The World and Everything in It - October 28, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Two major California ports are now operating around the clock. But will that clear the backlog of imports in time for the holiday shopping rush?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also parents angry over pandemic policies are showing up at school board meetings across the country. The federal government says that’s dangerous.

Plus advances in missionary aviation technology.

And commentator Cal Thomas on stamping out the U.S. Postal Service.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, October 28th. 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: Time now for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Nor'easter pounds New England, cuts power to thousands » AUDIO: [Sound of storm]

That’s the sound of heavy rain and sleet pounding New England on Wednesday.

The powerful nor’easter packed hurricane-force wind gusts, knocking out power to a half-million homes and businesses. It also forced the closure of bridges, ferries and schools.

The highest gust of the storm was recorded at 94 mph on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. And David Roth with the National Weather Service said monster waves swelled off the coast of Cape Cod.

ROTH: The maximum that was analyzed was 26 feet not that far off (the coast of) Massachusetts.

Utility workers are still working to restore power in the hardest-hit areas in southeastern Massachusetts. But they said it could take days.

Officials advised against travel in the area because of wind, toppled trees and downed power lines.

The storm also knocked out power to thousands in Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

At least one person died when a tree limb fell on two passing vehicles in New Jersey. And officials say they have recovered the body of a kayaker who disappeared off New York's Long Island.

Sheriff: Movie set showed 'some complacency' with weapons » Officials in New Mexico briefed reporters on the investigation into a fatal shooting on a movie set where actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a cinematographer.

Authorities said there was—quote—“some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the set, but it’s too soon to say whether anyone will face criminal charges.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said officers served a search warrant and collected about 600 pieces of evidence from the film set.

MENDOZA: These include but are not limited to three firearms, approximately 500 rounds of ammunition, and several pieces of clothing and accessories.

Some of those 500 rounds of ammunition collected were live rounds. It’s not clear why anything other than blanks were present on the set.

The accident occurred during filming of the Western “Rust.”

A Colt revolver discharged in Baldwin’s hand, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

Investigators said they planned to follow up on reports of other incidents involving misfires with guns on the set.

U.S. issues first ‘X’ gender passport » The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has that story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: A State Department official speaking to the Associated Press said the department expects to offer the ‘X’ gender designation option more broadly next year.

The official declined to say whether the first ‘X’ gender passport was issued to Dana Zzyym. Zzyym is a Colorado resident who has been in a legal battle with the department since 2015 over gender designations on passports.

The State Department does not usually discuss individual passport applications due to privacy concerns.

Zzyym was reportedly born with ambiguous physical sexual characteristics. According to court documents, Zzyym wrote “intersex” above the boxes for male or female on a passport application and was denied a passport. Zzyym later sued the federal government over that denial.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Sudan’s ousted prime minister released but under guard » The general who oversaw a military coup in Sudan this week released Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his wife to their home on Tuesday. But the deposed leader remains under heavy military security.

The military is holding several senior officials of the dissolved government in undisclosed locations.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan claimed that he had to detain the prime minister for his own safety as anti-military protests turned deadly in the capital of Khartoum.

Doctors on the ground have reported six protest-related deaths and more than 80 injured so far.

Burhan was supposed to hand over leadership to a civilian-led government in less than a month. Now he says the military will run the country until elections in 2023.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the supply chain nightmare before Christmas.

Plus, strategies to save the U.S. Postal Service.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 28th of October, 2021. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! 

Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up on The World and Everything in It: kinks in the supply chain.

They’re creating headaches for retailers now. And, even worse, they’re expected to upend the usual holiday shopping routine this year. If you haven’t started making your list, and checking it twice, you might want to get on that.

REICHARD: President Biden announced plans earlier this month to help clear the backlog of goods headed to U.S. ports. But will it be enough to keep shelves stocked in December? WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

SCHUMACHER: You guys are experiencing some difficulties ordering stuff?

GREGERSON: Yeah, definitely. I mean, normally for us, everything we need is in a warehouse somewhere within the country...

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Mike Gregerson works at Spokes, Etc. Bicycles in Vienna, Virginia. He’s in charge of ordering all the bikes, parts, and other gear.

GREGERSON: Right now, very few things that we need are in stock somewhere. So everything we we need, we order. And then it comes in a week or two. Sometimes it's a year or two out with some bikes right now. Next availabilities. Sometime in 2024. And we're in what? October 2021. So it's a, it's a big hurdle, trying to figure out what we need when it's coming in and kind of planning around that.

Spokes isn’t the only business having problems getting products. Companies all across the country are struggling to fill customers’ orders.

Sean Higgins is a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

HIGGINS: Basically it's as simple as everything is backed up. And sort of the first domino to cause everything to fall was the COVID crisis that created worker shortages, slowed down the supply chain at various points because of safety measures, and social distancing requirements and, and all that type of stuff.

On top of that, retail sales spiked during the pandemic. Jim Inglis is a former executive for Home Depot.

INGLIS: Prior to COVID, our economy was already operating at very, very full speed. And it didn't have a lot of ability to expand at a faster rate, due to the fact that we were pushing our infrastructure already. And then to everybody's surprise, the biggest impact of COVID has been an incredible increase in retail sales and incredible increase in building materials sales. And so suddenly, we were not only going to operate at the speed we were operating pre COVID. But now there's additional demand on top of that.

That slowed things down even more. And 18 months into the pandemic, supply chains are still struggling to keep up with demand.

Earlier this month, President Biden tried to speed things up by asking one of the nation’s busiest ports to stay open around the clock.

BIDEN: The Port of Los Angeles announced today that it's going to be begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And Biden hopes other parts of the transportation supply chain will follow suit. In theory, that should help businesses like Spokes get their products faster. Mike Gregerson says just about everything he orders comes through one of those busy California ports.

GREGERSON: Pretty much everything we get comes from Asia. So it's all coming from boats. So all the shipping through California, and rail and truck and everything. So we have to deal with that as much as everyone else does.

But moving ports to 24/7 operations might not make much of a difference in the short term. Lane Cohee teaches about supply chains at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

COHEE: If you just stopped, you know, all shipping into those two ports, it would take 11 days, to clear all that backlog. And obviously, nobody's stopping the shipping. So it's going to take some time, like any log jam, to work through it.

And Jim Inglis says that’s time holiday shoppers don’t have.

INGLIS: Buy your Christmas presents early because you know, they're not going to be available in about a month.

Lane Cohee isn’t quite so bah-humbug.

COHEE: I think that in the long run, you know, we we will still have a pretty good holiday season, I think we will see some of the impacts. But But, you know, by and large, we’re pretty resilient. And retailers have a way of finding ways of being able to get things to the shelves. And I think some combination of a little bit more patience and a little bit more, you know, alternative sources, you know, could benefit us.

Back at Spokes, Mike Gregerson doesn’t expect his backorder problem to backpedal any time soon.

GREGERSON: I think it's the process for at least another year or so. I was saying you're probably between 23 at the end, maybe 2024. When something, it might get back to normal. But we're, we're dealing with it like everyone else's. So it's a whole whole global system, not necessarily just our category, so I think it's definitely gonna be a year or two or more before everything gets back to normal.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Vienna, Virginia.

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

Frustration is boiling over in school board meetings all over the country over covid restrictions, mandates, and critical race theory. You can hear it in this clip, courtesy of Fox news in Tampa Bay, Florida:

AUDIO: These are our kids, not yours! Where are yours? You don’t control our freedom. [more yelling...]

In response, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Biden last month, asking for help investigating threats against schools and school officials. The letter described some of the threats as “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

That prompted a swift backlash. This week, the organization apologized.

NICK EICHER, HOST: But the damage, you might say, is done. After getting the National School Boards Association letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the FBI and U.S. Attorneys Offices to get involved. He wants the federal agencies to strategize with local law enforcement about how to respond.

While some local officials welcome the help, others see it as a dangerous federal overreach—not to mention an over-reaction. WORLD correspondent Lauren Dunn reports.

LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: Dick Bergstrom served on the school board in Bloomington, Minnesota, from 2012 until January 2020. Most of his term pre-dated debates over critical race theory or COVID-19 prevention measures. But Bergstrom says school officials still had plenty of experience dealing with angry parents.

BERGSTROM: But when you get a lot of passionate people in one room and they're hollering and screaming and I know where you live, and I'm going to boycott your, I'm going to sit in front of your driveway, so you can't take your trash out. You name it, it has happened.

But that tension has spiked in the last 18 months.

On the same day the National School Boards Association sent its letter to President Biden, the California School Boards Association sent a letter of its own to Gov. Gavin Newsom. It asked him to require police officers to enforce mask mandates and be available to “maintain order” at school board meetings.

Troy Flint is the group’s spokesman. He says the organization has seen disruptive protests even in traditionally calmer districts.

FLINT: We've had cases where the meeting was closed to the public, it was only broadcast online, because of COVID restrictions, social distancing, and so forth. And people burst into, they broke into the room, commandeered the room, the board had to leave, and that they, quote, unquote, elected or appointed themselves as the new school board. We've had numerous school boards have to abandon early, and it's created an unsafe environment.

Some schools have even reported violence. A California elementary teacher went to the hospital with bruises and lacerations on his face after a confrontation with a parent upset over mask requirements. It was the first day of class.

Flint says two main issues are fueling the frustration.

FLINT: Far and away, what's driving this is people's differing opinions about COVID-19 mitigation strategies, whether that's masking, whether that’s screening and testing or now in California, we have a vaccine mandate, which will be implemented probably in the next few months here. And then a distant second would be ideas about critical race theory being taught in schools.

Flint says when it comes to kids, he understands why parents are passionate.

FLINT: Ultimately, we're dealing with children, which are the most prized or valuable asset in the community. So tensions are always going to run high when children are involved.

Still, some question whether involving federal authorities is the best answer to a local problem.

Tyson Langhofer heads Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Academic Freedom. ADF has asked Garland to withdraw his order due to its concerning implications.

LANGHOFER: One, it vilifies largely peaceful parents who are simply expressing concerns over very radical ideologies that are being pushed at school boards throughout the country. And two, it's going to, you know, unconstitutionally chill, that the speech of parents who are simply voicing concern for the well-being of the children, and for the ideologies that are being taught in our schools.

Langhofer notes the law already defines the difference between a threat and constitutionally protected speech. Healthy conversation about major, controversial topics is important. Langhofer calls silencing one perspective over another “un-American.”

While he agrees that specific threats of violence should be investigated, Langhofer says local threats are best handled by local law enforcement. And, he says they already have the tools they need to do their jobs.

LANGHOFER: To invoke the power of the federal government, the FBI, to come in and investigate parents who are simply expressing concern at local school board meetings. That's a misuse of federal power.

Frustration over school board decisions has prompted parents to do more than yell at elected officials. Some are adding their names to the ballot for the next school board election. Others are working on recall efforts.

Autumn Looijen and Siva Raj learned in January that San Francisco’s middle and high schools would not reopen for the rest of the school year. Raj’s three children are enrolled in San Francisco schools. Looijen’s three children attend school in another district. It reopened for in-person learning. Looijen says her kids’ moods dramatically improved after going back to class.

LOOIJEN: I personally both knew what a difference it made to have in-person schooling and was really frustrated that Siva’s kids weren't getting the same opportunities that mine were.

Looijen and Raj tried to find someone to spearhead a recall effort against the San Francisco school board. They knew many other San Francisco residents shared their concerns, but no one wanted to lead the way.

LOOIJEN: And they'd be like, Well, you know, we're happy to let you do it. And at the end of it, we've just ran out of people to call. And we looked at each other like, well, I guess it's us.

San Francisco schools did reopen for in-person learning this fall. But Looijen and Raj moved forward with their recall drive. According to their website, they’ve collected more than 75,000 signatures for each member they want to recall. The recall election has been set for February 15.

As for the federal government’s involvement in school board business, 19 House Republicans asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to reconsider. And school board associations in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Ohio, and Missouri have withdrawn from the national group over its request for federal help.

ADF’s Tyson Langhofer says parents need to keep speaking up and finding ways to influence their children’s education.

LANGHOFER: It takes courage to stand up to and and express concern over bad ideas. But it is so important. And I can guarantee you there are many, many other people in your community who have those same concerns. And if you're willing to do it in a in a winsome manner, then then you're going to encourage others to do so as well. And then you're going to galvanize your community and you can make change.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: advances in aviation technology.

During this summer’s airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Christian missionary organizations unveiled new ideas in research and smartphone applications. 

WORLD correspondent Hayley Schoeppler has the story.

HAYLEY SCHOEPPLER, REPORTER: Missionary aviation involves two key components: small airplanes and remote jungle airstrips.

And making those landing sites isn’t easy. Jeff Werley is an aviation representative with Ethnos 360, the mission sending agency formerly known as New Tribes Mission.

WERLEY: As we have moved from region to region, even on the same island, building an airstrip is difficult because of factors like there's trees that need to be removed. So who do we ask if we can remove the trees? Maybe we meet a man that comes out of the jungle that says it's my property, you can do whatever you want. But maybe he doesn't own that property. Usually they'll ask for pay. How do we know we pay the right person? Is it his property? There's no deed. So how do we know? 

In the Philippines, Ethnos 360 has come up with some creative solutions to those problems.

WERLEY: We went to helicopters. In the Philippines, they play a lot of basketball. There's basketball courts, in most of the villages that we have surveyed, and we’re able to land a little helicopter on the basketball court.

Remote airstrips raise other problems, too, like the need for accurate mapping. Zach Soles works with Indigenous People's Technology and Education Center

SOLES: We actually use an app to do the mapping. We've been collaborating to create the airstrip mapping program. We take a quadcopter drone, take general pictures, and we actually map an airstrip. So we can create a 3D map for these missionary aviators.

Soles says that’s a much quicker process than before.

SOLES: Typically, what a pilot will do is they'll go out and survey an airstrip with old-school surveying tools. So that's a transom. They're seeing the slope, they're seeing, you know, where the pressures are, there's a rock here, they'll take a big measuring tape and measure it all out. What we're able to do is actually take real time imagery, to where now all they have to do is take that back, maybe they'll do some manual surveying, but now they can take that back to the office, sit down with a cup of coffee, and create a 3D rendered map. . .

Craig Russell also works with technology as the vice president of transportation services at JAARS. It’s a sending organization that works with missionary aviation and supports Bible translation. Working with pilots on the field, JAARS has created a comprehensive app that helps pilots prepare for their flights, covering runway surveys, weight and balance, distances, and fuel burn. It also allows pilots to log their “notices to airmen.” These are notes about remote airstrips that could affect a plane landing —from fallen trees to tall grass.

Before the app, pilots relied on a clipboard to log and later manually enter those notes. Russell says now they have an easier way to communicate.

RUSSELL: The world is changing so fast and technology is changing. And and and really leveraging that to make our transportation more effective. there's a software that we're developing in partnership with our field partner called Flight span, a tool that maps runways and helps pilots prepare for their flight in remote regions, because the data is not commercially available.

Until recently, a general lack of hard data made it difficult for mission groups to determine how effective an airplane would be in a particular region. Russell says that changed this year.

RUSSELL: Aviation effectiveness research. It's a set of data that was collected over seven countries over 324 interviews with users of mission aviation worldwide. Brazil, Peru, Niger, Cameroon, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea.

During this seven year project, mission organizations worked together on four years of field research. After three more years of compiling data, they unveiled the results at Oshkosh. And all that data is now available online. David Holsten, president of Missionary Aviation Fellowship, explains its significance.

HOLSTEN: I think that that tool will help to put some numbers and measurements on things that will make it a little bit more concrete for the rest of the world, they can understand, oh, this amount of isolation actually means, you know, this many hours in a car, this many days of not being able to do the ministry I really want to focus on...

These technological advances help mission organizations be good stewards of airplanes—some of the most expensive assets in ministry. Craig Russell says part of that stewardship involves cross-ministry collaboration.

RUSSELL: It's just sharing information and realizing we're all in this together. We're hands, feet, we're different parts of the body. And maximizing resources without duplicating service simply is passing that information on and helping each other.

Not only are mission aviators using new technology and data, they’re also benefiting from familiar technology. While before, in-person conferences were a go-to, now teams can connect virtually on a more regular basis. Here’s David Holsten again:

HOLSTEN: If somebody is willing to get up at an odd time of the day, you can have some some pretty good conversations. We just did that with our leadership team last week. So we had, you know, 60-70 people on this call that we arranged pretty quickly and, and we were just able to spend an hour with them praying, encouraging them from God's Word.

Zoom isn’t the only familiar technology making inroads in mission aviation.

HOLSTEN: I think a pretty impactful development in technology that will be a game changer for us, is probably going to be virtual reality. VR goggles where you can do training and send a video file to somebody who's on the other side of the world who has the goggles…

At the end of the day, it’s not really about technology. Instead, it is how technology is helping each organization further the gospel. As Jeff Werley says:

WERLEY: We want to be seen as the people that help and that red and white helicopter flying around helps us be those people. Church planting is the ultimate goal. But if it takes that little helicopter, let's do it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Hayley Schoeppler in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 28th. 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.

We told you earlier about supply chain woes that’ll ruin your Christmas plans unless you start shopping early. Commentator Cal Thomas says you’d better allow extra time for Christmas cards, too.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: It’s a metaphor for what is occurring at seemingly all levels of our country and culture. The U.S. Postal Service announced earlier this month it will slow service for first-class mail and periodicals while “temporarily” increasing prices on all “commercial and retail domestic” packages—because of the holidays.

How much of a delay will depend on our ZIP codes, which sounds a little discriminatory. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy displayed a gift for the obvious when he said, “The Postal Service’s problems are serious.” But he’s optimistic he can solve them with a “10-year plan.” That sounds a bit like the old Soviet and Chinese centralized planning systems, which failed.

Part of the problem is the huge amount of money the Postal Service sets aside for pensions and other benefits for postal employees. DeJoy wants to save money by allowing retirees to switch to Medicare. But that’s another program living on borrowed financial time. It’s expected to run out of money in the not-too-distant future.

What a difference a few decades make. I remember receiving letters from my parents as a kid in camp. The mailman promptly delivered them for 3 cents. In the days leading up to Christmas, we received a morning and afternoon delivery. The Post Office, as it was then known, united the nation and opened the world to kids who had “pen pals” in other countries. That was before the internet and Facebook “friends,” most of whom we don’t really know.

Going to the mailbox was a daily adventure. You would raise a red flag on the side of the box to let the mailman know you had something to send. If you peered into the mail car on a train, you would see piles of bags and know they were on the way to their intended destination in a timely fashion. A lot of mail now goes by plane, but DeJoy says air carriers have become unreliable. He wants to rely more on ground services. Why not? It worked for the Pony Express!

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 states: “The Postal Service shall … provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.”

Then there is the unofficial, but familiar postal service motto: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

The law and the motto will have to be updated to reflect our new reality. Perhaps it’s time to find a replacement for the U.S. Postal Service and let it become a completely private business.

If only we could resurrect the original postmaster, Benjamin Franklin. He created a system that was affordable and fast for his day. Franklin would likely be appalled at what we have today. He might even recommend stamping it out and starting over.

I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday. WORLD Opinions editor Al Mohler joins us.

And, a new movie about the early life of C.S. Lewis.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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

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

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.

Go now in grace and peace.

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