The World and Everything In It — March 31, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Tensions are escalating between China and the United States. We’ll talk about prospects going forward.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also, World Tour. Today, a special report from Mozambique on its battle with a terrorist offshoot of the Islamic State.

Then to the streets of a city in Switzerland where prostitution is legal.

And confronting the culture of perpetual outrage.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, March 31st. 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: Now it’s time for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: WHO team announces early findings of virus origins study » A team of investigators with the World Health Organization has presented a long-awaited first look at its study into the origin of the coronavirus.

But the team’s only conclusion is that more study is needed.

WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus says the U.N. health body is not ready to endorse any single hypothesis.

GHEBREYESUS: For now, all hypotheses will be on the table and will need further study. Thank you.

Team leader Peter Ben Embarek suggested one hypothesis is all but off the table.

As expected, Embarak threw water on a possibility raised by U.S. intelligence that the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab.

EMBAREK: The findings suggest that the laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely. 

And he said he is not recommending that the team further investigate that possibility.

But many on Capitol Hill remain skeptical of the team’s early report. GOP Senator Tom Cotton:

COTTON: The report is a joke. I mean, these so-called investigators did not have access to scientists. They did not have access to evidence. Chinese Communists told them ‘nothing to see here’ so they walked away and said ‘nope, there’s nothing to see here.’

The team did in fact have access to Chinese scientists, but not without Communist Party officials looking over their shoulder.

Embarek conceded, “We did not have full access to all the raw data we wanted.” He also pointed to what he called “privacy” issues in China that prevented sharing of some data.

World leaders call for pandemic treaty » Also on Tuesday, dozens of world leaders called for a global pandemic treaty to prepare and guard against future outbreaks.

More than 20 heads of government joined the call for more global cooperation, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Italian Premier Mario Draghi, and European Council President Charles Michel.

MICHEL: The next pandemic is not a question of if but when so we must be ready and we have no time to waste. 

But the White House isn’t sold. Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

PSAKI: We do have some concerns, primarily about the timing in launching into negotiations for launching into a new treaty right now. And we believe that could divert attention away from substantive issues regarding the response.

Tedros Ghebreyesus said the “world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one.”

But the leaders provided few details on how such an agreement would actually work.

As hospitalizations rise, CDC, White House again urge Americans to get vaccinated » And with COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths again on the rise in the United States, the CDC is again urging Americans to get vaccinated and to do it as quickly as possible.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky:

WALENSKY: I just worry that we will see the surges that we saw over the summer and over the winter again. 

And President Biden this week also again urged Americans to get vaccinated. And he said very soon, access to vaccines will no longer be a problem as we’re rapidly approaching a benchmark he called “90-90.”

BIDEN: By April 19th, three weeks from today, 90 percent of adults, people 18 and over, will be eligible to get vaccinated — 90 percent of Americans will be living within five miles of a place they can get a shot. 

And multiple manufacturers are now working on coronavirus vaccines that can be delivered in the form of a nasal spray. AstraZeneca will begin early stage trials soon, but it will be several months before the company seeks approvals for public use.

Biden signs Paycheck Protection Program extension into law » President Biden on Tuesday also signed an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses.

The application window was set to close today. But with the extension, companies now have until May 31st to apply for assistance.

BIDEN: It is a bipartisan accomplishment. Nearly 90,000 businesses are still in line and there’s money left. Without me signing this bill today, there are hundreds of thousands of people who could lose their jobs. 

The White House says that under the program, the government has approved more than $200 billion dollars in forgivable loans so far.

The nearly $2 trillion dollar relief and spending bill the president signed into law this month included another $7 billion dollars for the program.

Noem issues executive order to after partial veto of bill protecting women’s sports » South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem this week killed a bill that would have banned male athletes who identify as female from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.

She then followed her partial veto of the bill with weaker executive orders. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The Republican governor ordered that all girls joining girls sports leagues in public schools must present a birth certificate or affidavit showing they were born female.

A second order applied to public universities in the state, but amounted to a recommendation they enact bans.

The governor also promised to call lawmakers back into session in the coming months to take up the matter.

In a statement, Noem said “only girls should play girls’ sports.” She added that she was issuing the orders because the Legislature had rejected her partial veto of the bill.

Lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced similar bans this year, with Republican governors in three states—Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi—signing them into law. A federal court blocked a similar law in Idaho last year.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Beijing puts the Biden administration to the test.

Plus, Janie B. Cheaney on ignoring reality.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 31st of March, 2021.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.  It’s Washington Wednesday.

Up next, the threat of an emerging communist superpower.

The growing friction between the United States and a Chinese government working to supplant the United States as the dominant world power was on display two weeks ago in Alaska.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken hosted a delegation of top Chinese diplomats in Anchorage. In his opening remarks, he listed U.S. complaints with China.

BLINKEN: We’ll also discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion toward our allies.

Chinese officials effectively called Washington hypocritical for denouncing human rights abuses in China saying the United States has a long history of its own abuses.

And through an interpreter, Foreign Minister Yi Wang added this:

WANG: China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs. We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response.

REICHARD: Wang also called Blinken’s remarks no way to welcome a guest or to deal with the Chinese people.

The pointed exchanges illustrated an increasingly contentious rivalry between the two nations.

Joining us now to talk about the growing tension is Will Inboden. He is executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas. Professor, good morning!

WILL INBODEN, GUEST: Good morning. Good to be with you.

REICHARD: Professor, we just talked about some of the chest beating we saw at the meeting in Anchorage earlier this month between U.S. and Chinese officials. What was your reaction to that meeting?

INBODEN: It wasn’t very surprising. I would say it was shocking but not surprising. Shocking in terms of it was unusually cantankerous for a diplomatic exchange, especially early on in an administration. But not surprising in that both the Biden administration and the Chinese side had been sending signals that both sides see this as an adversarial, competitive relationship. And the relationship is going from bad to worse. So, in that sense I think the meeting really verified what a lot of us who follow these things closely had already been seeing. This is that the Biden administration is going to be taking a hard line on China, and China has already decided to pursue a pretty aggressive stance towards the U.S.

REICHARD: Very few Americans would trade our freedoms for China’s authoritarianism. But it seems they have one big advantage in that Xi Jinping can play the long game here, whereas many in Washington rarely think beyond their next election. From what you can see, what is China’s long-term strategy to surpass the United States?

INBODEN: Well, that’s the big debate but it does seem more and more clear that China’s long term strategy—and, frankly, it’s now turned into their short and medium term strategy—is to become certainly the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific region. And then, frankly, to become the dominant autocracy in the world and to rewrite a lot of the standards and rules by which the globe seems to run to be much more favorable to authoritarian governments and much more inimical to democratic governments.

And so for the last few decades China was pursuing a more quiet strategy of biding their time, slowly marshalling their strength, trying to keep a more congenial face to the world. But Xi Jinping has abandoned that. He’s jettisoned that. He sees a real opening. He sees the United States as weak and divided. And he sees China as strong and ascendant. And so he is pressing his advantage right now and trying to seize as much new geographic territory and ideological advantage as he can.

REICHARD: And how are we seeing that play out right now?

INBODEN: Sure. Well, again, to give a little bit of context of just how unique Xi Jinping is, is since Deng Xiaoping, the standard for Chinese rulers had been that they would serve essentially two terms of about 10 years each and then step aside. None of them wanted to return to kind of a lifelong dictatorship as they’d had under Mao.

And Xi Jinping has jettisoned that. He’s declared himself ruler for life. He’s trying to subconsciously model himself on Mao. He’s promoting a cult of personality, calling it Xi Jinping Thought. Again, we hadn’t seen that before since the days of Mao. And so he’s been doing that internally in China to consolidate his control even while he pursues a genocide in Xinjiang, trying to quite literally exterminate the Uyghur Muslim population there. Of course he’s pressed his advantage in Hong Kong, violating his treaty commitments. He’s stepped up his aggression towards Taiwan.

We’re seeing this in the South China Sea, which is by the rest of the world regarded as international waters, but China’s trying to turn that into its own private lake.

And then, of course, very aggressive espionage against American companies, against Canadian companies, against European companies, stealing as much technology as they can. And then, finally, he’s forging a deep and almost unprecedented partnership with Russia. He’s teaming up with Putin on military exercises and other ways that they can block the Western alliance in the global system. So, it’s a really global strategy. It’s sophisticated and it’s aggressive and it’s so far succeeding. So it’s going to be a real test for the Biden administration.

REICHARD: Back in December, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe called China the greatest threat to the free world since World War II. He said, “Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.” From what you’ve seen so far, does the Biden administration take the threat China poses as seriously as did the Trump administration?

INBODEN: I’ll go one further, and I say this as a conservative Republican who does not like a lot of what Biden is doing on domestic and economic policy. I think the Biden administration is taking the China threat more seriously than the Trump administration did.

When President Trump came into office, he pursued the same line that Obama had first pursued when he came into office. He wanted a reset with China. He invited Xi Jinping to Mar-a-lago. He downplayed any criticism on human rights while Trump was trying to pursue a grand bargain on trade. And was really courting and trying to build a friendship with Xi Jinping. And that continued for the first couple years of the Trump administration. And then finally the Trump administration realized that this conciliatory approach to China was not working, just as the Obama administration had belatedly realized that as well. And then they started taking a harder line.

Anyway. I don’t see any of that naivete among the Biden folks. I actually think they’re more unified in taking a harder line towards China. I think they’ve learned from some of the mistakes they themselves made when they were in the Obama administration as well as some mistakes the Trump administration made.

REICHARD: President Biden has moved quickly to undo President Trump’s policies in many areas. But what about the trade war with China? What are we seeing there from the Biden administration?

INBODEN: Yeah, and, again, I say this as someone who is overall pretty critical of the Biden administration in a lot of other ways, but on the trade

policy, the Biden administration has continued the Trump sanctions and tariffs. And, if anything, they have even increased some of them, such as sanctions on Chinese leaders who are engaging in the human rights abuses in Xinjiang and in Hong Kong. But they haven’t lifted any of the tariffs. Frankly, even though I don’t favor lifting the tariffs, I was frustrated that the Trump administration missed chances to take more targeted action against a number of the Chinese enemies that were stealing American intellectual property. I think just focusing on the trade imbalances of the lower-cost manufactured goods was not the most strategic way to go.

And then the other thing that the Trump administration missed, which the Biden administration I hope will revisit but I’m not sure yet, is building deeper trade ties with our allies in the region because when we withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was a region wide trade agreement that excluded China, when we withdrew from that our allies such as Japan and South Korea and Australia and then new partners such as Vietnam and Indonesia, they had nowhere else to go but to turn to China. So they have now forged a free trade agreement with China and that is deepening their ties with China, and we want to bring those countries back over to our side economically.

So while I think we need to keep having a strong line towards China on the trade and economic front, part of maintaining that strong line is deepening our alliances and partnerships. And, again, that was one of the unforced errors, I thought, in the Trump administration. One more example I could give you is Trump kept trying to withdraw troops from South Korea, which was exactly what Beijing wanted. And so the Biden administration just concluded a deal with South Korea that we will keep our troops there. And, you know, most people read that through the lens of deterring North Korea and that’s part of it, but a big part of it also is deterring China as well.

REICHARD: Is China on track to achieve its goal of overtaking the United States economically, militarily, or technologically?

INBODEN: On the present trends for China look positive, but I often try to remind people that China also has some major internal problems. In the long game, I’m still very bullish on the United States. Here’s how I often put it is, when Xi Jinping puts his head on his pillow at night wherever he sleeps, what’s keeping him awake? What he’s most afraid of is not the United States. It’s his own people. That’s why China spends untold hundreds of billions of dollars each year on internal surveillance, on trying to monitor and control everything its people are thinking and saying and doing. That is not a strong country, right? If you are terrified of your own people, of letting them even have a modicum of religious freedom or political freedom, that’s a real vulnerability and that’s where I would love to see the United States pressing more on human rights and religious freedom. Because that’s a way we can bring the Chinese people more over to our side against their government. Our fight is not with the Chinese people. Our fight is with the Chinese Communist Party, and we need to keep that distinction in mind. And that’s a real vulnerability for China.

MR: Will Inboden is executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas. Professor, thank you for joining us.

INBODEN: Thank you, Mary. I enjoyed it.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

Today we’ll be staying here in Africa with a special report from Mozambique.

An offshoot of the Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for an attack on the coastal city of Palma. Fighting started last Wednesday, and insurgents remain in control of most of the city.

William Els is an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.

ELS: We saw that they looted all the banks, they looted all the stores for foodstuff for themselves. And also we saw that they started burning down some of the buildings. So they are in complete control of the area. They blew up the cell phone towers. So there’s also no or limited communication with the people there.

Survivors who fled the city reported a gruesome scene. Bodies lying in the streets, some beheaded. The attackers claim to have killed at least 55 people, including foreigners.

AUDIO: [man speaking Portugese]

A spokesman for Mozambique’s Defence Ministry confirmed at least seven people died when the rebels attacked a convoy trying to escape a hotel popular with foreigners. He said the military has rescued hundreds of others. But thousands of people remain unaccounted for.

Families with loved ones stuck in Palma waited in nearby Pemba for news. This woman is looking for her husband, who works for the World Food Program.

AUDIO: [woman speaking Portugese]

Palma is on the edge of one of the world’s largest gas deposits, offshore in the Indian Ocean. French company Total is leading the effort to extract the liquified natural gas, an investment estimated at $20 billion dollars.

Jakkie Cilliers is another analyst with the  Institute for Security Studies. He explains why the rebels want to gain control of the city.

CILLIERS: Now, the problem is that Mozambique has not effectively controlled the northern part of its territory. And then there’s this massive gas find which offers potential to the region. But locals are not seeing anything. What they are seeing is hundreds of foreigners, including South Africans, expatriates and elsewhere, coming in to build and to design and to provide resources. But very little of that is coming to the locals. And because of the organized crime component of this, the one feeds into the other, and eventually desperate people resort to desperate means.

Total stopped work at Palma in January after earlier attacks by rebel forces. Last week’s attack came hours after the company announced plans to resume development at the site. Plans they have now suspended again.

Zenaida Machado is a Human Rights Watch representative based in Mozambique. She urged the government to put local residents first in their effort to retake the city.

MACHADO: The priority should never be to protect only the infrastructures and investments. People should feel that they are in a country that has a government that respects human rights, that is committed to their obligations according to the national constitution and also international law.

The rebels launched a similar attack on the nearby port city of Mocimboa da Praia in August. Government forces failed to retake that city after more than a week of heavy fighting.

Earlier this month the United States declared Mozambique’s rebels a terrorist organization and sent military specialists to help train the Mozambican military to fight them.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: So how’d you like to have the job of tracking asteroids that might strike Earth?

Well, NASA has that job, and it’s not easy to make the proper calculations. Back in 2004, scientists were concerned that dangerous asteroid 99942 Apophis was on a collision course with us. Predictions said, the year 2036, then 2068, and now it seems we’re good for at least the rest of this century.

Apophis does orbit the sun and it will make a close pass by the year 2029, and by close, we mean 20-thousand miles. But given the vastness of space, it is kind of skin-of-the-teeth close.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 31st. We’re glad you’ve joined us today for WORLD Radio.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a story that you may want to come back to later if you have young children around. You’ve got a few seconds to press pause before we start our story.

Lausanne, Switzerland sits on the shores of Lake Geneva. It’s known for its beautiful views of the lake and the Alps. But it’s also known for something ugly: legal prostitution.

World’s European Correspondent Jenny Lind Schmitt recently joined volunteers from a ministry that’s reaching out to women in prostitution. Here’s their story.

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: It’s 11 p.m. in Lausanne, Switzerland. With the wind chill, the temperature is 17 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a night to bundle up and stay inside. Instead, Vanessa Randewijk and volunteers of Port’espoir, are heading out to bring warm drinks and hope to women who work the streets.

AUDIO: [talking]

Lausanne has a long history of street prostitution. More recently authorities have said sex work should be considered a “normal job.” They claim it’s the social stigma that causes the problems that go along with prostitution. With regulations and social aid, they’ve attempted to make working conditions better for women. Vanessa Randewijk says that’s like trying to wear nice clothes over gangrene.

RANDEWIJK: Because it is not a real job.

The Covid crisis has shown just how much of a sham the system is. Because it’s legal, women working in prostitution pay taxes and unemployment insurance. But because they’re considered independent contractors, they never benefit from the system they pay into. Randewijk says vagueness around their legal status is convenient for the local government.

RANDEWIJK: Because if they open that can of worms to try to figure that out, they will realize this is not a decent job. You know? But so has been prostitution for ages. It was always the last resort for a woman. 

Randewijk first reached out to the women in Lausanne after attending a seminar on showing compassion in your own city. She had no experience with this kind of ministry, but she knew God was calling her. So, she figured if this was the ladies’ “job,” then they should also have a coffee break from that job. She loaded up thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate and bags of snacks.

RANDEWIJK: It’s the weird gift of small talk. If I meet her for the first time, I’m like, do you want tea and coffee.

Most of the women were receptive and happy to have someone to talk to. Many say they are Christians and are grateful for prayers..

AUDIO: [rolling bag]

Out on the street tonight, the roller bag containing the thermoses echoes loudly from the warehouses in this part of town. At first volunteers wondered if they should carry the bag instead, to be quieter. Then they realized the women welcome the sound announcing their arrival.

VOLUNTEER: Tea? Hot Chocolate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chocolate or tea?

A group of young women appear and gratefully take steaming cups of tea. They accept the snacks and hats that friends of the ministry have crocheted for them.

WOMAN: Il fait froid! Thank you so much.

When they dash off again, one stays behind. She says her name is Anna, and readily accepts when volunteer Olivier Raess asks to pray for her.

RAESS: Jesus we bless Anna. Thank you because you love her.

Raess makes sure she knows about local assistance to help victims of human trafficking. They have a trailer set up in the next street.

RAESS: You know if you didn’t choose to come here, there is an association that can help you get out.

Anna says she knew what she was getting into, but later Randewijk says that’s likely only partially true. Many women are brought from impoverished countries with promises of jobs, then are forced into prostitution to repay “travel fees” to pimps.

RANDEWIJK: That’s why I prefer to talk to them individually because probably one of them is watching the other ones also. They all live in the same apartment and probably one of them is the ‘mama,’ you know. 

Women from different countries stick together: Romanian women on this corner, Bulgarians one street over, Africans further up the main street, and women from Latin America across the boulevard.

RANDEWIJK: This is the line. So that is the limit, that red thing. Here you can prostitute yourself, but here you can’t prostitute yourself. 

Red corners painted on the sidewalk show the limits of the zone of legal prostitution.

Across the street we meet Camille, who accepts the offer of a drink and conversation. She takes a yellow hat, then asks if she can have one for her daughter as well. She has three young children who stay with her mother in Romania. Her father doesn’t work and has health problems. When she talks about them, her face betrays her worry. She wants to go home to visit, but says she doesn’t have enough money.

AUDIO: [street sounds]

While potential customers drive up and down the street eyeing the women, Randewijk prays for Camille and her family.

RANDEWIJK: We want them to connect with who they are when they are not a prostitute. We usually ask questions about families, Do they have children? What did you want to do when you were growing up? What did you dream about? But our goal is really for them to have that break. 

The legalization of prostitution here has made it harder to fight for change. When something isn’t against the law, society tends to think it’s acceptable, even beneficial. But tonight all it’s highlighting is how it allows the abuse of women from poor countries.

RANDEWIJK: When you look at prostitution in Switzerland, suddenly you are looking at issues in Romania and issues in Nigeria that lead those ladies to come here. 

The name of the ministry is Port’espoir, or door of hope. In French it can also mean “carrier of hope.” Randewijk says being a hope-carrier means that Port’espoir will continue, whether or not women eventually change, because God  says they’re worth it.

RANDEWIJK: We bring hope. We want to be the friends that they need at that moment. Sometimes it’s to laugh, sometimes it’s to cry. Sometimes it’s to complain. We just make ourselves available for a time. 

AUDIO: [rolling bag]

Later, when it’s time for us to go, we pass Camille again. She’s getting into the passenger side of a customer’s car, no longer wearing the yellow hat.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt in Lausanne, Switzerland.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 31st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney now on the dangers of perpetual outrage.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: Back in the early ’70s, while my husband worked as assistant manager of the local drive-in, I used to take long solitary walks around our college campus. One night, on a stretch of deserted road, I began hearing footsteps behind me. They followed me all the way back to my empty house.

I could have used the advice offered by the University of Nevada campus police last January, in a welcome-back email sent to students returning to UN-Las Vegas. “Avoid dark, unpopulated areas” was near the top of the list. Other tips, such as “Look confident, keep your head up” and “Be aware and alert to your surroundings,” sound like thoughtful advice from Dad.

Not all students saw it that way. After a weekend of strenuous objections from the CARE Center and Student Diversity and Social Justice council, the campus PD apologized. For what? Apparently, well-meant advice from those who know something about violence was in fact “violent.” Trying to prevent harm was itself “harm,” a form of victim-blaming that placed responsibility for an assault on the one assaulted. To the social-justice crowd, the cops might as well be reminding young ladies to dress modestly and avoid getting blind drunk at frat parties. (Which is good counsel, but you can’t say it out loud.)

“Blaming the victim” is a slogan dating back at least 30 years. “A woman should be able to walk down the street stark naked and be safe,” Oprah declared on one of her programs. Theoretically true, though meaningless in the real world.

But perhaps there’s more than simple outrage reflected in the students’ complaint. As they put it in a campus-wide memo, tips that, quote, “place responsibility on the individual to avoid being attacked erase the lived experiences of so many of us,” unquote. In other words, advice offered to help them be safe made them feel unsafe. There’s a sort of logic here, but it defies rationality. It’s not “lived experience” getting erased in the students’ minds; it’s the obvious difference between assigning blame for an act already committed and forestalling an act that might be avoided. Could it be that some victims and their advocates are not merely camping out on victimhood, but identifying as victims? As if it’s not only a potential rapist who objectifies women, but the women themselves?

My experience with the night time stalker ended with nothing worse than an obscene comment from the stalker, which I brazened out with a cheeky response. It could have ended very badly. If so, it would have shaped me, yes, but not made me. In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis pictures a chronic complainer in life who is still complaining in the afterlife. “The question is whether she is [now] a grumbler, or only a grumble.” Being perpetually outraged runs the risk of becoming perpetual outrage. I hope these kids grow out of it. There is so much more to living.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: vaccine passports. What are they and where might we have to use them? We’ll explore the practical and legal problems involved.

And, we’ll meet some people adopted as children from China. They’re grown now and finding the search for their birth parents is not easy.

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.

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Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Go now in grace and peace.

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