The World and Everything in It — February 4, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

President Biden signed an executive order elevating gender identity. We’ll talk about what that means for girls’ sports.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Also protests against Russian president Vladimir Putin may usher in a new era in that nation.

Plus keeping old tower clocks ticking.

And commentator Cal Thomas on the power of homeschooling.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, February 4th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s  Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden, Senate Democrats huddle over relief bill » President Biden huddled with top Senate Democrats at the White House on Wednesday to discuss his COVID-19 rescue plan.

BIDEN: It’s great. I told them welcome home. This is their new home, for a while anyway. 

The president told Democratic lawmakers that he’s not married to the exact $1.9 trillion price tag of his proposal. But he said Congress needs to “act fast,” and he also told them to—quote—“go big.” 

He also said he doesn’t want to budge from his proposed $1,400 direct payments to most Americans in the next round of stimulus. 

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke to reporters in front of the White House after the meeting. 

SCHUMER: There’s agreement, universal agreement, we must go big and bold. The picture of Franklin Roosevelt was hovering over all of us and we were very much aware of that. It was alluded to a whole bunch of times. 

Democratic leaders have already laid the groundwork for budget reconciliation. That is a process they could use to pass the relief bill without any Republican support at all. 

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday… 

MCCONNELL: Yesterday, less than a day after several Senate Republicans spent literally two hours meeting with President Biden, Senate Democrats plowed ahead with a partyline vote to set the table for a partisan jam. 

Republicans have asked Biden to consider a more targeted $600 billion counterproposal. 

Coronavirus cases falling, but experts warn against Super Bowl parties » The United States has more than cut daily coronavirus infections in half over the past month. 

On January 8th, new cases peaked around 300,000 per day. Using a moving three-day average, that number is now at 118,000. 

But much of that early January surge was due to holiday gatherings. And President Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci is now urging Americans to skip the Super Bowl parties this year. 

FAUCI: As much fun as it is to get together in a big Super Bowl party, now is not the time to do that. Watch the game and enjoy it, but do it with your family or with people that are in your household. 

Fauci also said Wednesday that the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine could get a green light from the FDA within the next week or so. 

Study: First dose of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine provides 12 week protection » Meantime, the British government is hailing a new study on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The study suggests that a single dose provides a high level of protection for 12 weeks. 

Dr. Andrew Pollard is head of the Oxford Vaccine Group. He told Sky News… 

POLLARD: In those three months from when the first dose is given—and of course, that’s where many people are at the moment, they’re in that period—once the immune response has kicked in, which takes two to three weeks, there is sustained protection right up until the point that the second dose is given. 

Some have criticized the British government’s strategy of delaying the second shot so it can protect more people quickly with a first dose. But British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the preliminary findings from Oxford University support that strategy. 

The Oxford results also show the vaccine cut transmission of the virus by two-thirds and prevented severe disease.

Myanmar military charges Suu Kyi » The military in Myanmar gave itself a formal reason to detain ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, charging her with possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies.

Emerlynne Gil with Amnesty International said it was clearly a politically motivated charge. 

GIL: It is a way for the military to entrench its impunity by ruling through fear and intimidation. 

The military placed Suu Kyi and other political leaders under house arrest after seizing power on Monday. 

And independent analyst Larry Jagan said commanders want her out of the way. 

JAGAN: There’s little doubt that the game plan is to try and silence Aung San Suu Kyi to try and prevent her having a political future in the country and to prevent her from having any influence on future elections. 

The National League for Democracy confirmed the charge against Suu Kyi, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. The group also said the country’s ousted president, Win Myint, was charged with violating the natural disaster management law. 

U.S., European leaders weighing response to Russian crackdown on opposition » President Biden has talked with European allies about taking action against Russia. That after a Russian court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to more than two years in prison. 

And Russian activists on Wednesday reported more than 1,400 new arrests in the crackdown on protesters.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at the White House…

PSAKI: The president, of course, reserves the right to response in the manner and course of his choosing at any point in time. But we’re going to let this review complete, and then our policy teams will make decisions about any specific steps they’ll take in response. 

The response could include economic sanctions. 

European leaders are speaking out against the crackdown on free speech in Russia. 

French President Emmanuel Macron said “a political disagreement is never a crime.” And German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said the ruling was “far from the principles of rule of law.” 

Moscow shrugged off the criticism, calling the response of Western nations “hysterics.”

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the debate over allowing boys to play on girls sports teams.

Plus, Cal Thomas on the homeschool revolution.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 4th of February, 2021.

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

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: And I’m Megan Basham. First up: women’s sports.

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating broad acceptance for transgender Americans, including in high school sports. Practically speaking, that means schools must allow boys who identify as girls to compete on girls teams.

REICHARD: Some states already organize teams based on gender identity, rather than biology. Others are actively trying to legislate team division based on chromosomes and the innate physical differences they create. The issue has united conservative Christians and liberal feminists in an effort to defend women’s rights.

WORLD’s Leigh Jones reports.

AUDIO: [SWIM PRACTICE]

BRIANNA: I started competitively swimming around 6, and yeah, ever since then, so it’s been nine years.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: This is Brianna Gapsiewicz. She’s a freshman at Pearland High School and a member of the varsity swim team.

BRIANNA: My main events are the 200 freestyle and the 500 freestyle.

It’s a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in this suburb south of Houston. But Brianna is hard at work inside the city’s natatorium.

Before COVID, her club team included both boys and girls.

BRIANNA: It was nice to practice against the boys and everything. It was fun. Competitive. 

Competitive, but not exactly equal. The boys are stronger and faster.

BRIANNA: I would say for most events, especially the time standards to qualify for different things, it’s quite different. Especially in the longer distance events, it can differ about 10 seconds.

That 10 second difference is why boys and girls don’t compete. But that could soon change thanks to the president’s order. The Department of Education has 100 days to propose new policies to prevent what the order calls gender-based discrimination.

Christiana Holcomb is an attorney with the religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.

HOLCOMB: So we’ve seen how these policies play out. We’ve watched it happen in Connecticut, when gender identity is elevated, women and girls lose. They’re the ones who suffer the harmful consequences.

ADF represents three female high school athletes in Connecticut challenging a state policy that allows boys to join girls’ teams. Two male runners did in 2017 and quickly dominated track and field events. Since then, boys have taken 15 state titles previously held by girls.

HOLCOMB: Biology is what matters in sports. So the reason that we have women’s sports as a separate category is because of those inherent physical differences.

The Connecticut case is still in its early stages, at the trial court level. A similar case out of Idaho is awaiting a hearing before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Holcomb says the president’s executive order doesn’t change either case.

HOLCOMB: The executive order is unlawful, it flatly contradicts federal law, specifically under Title IX, which was designed to stop sex discrimination against women and ensure that women have equal athletic opportunities with male athletes. So we are optimistic that we ultimately will be able to restore fairness and a level playing field to women’s sports.

Fairness is key for feminists who also oppose the president’s order. Lauren Adams is legal director for the Women’s Liberation Front.

ADAMS: So we’re just concerned, because a lot of girls, especially lower income girls, they rely on the ability to be champions and get scholarships and be able to do that. And this puts that at risk.

Adams believes the emotional needs of people with gender dysphoria are legitimate. Things like inclusion and acceptance. But she says that shouldn’t trump the physical needs of women.

ADAMS: We definitely are not gonna stand for being called, like hateful, prejudiced people just for saying like, hey, actually, some of our struggles are based on biology and physiology, and these things that exists like sex segregated locker rooms and things like that, you can’t ask us to just give those up when they are like a huge, huge, huge part of our ability to meaningfully participate in public life and to be safe from male violence.

The Department of Education could order schools to allow boys to compete against girls without any restrictions. But it could also set requirements for hormone therapy that would limit the inherent physical advantages men have over women.

Dr. Timothy Roberts is a pediatrician and the director of the adolescent medicine training program at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Last year, he co-authored a study on the athletic performance of transgender men and women in the military.

The study looked at how long it took for men to lose their athletic advantage after starting hormone therapy.

ROBERTS: It took two years for their performance to decline to the level of all the other women in the Air Force. For the runtime, their performance, followed for two and a half years. And we never saw their performance coming all the way down to the level of the other women in the Air Force.

Roberts supports allowing transgender youth to participate on the sports teams that match their gender identity. But he admits it’s not fair to have boys competing against girls without any medical intervention.

The International Olympic Committee currently requires men to be on testosterone blockers for one year before competing against women. Roberts says two years is probably more reasonable for elite athletes. But for youth sports, he thinks a shorter time frame is sufficient.

ROBERTS: So I think after about one year on testosterone blockade, it’s probably okay to put the transgender women with the other women for competition, because the small advantage they have retained is going to be washed out by benefits of variation in normal women.

Roberts says the young women who excel in youth sports already have natural physical advantages that help them win. But that discounts the amount of effort most student athletes put in over a long period of time to improve. Just ask Brianna Gapsiewicz.

BRIANNA: I have Pearland high school practice starting at 5:30 every morning. And then Peak practice is Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays at about 7 o’clock, and that’s about an hour and a half. 

That’s at least 90 minutes of practice, five days a week. It’s hard work, but it’s paying off. Last month, Brianna earned a spot at regionals. And she hopes all those laps will eventually give her a leg up on her future through a college scholarship.

BRIANNA: I’m starting to look around and everything, so I hope I can make it onto a college team.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones in Pearland, Texas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Russia.

The last two weeks in Russia show unrest among its people that nation hasn’t seen in years. This follows the arrest of popular opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: What does this mean for Vladimir Putin’s regime? And could the protests bring lasting change to Russia? WORLD correspondent Jenny Lind Schmitt reports.

AUDIO: [Protesters shouting, sound of clubs, shouting]

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: Police violently beat and arrested more than a thousand protesters in Moscow and Saint Petersburg Tuesday night. The violence erupted after a court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to two and a half years in prison. That followed arrests of over 5,000 people on Sunday as protesters turned out across the country for a second week of demonstrations.

AUDIO: [Protests]

In the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk, protesters braved temperatures of minus 40 degrees celsius, shouting “Putin is a thief.”

The Kremlin’s response across the nation was swift and violent. It denounced the protests as illegal and a threat to public health.

Protesters are demanding Navalny’s release from prison, where he’s been held since his return to Russia last month. From the police station after his arrest, he sent a message to supporters, calling for them to go out into the streets. “Not for me,” he said, “but for yourselves, for your future.”

NAVALNY: I’m asking you not to keep silent, to keep fighting. Go out on the street. No one but us can defend us. And we are many. And if we want something we will get it. 

MUSIC: [Opening music from Putin’s Palace]

At the same time, Navalny’s organization released an explosive investigative documentary called “Putin’s Palace.” Over two hours it traces corruption between Putin and his cronies, showing how they diverted funds to build the Russian president an opulent estate on the Black Sea. This during a period when the government raised the Russian retirement age by five years and real Russian incomes dropped by 10 percent. The documentary has been viewed more than 100 million times.

AUDIO: [Protests]

The film motivated protesters to take to the streets. Some carried gold colored toilet brushes, a reference to the extravagances reported in the documentary. Others simply say Navalny’s detention is illegal, and they fear the erosion of civil rights.

KOLESNIKOV: It was the incentive for people who were not politicized to go to the streets. But these people were ready to be politicized.

Andrei Kolesnikov is a senior fellow and Russian expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center. He says that there is a shift now, in that the social classes that have traditionally supported Putin also took part in the protests.

KOLESNIKOV: We’re talking about advanced classes, especially in the cities. Urban well-educated classes. Middle classes. It means that Navalny has changed something in this perception.

Kolesnikov says it’s also worth noting how widespread the protests are across the country.

KOLESNIKOV: But now he became the symbol of resistance in civil society. It means that Navalny has a new quality. He became not only a politician, but he became a moral force…

Bishop Albert Ratkin is the pastor of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith Pentecostal Church in Kaluga, about two hours outside Moscow. His church has experienced government corruption and meddling first hand. The congregation bought an old Soviet building 21 years ago. But the former governor had promised the land to someone else. So local authorities sided with developers trying to get the property to build a shopping center.

RATKIN: Twenty-one years now we’re in the courts, all kinds of courts, so many courts. Last year, 2020, we had 28 different sessions in different courts. 

Last year the government sealed the building and prevented the church from renting space anywhere in town. They had to rent a large tent to hold services. They heat it, but it’s still bitterly cold now in the Russian winter.

In recent years the Kremlin also has used anti-extremist campaigns as an excuse to plague Protestants and other religious minorities with unclear rules.

RATKIN: If you invite someone to the church, the law says you must have a special document to invite people. We said, “No no no, it’s in our constitution we confess our faith!” They said: “No no no! You must have special documents from your religious organization to preach or to invite people.”

Though an interpreter Albert Ratkin says that while many Russian Christians believe that politics is dirty business, and others are afraid of the consequences, he must speak up as a citizen.

RATKIN: The whole of Russia belongs to a very small group of people, and other people don’t have a chance. I’m trying to protect the rights of believers in Russia. I think it is very important. 

Alexei Navalny’s arrest and conviction has struck a chord in a country where average citizens feel disillusioned about the status quo. Many feel that if Putin isn’t stopped now, it will be too late. Relentless protests in neighboring Belarus encouraged Russia’s opposition groups. But as the situation in that country has shown, change doesn’t come overnight. 

Andrei Kolesnikov:

KOLESNIKOV: We must avoid euphoria. Because we can’t wait for a change of power because of street protests. The regime is still stable, and this is a full scale authoritarian regime which is ready to pursue a line of force.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Formula One driver Michael Andretti is one of the most successful American race car drivers in history. But he’s not resting in his laurels. 

He just set a new world record for the top speed in a new kind of race car. 

If you can believe it, Andretti reached speeds of just over 17 miles per hour!

That’s not fast, you say? Well, it is if you’re driving a car made out of cake!

That’s right! Andretti now owns the Guinness World Record for top speed in an edible cake car. 

To qualify for the record, the car had to be at least 90 percent edible. He beat that at 91 percent edible. A cake set upon an aluminum chassis.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 4th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: And I’m Megan Basham. Today, a story about clock towers.

They once served an important purpose: keeping people aware of the time, of course! And the massive timepieces are part of important architectural treasures all over this country. 

But these days, everyone has a clock in the palm of their hand.

REICHARD: So, who cares what happens to those big timepieces? 

Here’s WORLD’s Bonnie Pritchett with the story.

AUDIO: [TRACTOR TRAILER, THEN MIX OF TRAFFIC, TALKING, BIRDS]

BONNIE PRITCHETT, REPORTER: If it weren’t for the traffic, walking around the Caldwell County square would be like stepping back in time. Early 20th century shops surround and lift their gaze to the grand 1894 white and red-trimmed sandstone county courthouse. It’s capped with a four-faced tower clock. The clock’s peal on the hour and half hour once ordered the town’s rhythm of life.

On this bright 21st century afternoon, the tower clock says the time is 1:48.

No. 1:47.

Wait. 1:46.

Now 1:45.

Yes, it’s 1:45?

AUDIO: [ELEVATOR AND CLIMBING THE LADDER]

A few minutes after the big black minute hand went back in time, I met up with two men holding the keys to an explanation and the hands of time.

GENE GALBRAITH: OK now, Ben will show you how the process of getting up to the clock…

That’s Gene Galbraith, president of the Southwest Museum of Clocks and Watches located across the street from the courthouse. Ben Courtney is clock master. They’re on the third floor of the courthouse where the elevator and stairs end.

Courtney pulls a cord dangling from the ceiling. It lowers a recessed panel that disgorges an attic access ladder.

The clock is four levels up.

AUDIO: [STEPS ON THE LADDER]

Courtney heads toward the dark rectangle in the ceiling followed by Galbraith.

BEN COURTNEY: So, we have another set of stairs we go up with a light switch…. 

AUDIO: [COURTNEY GOING UP THE STAIRS]

At the top of those steps the pair cross the next landing and scale the first of two metal ladders that lead to the tower clock.

GALBRAITH: OK. One more flight over there.

COURTNEY: When I get to the top, I have to unlock this door.

GALBRAITH: Yeh. We’ll wait till he gets up there before we start…

AUDIO: [STEPS ON LADDER AND KEYS JANGLING..]

There’s no landing at the top of the second ladder. Only a door to Courtney’s right that he must unlock with one hand while gripping the ladder with the other.

But why make this arduous expedition?

GALBRAITH: There’s not very many people who get to see this.

AUDIO: [CLIMBING INTO THE ROOM]

AUDIO: [TICKING CLOCK]

COURTNEY: This is the clock mechanical room…

The 1917 Seth Thomas mechanical clock fills most of the 8-foot by 10-foot, white-paneled room. Its shiny steel pinions and bronze gears, and what look like bicycle chains, stand out against the green cast-iron frame. Its slender design belies its 3,000 pounds.

The swinging pendulum keeps one particular gear marking the seconds at a steady 36 hundred beats per hour.

Except when it doesn’t. Hence, Courtney’s weekly climb up the tower. Galbraith, who is 85, made those trips until 20-19 when he handed the job to the 71-year-old Courtney. 

COURTNEY: OK, we’re about half a minute off on there…  

Using a clock wrench Courtney reaches into the mechanism, makes a minute adjustment that moves the 5-foot-long hands on the clock faces and… 

AUDIO: [CLICK, CLACK, BELL STRIKES ONCE]

COURTNEY: Two things have a huge affect on the operation of the clock – temperature and wind. This whole tower in the courthouse is a wooden structure. So, when we get high winds it’ll sway just a fraction of an inch but its enough to change the rate of the swing of the pendulum. So that will change the time showing on the clock. The other thing is temperature. This pendulum rod is a wooden rod. And temperature will cause it to expand and contract which changes the length. And the length of it is what controls the rate of the clock…

The elements put this clock off by 2 to 3 minutes each week. About 45 minutes ago, Courtney corrected the time from 1:48 to 1:45.

This clock requires only general maintenance. But the ravages of nature and time have taken a toll on the state’s 55 courthouse tower clocks.

GALBRAITH: And of those 55 only, maybe, 20 of them actually work…

That’s why Galbraith and the museum started the Tower Clock Initiative to restore those clocks to their former glory. To date, they’ve restored seven and repaired four.

COURTNEY: Some of the clocks that, when you go up in the tower, it looks like they belong in a junkyard. I mean, they’re in a horrendous state…

Some clocks are beyond repair and must be replaced. Restoring time-only clocks costs about $30,000. Striking and chiming clocks can cost upwards of $60,000. The Texas Historical Commission offers grants to pay half the cost of restoration.

But why fix them? Haven’t they outlived their usefulness?

COURTNEY: The original purpose for the tower clock was so that all the businesses in town would be on the same time. And they did serve their purpose. Today’s tower clock is a matter of pride for the people in the community…

Before leaving the clock mechanical room, the pair wait for the striking of the hour.

AUDIO: [TICKING, CLICK, THREE CHIMES]

GALBRAITH: Now isn’t that thrilling?!

The sound of a properly working clock never gets old for Galbraith and Courtney. Restoring life to still, silent timepieces keeps these two ticking.

GALBRAITH: (LAUGHTER) There’s no such thing as retirement. And we’re not going to quit. There’s always time to be made…

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next, a preview of Listening In.

This week, host Warren Smith talks with Grover Norquist. He’s a conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform. That’s an advocacy group he began in 1985. 

Their conversation covers a wide range of subjects: from the legacy of Donald Trump to the dangers of deficit spending. In this excerpt, Smith asks Norquist about a dust-up over his group taking funds from the Paycheck Protection Program following lockdowns imposed by the government.

WARREN SMITH: Americans for Tax Reform, your organization, took PPP funds back during the last round. Any regrets about that? 

GROVER NORQUIST: No they didn’t, because all the liberal groups and the conservative groups did what it said is, if you have to lay off people, we will lend you this money. So you don’t have to lay off people, then you don’t get to keep the money. And what happened was the government said, you cannot work your business or a nonprofit, I run a nonprofit, because we’re shutting you down, and you can’t come to work. And you can’t do this, we can’t do that, you can’t do that. And by the end, this is not they built a road through your backyard, they pay for it. And if they shut down your restaurant, one, they shouldn’t shut the restaurant down, but two, if they do, it’s not unreasonable for them to compensate the people who lost their jobs, because of the decision by the government to tell people they can’t go to your restaurant. I also think they shouldn’t collect property taxes. If a city says you can’t keep your restaurant open, they got some nerve, continuing to make you pay your property taxes.

SMITH: So the fact that you had to endure charges of hypocrisy, they just sort of went off of your back. And it’s sort of like that’s life in the big city.

NORQUIST: No, it just is not hypocrisy at all. I’m in favor of the government, compensating people when the government does damage to people. And when the government shuts down your ability to function, and then helps compensate you so you don’t have to fire people. I mean, I better off not to do the shutting down in the first place and to keep it down to a dull roar. But that kind of compensation is perfectly legitimate and governments ought to be doing that they should not be able to take your property or shut down your business and then treat you as if they’ve not done you any harm.

REICHARD: That’s Grover Norquist talking to Warren Smith. To hear the complete conversation, look for Listening In tomorrow wherever you get your podcasts.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

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

Commentator Cal Thomas now on the true source of America’s power and success.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: During the rebellious 1960s, the slogan “power to the people” became a mantra for the young to protest what they saw as oppression from their elders. Now comes a moment when significant numbers of Americans can exercise real power in ways that will improve the country.

Most people will never attain a level of influence comparable to a president, a member of Congress, a Supreme Court justice, a newspaper editor, or a TV network anchor or reporter. But ultimate power does not reside in any of these institutions or professions. It resides in “we the people.”

The pandemic has given especially parents of young children an opportunity to seize power they already possessed but have never fully exercised. With teachers unions dictating when, or if, public schools will open again, parents are discovering the power of educating their children at home. There they cannot only teach the real history of the country (as opposed to the revisionist version now taught in too many schools), but add a moral foundation that secular public schools no longer provide.

According to one estimate, in the spring of 2019 (the last period for which figures are available), 2.5 million children in grades K-12 were homeschooled. The trend over the last few years amounts to an estimated annual homeschooling growth rate of between 2 percent and 8 percent.

That may not sound like much when you consider that 48.6 million K-12 students attend public schools, according to the Census Bureau. But it suggests momentum.

Combine homeschooling families with the 5.7 million students attending private schools and you might call it a movement.

Home schooling is much easier today than it used to be. Not only are there substantial online resources, many parents are combining their skills and backgrounds with other parents. If one is deficient in history or math, another parent with knowledge of these subjects can contribute.

Many of these subjects have been tainted by political correctness and in the case of history, revisionism. Conservatives who want to preserve America from what they regard as incremental socialism should embrace home schooling as a way to rescue the next generation and preserve the country.

I have quoted her before, but this bears repeating. The late Barbara Bush said: “Your success as a family … our success as a nation … depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

She understood where real power comes from. Now, if more people will only seize that power and use it.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday. We welcome John Stonestreet of the Colson Center back to the microphones.

And, I’ll review a thought-provoking documentary about one of our nation’s foremost public intellectuals.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Megan Basham.

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

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

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Thanks for listening, and please meet us back here tomorrow.

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