The World and Everything in It: April 25, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Alex. My name is Benji. My name is Addie. My name is Audrey. My name is Elise. And we're the Paquette's. We homeschool our four lovely children in Atlanta, Georgia, and I work for a cybersecurity company named Iron Skills. We hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! It’s the Jewish Passover this week, while war continues. We’ll talk to a Jewish historian about it.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, Boeing’s had a string of losses and problems with its planes. What’s it doing to rebuild trust?

And, job hopping is common these days. But not at Ingalls Shipyard, where workers sign up and stay on.

MITCHELL: I worked at the shipyard 41 years and started right out of high school. And I would shine my shoes. I was proud of going down there.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on Columbia University’s anti-Semitism.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 25th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington has the news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden signs foreign aid » The first shipments of weapons and ammunition are already on the way to Ukraine after President Biden signed a long-awaited foreign aid package into law.

He told reporters on Wednesday:

BIDEN: I’m making sure the shipments start right away — for air defense munitions, for artillery, for rocket systems and armored vehicles.

It will be a desperately needed shot in the arm for a Ukrainian army forced back on its heels as it ran low on bullets to fire back at Russian troops.

But National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan cautioned it could get worse before it gets better.

SULLIVAN: They are still under severe pressure on the battlefield, and it is certainly possible that Russia could make additional tactical gains in the coming weeks.

Officials say it will take time to get weapons and ammunition into Ukraine and to the front lines in large enough numbers to shift the momentum in the war.

U.S. provides ATACMS to Ukraine » But Ukraine has already received one big military upgrade.

The United States weeks ago secretly provided the long-range ballistic missile systems to Kyiv known as ATACMS. Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Admiral Christopher Grady says they can disrupt Moscow’s plans in numerous ways.

GRADY: The ability of Russians to bring troop concentrations together to do any kind of counteroffensive that they may or may not be planning, the ability to get after deeply placed logistic nodes.

And Ukraine’s forces just used one of those systems to strike a deeply placed logistics hub, a military airfield in Crimea. They also targeted Russian troops in another occupied area.

Washington long resisted providing those long-range systems for fear of escalation.

SOUND: [Red Alert in Hebrew]

3. Israel 'moving ahead' with Rafah offensive » The words ‘Red Alert’ in Hebrew are broadcast in southern Gaza, followed …

SOUND: [Explosion]

… by an explosion.

The Israeli military has begun preparations to evacuate civilians ahead of a long-expected ground offensive of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israel says the city is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and the ground operation is unavoidable.

The White House, though, opposes the planned offensive, saying it could worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Hamas hostage video » Meanwhile, Hamas has released video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American taken hostage by the terror group on October 7th.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel says it’s a reminder of how the war began.

PATEL: It is Hamas that started this war. It’s Hamas that is continuing to hold hostages and has the ability to end it by releasing them. When it comes to this video, Hersh should be home with his family.

It’s not yet clear when the video was shot, but officials say an FBI hostage recovery unit is currently reviewing it.

University protests in U.S. and abroad » House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Columbia University’s president to resign if she can’t get the campus under control.

JOHNSON: Go back to class and stop the nonsense. Look, if we want to have a debate on campus about the merits of these things, let’s do that. But you can’t intimidate your fellow students and make them stay home from class. 

Johnson met with Jewish students on campus, who say they fear for their safety amid ongoing protests.

Jewish leaders say some of the protests have been not just pro-Palestinian, but anti-Semitic.

The school moved classes online earlier this week with police arresting roughly 100 protesters on the Columbia campus in recent days.

And the protests have spread to campuses across the country and even around the world — as far away as Sydney, Australia.

Blinken-China » Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in China for three days of meetings with leaders of America’s top geopolitical rival.

BLINKEN:  President Biden and President Xi, when they met in San Francisco at the end of last year, agreed to cooperate to help prevent fentanyl and the ingredients that make it from getting the United States. We’ll be working on that.

But that’s just one of many thorny issues Blinken intended to tackle. Others include trade and Beijing helping to prop up Russia’s economy, taking much of the sting out of U.S. sanctions against Moscow.

And China will have a few complaints of its own, starting with the U.S. aid to Taiwan just approved in the new foreign aid package. Beijing insists the island is Chinese property.

SCOTUS Abortion » The Supreme Court is deciding whether a federal law on emergency medical treatment overrides Idaho’s protections for the unborn. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

MARK MELLINGER: The Biden Administration argues that federal statutes require hospitals that participate in Medicare to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment” anytime someone’s health is in danger.

The administration says that may include abortions, if a mother faces a health risk … even if it’s not life-threatening.

But Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador told reporters outside the courthouse:

Labrador: The Biden administration can't manipulate one life-affirming law in favor of another so they can override another law. 

He says Idaho law already protects “the lives of every woman and every child.”

For WORLD, I’m Mark Mellinger.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Jews look to the past and the present in this year’s Passover celebrations. Plus, building warships in Mississippi.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 25th of April, 2024. Thanks for listening to WORLD Radio! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up on The World and Everything in It: Israel’s wartime Passover.

SOUND: [People setting out candles for Passover tables.]

The Jewish feast marking God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt began on Monday. Many in Israel set up empty tables remembering those still held hostage in Gaza.

SOUD: [Protestors chanting at Columbia University]

REICHARD: Meanwhile, protestors at Columbia University set up tents, planning to stay put despite police making more than 100 arrests. School officials canceled in-person classes because of pro-Palestinian protests that grew antisemitic and threatened Jewish students.

BROWN: Joining us now to discuss is Daniel Gordis. He’s a historian and a Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He’s also a graduate of Columbia University in New York.

REICHARD: Daniel, welcome back to the program.

DANIEL GORDIS: Thank you so much, Mary. Good to see and be with you again.

REICHARD: Well, as I understand it, part of the traditional Passover Seder meal is a series of questions the children ask adults sitting at the table. One of those questions is: “What makes this night different from all other nights?”

So Daniel, let me ask you, what makes this Passover in 2024 different from all other Passovers?

GORDIS: Yeah, this was an unforgettable Seder night. It was a very painful Seder night. And it was, frankly, Mary, a Seder night that all my friends were actually dreading. Passover is a joyous holiday, you know. It's the celebration of freedom and autonomy, and leaving slavery from Egypt and making your way to the promised land. And yes, you do recall ancient things that happened that were said, but it's really fundamentally a celebration with family and whatever. But in my congregation, for example, which is just around the corner from my house where I'm speaking to you, we have actually a family of one of the hostages as part of our congregation. The hostage thing is hanging over Israel so heavily, because we all gathered together, but there were, we left empty seats at our Seder table with yellow ribbons, and we had empty place settings. There is actually, as you mentioned, Mary, there's this thing at the beginning of the Seder, we ask these four questions, "why is this night different?" And almost as soon as we asked that question, the first thing that we do is we take parsley, and we dip it in salt water, and it's supposed to represent the tears of our ancestors when they were enslaved. You didn't have to actually think that hard to imagine the tears this year, because we were literally in tears in synagogue an hour earlier, looking at the place where this young man's father sits every week. It was a very different Passover. It's just, it was unbearably painful to celebrate knowing that these people are in some sort of hell that we can't imagine. And it did not feel like the year to celebrate freedom or liberation, quite frankly.

REICHARD: I can only imagine.

Let’s talk about money. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved more than $26 billion in aid to Israel, with about $9 billion earmarked for humanitarian aid, most of it for Gaza. What’s the reaction of Israelis about this mix of military and humanitarian aid for that part of the world?

GORDIS: Israelis feel very, very indebted to the United States. And it doesn't matter whether they're right wing or left wing, Likud voters or Labor voters, or if they would be Democratic or Republican if they lived in the States. Israelis feel unbelievably supported by President Biden, his support of Israel militarily has been unbelievable. We did not have those kinds of reserves of armaments and bombs throughout the six months. It all came from the United States, which makes Israelis by the way, very nervous. What if they didn't give it to us? How would we have fought? That's a separate question. Israelis feel very, very indebted to the United States, and to Joe Biden in particular. And they also know that he's taken some political hits, because of his stance on Israel, with the African American population, with other populations, and so forth. Now, the bill, you're right, allocates money, first of all, some to the Ukraine and other other countries as well. And then a lot of it to the Middle East, some of it to Israel for military support, and some of it to Gaza. There are very, very, very few Israelis at this point, who do not want to see humanitarian aid going into Gaza. There was a point at the beginning of the war, where some Israelis thought we could starve Hamas out. In other words, they would run out of run out of food and water and whatever, and they would come out of the tunnels with their hands in the air. So even though we didn't want Gazans to starve, we can't let food in because we've got to starve the Hamas guys out. We understand now that that's never going to happen. They either have reserves or they have ways of sneaking the food in. But we understand that we're being judged very harshly, so the more humanitarian aid goes in, and the more Gazans are fed and cared for, the better off we are. We have absolutely no vested interest in seeing another human being suffer. So we're very grateful for the military aid, we need it desperately, but we're also very pleased that Gazans are going to get even more aid.

REICHARD: All right, what’s next for Israel’s offensive in Gaza?

GORDIS: I think the smart money is that Israel is going to go into Rafah. Hamas apparently has six battalions left, four of them, we believe, are in Rafah. We know that on Wednesday of this week, the IDF Chief of Staff was in Cairo. It's kind of ironic, because Passover is the holiday that the Jews celebrate leaving Egypt and going to the promised land, and the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army left the promised land and went back to Egypt on Passover, but he was clearly there to the to convey some message in person. I think the smart money is Rafah is going to get invaded, we're going to try to do some damage. Then my guess would be that international patience with Israel doing military stuff in Gaza is going to be over. Israel will pull back would be my guess. And we'll then do, you know, pinpointed attacks on people that we find, however we find them. Then, of course, we have the whole issue in the north. I mean, Hezbollah has been, you know, sort of testing our patience ever since October, the middle of October, a week or two after. So I don't see how Israel can end this without at least taking out those four battalions and then doing something major in Lebanon. But what that looks like, since I'm obviously not on the inside of any of these conversations, it's very hard for me to imagine.

REICHARD: One last question, given that you are a Columbia University grad: what are you making of the protests going on there now?

GORDIS: You know, Mary, I loved my years at Columbia, I was there in the late 70s, early 80s, I had an unbelievably wonderful intellectual, social, cultural experience. And it was really, it was really great. I look at it now just heartbroken and frankly, enraged, because I know that if there were tents pitched out there, and people were saying something about African Americans that they're saying about Jews, you know, “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” or “October 7th is gonna happen not once, or twice or 10 times, but a thousand times,” meaning we're gonna kill Jews. And that's what they're saying. But if we said that about gays and lesbians, if they said that about African Americans, if they said that about Asian or anybody, anybody else, the university would have torn that thing down a week ago. But it's Jews. And you can get away with a lot when you're talking about the Jews. And I'll just come back to Mary, if you'll give me a second, I'll come back to the Seder table. The Seder at the beginning of the Haggadah, we also say that "In every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us and the Holy One, blessed be he saves us and brings us salvation." And I have to say that I'm in my 60s, I've been saying that every year for 60 something years, I said yeah, they always just to come up and, and destroy us. But I grew up in a world in which they didn't do that anymore. Israel was secure and unassailed. American Jews were living an unbelievably secure, wonderful, accepted life. And all of a sudden this year with the Seder table that felt very, very poignant and heartbreaking. So Jews are fighting for their physical lives here. And I think American Jews are fighting for the kind of American Jewish confident, secure, accepted life that I grew up in as an American Jew, taking for granted which I should not have taken for granted. It's an unbelievably sad period for the Jewish people that reminds us of 1938-1939 Jews in Germany, having reached the pinnacle of all of those social professional letters. And then, of course, within a half a dozen years, they were all dead. I don't think that's what's gonna happen in America. But I think something very profound has changed in America for Jews. And what that looks like we don't know, but it's a very, very sad time there too.

REICHARD: Daniel Gordis is a Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem and author of more than thirteen books, many of them about Israel.

Daniel, thank you so much for your time. Stay safe.

GORDIS: Mary, it’s an honor. Thank you for having me! All the best.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:… Boeing in the hot seat.

Last week, a Senate subcommittee heard testimony from airplane safety experts and whistleblowers who say Boeing puts profits over safety.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: In recent years, two 737 Max jets crashed after a flight system malfunctioned, and the planes nose-dived.

Boeing grounded its entire fleet, promising to change how it does things to prevent similar accidents in the future.

BROWN: Tuesday’s hearing wasn’t about those crashes. It was about incidents from this year, such as when a door plug blew off of a plane during an Alaska Airlines flight or when a wheel fell off another plane during takeoff.

REICHARD: Should you be worried about getting on your next flight? WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: Sam Salehpour is a Boeing quality engineer on the 777 aircraft. He says Boeing redesigned the fuselage of the plane a few years before he joined the team in 2022, but they didn’t take into account how the rest of the parts would fit together.

SAM SALEHPOUR: I witnessed severe misalignment when the planes were assembled.

Salehpour told lawmakers that instead of stopping to redesign the parts, the manufacturers allegedly went outside of standard procedures to force the pieces into place.

SALEHPOUR: I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align. I call it the Tarzan effect.

When he tried passing his concerns up the corporate ladder, Salehpour claims he was discouraged from talking about it.

And Salehpour isn’t alone.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Boeing retaliated against its engineers.

SALEHPOUR: The attitude at Boeing from the highest level is just to push the defective parts, regardless of what it is, unfortunately.

A panel of experts appointed by the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, found similar results. Last week the panel told a different Senate Committee that Boeing has been valuing production over safety.

When I asked Boeing about the hearings, they declined to comment and pointed me to information on the quality of their planes.

So how did a company known for the safety and quality of their aircraft end up under the microscope?

JOHN COX: I'm Captain John Cox, I'm the CEO of safety operating systems.

Cox testified before Congress in 2019, shortly after the 737 Max crashes. He says Boeing rushed the plane to market to keep up with its competitor, Airbus, a move it wouldn’t have made earlier in its history.

COX: The culture at Boeing shifted from the 80s and 90s, where it was build the best airplane possible… but when it came to the after the McDonnell Douglas merger, the focus became more on shareholder value.

Cox says Boeing’s 1997 merger with the McDonnell Douglas company led to funding cuts for research and certification on some planes. Boeing also started outsourcing a lot of its manufacturing.

In 2005, Boeing sold its Wichita manufacturing plant. The hub became Spirit Aerosystems. That’s the organization allegedly responsible for installing the door plug that blew off during the Alaska Airlines flight in January. That’s what an initial report from the National Transportation Safety Board said.

But Spirit Aerosystems communications director Joe Buccino told me the panel was removed and put back incorrectly at a different Boeing facility further down the supply chain.

JOE BUCCINO: We've had problems at Spirit. But we maintain a culture of quality management, a culture of safety. And for us, it's just it's always been about providing the best quality product for our customers.

Buccino says right now, Boeing is in talks with Spirit to potentially buy the company back. He says that could solve some issues related to the travel work program—where a plane is shipped around the country to have different pieces put on.

BUCCINO: That travel group work program does introduce risk, because you've got different crews, different companies working on the plane at different times, different spots. And so here, we would drive down that risk. So it allows one company greater control over the entire process.

For now, the FAA has increased its scrutiny and capped how many airplanes Boeing can produce in a month. Boeing says it’s taking the quality control concerns seriously.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board flying is still one of the safest modes of transportation. Despite recent incidents, the organization reports that accidents have dropped in the last 15 years. Here’s Cox again.

COX: The allegations of these airplanes are leaving in large number that are inherently unsafe to fly, the statistics just don't show that—history just doesn't show that.

Cox is more concerned about how slowing down Boeing’s assembly lines, coupled with other supply chain problems, could affect airlines trying to grow their fleets.

COX: That can clearly affect flights that were planned for, let's just say the holiday season of 2024. If they don't have the airframes, those flights won't happen.

Cox says that while Boeing may be having issues, industry statistics show that safety checks from the FAA and other government agencies are catching errors.

COX: Can we do better? Yes. Are we striving to do better? Absolutely, that never stops in aviation. But as far as the safety of the airplanes, I'm getting on an airplane on Thursday, and it could very well be a Boeing product—So and I do that without hesitation.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

AUDIO: Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s one thing for Indiana Jones to face snakes in an ancient tomb, but in the hospital?

A doctor in Australia says please stop bringing snakes to the emergency department.

ADAM MICHAEL: We don't need to see the snake to know how to safely treat you.

Dr. Adam Michael told ABC Australia that some patients were bringing deadly snakes in with flimsy containers.

MICHAEL: And we're actually not trained to identify snakes. And so it's not helpful. It just puts the staff at risk, as well as yourself.

Turns out venom detection kits are enough to land a treatment plan these days.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: That’s good. Just saying a snake ‘looks like an angry rope’ isn’t much use.

BROWN: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

This week on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, hosts Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes tackle the question: What is materialism? And how can we offer our kids a better alternative? Here’s a preview:

JONATHAN BOES: Materialism doesn't get the best out of matter. It's it's a Christian worldview with an idea of the spiritual enchanting the world around us that really gets the most out of the material world around us. The Bible is constantly, in a sense, re-enchanting the world. You know, this wine is the blood of Christ, this bread is the body of Christ, this person, these people around you are the body of Christ. We can actually enjoy the world and enjoy matter better than materialists can, when we have it in its rightful place, as something that is created by God and for God and not just that, but filled with God's presence and purpose.

KELSEY REED: The Westminster shorter catechism gives us this reminder. “What is the chief end or the purpose of man? To glorify and enjoy him forever.”

You can hear the entire episode of Concurrently today wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more at concurrentlypodcast.com.

REICHARD: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Shipbuilding. The U.S. military is dependent on ships, cutters, and destroyers for our defense.

Shipbuilding requires all sorts of craftsmen, many who stick with their jobs for a lifetime. WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson brings us this report.

AUDIO: [Sound of machinery]

KIM HENDERSON: Shipbuilding is a way of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. For the next generation of shipbuilders, it often starts in the apprentice school at Ingalls Shipyard. Here, in the pipe-fitting lab.

HUDSON: Their tolerances are so tight—we're talking 1 one-thousandths of an inch tolerance. So they have to make sure that everything is precise . . .

That’s Doug Hudson. He’s the manager of workforce training at Ingalls, a shipyard with more than 11,000 employees. He depends on the apprentice school to produce needed painters, carpenters, electricians, joiners, machinists, welders, riggers, and more.

Hudson has been at Ingalls more than 30 years. Painting Instructor Malcolm Hubbard has, too.

HUBBARD: I came here as a young man. I wanted a career. So I got a career, and I stayed with it.

It’s Hubbard’s job to teach apprentices why a ship needs 25 layers of paint before it’s seaworthy. It’s also his job to teach them that this work matters.

HUBBARD: A lot of these ships you see on the news that's been on a conflict over in Iraq or some place, and you see your work and workmanship on that TV and you're proud to see that as a worker, as an Ingalls employee.

Hubbard was at Ingalls in 2000 when the USS Cole returned for repairs. It had a gaping hole in its side, the result of a terrorist bombing in Yemen.

HUBBARD: We stood out on the dock and watched it come in, thinking about the people that lost their lives on there, the young men and women that served on there. We tried to put it back fast as we could because we knew it had to go back out there and serve our country again.

From miles away, cars on Highway 90 can easily see the outline of Ingalls Shipyard. Huge cranes tower over huge metal buildings. Partly constructed ships sit on land, while others float in the Pascagoula River.

HUDSON: You see that large white bridge crane right there, that's our steel yard. That's where the raw steel comes in as plates. So that's where the construction of the ship starts from.

The whole shipyard is set up as a process flow. It goes downstream all the way to the water.

Shipbuilding is often hot, gritty work. It’s hard hats and heavy boots. Ingalls Human Resources VP Susan Jacobs says that can make it a hard sell.

JACOBS: When I was in school, I think more people grew up mowing their grass and changing their tires and understanding how to use hand tools.

Now it’s a digital world. But ships still need to be built.

JACOBS: What we do here, I believe is, I think we build freedom. You know, the ships we build ensure that not only the United States, but the rest of the world, because the rest of the world depends on us, right? Like it or not, they depend on us.

Staffing shortages at shipyards can affect national security. Here’s Ingalls vice president, Donny Dorsey.

DORSEY: Look, we're building warships. They have a schedule. You need only turn the news on tonight and watch it and you'll understand why they're in a hurry to get these ships. So we're a function of that.

Dorsey says there’s good money to be made in this industry.

DORSEY: The quickest way to a 6-figure salary is to come work for me, get 12 to 14 weeks of training, dedicate yourself, come to work, develop your skills, advance through the steps, and pretty soon you're at a 6-figure career.

How soon is pretty soon?

DORSEY: In three years, you'll be there.

Millennials are sometimes called the “job-hopping generation.” For Ingalls retirees like Frederick Mitchell, that way of life is hard to understand.

MITCHELL: I worked at the shipyard 41 years and started right out of high school.

Like his dad who also worked at Ingalls, Mitchell liked the stability and the steadiness. But sometimes he worked odd hours. His wife would wake up to see him off.

MITCHELL: She would iron my work clothes, and I would shine my shoes. I was proud of going down there.

A few times, he enjoyed being part of a brand new ship’s sea trials.

MITCHELL: You go out for a week, and they do all the tests . . . the ship be rolling. It can dodge bullets and dodge ships. It's amazing what they can do.

And Mitchell says one of the best parts of spending so many years at one workplace was the friendships formed.

MITCHELL: I was the only black on the crane. And they loved me like a brother. We loved each other.

Back at the apprentice school, Instructor James Cruthirds is teaching students to work with sheet metal. Like Frederick Mitchell, Cruthirds has spent 40 years at Ingalls, too. He’s concerned about the next generation of workers.

CRUTHIRDS: We have to teach them math, we have to teach them rule reading. They have spent her life playing video games instead of out in the yard working and playing and building stuff. It's a huge challenge.

But a pipeline of workers is necessary to keep a shipyard afloat.

CRUTHIRDS: Work with them, and work with them, and eventually get them to where they can do it. 

HENDRSON: It’s harder today? 

CRUTHIRDS: A lot harder. 

HENDERSON: A lot harder?

CRUTHIRDS: A lot harder. It's work.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday April 25th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: some optimistic signs of push back against anti-Semitism. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS: With all that is occurring in our political and cultural life, there are signs some Americans have had enough.

Google recently fired 28 employees for protesting the company’s cloud-computing contract with Israel. In a memo obtained by the media, Google’s vice president for global security, Chris Rackow, said the sacked employees violated company policies. They “took over office spaces, defaced our property and physically impeded the work of other Googlers.” The protestors apparently aren’t familiar with this sage advice: don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Another optimistic sign. Columbia University decided they had enough of protesters disrupting the campus and shouting anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas slogans. Police arrested 108 protesters who had set up tent camps on school property. Columbia’s President said the occupiers posed a “clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University.” After those arrests, more people joined the demonstrators, keeping students from attending class. All should be arrested and the violent and anti-Semitic ones expelled.

The definition of “student” is “a person formally engaged in learning.” That ought to bring some humility, but for too long and in too many places adults have ceded their leadership responsibilities to teenagers and twenty-somethings influenced by leftist professors and friends on social media.

At Columbia, at least three tenured professors dispense propaganda about the history of the Middle East. Joseph Massad specializes in Middle Eastern studies. The New York Post says he “has faced widespread calls to be fired ever since he referred to the Oct. 7 attack inflicted by Hamas terrorists [on Israel] as ‘awesome.’”

Mohamed Abdou, described on Columbia’s website as “a North African-Egyptian Muslim anarchist” declared on social media, “Yes, I’m with … Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad but up to a point.”

There is also Hamad Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies. The Post reports, “He’s come under fire in recent years for a slew of controversial social media posts, including a since-deleted one in which he blamed Israel for every ‘dirty’ problem in the world.” He wrote, “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name ‘Israel’ will pop up in the atrocities.”

There are likely more professors with views like these at Columbia and elsewhere, but you get the picture.

It may be a generalization, but too many young people have been treated as though they were the font of all wisdom while older, wiser, and more experienced people have been sidelined and their views silenced. Few speak of responsibility or accountability for actions once deemed illegal, immoral, impractical, uninformed, duped and just plain stupid.

Students who take out big loans to learn propaganda and worthless subjects at too many universities now expect those loans to be forgiven at taxpayer expense.

But some are now waking up to reality. Let’s hope that others follow the lead of Columbia’s president and Google management.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet returns for Culture Friday.

And, the movie Unsung Hero about the parents of music artist Rebecca St. James and her brothers, members of the band For King and Country. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “For if we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” —Romans 6:5

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.