It’s Friday morning after the First Great Debate of 2024, and Democrats all over the U.S. want a new presumptive presidential nominee. Two popular alternatives are Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Those names are not from U.S. Democrats; they’re from the writers of the Guardian. The Guardian has experience finding alternatives to leaders. I’ve decided to finally subscribe.
Less than two minutes into the debate, it looked like a train wreck. Biden couldn’t seem to explain clearly why the economy has improved since he became president: great job growth, lowered inflation, strong stock market gains. He could have just said so over and over again and ignored lying Trump. Just do what Trump does: Repeat yourself, but with the truth instead of lies.
It’s hard to find good news, I say ironically, as Oklahoma’s state superintendent of schools has mandated the teaching of the Bible in state public schools from grades 5 to 12.
Isn’t it funny that the Bible isn’t the good news we need right now? We need an end to Christian nationalism, not an acceleration of it. After last week’s Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments must be posted in all public schools in that state, Oklahoma is basically telling Louisana, “Hold my beer, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
The Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said the Bible needs to be taught for “historical understanding.” He can’t mean the history of ancient times embodied in the content of the Bible, because there’s so little of it. He must mean the history of the Bible’s impact on the U.S., but telling that history would require angering Christians by exposing how that influence prolonged the practice of slavery. Do they really want that taught in grade schools?
I’m reminded of a job I turned down a long time ago. I had applied to a four-year college as a math teacher. I knew the college was a Christian college; I think it was Lutheran, although I don’t remember now. I knew that I would have to not drink or smoke anywhere near the campus, but I thought I wouldn’t have to teach religion for the job. Not as a mathematician.
But I was interviewed by the dean, who wanted to know how I would incorporate the teachings of Jesus into my calculus classes. I was stumped. I did not know how I would do that. I roughly said something like, “I would not,” or words to that effect. I was offered the job anyway. I gathered that the faculty generally thought of the dean as a doddering relic. I declined the job at any rate.
Since then, I’ve often wondered what the Sermon on the Mount might look like in calculus. Should I have xyz coordinates and express the mount as the graph of a function f(x, y, z) = C? Then I could have described the summit of the mount as the point at which the gradient vanished, and I could use that to prove the stability of the pinnacle of Jesus’ teaching, from which all else is downhill.
Speaking of downhill from there, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been granted a contract from NASA to drive the international space station to an orbit where it will hopefully mostly burn up without landing on anyone’s house, with some big bits falling into the Pacific Ocean nowhere near anywhere. They want it done by around 2030. For this, they’ll pay almost a billion dollars.
I would have chipped in $13, but apparently NASA has it covered.
In other news dealing with doddering relics, a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court has ruled that cities can punish people for being homeless with nowhere to go. So the basic idea is that homelessness is bad, so we’ll fix it by making it a crime.
As a mathematician, I should be able to answer this question, because I should be able to calculate what Jesus would do.
Jesus would follow that gradient to that pinnacle I referred to above.
The move is on to make all our children get in line with Jesus. When does that also apply to Supreme Court justices?
Could Alito teach the law as Jesus would have taught it? I doubt it. He couldn’t boil it down that far. Love God and love your neighbor. He would include our homeless neighbor, right?
Too simple. No equations.
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the July 3–9, 2024 issue.