The World and Everything in It - August 2, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Parents push back against critical race theory taught in K-12 classrooms. They’re bringing lawsuits all across the country.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the economy put up some good numbers—just not as good as expected.

Plus, 40 years ago this week, a cable service changes the music industry.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, August 2nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Afghan evacuees begin new lives in America » Evacuees from Afghanistan are settling into new lives in America this week.

The first flight evacuating people who worked alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan arrived over the weekend. The U.S. government flew more than 200 people, including scores of children, to Virginia’s Ft. Lee.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine…

KAINE: The idea for Ft. Lee is that it’s a short-term processing center that can help people get oriented and then find the communities in the United States where they’ll most likely be able to fit in and start the new chapter of their lives.

Former interpreters and others who aided American forces in Afghanistan accepted the U.S. government’s offer to relocate.They would face retaliation in their home country from the Taliban.

As U.S. and allied troops complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban continues to gain ground. The extremist group could be close to capturing the provincial capital in Helmand province. Taliban forces reportedly now control several districts within the city of Lashkar Gah.

More Americans get vaccinated as COVID-19 delta surge continues » COVID-19 continues its roaring resurgence in the United States, fueled by the spread of the delta variant.

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said the surge of new cases has triggered an increase in vaccinations.

COLLINS: I think we may have seen a tipping point now where vaccinations are going up every week — 56 percent increase in vaccinations in the last couple of weeks, especially in the areas hardest hit.

But the increase in vaccinations is not yet keeping pace with the rising COVID-19 caseload.

New infections topped 100,000 on Friday for the first time since February.

Hospitalizations have nearly tripled since last June. Deaths are now creeping up as well—up about 40 percent since early July.

Fauci: New pandemic lockdowns unlikely » Meantime, debate rages on over mask requirements and other measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

But President Biden’s top medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said with about half the country now vaccinated, he does not foresee new lockdowns...

FAUCI: I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country—not enough to crush the outbreak, but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter.

The vast majority of new infections continue to be among unvaccinated Americans.

So-called breakthrough infections can occur in vaccinated people.

Most of those cases cause mild or no symptoms. But research shows the vaccinated can carry about the same amount of the delta strain of the virus as those who did not get the shots. That means anyone can spread the virus.

The CDC cited that fact last week, when it reversed its earlier guidance on masks. The agency now urges even fully vaccinated Americans to cover their faces in public.

Jungle Cruise continues Disney’s big screen/streaming success » Despite coronavirus concerns, many Americans still flocked back to the big screen for Disney’s latest action-adventure.

TRAILER: Legend has it there is a tree in the Amazon that possesses unparalleled healing powers, and the arrowhead is the key to unlocking it. 

Jungle Cruise, a movie inspired by the iconic Disney ride cruised to the top of the box office, hauling in $34 million in its opening weekend.

But many others opted to view it at home. Jungle Cruise earned another $30 million in orders on the Disney+ streaming platform. Worldwide, it earned almost $92 million over the weekend.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: taking critical race theory to court.

Plus, Harry Houdini makes his last, great escape.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 2nd day of August, 2021. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

School boards and news rooms around the country are getting an earful from parents.

Here’s a father in Illinois:

SMITH: You talk about critical race theory which is pretty much gonna be teaching kids how to hate each other, how to dislike each other. Martin Luther King said he wanted his kids to grow up in a world where they are judged by the content of their what? Character. Not their skin.

Two mothers in Virginia:

BRANDY: Yes, I don't want critical theory, not just critical race theory, but critical theory taught in our classrooms.

ONDERCHAIN: And I want the school to get the politics out of the classroom.

REICHARD: Some of the parents you just heard have taken another step in their opposition to political ideology in the schools: They are suing the school boards or officials in charge.

One case arises out of Democracy Prep School in Las Vegas.

High school senior William Clark attended a mandatory class called Sociology of Change that particularly rankled him. He’s biracial, with a black mother and a white father.

Here’s William Clark’s mother, Gabriel Clark:

CLARK: I was mostly outraged that this was being taught at all, but principally that they were asking my son to reveal identities that are protected. You can't do that at a job. You shouldn't be able to do it at a school. It put a target on my son's back.

Clark and his mother sued, alleging violation of his First Amendment rights. Their lawyer is Daniel Suhr with the Liberty Justice Center.

SUHR: William was being compelled as part of a required class to have to share deeply personal information about his faith, about his family, about his values in front of his classmates, knowing then that the teacher was going to judge him publicly and label him an oppressor for sharing that information. There's also a law, the Civil Rights Act, that says schools cannot create a hostile environment for students based on their race.

Suhr told me the Clarks and other families worry about government overreach in the school setting.

SUHR: ...worried that their child is going to be anonymously ratted out by a classmate, and accused of a so-called bias incident. For something as simple as telling a classmate, I'll be praying for you, or this is what I believe about politics, or saying, I believe in a colorblind society, I think we shouldn't treat people differently based on the color of their skin. Those are all the sorts of statements that will now get you in trouble with the speech police.

William Clark has since graduated from Democracy Prep, but litigation continues because the school is still using the same curriculum.

SUHR: And Democracy Prep hasn't recognized the tremendous damage that this did to William in his academic career that right at the start of his senior year, while he's doing his college applications, they gave him a failing grade, because he refused to participate in this curriculum.

On the other side of the country, this same lawyer represents five families who sued the school board in Loudoun County, Virginia. They allege school policies discriminate against those with political views the school doesn’t like. Views that don’t align with the social justice agenda endorsed by the district.

This school also has a bias-incident policy that encourages students to inform on one another.

Initially, only students with black or brown skin were eligible for the panel to judge the incidents. Lawyer Suhr:

SUHR: And one of the things that our Constitution guarantees in the 14th amendment is that all of us will be treated equally, regardless of our race.

Moving east to the middle of the country, Stacy Deemar of Evanston, Illinois, sued her school district for violating both the equal protection clause of the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Deemar is a drama teacher there.

Her lawyer is Braden Boucek.

BOUCEK: Things got so bad for Ms. Deemar that a few years ago, she actually reported the district to the Office of Civil Rights Enforcement, and remarkably, after an 18 month investigation, that the Office of Civil Rights found in her favor, and that the district was engaged in a pattern and practice of racial discrimination.

But then the Biden administration withdrew those findings, just three days after taking office.

That’s when Deemar and Boucek picked up the case.

I asked Boucek for specifics. He referred me to the complaint filed in the case.

BOUCEK: Right on the front of it, we have a picture of a children's book that has a literal white devil holding up a contract that binds you with whiteness. And the contract binding you with whiteness gets you stolen land, stolen goods, stolen money, all you have to do is sign over your soul. And underneath, it has got a caption that says, whiteness is a bad deal, and it always has been. And then elsewhere, as we relate in our complaint, there's parts that say, whiteness is authoritarian. Whiteness is associated with being loud. And so there's just general stereotyping that goes along with that.

The complaint describes many other activities at school, such as affinity groups. Those actually physically separate teachers and students based on their race and put them into different rooms.

BOUCEK: They also participated in these things called privilege walks, a privilege walk is where they put you in a line, and then you're to take a step forward or step back, based on the supposed benefits that your race has accrued for you. And so that's another way of isolating and stereotyping people based on the color of their skin.

I contacted each of the schools to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. Each declined to comment for this story or ignored my request altogether.

But other news sources reported that Loudoun County’s interim superintendent Scott Ziegler denies the school is teaching CRT.

At a school board meeting, Ziegler said the school is trying to respond to reports of widespread racism. He says it's reasonable to use racial equity to address that concern.

Lawyer Boucek has qualms with that.

BOUCEK: We need to take a step back and see that there's these two concepts out there: equality and equity. And these are not the same concepts, they're radically different concepts, because equity must come at the expense of equality. Equity is a license to punish Americans for their skin color. It means you have to treat individual Americans differently to try and achieve sameness among different groups. And that's the way that when we say equity, we're actually sacrificing equality, which is a constitutional mandate.

Lawyer Boucek recalls something Chief Justice John Roberts said in a 2007 opinion. A case called Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1.

BOUCEK: You know, I think Justice Roberts said it best when he said that the best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. You know, public schools are arms of the government. There's certainly vital conversations that need to happen among Americans of different races in different socioeconomic statuses. But the government cannot have a hand in legalized discrimination. It's wrong, it's unconstitutional. And there will be legal actions like ours to stop it.

For a broader view, I contacted Joshua Dunn, a political scientist and education policy researcher at the University of Colorado.

Dunn says even key founders who were slaveowners were uneasy with the institution and in framing America’s founding documents included the seeds of slavery’s eventual legal destruction.

He thinks this may be why even though critical race theory started in law schools, it never really gained much of a foothold.

DUNN: ...precisely because it undermines what you could call liberal principles of equality. And it's the liberal principles of equality that tell us that slavery and racism are wrong, and we should combat it.

Dunn predicts that as parents stand up against CRT in the schools, school boards will start to retreat.

DUNN: So just again, reverse the racial categories or the identities you know, or make it a female student and say that they force them to say something, that there's something inherently negative about being female? Would that ever survive legal scrutiny under Title IX? If it doesn't, if you don't think it would, I think then you probably have a problem if you're trying to defend the schools in these other cases.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Air traffic controllers recently spotted a UFO among the clouds over Los Angeles, but the unidentified object wasn’t a flying saucer.

The air traffic control audio is courtesy of LiveATC.net…

AUDIO: 215, there was a jetpack reported about 13 miles ahead.

Yes, a jetpack.

Commercial pilots reported the sighting in the busy skies near LAX airport. And you might remember, this is not the first time this has happened.

Last year, pilots near LAX reported what appeared to be a man strapped to a jetpack about 3,000 above the ground. This time, it was 5,000 feet.

One traffic alert said “use caution, the jetpack guy is back.”

I dunno, maybe jetpack guy could use some advice about taking precautions, like don’t jetpack near flight paths at one of the five busiest airports?!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen joins us now for our regular conversation and commentary on the economy. David, good morning to you.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, let’s talk GDP—gross domestic product—that of course is the big number we place on overall economic activity—a backward number—but it’s like an economy’s GPA, a report card. And so the number for the second three-month period, the second quarter, came in at 6.5 percent growth—pretty good, but falling short of the consensus view of expectations. What about you? Did the number meet your expectations?

BAHNSEN: No, it was quite a bit lower than I expected. And yet, I don't think that's the same thing as saying it's a disappointment, not only because the number is so big, but also because of the reason that it had missed expectations, the business investment number, which in the GDP formula is called non residential fixed investment, it did positively contribute. And of course, the big bulk of the number that contributed to the net GDP was from consumer activity. And so, you know, that was to be expected, there was a lot of personal consumption, part of the reopening and post vaccine activity that we anticipated. But the reason why people thought the number was going to be more like eight and a half percent than six and a half percent, was that there was an expectation of more trade activity. And both the inventories and the trade activity, imports and exports were a drag. So I know it's a little in the weeds here, Nick. But I think that the number as a headline level has to have been disappointing to the Biden administration, you know, these are annualized numbers. And so you take the six four that we had from the first quarter, six, five now, and you expect the numbers is going to be lower in Q3, and Q4, we've already gotten the biggest splurge of reopening that we're gonna get, you're gonna end up with a number on the year that will be lucky to have a six handle. And they were anticipating something on the year, closer to seven. And so I think that this just sort of takes away a little bit of the drama that they were hoping for in terms of robust economic activity.

EICHER: You have been preaching over time that the better gauge, the better way to evaluate a GDP report is to analyze business investment—that particular component of the GDP picture, not so much just the consumer, the personal consumption expenditures, the PCEs. I heard you say business investment did positively contribute and that’s got to be good, right? So would you say that you see business investment as an encouragement this go-’round?

BAHNSEN: No, it wasn't below my expectation, and it wasn't above it. It just came in right at the level that we that we would have thought it would be. And my question for the future economy, on a kind of post post COVID sense, is whether or not the business confidence is there for there to be that business investment. So there's never a question that when businesses have a lot of confidence in profit opportunities and growth opportunities, they're going to be willing to go invest in it. Put simply as a sort of mathematical formula, would anybody out there not spend one to get two? Everybody would, so there's plenty of access to the one to the capital they need to put out there. The question is, are the opportunities out there that they think will generate a two, something higher than one, okay? And that's where we've really struggled in our country, post financial crisis, is in having that business confidence and business optimism necessary to produce the investment, to some degree the risk taking, that is necessary for this future growth and productivity. And I don't believe that we know the answer right now. I think that there are headwinds and tailwinds that are fighting with one another. The most significant headwind is excessive government spending, growth of government, growth of debt that is a detractor from future growth. And then I think that the most significant tailwind we have is the reopening and recovery and the belief that we're past the worst of the virus.

EICHER: So the cloud in the silver lining here—we read in the financial press and the popular press that, yes, we had substantial economic growth, but there’s the Delta variant hovering over all this. Is that an economic threat as you see it?

BAHNSEN: No, the Delta variant is not a threat. But that's not really the question. The question is whether or not the policymakers are a threat. And we've been doing this so long together now, Nick, that I feel an increasing comfort level. And being very candid with our listeners. I am really quite appalled at what we're experiencing. And that is not because I'm disappointed in the messaging of the CDC, that’s sort of the big twist over the last couple of days is people are, say, acknowledging like, okay, yeah, maybe they kind of messed up a little bit on the release of the information. But now let's look into the actual substance. The substance is a bunch of bunk as well. It's utterly irrational. The conflicting data, the lack of support for data, the lack of consistency, there's this just hodgepodge of information all geared towards finding rationalizations for pre determined decisions. I don't really believe that they will end up getting significant additional restrictions, walk downs, maskings, other things, but I think clearly marginally, they will. We're probably headed to a place where peak cases are coming in a couple of weeks. And a lot of people are positioning themselves right now to say, ‘Oh, look, these mitigating efforts that we put about by banning certain activities, or by bringing back mass requirements in LA. That's what really turned the corner on this’. And so I think we're getting set up for yet another significant post hoc fallacy. I'm probably going on and on on this too much, but I feel very strongly about it. Anything right now that suffocates any form of economic activity or free activity, school activity, church activity, business operations, I think is utterly unnecessary and utterly inexcusable. And so, uh, my hope would be that this week becomes just an embarrassing distraction. And I'm pretty darn sure that the politics of this are on my side as well. I just cannot believe that blue state bureaucrats, let alone the White House want to see this thing get any more obnoxious than it's already gotten.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. And that’s your Monday Moneybeat. Thanks David, appreciate it.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much Nick. Good to be with you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything In It: The WORLD History Book. Today, the wild, wild West of the World Wide Web; video takes aim at the radio star; and an illusionist pushes himself to the brink. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: “Harry Houdini,” a name synonymous with daring feats and high-stakes escapes. And it’s been 95 years since the act historians consider his finest: Escaping from a sealed coffin submerged in the swimming pool of New York's Hotel Shelton on August 5, 1926.

In the early 20th century, spiritualism was on the rise. Many magicians claimed to access otherworldly powers to perform their tricks. Houdini hated that trend. So when Egyptian magician Rahman Bey said supernatural powers allowed him to escape from an underwater box after one hour, Houdini set out to best him, staying in an underwater box for even longer.

Modern illusionist and Houdini enthusiast David Copperfield said in a Timeline documentary that kind of competitive spirit is common among successful performers.

COPPERFIELD: Every single artist that has lasted always has a need to get it right. For me—I watch a lot of people who are very satisfied with their work… and I unfortunately have the curse of not thinking that. I’m never satisfied. Houdini I think is the same. He wanted to always prove himself.

He succeeded, beating Bey by staying in the airtight, 700-pound coffin about half an hour longer than his competition. Houdini confessed after he broke free that he nearly passed out in the coffin. It was his last major illusion before his death less than three months later of appendicitis complications.

His competitive nature aside, he had another motivation: his love for Mama. Kenneth Silverman is a Houdini biographer. Houdini had several brothers, he said, but...

SILVERMAN: He wanted to be Number 1 with Mom. He was handcuffed on a bridge, jumped off the bridge handcuffed, instantly got out and was out of the water, and he writes in his diary, “Mom saw me do it.” I think that’s what Houdini is always saying, “Mom saw me do it.”

When Houdini began making a name—and a fortune—for himself, he used his earnings to purchase one of Queen Victoria’s dresses. He threw a party, presenting his mother wearing the dress. Houdini called that day the happiest day of his life.

And from making mom proud to making mom…want to pull her hair out.

MTV STINGER: “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll...”

SONG: VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR BY THE BUGGLES

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since MTV aired its first music video on August 1st, 1981. In what now feels like a prophetic song choice, MTV aired The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its first video, at 12:01 a.m. Mark Goodman, the first so-called MTV VJ, said that fateful night 40 years ago:

GOODMAN: Starting right now, you’ll never look at music the same way again…

MTV aired in just 1.5 million households that first year—pretty small numbers. But, the sometimes-provocative content was enough to ruffle feathers. Violent, risque, and anti-religious content raised the hackles of parent watchdog groups. MTV ultimately agreed in the 1980s to self-censor.

But, if video killed the radio star, it may be fair to say the digital age killed MTV. MTV is now just one channel among many hundreds. And with digital downloads, YouTube, and free Facebook concerts, MTV feels a lot less cutting edge than it did four decades ago.

SONG: VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR BY THE BUGGLES

Speaking of the digital age, it’s been 30 years since English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released a world-changing service…

BERNERS-LEE: I wanted to reframe the way we use information, the way we work together, I invented the World Wide Web.

Berners-Lee made the World Wide Web available to the public on August 6, 1991. He said in a TED Talk the idea for the platform was born out of frustration. He was working in a computer lab with scientists from all over the world, but they didn’t share a common computing language. Berners-Lee described having to plug into different machines or use different codes for each scientist’s projects. He envisioned a common platform that could be used by anyone.

BERNERS-LEE: Well, once you have an idea like that, it kind of gets under your skin....

He didn’t invent the Internet, though. The Internet was around some 20-odd years before the web. He acknowledges most of the technology involved in the web already existed. He just synthesized other computer scientists’ work, putting it together in a way where the right hand could talk to the left.

Berners-Lee’s work lit a fire that sparked the Information Age, allowing billions of people to connect online. He never directly profited from his invention, as he envisioned the World Wide Web would be a place to serve humanity. But he confessed to Vanity Fair in 2018 that he may have been naive, acknowledging that so much of the web has become “anti-human.”

SONG: “Virtual Insanity,” Jamiroquai

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Katie Gaultney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: healthcare costs. President Biden is doubling down on his predecessor’s efforts to create transparency in hospital pricing. We’ll explain how.

And, a reading recommendation. Emily Whitten returns for Classic Book of the Month.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.

Go now in grace and peace.

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