Cybertruck fulfills Volkswagen prophecy; Evil in Rotherham; Lots of chat about my cheeseburger.

3 Things this week and a poem about millstones

Happy New Year! 2025. It's here and we are here for it. I love how the annual calendar change allows us to re-think priorities, set goals, and dream.

Spoiler: This reset and vision-casting can be done at anytime.

Petra and I spent some time over coffee this week to talk about our goals in all the areas of life. To write the vision down. It was such a meaningful exercise. I hope you find time to jot a few dreams down and make a plan to go after them this year.

Thanks for spending some of your weekend with Things I Wrote Down. Here are three things and a poem.

1. Cybertruck fulfills Volkswagen prophecy

Do you remember that ad, from years ago, when a would-be terrorist sets up a bomb, parks his car in front of a cafe, hits the detonator, and the blast is contained inside the vehicle?

The controversial spot ends with the caption, “Small but tough.” And shows the Volkswagen logo.

Screen grabs of the controversial, fake Volkswagen ad

It, of course, was wildly controversial, went viral, and turned out to be a fake ad, not actually created by Volkswagen.

But this week, that spoof-y, trickster ad proved prophetic when a man detonated a bomb in a rented Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Vegas. The Cybertruck contained the blast, and there wasn’t even damage to the glass front doors of the building.

Screen grab of the Cybertruck from reporting by CTV

(There's so much swirl online about the event, everything from the psychotic break of a soldier, to connections to the New Jersey drones and gravity propulsion—like the spoofed Volkswagen ad, it’s tough to recognize or know what's real in life itself!)

It's a tragic, politically charged situation unfolding. But from the POV of a car manufacturer, you couldn't ask for a better ad about safety.

2. Evil in Rotherham

This next one covers difficult subject matter. Feel free to skip ahead.

It's horrifying. All of it.

This is the kind of evil injustice I wrote about in my stage play turned film She Has Name, the unthinkable, systemic abuse of vulnerable children, trafficked and treated like commodities. And it's been happening for years in the UK.

This week the story broke in a way that victims of these crimes, families of the survivors, and the few journalists who have braved covering the story have been praying it would, for years.

With the help from Elon Musk, who has the largest X account in the world, and who has been tweeting about it non stop all week, the story hit the tipping point.

Tragically, institutions meant to protect children failed big, and a main reason they did not pursue justice for victims was for fears of racism. Here’s some recent articles if you want to catch up. (Not easy reading):

• Telegraph: How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up

• BBC: Badenoch calls for national inquiry into 'rape gangs'

• Guardian: Two former Rotherham police officers arrested over child sexual abuse

• Business Standard: What was the Rotherham scandal, and why is Musk demanding accountability?

And the UK government may fall as a result.

3. Lots of talk about my cheeseburger

Want to cut calories? Pick the cheeseburger over a bowl of cereal!

Petra and I have been chatting with people all week who've reached out to us after we shared about our lightbulb moment.

We love a late night snack and until about midway into 2024 would often eat a bowl of Vector cereal.

When I started to track macros and look at nutrition information on the food in our house, I discovered that the small bowl (and let's be honest, it wasn't always one bowl) of cereal we ate before bed as we wound down and watched a show HAD MORE CALORIES THAN A BIG MAC.

Are we the only ones who didn't know this!

Turns out, maybe No. We're grateful that our little lightbulb moment has started conversations with many of my readers here and in-person.

We're going to continue tracking our macros in 2025, and have seen it as a boon to our health and fitness goals!

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A poem about millstones

I was heartbroken this week to see the flood of reporting on the horrific story out of Rotherham. God have mercy! I was further startled to hear reporting that over the course of the last four years of the Biden administration some 300,000 children were trafficked into the US. These are the most monstrous crimes.

It reminded me of a poem I wrote when I first learned about the global reality of child trafficking (which took me on a journey to write a play that became a film). It's about the One who so loves the little children and had the millstone tied around his own neck, taking upon Himself even those evil sins. It’s impossible to imagine or understand. Even as we cry for mercy we see it is provided, and at the greatest cost.

The poem is from my collection of poems God/he.

Oh how the children have fallen

oh how the children have 
fallen 

but not so far
and not so low
as you 
who suffered them
to your knee
looked into their
eyes
and spoke words
of destiny
light and transparent
as the wind

how the children have fallen

but not so hard
and hopelessly 
as you

for the neck 
on which hangs the
heavy miller’s stone
drown in the sea

treachery that their sin
black stones
heavy and hard to move
would weigh on your
neck
suffer the open arms
that suffered the little ones

a yoke too brutal 
to shoulder alone

and when the final
stone fell

fell and fell
for days

on impact
crushed you
with the weight of
all brutality
ever done against
once innocent
children

abuse that made them
old and marked
before the day they
learned to speak

there
for the first time
since the worlds were
formed
and you called forth
memory

not even a candle
with light
to see 

© Andrew Kooman