Winston Churchill had the same problem in early 1940. The British Army had been very
fortunate to escape at Dunkirk after a disaster in France. The Royal Navy was unable to
protect merchant shipping, the islands' life blood, from U-boats. The Luftwaffe was
coming for the RAF and for London. England had begged for help and America
declined, although a few hundred Commonwealth pilots came to supplement the RAF.
Looking at the numbers, military and political experts here and in Germany (and even
some in England) expected a swift and decisive German victory.
An older version of the German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter plane had set the world
speed record of 610 kph (379 mph) in 1937. The planes were inexpensive and quick to
build: ultimately more than 33,000 were made. Some stayed in service into the
1960s.To counter, the British Empire had three Ws: water (specifically, the English
Channel); warning (radar); and Winston. Today, we have no such geological buffer.
The only technology that will serve in time is solar. To be sure, stirring rhetoric is not
much help when a stream of .30 caliber machine gun bullets are shredding your
Spitfire, but it seemed to us that America's schools needed at least one Churchill.
In the Roman Imperial period it was easy to discern where to look: first at the local Roman
governor or at least the commander of the local Legion; then to Rome itself. Some American states
have two legislative bodies. Not everyone has Assembly (or equivalent) and Senate districts that are
disjoint (do not coincide) quite like California has. It used to be that there were data structures
that associated a school or at least a school district with State Senate and State Assembly districts.
At the moment, most states have little to render to Caesar or anyone else.
In that same spirit of the Gospels, it is very rare that ecclesiastical operating areas such as Roman
Catholic dioceses have any geometric resemblance to state electoral districts. Although religious
and other non-public schools do considerable heavy lifting, they are competing for students and
money, so we would scarcely expect assistance from there, even were they capable.
Today, in most countries modern day national Senators represent whole states. School districts are
more local, so they generally fall within the responsibilities of Congressional representatives - all of
whom will be elected anew in November.
We actually toyed with the idea of defining Congressional and legislative district boundaries by
using school district boundaries.