THE REASON FOR THE GIVING SEASON - Just A Minute Radio for Wednesday 12-1

            Good Day…it’s the middle of the week… Wednesday…

 

            Well, we all get packed in here to the little small studio for the magic moments when we take to the airwaves. And then after all that glory is gone… we head out to the water cooler… or the ice cream bar fridge… for a little refreshment.

 

            Some days things have gone better than others in the radio recording world.  We’re a pretty close knit bunch… and although my friends from Playfair see most things as I do – I suppose there’s a host of things we see differently.  At least we express them differently.

 

            Right now though… things are quiet. There seems to be something of a disconnect between their political heroes… if you’d term them that way.  They – my bait shop friends seem comfortable with that kind of terminology… I’m not always.  I do want to be fair.  And occasionally I have garnered a note from the “unconvinced” – and that’s fine … as long as civility prevails.  I’m not much for being interrupted … or for interrupting.  I wasn’t trained to debate that way… and early training sticks with you I guess…  I didn’t have occasion to debate during college – except informally… and even there we were polite with one another. So… to hear all this ‘talking over top’ one another, especially on broadcasts… well.. it cuts across the grain – like fingernails on a chalkboard.

 

            So I haven’t a lot of sympathy for those who engage in it… either GOP or Democrat; Liberal or Republican – I think respect and civility makes the understanding machine work.  Of course if your goal is simply to turn over the pop- corn machine… or cause a scene… Well, opinions are expressed that way… but I think it’s pretty certain to be a losing tactic in the long and short runs.

 

            All that to say… I’m just not very tolerant of deliberate impoliteness.  Perhaps that puts me at a disadvantage – but in the long run I think not.  Anyway I don’t plan to change.  So… for a little while I’m having to steer clear of the current debates and collage on the airways.  I’ve heard about 16 times more than I need to know about the former top golfer in the world.  I’m sure it will take him a long way.  We just are not walking along parallel paths.

 

            So… that’s the comment for today. I’ll look for you Friday.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

THE REASON  FOR THE GIVING SEASON

MizP: Just a Minute --   Everbody… you ‘member las year ‘bout this time we relized we wuz jist about in th’ season.

Homer: At’s rite Miz Pearl – I do ‘member tha-ut

BB: Ah was plannin’ on a new fishin boat… but hit won’t much good ‘cause th’ lake was too low.

Jack: And as I remember you said you didn’t know which you wanted most… the boat or the motor.

BB: Yeah an you said one wasn’t much good ‘thout th’ other…

MizP: At’s whut r’minded me ‘bout th’ woman who sole her long hair…

Homer: Rite… she sole her hair ta' buy a watch chain an he sole his watch so’s he cud buy her some purty combs fer her hair.

Jack: That kinda left them stranded didn’t it

MizP: That was cawled th’ gift of majic wasn’t hit?

BB: Naw Miz Pearl… hit was th’ gift of the Magi… like th’ three wise men…

Homer: Th’ ones tole ‘bout in th’ Christmas story in th’ Bible… a-bringing’ gifs ta' th’ Christ chile.

MizP: Ah “member now… tha-ut  story  was written by O. Henry – born in North Carolina an buried rite up heah in Asheville.

Jack: Exactly right,  Miz Pearl.  You’ve got a good memory.

Homer: But th’ awthur wasn’t really O. Henry…

MizP: Naw-- his name was William Sydney Porter – real name .

Jack: He wrote a lot of short stories about hard livin’ in New York. I think it was his short-stories that first

                               attracted me to writing – and that’s how we got JUST A MINUTE.

MizP: Ah guess Jist A Minit is a short story ain’t hit.

Jack: I guess so.  Well, you know, winter will be here before next Wednesday – so we better get a move on. 

 MizP: the Christmas story – about Jesus and givin’ an all – get’s my eyes all teary.

 BB: Rite… We better ‘member -- Jesus is the reason for the season.

Jack: And it’s a good idea to remember the less fortunate –

Homer: An those as has given so much for our country.

Jack: Good show Homer, Billy-Bob, Miz Pearl… see you all next week.  – I’m Jack Buttram

 (END)

 

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THE FAILED TAKEOFF

            Good week! There… got that taken care of for the whole week…(J)

           

            Hope you had a good weekend and weren’t too disappointed we didn’t have a LOT of sleet and freezing rain and all the things I know you love so well here in the borderlands of the Carolinas and Georgia.  Actually, I recall in those pre-global warming days when we could ice-skate in the city park pond… well… we didn’t start this early… Or if we did we invariably fell through the ice testing it. [And I know some of you listening DID get snow and sleet and some “Z” as the wx bureau abbreviates it.]

 

            Normally, we had to have at *least* three days of temperatures well below freezing before we could begin to trust the pond ice to hold us up.  Fortunately I don’t think the pond was more than knee deep over most of it’s area… and just down near the spillway would the ice be really thin… even so we got dunked more than one would wish.  You only had to walk home once or twice like that to decide Ice-skating was not a career to be followed… at least not until the following year when maybe you’d learned a lot more.

 

            People who grow up only skating on artificial ice… in frozen rinks… well, they don’t know what they’re missing!  And if they did they’d be very happy about it. (J) Oops… now I’ve made my New England and Canadian friends unhappy.

 

            Today’s program details an accident that hasn’t (at least at this writing) made the news yet.  I hope there were no deaths or serious injuries involved in what must have been a $200 million dollar accident.  A news blackout, imposed in France because it would be embarrassing to a national group is why I’m uncertain.  Possibly it gives us in America some idea of what can happen when we recklessly let our grip slip on America’s precious and dear freedoms won at great cost.

 

            It’s a bit early for my sermon today – and since I’m not a preacher, you wouldn’t likely want to stick around anyway – but I don’t generally try to compete with the news sources… still sometimes we come across things that don’t make it into the Main Stream Media without a bit of prodding…  In general I’m for that.  People who get power over information that the general population ought to have, generally abuse it.  I don’t like that at all… nor do I imagine, do you.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

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STOPPING BY THE SNOWEY WOODS - Just A Minute Radio for Friday Dec. 11,2009

            Good Day…  IT’S FRIDAY! as dear old Paul Harvey used to say… I wonder if he’s the guy that coined the TGIF slogan?

 

            And I reckon I’m glad it’s here.  This period between Thanksgiving and Christmas seems to be hard on my anxiety button. I “take counsel of my fears” for some reason – I guess I’m afraid the stores will run out of wrapping paper – although I’ve never heard of it happening… and I *always*  am casting about at the last minute if I’m needing to wrap something anyway. All of those are unlikely events. (J)

 

            It’s just something that seems to sneak up in preparation for the long January that is to follow.  However… It’s cheering to remember Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Which brings forth another axiom – too often characteristic of Christians – at least speaking for myself… We too often fall into the trap:“Why pray when you can worry?”  Oh, how true, how true… How much worry-time I put in as a student… and how little good it did.  Much better, for any students who happen to be listening (another unlikely event) to put in a bit of extra time studying – and, as one who is well past the marker of ‘threescore years and ten’, we used to say: “In a hundred years it won’t make any difference anyway.” I’ll testify – Before you get to 100 years, it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t remember really any hard studying time I put in – except perhaps for Hebrew History… in Summer School…. Indeed that was tough!

 

            So much for academics… it’s time we got busy with ‘Decking the Halls’ – and Singing the Carols… When I was say before 10 or 11, I used to think the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was interminable. Just goes to prove time is flexible. When you’re young like that… it sometimes creeps… and when you get past 55 or 60… it skeedaddles… whiz-bang… So Christmas … the getting ready part is a little less intense than it was when we had five children, under ten, underfoot.  But it was fun… and we look back on it with joy.  Now it’s time to enjoy the Grands… !

 

            It’s also the Advent season… we really enjoyed the run-up to Christmas one December when we visited our missionary kids and met them in London for a visit to Switzerland.  That’s when I really got the idea celebrating Advent really, significantly, stretches out the spiritual blessing of Christmas.  I hope your family has had some joy already along those lines.

 

            So much for this week… and today… I’ll look forward to being with you Monday.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

 

            Barbara and Jack Buttram

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

STOPPING BY THE SNOWEY WOODS

JUST A MINUTE – Maine’s Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, delivered a little-noticed speech just before Thanksgiving, which I applaud.

She observed Democrats pushed a bill in “artificially generated haste” requiring “ram it, jam it” tactics through Congress.  Sen. Snowe extended her utmost to develop consensus and genuine bipartisan support – not just symbols.  She said – Social Security, Civil Rights, Medicare, all garnered bipartisan support.  She met 31 times with six Finance Committee members – but Chairman Baucus rushed the unfinished, 2000 page bill to the Floor … Pelosi, poured on the gas, Senator ‘Searchlight’ struck the match.  The rhetorical bonfire threw out much heat – hardly any light.

Something will, pass the resultant meltdown – taking decades to repair; meanwhile the four hundred billion in new costs, and half-trillion in Medicare cuts, guarantee a huge increase in taxes and reduction  in care.

Such hasty, such partisan sin – shall be repented of in lengthy measure.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

(END)

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WHO'S ON ALL THE TIME? -Just a Minute Radio for Wednesday 09, 2009

            Hello again…

 

            It’s Wednesday and in the middle of the week starting down the other side we find the folks at Earl ‘n’ Lester’s Bait Shop and Sushi Bar on the Caroliner Line… are engaged in conversation about Mr. Obama and the frequency with which they see him on the Tube… and it’s not “My Tube” either…

 

            Sen. Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, began his History lesson last Monday morning with the intention of shaming Republicans for their speeches in opposition – filibustering – the call of the Senate Majority Leader for a procedural vote in which he was hoping to have enough votes … he needed 60 … to win.

 

            So he talked at length about those who were saying ‘slow down’ you’re going too fast! -- Back in 1964, apparently forgetting Senator Robert C. Byrd – who was one of those filibusterers.  One of his own party, in fact a former Majority Leader himself, who spoke for a whole day against the legislation … the Civil Rights bill of 1964.

 

            Oh it’s easy to forget “inconvenient” facts when you’re on a roll… and the Dems *are* indeed on a roll.  One which I’m guessing sooner or later, probably sooner, will come back to bite them big time.  Mr. Byrd, the longest serving member of Congress…in ill health is also a former hood-wearing member of the Ku Klux Klan.  I’m aware of the fact he has long-ago renounced his participation in that gang – and people have forgiven him for his earlier ‘indiscretion’ – but apparently the current Majority Leader has also forgotten.

 

            Yes, we know politicos are prone to have selectric memories… with lots of white-out ribbon… but a leader complaining of the hypocrisy on the ‘other’ side stands awfully close to his own glass house as he slings those verbal brick bats.  One of them will slip, or bounce or break and crash into his artful argument. The “Senator from Searchlight” ought to exercise greater care and restraint.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

                        Jack

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

WHO’S ON ALL THE TIME?

MizP: Jist a Minute – Mr. Jack – Did-ja heer Mr. Obama is *NOT* gonna be on TV?  Now tha-ut’s news ain’t it?

Jack: I can’t believe it Miz Pearl.  He was just on yesterday afternoon.

MizP: Senator Kit Bond says he’s done bin on everthang excep ‘th Food Network.

Homer:  But Miz Katharine DeBrecht, a author living ritc’here in South Caroliner, says Mrs. Obama’s got that-ut fixed.

BB: Really? … Whut’s MIz DeBrecht say?.

Homer: Miz DeBrecht says Miz Michelle in Jan-u-ary is a-gonna be on TV with th’ Iron Chef­.

Jack: That ought to make history.

Homer: Ah thank they mite as well go ahed an give him a hole cable channel all to hissef.  

BB: Yeah… they could cawl hit ‘The ObamerNet.’

MizP: Now yawl are a-gittin jist plain silly.

Jack: They could do re-runs of DragNet.

BB: Aw, Mr. Jack… that’s a-goin’ too far.

Jack: I just couldn’t resist.  

Homer: Doan you thank he’s a-goin’ down purty fast Mr. Jack?

Jack: There are polls comparing his popularity numbers thus far in his term with other Presidents… He’s leading…

MizP: Leadin’? – That-ut don’t soun rite.

Jack: Leading the way to the bottom I mean.   

MizP: Tha-ut souns moah like hit.

Jack: I do believe he’s making a huge error in pushing for all these BIG changes so early, and so hard.

Homer: Like you said las week Mr. Jack – he don’t see whut goes around comes around.

Jack: I think you said that, Homer.

Homer: Ah’ll have ta' go back and check.

MizP: Whut does hit point to, Mr. Jack?

Jack: I’m not a pundit.

BB: Well you mite as well try… everbody else is.

MizP: If’n you don’t larn frum histry … you’ze bound to repeat it.

BB: Mebbe we’ll git hit rite this time.

Jack: Hold that thought… time’s up this week -- we’ll go at it again next Wednesday – I’m Jack Buttram

 (END)

 

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DO YOU *REALLY* WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING? - Just A Minute Radio for Monday 12-07-09

            G’day on this first day of the work week…

 

            Hope you had a good weekend and are off to a good start on the week.  It’s not much of a deal for me to by-pass doing the news these days… There are a LOT more people reading the news.  I enjoy putting my two cents in where it fits – at least I plan for it to fit.  And from what I see on TV, to me it’s a real *joy* not to have to depend on shouting louder or at a higher pitch at others in the same room.  That’s close to the top of what I *like* to turn off nowadays.

 

            Anyway… it’s going to be a tumbledown-rollaround week I think. There’s a big storm brewing just off the west coast that promises big amounts of snow and other ‘falling’ weather over the western half of the country – and perhaps will trouble the east coast too.  Meantime all the jets flying to Copenhagen will produced some 21 million tons of carbon dioxide – or about  the same as a year’s production of the so-called ‘greenhouse gas’ that the entire country of Morocco would put out in a year.  And I doubt they come up with one sentence that comes close to binding any major nation in the world to any significant reduction in what they say is needed  -- partly because nobody knows what is needed.

 

            The hacking into e-mails exchanged between some of the so-called scientific experts on global-warming has revealed enough collusion to call into question the whole fabric of data on which our esteemed public servant Albert Gore – whose home in Tennessee happens to use something like 20 times the amount of energy of the average American household – won a Nobel prize for calling attention to. [I don’t like that sentence… but then I don’t imagine he would either.]

 

            All that to say, these ‘scientists’ have given science a bad name.  And also thrown a blanket of doubt over the work of some of their colleagues who may really have something important to say or demonstrate.  What irks the rest of us is when these ‘experts’ try to sell the rest of us a bill of goods that is so questionable it has to be tricked out to make a case.  In today’s information – or pseudo-information world, there’s a lot of noise out there… and most of it is worthless.

 

            Perhaps we can get past this and forgettaboutit for a while – long enough to let Christ be seen at Christmas – and the New Year begin.  Truth has really taken a beating this past year.  I’m praying next year will be an improvement – but not holding my breath.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING?

JUST A MINUTE – Normally, I try to leave news up to the newscasters – but today I can’t avoid dealing with both news and weather.   

          Because of very bad weather approaching the west coast, they and the desert southwest are on tap for some unusually bad weather, unless you happen to be in the skiing business.  Meanwhile Copenhagen this week is host to – for want of a better title – the global warming circus.  The President was slated to go but I’m not sure he’s still going since the Senate held its own hot-air convention over the weekend which he attended.

          Sounds like I’m joking – but actually they’re doing it all by themselves.  Two members of the Motion Picture Academy called on the group to take back the Oscar given Vice President Al Gore for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."  The scandal of pilfered e-mails has apparently uncovered suppression of data and squelched opinions skewing the climate-change argument.

          So, since they’re all digging their own hole – I don’t want to slow them down.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

(END)

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ARAB APPLAUSE COMES TO A STOP -- Just A Minute Radio for Friday 12-04-09

            Good Morning (or afternoon) –

 

            Glad you stopped by for a view from the front porch.  Even though we do have winter in South Carolina, it’s not really here yet. Stephen Vincent Bene’t has some wonderful description of Autumn in Georgia in his long poem ‘John Brown’s Body’.  I won’t take up the space to repeat it here… but Wingate, the Southern protagonist in his poem revels in the warmth of an autumn afternoon as he rides his horse home…

 

            “This was his Georgia, this his share

            Of pine and river and sleepy air…

 

“And where ever the winds of Georgia run

            They smell of peaches long in the sun…”

 

            Well, you get the idea… except I’ve always wondered how Georgia gets all the “Peachtree” P/R – while Spartanburg County ships more fresh peaches in a normal season than the whole State of Georgia… at least that’s what I’ve heard – authoritatively.  In any case we don’t want to start any unnecessary Chamber of Commerce conflicts do we. (J)

 

            Today’s program deals with the international or overseas reputation of Mr. Obama as seen through the eyes of an Arab scholar and teacher.  It’s an interesting observation… at least I found it so – and if you care to look it up in the Library or online it’s the top of page A19 in the 11/30/09 issue of the Wall St. Journal.­

 

            Our national and international scene is shifting faster than a runaway movie projector.  You can’t tell the players without a program.  And when it comes to the inside the Beltway crowd…most of the time you can’t tell them much no matter their political affiliation.  For my money we’re a LOT better off when we trust the people rather than the government. That’s why the idea I espouse is one of limited and smaller government wherever possible. 

 

            But now I’ve opened a whole new can of worms… and we’d all rather get on with the weekend.  See you Monday DV!

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

 

            Jack Buttram

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

ARAB APPLAUSE COMES TO A STOP

JUST A MINUTE – Fuad Ajami, a Professor of International Studies at Johns Hopkins, reports Arab academics in Jeddah, who previously expressed admiration for the President, now just say, “He talks too much.”

           Dr. Ajami, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says academic chatter about Mr. Obama has cooled:  (quote) “In the Arab –Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.”  

He concludes, history has overtaken the Obama presidency.  Now, he says the Arab community needs more than just stirring speeches.  They no longer find novelty in the Obama persona.

          Professor Ajami notes a whole tradition of American diplomatic history should be utilized.  In contacts over decades, wisdom has been acquired, and accounts are discovered with what he calls, rogues and tyrannies, which need to be settled.  In his view -- the clapping has stopped.  Now it’s time for performance on the international stage. 

          If they do that, the Professor hopes, the Administration can find its way out of the labyrinth it has constructed for itself. 

          Let us pray the professor is correct.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

(END)

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HOW DID I GET IN THIS CORNER? Just A Minute Radio for Wednesday 12-02-09

GREETINGS here on a Wednesday –

Glad to have you here. We may need some referees before the minute is over. Over by the Lake at the Bait Shop and Sushi Bar – owned and overseen by Earl ‘n’ Lester – they are discussing the merits of talking and of not talking too much.

It has come to the attention of the discussants in this corner of Americana that people holding political office sometimes are known to draw a picture larger than life – or somehow lacking in realism when the curtain is drawn back for the painting to be fully revealed.

That seems to be the exercise being undertaken in the Senate for the last few days. People went back to their home counties and came back full of turkey and blood in their eye – or so it appears.

Add to that the adventure of vicariously going along to crash – or seemingly to crash – the first State Dinner of the Obama Administration and it’s been a full week already. The President’s speech last Tuesday evening at West Point didn’t seem to arouse the military spirit of the cadets, or the other listeners either. I heard more re-hashed arguments than a person should have to endure in the week after Thanksgiving.

Well… let’s look forward to Christmas – and make the most of this joyous time of the year. When 2010 dawns next month… I suspect we’ll need all the optimism we can muster. If you’re looking for encouragement, may I recommend Psalm 91. It always lifts my spirits and it will yours too as you meditate on it.

Cordially, IN HIM

Jack Buttram

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“JUST A MINUTE”

HOW DID I GET IN THIS CORNER?

MizP: Jist a Minute – Mr. Jack I heered you say Mr. Obama is the Victim of what?

Jack: Miz Pearl I probably said he’s a victim of his own rhetoric.

MizP: Whut does tha-ut mean?

BB: Hit means too much a-tawkin’.

Homer: Izzat whut RHETORIC means?

Jack: It can mean several things… I meant it to say it’s verbal exaggeration.

BB: Zackly what Ah meant…. Sayin’ too much!

Homer: Like paintin’ yerself into a corner.

MizP: Well why is you a-sayin hit?

Jack: It explains why so many chickens are coming home to roost.

MizP: Ah don’t unnerstan tha-ut neither.

Jack: The President, partly because he’s young, and partly because he’s inexperienced…

Homer: Don’t see whut goes around comes around.

MizP: ‘Splain that to me too.

BB: -- I’ze heered you say menny times, Miz P, when somebody is a tawkin’ too much they better be keerful.

MizP: They’s ‘bout to …

Homer: … Paint they-sef into a corner…

MizP: Yeah… when you tawks more than you listens … thangs start a-comin’ back to bite you.

BB: Rite… Long time ago he promised ta' move quick an’ decisive-- .

Homer: Then he goes off ta' Paris er Coppehuggin er playin’ goff… an Rome burns down.

MizP: We wuzunt a-tawkin’ ‘bout Rome …

Homer: They thunk Rome was a-burnin’ while Neero jist a-playin his fiddle….

MizP: Whatever….

Jack: Mr. Obama, just seems to, often, say more than he should.

MizP: He lookin’ fer a ee-scape goat?

BB: Like Mr. Geithner?... pin th’ blame on him.

Homer: He said no new taxes – but everbody headed fer more taxes.

BB: He was jist a-speakin’ rhetorically…

MizP: You can say tha-ut agin …

BB: He was ……

MizP: Oh stop Mr. Beelie… we bin down tha-ut road…

Jack: And we’ll have to see you next week – I’m Jack Buttram.

(END)

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