TAKING THE LONG VIEW - Just a Minute for Thursday 12-11-08

            Howdy again folks… getting’ on toward the end of the week… with summer temps all day yesterday – and some welcome rain.

 

            Well the skies of scandal opened up over Chicago and poured forth their usual deluge of scandal – only this time of almost Biblical proportions. There’s a lot more to be told about the shenanigans of Governor Rod Blagojevich, who seemed – like the usual street con artist – to be promising something to everybody and delivering practically nothing.

 

            It has been a terrible tale for teachers to have to unravel for their beginning civics classes – except I hear they don’t teach ‘civics’ any more…or history… it’s more social studies – an ambivalent name if ever there was one. I didn’t like it when I had to take it… sort of like medicine and consequently applied very little effort. Later when I became interested in particular periods or eras of history – or followed the lives of some of our famous (and infamous) characters – I found history to be exciting. [If it wasn’t for those exams… dates and names and stuff.]

 

            Anyway… the history writers of the future are going to have a struggle for the Illinois true story. I don’t see much help for it ever being straightened out. – But then that’s part of what makes history exciting – the detective work – trying to figure out what is the *real* truth.

 

            Remembering it’s the victors who write the history is a good place to get your footing. We had this illustrated so clearly a few years back… 1976 to be exact – when we (the U.S.) were celebrating 200 years we happened upon a government exhibition in Greenwich, England… where we found Benedict Arnold was a hero – and the British retained as many colonies in the new world as they lost. (You start counting in the retained – Canada, and all those small countries in the Caribbean – plus some miscellaneous pieces of land – and lo and behold *they won* -- Like I say… it’s the victors who write the final chapters.)

 

            In this current wash of dirty linen we simply need to keep reminding ourselves, as Christians – Our Lord is still in control and none of this is a surprise to HIM, Believers will see some day how this all works out for God’s glory.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

 

            Jack Buttram

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama12-11-08.mp3

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt12-11-08.doc

 

 

“JUST A MINUTE”

TAKING THE LONG VIEW

JUST A MINUTE – Look at the big picture and follow the money.  Essentially that’s the view, David Broder, Dean of Washington’s political writers lays out on Governor Rod Blagojevich today in the Washington Post. I’ve observed Broder since ‘64 when he wrote for Washington’s Evening Star newspaper -- long since a victim of changing media habits. David is usually right on the money. 

Today’s review of Illinois’ errant governor and his arrogant miscues in the skein of Illinois politics explains a lot of things – like how it happens Illinois school districts are broke but the politically ‘with it’ aspects of the Prairie State are fat and sassy. They’re fat and sassy because of their associations with the likes the Governor and Tony Rezko -- evident to anyone glancing at transcripts of phone-tap tapes which will most likely spell the Governor’s long-term incarceration at the hands of Patrick Fitzgerald.

Broder’s prescription to those who are fed-up with Chicago’s cloudy, seedy heritage is – “Get out the brushes.”  He’s right. The State needs a scrubbing from top to bottom Chicago to Springfield and all points between.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

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