The Daily Briefing highlights the news of the day and research that reveals the spirit of the day.
The Daily Briefing is a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every morning that provides biblical insight on today's news.
Top News
6. Trump threatens Insurrection Act deployment to quell Minnesota ICE protests (WaPo)
“President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota on Thursday, raising the prospect of sending U.S. troops into Minneapolis, despite opposition from state and local leaders, to quell protests over a recent federal immigration enforcement surge. Trump, in a Truth Social post, put the onus on Minnesota politicians to stop protesters from “attacking” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Trump wrote that if the state couldn’t calm the protesters, whom he referred to as “insurrectionists,” he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT … and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”
“Federal agents have flooded the streets of Minneapolis in recent days, detaining people, pulling them from their vehicles, stopping U.S. citizens and — as of Wednesday evening — shooting two people, one of whom was killed. Residents have responded by protesting the agents’ use of force and the Trump administration’s campaign to round up people who are not in the country legally.
“The Insurrection Act enables a president to deploy the military on U.S. soil in extraordinary circumstances: to quell an insurrection, civil disorder or armed rebellion. By invoking the Insurrection Act, a president empowers the military to make arrests and perform searches domestically, functions that the military is generally otherwise prohibited from performing in the United States.”
I stayed up way too late reading about the mattering instinct. Rebecca Goldstein, in her fascinating new book, writes how we each possess a desire to matter. We find ourselves engaged in a “ceaseless struggle against entropy.” Like boats against the current, we attempt to keep ourselves from succumbing to the chaos that characterizes these days. Identifying that animating principle serves as a “missing piece in the puzzle of understanding ourselves, one another, and our troubled times.”
That instinct to matter compels these protests as well as Pres. Trump’s threats.
Consider the mattering map. First introduced in her 1983 novel, The Mind-Body Problem, Goldstein highlights how this mattering instinct manifests in different ways in different types of people. There is the “heroic striver,” who believes the meaning of life is found in the next achievement or accomplishment. The “transcender” seeks fulfillment in a relationship with the divine. The “competitor” is driven to defeat others and secure victory. And the “socializer” seeks to matter by mattering to others.
We may struggle to feel like we matter, but Christians know they matter regardless of the struggle. Bearing the image of the divine, humans often struggle, but we always matter. Our identity isn’t rooted in the struggle but the one who struggled and overcame. The dignity we inherently hold compels us to work for peace in the chaos and fight for justice amid what we perceive as unfairness. In this instance, each side is struggling to matter, but when we fail to honor the other side like they matter, we dishonor the one who matters most. (Mt. 5)
5. Verizon offering customers $20 credits after hourslong outage impacted thousands (ABC News)
“Following a major service outage that left thousands of Verizon customers without the ability to call or text for hours on Wednesday, the nation's largest wireless carrier announced it will give affected customers a $20 credit to provide some relief. "Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence our customers expect and that we expect ourselves," Verizon said in a statement Thursday morning.
“According to Downdetector, at least 178,284 Verizon customers were affected at one point. The highest concentration of reports of Verizon problems, according to Downdetector, was in New York City, Atlanta, Charlotte and Houston. Verizon resolved the outage issue on Wednesday night after customers experienced disruptions in service for hours.”
Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares? More like here is $20, now you can actually call someone, Travis Tritt. A recent survey found that Americans are experiencing more product and service problems than ever before. 74 percent of customers reported experiencing a product or service problem in the past year, more than doubling since 1976.
Have you experienced sludge? Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein coined the term "nudge" to refer to small tweaks that can help us make better decisions. Sludge is the opposite: undesirable demands that impede our lives. A Harvard Business Review article put it like this: “Some companies may actually find it profitable to create hassles for complaining customers.” Examples include companies like Cigna, which ProPublica showed had saved millions by rejecting claims without having doctors read them, knowing that a limited number of customers would endure the appeal process. Then there is Toyota’s motor-financing arm, which was found to have knowingly failed to offer refunds and set up a dead-end hotline for canceling products and services.
Remember Samson… Set apart at birth, Samson was a living contradiction – a man of great physical strength yet weak self-control. At times, he lived up to his vows, and at other times, he failed to keep his commitments. At the end of his life, suffering the consequences of his poor decisions, Samson offered up one last prayer… and God answered. Samson knew mistakes are a part of life, but second chances are a grace in this life. There are various consequences with mistakes, as Verizon is demonstrating, and there are unexpected opportunities with grace, as we have the chance to experience. (Judges 16)
4. More than a dozen NCAA basketball players charged over rigged games, prosecutors say (CNN)
“A sprawling betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games ensnared 26 people, including more than a dozen college basketball players who tried to fix games as recently as last season, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
“The scheme generally revolved around fixers recruiting players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. The fixers would then place big bets against the players’ teams in those games, defrauding sportsbooks and other bettors, authorities said.
“Concerns about gambling and college sports have grown since 2018, when the US Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on the practice, leading some states to legalize it to varying degrees. The NCAA does not allow athletes or staff to bet on college games, but it briefly allowed student-athletes to bet on professional sports last year before rescinding that decision in November.”
Unlike The Gambler himself, Kenny Rogers, these individuals didn’t know when to walk away. They chased after one of the 4 false idols Aquinas identified: wealth (the accumulation of money and resources), power (drive to control others and situations), pleasure (pursuit of gratification via the senses), and honor (the need for prestige and admiration from others).
Beware of the trap researchers call the financial contingency of self-worth. This refers to a situation in which someone’s self-esteem is conditional on their financial success. As research has shown, the pursuit of money may be perceived as an answer to problems, but in reality, it creates more problems (anxiety, stress, less autonomy, etc.).
Contrary to popular belief, the dealer doesn’t always win… especially from an eternal perspective. In the Scriptures, we read that the root of all kinds of evil is the love of money. When you win in gambling, many of our neighbors and friends are likely to lose. They are further tempted to either win more than they can imagine or try to dig themselves out of an ever-sinking hole. The writer of Proverbs was right: “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” (Pro. 30:8, 1 Tim. 6:10)
Cultural News
3. The Futile Campaign to Get People to Dress Better on Planes (WSJ)
“If more fliers opt for jeans and a decent shirt, cooler heads may prevail, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “Let’s try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport,” he said at Newark Liberty International Airport in late November. Air travel was once only about dressing up. During the golden age of commercial aviation, flights were the glamorous realm of the wealthy, who could afford the high price of the high life. “It was something that only the elite did,” said Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
“Dressing up was a reflection of that exclusivity, and the general luxury that air travel in the 1950s and ’60s entailed, said Steele. Women would wear dresses and stockings; men would don suits and hats. Food was served on fine china. Wine and Champagne flowed freely. That changed after airlines were largely deregulated in 1978. As flying opened up to the masses and air travel became more routine than adventurous, a downgrade in duds followed—mimicking broader shifts in fashions but also a downgrade in the experience.”
Have you consulted the Dress Doctor lately? In her insightful book, The Lost Art of Dress, Linda Przybyszewski points back to the 1960s as the time when we lost the art of attire. Interestingly enough, she writes that there used to be a day when home economics curriculum guided your clothing choices, but a generation of young people began questioning the received rules and conventions. And this was only exacerbated during the pandemic, when casual Friday became casual every day…
Who are these Dress Doctors? “A remarkable group of women who worked as teachers, writers, retailers, and designers.” Dress Doctors established 6 occasions for dress: school, business, housework, sport, afternoon, and evening — each with its own set of guidelines for optimal efficiency, elegance, and style.
“Has luring men become our only standard for beauty in dress?” She goes on: “We are living in an age when the only standard of female attractiveness is hotness, and when every detail of life is offered up on Facebook, young women find it normal that the whole world, not just their sweetheart, their gynecologist and their mother, should know the exact shape of their bodies.”
The clothes don’t make a man, but they do reveal a part of him. From Tabitha’s work to the detail Moses went into when describing the attire of the high priest, the clothes we wear don’t tell the whole story, but they can share a part of the story. In this informal world of stretch clothing, don’t forget about your Sunday best (and how the teaching on Sunday impacts the rest). (Acts 9, Ex. 28)
News You Can Use
2. How Our Parents Traveled to School Based On Their Stories…
Watch it here. “Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.” (Ecc. 7:10)
1. A mangled pickup truck draws mockery – and kindness
Watch it here. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:4)
