computer prose for human. “The subjects were more likely to say an AI-generated poem had been written by a human, while the poems they said were least likely to be written by a human were all written by famous poets.” It may be a case of lack of familiarity with good poetry as much as anything: “It would seem that readers mistake the complexity of human-written verse for incoherence created by AI.” (EuroNews)
Washington Harrison Donaldson: the daredevil balloonist who inspired the Wizard of Oz. (Salon)
Wanting to be a writer? “My problem was I thought you had to know what you were doing. Nonsense. You just have to start.” (Lit Hub)
One of motorsport’s worst days and how it changed racing forever. (Esses Magazine, blags via YouTube)
Last week in history:
1626 St. Peter’s basilica in Rome consecrated under Pope Urban VIII. (On This Day)
1644 Poet John Milton releases Areopagitica, a polemic against government censorship. (Wikipedia)
1978 Cult leader Jim Jones convinces 900 others to “drink the Kool Aid” in Jonestown, Guyana. (The Guardian)
Health, Medicine and Food
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield, who was a prominent voice during Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, says mRNA vaccines should be critically reviewed by CDC. Redfield says there is a risk that contaminants may integrate into the genetic makeup of a patient. “I think if it integrates, I'm more of the view that it may integrate into mitochondrial DNA and therefore have cytoplasmic replication potential to continue to produce spike protein.” (Just the News, Chief Nerd via X)
A new study has found that fat cells can “remember” obesity through epigenetic markers, highlighting the “challenge of sustained weight loss.” (Technology Networks)
Los Angeles is planning to recycle waste water for drinking. The city has long used recycled water for irrigating parks and such, but a new plant will “drought-proof the drinking supply.” (AOL)
California has confirmed its first case of the more severe original strain of monkeypox, known as Clade-I. “The risk to the public remains low.” (USA Today)
A new paper about a study in mice says that stress inhibits the formation of memory and leads to generalized anxiety even in harmless situations. (Nature)
From the Mad☧Tank
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Straight Outta J-School
A fifth of Americans look to influencers for news. Respondents to a new Pew survey said they followed social media accounts to get news that they couldn't find elsewhere, with a majority saying news influencers helped them understand “current events and civic issues.” (Pew)
US telecommunications giant Comcast has announced it is going to spin off a number of its cable channels into a seperate business. MSNBC, E!, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, SYFY and the Golf Channel will be part of a new publicly-traded company while Comcast focuses on NBC and Bravo. (The Guardian)
Hearts and Minds
Americans are increasingly fearful, according to an annual survey. Some things keeping people up at night included, ”corrupt government officials, loved ones becoming ill or dying, cyberterrorism, nuclear attack, terrorist attacks, biological warfare, the U.S. entering another world war, and financial concerns.” While media (both traditional and social) focus on frightening things to sell its wares, Walker Larson notes that fear is a response to the realization that we are not in control of everything. “But there is a resilience and peace that can come from recognizing our infirmity. The tides of this world are not for us to master, to borrow a phrase from Tolkien. Time spent worrying over matters that lie beyond us is time wasted.” How marvelous that we have a good Father whose eye is even on the sparrow! (Intellectual Takeout)
Talking to yourself may have benefits. On expert “thinks of self-talk as a thermostat— a tool that can help you adjust the temperature of your daily emotions.” (Time)
Learning from anger. (Lutheran Mission Australia)
God’s Green Earth
You may known that farmers across Europe have been protesting various regulatory threats to their livelihoods and property for a while now. TV host Jeremy Clarkson has joined farmers on the streets of London, calling out the disconnect between city-based bureaucrats and country folk. Clarkson has maintain the current Labour government’s plan to raise money by taxing inheritance could be achieved by trimming off government waste. “Walk into any of the offices around here and if you don’t understand their job, fire them.” (UnHerd)
New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has voted overwhelmingly to introduce a traffic congestion fee for drivers entering Manhattan's Central Business District. The charge is aimed at reducing traffic jams and nudging people towards public transport options which are viewed as climate-friendly. London introduced a similar charge twenty years ago and it is still debated whether the changes made a difference to people’s commute as traffic has slowly returned. (CBS, CBS)
Science
SpaceX continues to impress, this time with a precision landing in the Indian Ocean for its Starship rocket. Engineers have also been experimenting with stainless steel surfaces to see how they cope with the heat from burning plasma. The successful flight puts the rocket in contention for new missions: “With this achievement, Starship will likely soon be cleared to travel into orbit around Earth and deploy Starlink Internet satellites or conduct in-space refueling experiments, two of the near-term objectives on SpaceX's Starship development roadmap.” (ArsTechnica)
Swiss scientists have built the first-ever fully functional mechanical qubit, a key component needed for quantum computing. While scientistists have worked with virtual qubits before, the “physical electronic device, also has lower and higher energy states represented by 0 and 1 respectively.” (Interesting Engineering)
Former military and intelligence officials have testified to a House committee about “unidentified anomalous phenomena”. One witness said there is no doubt that UAP are real and seem to hang around military bases and energy facilities. The witnesses say “it is the government’s responsibility not just to figure out its origin, but to share what it learns with the taxpaying public.” (Time)
War and Rumors of War
Ukraine has used long-range US-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System to strike targets inside Russia. Sources out of Ukraine said that the target was a military installation in the western Bryansk region. In response, the Russian leader Vladimir Putin has lowered the threshold for use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear powers. Russia has confirmed it fired a ballistic missile into Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Biden administration says it will supply anti-personnel mines to Ukraine to help slow Russia’s advance. Though human rights groups have expressed anger over the decision, Washington says they are “non-persistnat” mines which become inactive after a short period of time. (ZeroHedge, ABC, ABC)
Russia has angered UN member nations by blocking a resolution to call for a ceasefire in Sudan. The brutal civil war has waged for 19 months, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. (BBC)
Sweden, Finland and Norway have advised citizens on ways to prepare for disasters such as war, after each nation downgraded their security ratings in light of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. A pamphlet distributed in Norway outlines ways that citizens can “manage on their own for a week in the event of extreme weather, war and other threats.” (BBC)
Trucks of food and supplies have been looted once again in Gaza. Armed men took the contents of 100 trucks. Hamas’ authorities deny responsibility and say they are going to crack down on looters, who on-sell the food for extortionate prices. World Health Organization spokesperson, Margaret Harris. says, “It’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in.” (The Guardian)
Hezbollah confirmed that its media relations chief was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut. (Reuters)
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant. A warrant was also issued for Hamas operative, Mohammed Deif but he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July. ICC edicts have been selectively enforced by member states in the past, but the US, which is not a member, has rejected the warrants. (BBC)
The remains of a WWII airman have been recovered from 200ft under the sea in a remote Pacific bay. (Yahoo)
Stories from Far Away
The USA has recognized Edmundo González Urrutia as the president-elect of Venezuela, months after Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won the presidency. González is currently in exile in Spain. (The Guardian)
A rare look inside El Salvador’s terrorist prison for gang members. (CNN via X)
Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have been sentenced under the Chinese authorities national security law. The 45 defendants were charged in connection with efforts to get pro-democracy candidates elected to the Hong Kong legislature. (NBC)
The Danish navy has detained a Chinese ship suspected of damaging undersea cables. (Defence 24)
Spain’s head fraud and money- laundering investigator has had his home raided, with police finding $20million in its walls. (The Guardian)
India has successfully tested a hypersonic missile. (Die Welt)
Former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro has been formally charged with plotting to overthrow the 2022 presidential election. Investigators say that they have uncovered a criminal organisation which worked to keep Bolsonaro in power. (BBC)
A security guard at the US’ embassy in Oslo has been arrested on suspicion that he was spying for Russian and Iran. (The Independent)
🇺🇸 The lake that swallowed everything
🧮 A collection of calculators from 1897 til now
🇨🇳 A Chinese farmer spent years learning law so that he could take on a chemical company which had ruined his farm
🇨🇦 An annual hair-freezing contest in Canada
🍲 What did the ancient Babylonians eat for dinner?
🎓 A California teen has become the youngest person to pass the state’s bar exam. Sophia Park will be licensed to practice law when she turns 18 in a few months
On last week’s Starfall2029 Jonathan had great stuff to say about manliness, solving problems and storytelling. Watch on YouTube or Rumble, or listen here. Show links:
The Lutheran Pastor by G.H. Gerberding
If you missed it, Meridith put out a call for anyone who would like to make a quilt for men who stay at the Hebron Collegium. If that is something you would be interested in helping out with, please reply to this email or send a message through madpxm.com/contact.
Our disclaimer: These are some resources the Fisks have found edifying, but when dealing with human-authored texts, apply discernment liberally!
This Week Preached:
Podcast Release:
Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, so govern our hearts and minds by Your Holy Spirit that, ever mindful of Your glorious return, we may persevere in both faith and holiness of living; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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