The World and Everything in It: August 23, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Mindy White, and I live in Clymer, New York. I work during the school year as an occupational therapist with special ed kids in a local public school. And I love my job. More importantly, I have my own two children at home who are young adults, Anica and Owen, and my husband Raleigh whom I have been married to for 25 years today. Happy anniversary, honey. I hope you enjoy today's program.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Good morning!

It’s debate night tonight. The very first Republican presidential throw-down in Wisconsin. Will it be about who’s on stage, or who’s not? Maybe all the above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We will talk with WORLD Opinions commentator and radio host Erick Erickson for a preview today on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, news from around the world on WORLD Tour. Plus the game of cricket. It’s growing in the U.S.

AUDIO: Start with the school system, and from there, you get kids involved into age group cricket.

And WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney on men without chests.

BUTLER: It’s Wednesday, August 23rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

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

BUTLER: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

SOUND: [Wind/thunder]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Tropical storms » Another massive storm is dumping torrential rain in the United States.

Tropical Storm Harold slammed the Gulf Coast of Texas just south of Corpus Christi on Tuesday, packing sustained winds of 50 miles per hour.

Philippe Papin with the National Weather Service:

PAPIN: Rainfall’s a significant threat. It could produce rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches with isolated higher amounts of 7 inches across South Texas through Wednesday.

Meantime, what was Tropical Storm Hilary is still wreaking havoc in California.

Emergency officials had to evacuate hundreds of patients from a Los Angeles hospital Tuesday due to power outages caused by the storm.

LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley:

CROWLEY: We notified and dispatched the appropriate amount of ambulances, as well as additional care, which are ambulances, trucks, and fire engines.

A baby was being delivered at the hospital during the evacuation. Both mom and baby are doing well.

Trump to surrender Tomorrow » Former President Trump says he will surrender tomorrow to authorities in Georgia. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Fulton County prosecutors had given Trump a Friday deadline to turn himself in.

A grand jury in the state earlier this month indicted Trump … on charges alleging he and 18 co-defendants tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He denies any wrongdoing.

One of his associates, John Eastman, has already surrendered to the authorities.

Trump’s expected to be booked and then released on a $200,000-dollar bond.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Winsome Sears - VA school trans battle » Four school boards in Virginia say they will defy Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new policies on transgenderism in schools.

The new rules require students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their legal sex. And students can only use cross-gender pronouns with parental consent.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears:

SEARS: The school boards are making themselves judge and jury, and they’re again, pushing education in their own image. You hear them say ‘WE have made a determination.’ But actually, you are not following the law. And so something is going to have to happen.

Virginia law doesn’t allow the state to sue the schools for defying such policies. But the state can join a lawsuit if a parent files it.

Niger » Leaders with the African Union are giving the boot to Niger’s ruling military government.

They’re suspending Niger from the 55-nation bloc until the military junta restores power to civilian leaders.

The move further isolates the junta, as a group of West African nations considers intervening with military force.

Meantime in Washington, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters:

SULLIVAN: We are working intensively with all of our partners to try to ensure the preservation of democracy in Niger.

The military seized power nearly four weeks ago, placing President Mohamed Bazoum under house arrest.

People close to Bazoum say his utilities have been cut off and he is running out of food.

Iran hostages » Sullivan also fielded questions Tuesday about five Americans still detained in Iran two weeks after reports that they would be freed in an exchange with the United States.

No word on why the swap has not yet taken place, but …

SULLIVAN: We believe that that remains on track, as we look forward to the day when those five Americans are home safely with their families.

In exchange for their freedom, the U-S is releasing $6 billion dollars in Iranian funds currently frozen in South Korea under sanctions.

Greece fire deaths » 18 people were found dead in Northern Greece amid the ashes from a spate of wildfires.

Fire official: [Speaking Greek]

A fire official explained that authorities believe the victims may be undocumented migrants, because there have been no missing persons reports from people in the area.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday with Erick Erickson. Plus, an old world sport on the rise in Texas.

This is The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 23rd of August, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up: Washington Wednesday.

Tonight, eight Republicans face off in Milwaukee for the first presidential debate of 2023.

Five of them are current or former governors. That would be Ron DeSantis, Doug Burgum, Asa Hutchinson, Nikki Haley, and Chris Christie.

Also on the stage will be former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

BUTLER: You may have noticed there’s a big name missing from the list. Former President Donald Trump is skipping this debate, and has indicated he’ll likely pass on future debates as well.

What will the debate be like without the current frontrunner on the stage, and what should voters be looking for tonight from those eight challengers?

EICHER: Joining us now to help answer those questions is Erick Erickson. He is an attorney, host of the Erick Erickson Show, and a WORLD Opinions contributor. Erick, good morning!

ERICKSON: Thanks for having me.

BUTLER: Well, Erick, you’re in a unique position to preview this debate, because you just hosted a number of these candidates at an event in your home state of Georgia.

Very quickly, did anything surprise you? And who do you think the audience at that event connected with the most?

ERICKSON: You know, on different topics, they connected differently, I was very surprised, and the entire audience, I think, was surprised by how much they wound up agreeing with Chris Christie on almost everything he said. A number of people in the audience who had left DeSantis went back to him saying that, if that guy had was the contender, he would win. Vivek Ramaswamy did a very good job connecting to people. On the surface level, people still don't know a lot about him. And then Nikki Haley on veterans and military issues, just really resonated with the crowd. Of course, everyone loves Tim Scott and there continues to be this pervasive sentiment that He's so awesome, they don't want to see him run that he's just too nice to run, which is kind of a surprising thing.

EICHER: You know, we don't have time to talk about all of the eight candidates here, Eric, individually, but the top three candidates on the stage tonight, just going in terms of national polling, and that's not necessarily a good idea, but we're talking Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence. Let's begin though with DeSantis. He's still firmly in second place by the polling. But he's way behind Donald Trump. In fact, that gap seems to be widening considerably, has been since the first of the year. What do you think DeSantis needs to do in this debate to set himself apart from the others?

ERICKSON: He's got to show that he is a contender beyond culture war issues, the number one issue for Republican primary voters is pocket book cost of living issues, which he's only just started talking about in the last few weeks. He should have pivoted the moment he got into the race to those issues and didn't. If we are not talking about a strong performance for DeSantis tomorrow, it's going to be fatal to him I think because the donors are going to shift. He's, he's getting big dollar donors. He's not getting the strength of small dollar donors, and he needs to pivot to small dollar donors who want to be reassured that this guy really is the contender.

EICHER: So just for those keeping score at home, I guess we would put it this way, if you put it just down to a sentence or two. This will be a successful debate for Ron DeSantis if... How would you fill in the blank there?

ERICKSON: If he has the most memorable performance that can transcend tomorrow's surrender of Donald Trump to Fulton County Jail. People need to still be talking about Ron DeSantis. Even as the cameras are suddenly on Donald Trump's surrender.

BUTLER: Well, moving now to Vivek Ramaswamy. He's seemingly come out of nowhere. He's gone from a complete unknown to third place in the national polls. He's a newcomer, of course to politics, and this will be his first presidential debate. So the same question, what does he need to do in order to set himself apart from the other candidates?

ERICKSON: He needs to be able to withstand the fire. It's not just the DeSantis campaign gunning for him. All of a sudden all the candidates are beginning to field opposition research on him. He has a lot of ideas that are completely contradictory from ideas he held just a month or two ago. And he needs to be able to explain how he flipped so quickly. As well, he deviates from the almost the entirety of the Republican Party on foreign policy, particularly Israel, Ukraine and defense of Taiwan and even Nikki Haley's campaign is gunning for him on for example, defense of Israel, he's gonna have to withstand the fire.

EICHER: Well, why don't we quickly around the horn here? Let's turn to former Vice President Pence. He's in a bit of a difficult spot. Many Trump supporters don't like him anymore and to many who are not fond of Trump, Pence is associated with Trump. So what does he do tonight to both separate himself and generate momentum behind his own campaign?

ERICKSON: You know, he was on stage with me on Friday at my event and it struck me as he's he's a little more soft spoken, speaks a little slower, moves a little slower. I don't know if he's under the weather or its sign of age, it just, he doesn't feel like he's got a lot of energy. He needs to show that on stage. And I think if Fox wants to really hone in on Mike Pence and make him relevant, in a way I think they do, they've got a great question to ask everyone but Pence: what would you have done if you were in Vice President Pence's position on January 6? That not only makes Pence a part of the debate, but also really asked an intriguing question to the other candidates.

BUTLER: You know, one of the candidates that you mentioned at the top of our conversation was former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and the surprise at that recent event. He's established himself as an attack dog. He's the most vocal critic of Donald Trump. And he's vowed that if Trump was on stage, he would take the fight to him. But of course, the former president isn't going to be there.

So do you think Christie goes after Trump tonight? Or should he focus his fire on DeSantis and some of the other rivals for that non-Trump vote?

ERICKSON: I really think he wants to go after DeSantis. And he tried to with me, and I tried to design my event to avoid going after the other candidates. He went after Trump a little bit. I will tell you where he was willing to go, and I suspect we're going to hear tonight is, he went after both parties for fiscal mismanagement, went very hard after his own party for refusal to deal with entitlements and tied that to Donald Trump's refusal, and also went after both parties very hard on how the budget debt is now a national security issue on a bipartisan basis.

EICHER: So let's drill into the absence of Donald Trump a little bit. How do you think that that is going to change the dynamic of this debate? Is it still just as valuable an opportunity for these candidates with him not being there versus if he were there?

ERICKSON: If they can, one of them can capture some level of lightning in a bottle from this and gain momentum, whether it's DeSantis, or someone else, and Donald Trump is trying to take the oxygen out of the room by not being there, the press has this symbiotic relationship with him. But if someone can capitalize on his absence to stand strong, and stand up, that's going to really help that person. The key will be tomorrow, Thursday, do these candidates, does their message and what they did on stage really overshadow or contend with Trump surrendering? You're going to have to go through a 48 hour level of news cycle to see which candidate captured the imagination of people. And if none of them did, that just helps Donald Trump more.

EICHER: Erick, you’ve been involved in politics for a long time as player and pundit. What do you think it is for Trump: is it purely a numbers game? If the polls tighten, do you see Trump jumping back in or would that be a bad look?

ERICKSON: You know, if the numbers begin to tighten a lot, he will need to get into a debate to put them in their place, so to speak. But that's a problem because by saying, suggesting he's not going to do any debates, the moment he decides to do a debate, it pivots to a weakness on his part. It would have been smarter for his team to preclude the first debate, but leave open the possibility of future debates, and they didn't do that.

BUTLER: Eric, what do you think the purpose of debate is anyway? Why is this a valuable exercise for political candidates?

ERICKSON: In theory, it's to allow the candidates to show their differences of policy and their strengths of personality on a stage together. When you're in a room of rivals, who stands out, who stands apart based on not just their demeanor, but their positions? Who does the crowd resonate with? And they may be able to do that without Trump's dominant personality in the room.

BUTLER: And you feel like that's still a valuable exercise in a in an era of social media with so many other ways of getting that message out?

ERICKSON: Yes, because though they will only have minute, maybe minute-thirty second sound bites, there will be an accumulation of them over those hours on the debate stage. It was like my event this weekend, I had 45 minutes with each candidate to ask open ended questions and it resonated with the crowd. They learned a lot. They won't learn as much in the debate format. But seeing the nuances of the candidates elevated and highlighted by each other does still matter tremendously, particularly when, for example, Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, no one even knows who he is. Will he have a moment where he's able to shine on stage? That could be meaningful for him?

BUTLER: We’ve been talking with syndicated talk show host and WORLD Opinions contributor Erick Erickson. Erick, thanks so much!

ERICKSON: Thanks so much for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

SOUND: [Church singing]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Zimbabwe elections — We begin today’s global news roundup in Zimbabwe where Christians have been praying ahead of today’s presidential vote.

Worshippers gathered inside the Mbare Gospel Fire Cathedral on Sunday, praying for peace.

MUORI: We are just praying for the peace in our nation. That’s our most important prayer, the bigger point of prayer, peace has to prevail in our nation.

Zimbabwe has a record of post-election violence. Opposition parties have also decried suppression ahead of today’s vote.

Voters at the polls today are choosing between 11 candidates. The top contenders are incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is seeking a second and final five-year term, and Nelson Chamisa.

The ruling Zanu-PF party has been in power since independence in 1980. Mnangagwa did not announce any political plans for a possible final term in office saying his work speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, Chamisa pledged to tackle corruption, restore hope, and provide free education.

SOUND: [Cheering crowds]

Zimbabwe is currently battling high unemployment, a devaluing currency, and hyperinflation. Nearly 70 percent of Zimbabweans are under 35 years old. Some of them hope for a new set of leaders.

AUDIO: I think we need young blood that is energetic, fresh minds because the current one is old fashioned, he is aging up so we need the one who can consider our feelings, that knows what’s on the ground.

Voters are also choosing members of parliament and local council representatives.

SOUND: [Christians singing]

Pakistan Christians — Over in Pakistan, some 200 Christians sat in chairs lined up in an alley on Sunday.

They gathered next to the Salvation Army Church, one of the dozens of church buildings destroyed by a Muslim mob last week in eastern Punjab province.

The mob targeted the churches and also destroyed more than 80 homes in the predominantly Christian area over rumors that someone had desecrated the Quran.

Samson Salamat is a human rights advocate.

SALAMAT: These buildings will be restored, the houses will be restored, but the trauma, especially the girls and children, they have gone through - it will be difficult for them to come out of this trauma for their whole life.

Authorities on Monday handed out nearly $7,000 to each Christian household that suffered a financial loss.

Mohsin Naqvi, the provincial interim chief minister, added that authorities have started repairing the destroyed churches. But one priest said they only painted the walls of two churches.

Police have also continued to detain more rioters in ongoing raids.

SOUND: [Cheers]

Egypt prisoner release —We head next to Egypt where friends and family members welcomed a prominent activist home after nearly 10 years in prison.

Ahmed Douma was serving a 15-year sentence over his involvement in the 2011 uprising that overthrew longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

A presidential decree pardoned Douma and four other prisoners.

ALI: [Speaking Arabic]

Khaled Ali, Douma’s attorney, says he hopes other detained youths will also regain their freedom.

Egyptian authorities have released hundreds of activists in recent months. But Douma and other activists say the government continues to arrest and detain many detractors.

SOUND: [Cheering]

Spain World Cup win — We close today in Spain where fans cheered as the country’s female soccer team won the Women’s World Cup championship on Sunday.

The players defeated the England team with a score of one to zero, earning Spain its first Women’s World Cup title.

AUDIO: [Speaking Spanish]

This fan says the team played with confidence the entire game.

The victory also makes Spain’s national female soccer team the first to hold under-17, under-20, and senior world titles at once.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: I’m the voice of Mario. Mamma-mia, woo-hoo!

NICK EICHER, HOST: A 32-year run comes to an end!

But I guess Mario just had one too many Goombas to smash or Chain Chomps to dodge.

No doubt by now you know: It’s game over for the voice of Nintendo’s video-game Mario, also known as voice actor Charles Martinet.

MARTINET: Yeah, it was just, you know, I thought, you know, Italian plumber from Brooklyn. Hey, how you doing? You know, I'm under your sink here. Well, that's a little too gruff and I like to really be fun and more playful than that. So, what just popped into my mind was mama-mia! Let's make a game together. Wahoo!

Heard probably too often when my kiddos were kiddos.

Nintendo announced on Monday that Martinet will be leveling up as “Mario Ambassador,” whatever that means. Suffice it to say, I don’t think he’ll need Senate approval for the position.

But he may have to win just one more battle to rescue Peach from the clutches of Bowser!

And then it’s onna to the nexta level.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 23, 2023. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the sport known as cricket. The complexity of the game was parodied in the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox. Goes kinda like this:

SKIP: Basically the center tagger lights the pine cone, chucks it over the basket and the wack batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock, then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox.

EICHER: Lost yet?

Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. But in the US, it lags behind football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and just about every other major sport you can think of.

But cricket does have ardent fans in the US. Most of them are immigrants, mainly from South Asian countries. And that fan base is growing.

BUTLER: Today, local leagues and a roster of brand new American franchises have cricket fans swinging for the fences.

WORLD Correspondent Bonnie Pritchett has the story.

ANNOUNCER: Look, you get through the Power Play as a Bowling side, if you restrict the opposition to somewhere around 30-35 runs you’re happy, especially if you have a couple of wickets.

BONNIE PRITCHETT, REPORTER: Power play? Bowling? Wickets? Hmm.

To the untrained eye, cricket looks straightforward. Batter hits a ball. Fielder plays it. But to the untrained ear, cricket’s vocabulary sounds foreign.

ANNOUNCER: You can see Kodali upset because Shah went straight down the leg side looking to help it over fine leg.

It’s a language Pooja Shah grew up speaking.

POOJA SHAH: I feel like cricket has always been in my heart. We would always watch it at home. We always loved watching it. It was me, my dad, my brother and my mom.

Shah is a 17-year-old high school senior. When her parents emigrated from India to the US, they brought with them their love of the game. Shah grew up near Houston playing a variety of sports at school—mostly basketball.

For Shah, cricket wasn’t on any roster.

SHAH: I started playing cricket in the neighborhood with my brother, some friends, like six or seven years ago. And then I got introduced in leather ball when my dad showed me like a flyer, it passed around his Indian WhatsApp group.

A leather ball is used for official matches. Street cricketers often use a tennis ball.

About 200,000 people play cricket in the US. That’s across local leagues, school teams, and university programs. Most of its players and fan base are first and second generation South Asian immigrants. Prospective players outside those communities don’t even know it’s an option, which makes it hard to grow the sport in the US.

Like other young cricket newbies, Shah’s athleticism honed in a different sport expedited her transition to the cricket pitch at age 15. She quickly earned a spot on the USA Under-19 Women’s Team that competed in the Women’s World Cup tournament in January.

AUDIO: [CHATTER FROM DUGOUT]

Earlier this month, in Pearland, Texas, Shah played on one of four USA National Women’s teams competing for the championship title.

A few faithful fans—mainly the players’ families—braved triple-digit heat to watch the games in person. The small showing isn’t necessarily indicative of cricket fans’ enthusiasm, just their limited number.

That wasn’t always the case.

George Washington played the game. Abraham Lincoln attended a match. In 1859, the US hosted the world’s first international cricket match between the US and England.

England won.

MUSIC: [TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME]

But the Civil War and a baseball slugger named Babe Ruth undercut cricket’s popularity. Baseball’s faster pace and hourslong – not dayslong! – games soon shut out cricket.

It took almost a century for American cricket to reclaim national and international attention. Two big factors played a role in that: How the game is played and who is playing it.

Cricketers still play 5-day matches. But demand for shorter games birthed two new versions. T20 is the most popular and lasts about as long as, well, a baseball game.

And cricket is played, mostly, by the growing population of South Asian Americans. Where cricket leagues and pitches were practically non-existent two decades ago, they now dot cities across the nation.

And this year American cricket fans have something to really cheer about.

ANNOUNCER: It’s the championship of Major League Cricket 2023. The first of its kind.

In March, a group of mostly foreign stakeholders established the first six American Major League Cricket franchises.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

On July 30th, fans packed into a converted minor league baseball field in Grand Prairie, Texas, to watch the Seattle Orcas take on the Mumbai Indian New Yorkers. It was America’s first Major League Cricket Championship.

For those keeping score, the New Yorkers won.

The U.S. represents a potentially lucrative cricket market. Cricketers want to draw the attention of US investors. That’s why they’re putting on high-profile events like the MLC series and co-hosting the 2024 World Cup. They’re even trying to add the sport to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

In addition to the top-down approach, cricketers are also working at the grassroots level. Ankit Mehta is Pooja Shah’s coach. He believes promoting cricket locally can do as much to attract new fans as a major league championship game.

ANKIT MEHTA: Start from elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. Start with the school system. And from there, you get kids involved into age group cricket, and do all these youth clubs that they have organized.

A growing population of up-and-coming youth players could incentivize colleges to add the sport and recruit incoming students like Shah.

SHAH: As of now, I haven't really found as many scholarships. Right now for me, it's, I go to college, but I still want to keep that, playing cricket, with me.

MEHTA: Yeah, that's why you call it an American dream, right? And that's what we are working towards. Everyone is—players, coaches, parents, the whole community—the whole cricket playing community is working towards that dream.

Wherever she attends college, Shah will play on—or start—a community cricket league so she can keep honing her skills. Because she has goals. Dreams.

SHAH: I think cricket will always have a pretty important role in my life, because I still have that chance to even play another World Cup. So, that's a goal, but also being able to play for the women's team. That's like the ultimate goal.

AUDIO: [Chatter from dugout] Good work! Good work!

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in Pearland, Texas.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 23rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: men without chests. Commentator Janie B. Cheaney reflects on the 80th anniversary of a classic book by C. S. Lewis.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: In February of 1943, C. S. Lewis delivered three evening lectures at King’s College in Newcastle. Later that year the series was published in book form under the title of the third lecture: The Abolition of Man. The book is very short; my version is only 91 pages plus an appendix. You could read it in an evening but don’t attempt it unless you can devote your full attention. It’s incredibly packed. Almost every sentence could be pondered in solitude or discussed in an evening literary circle. I find myself rereading it every two or three years, because his main point is as eerily relevant today as it was eighty years ago: that humanity is in danger of becoming inhuman.

The first chapter, titled “Men Without Chests,” concerns Modern educational trends. Exhibit A is a composition textbook sent to him by a publisher who may have been hoping for an endorsement. Instead, Lewis gives both authors pseudonyms and slams the book. The volume goes down in history as the notorious Green Book by “Gaius and Titius,” names which paint them as educated barbarians contributing to the gutting of national character.

Gaius and Titius apparently buy into logical positivism, which holds that a statement has meaning only if it can be objectively demonstrated. As an example, they reference Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s story about a waterfall. There were two tourists, besides Coleridge, at an overlook. One tourist said the waterfall was sublime and the other said it was beautiful–or as Lewis relates it, “pretty.” Coleridge mentally endorsed Tourist A—“sublime” was the proper value given to this natural wonder, while words like “beautiful” or “pretty” were wholly inadequate.

Gaius and Titius give the impression that such value statements are meaningless: isn’t one man’s sublime another man’s pretty? The sooner English schoolboys and girls learn to privilege objective fact over subjective value, the better off we’ll all be.

Lewis wasn’t buying it. As a classical scholar he could call on the best of Western tradition—and even Eastern tradition—to support his argument that hearts must be educated as well as heads. Emotion has as great a stake in human progress as logic and reason. If a child’s emotions are not trained along with his intellect, there will be no arbiter between his brain and his gut-level appetite. Hence, “Men Without Chests.”

Today, many scientists still embrace logical positivism. And after decades of so-called “values-free” education, gut-level passion rules our arts and politics. That middle cavity of good judgment remains empty, and Lewis’s famous quote still resonates: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, we’ll watch the debate tonight and have some analysis tomorrow.

And, summer camp for kids from Ukraine living in refugee camps in Poland. We’ll have a first-hand report.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

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 Psalmist writes: Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him. Psalm 49, verses 16 and 17.

Go now in grace and peace.

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