The World and Everything in It — September 29, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Wildfires in the west continue to devour land and human resources. And churches continue to offer help.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also Brexit is back in the news and we’ll talk about the latest. 

Plus, this year’s hurricane season is putting a strain on Mississippi farmers. We’ll talk with one farmer about his crop.

And WORLD commentator Andree Seu Peterson on getting your story right.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, September 29th. 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: It’s time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump, Biden prepare for first presidential debate » The first debate between President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden is now just hours away. 

Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine said the president is looking forward to it.

PERRINE: We know the president will be prepared for this. He knows what’s at stake and he’s ready to go.

She said Trump has been preparing with a team that includes his lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. 

ABC reports that Biden has “been holding mock debate sessions” featuring former White House lawyer Bob Bauer playing the role of Trump. 

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace will moderate the debate at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University. 

A small audience will fill a portion of the auditorium. They’ll have to wear masks and maintain social distance. 

All major networks will televise the debate beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. 

Federal court halts absentee ballot extension in Wisconsin » A federal appeals court has temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election. WORLD’s Anna Johansen reports. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: The ruling was a momentary victory for Republicans and President Trump in the key presidential battleground state.

Democrats argued election officials needed more time to deal with the historically high number of absentee ballots expected. U.S. District Judge William Conley agreed and ruled last week that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count—as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. 

Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court takes further action.

State election officials anticipate as many as 2 million people will cast absentee ballots ahead of the November 3rd election. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen. 

Wildfires spread in Calif. Wine Country » AUDIO: [SOUND OF FIRE]

Flames crackling near the streets of St. Helena in the heart of California Wine Country. Strong winds fanned the Glass Fire and other smaller blazes on Monday about 50 miles north of San Francisco. 

New fires erupted Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma region, forcing urgent evacuations.

Pam McGivern had to rush out of her home. 

MCGIVERN: When I came out I just about fell sideways. I could not believe the magnitude of the fire and how quickly it had grown.  

McGivern said she has little hope that her home is still standing. Flames also engulfed the distinctive Chateau Boswell Winery north of St. Helena.

The wine country inferno began with the Glass Fire early Sunday morning and two subsequent fires merged with it, burning nearly 20 square miles by Monday afternoon. Firefighters said more than 8,000 homes and other buildings were threatened.

Former Trump campaign manager hospitalized after threatening to harm himself » President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalized after he threatened to harm himself. That according to Florida police and campaign officials. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Police officers talked Parscale out of his Fort Lauderdale home on Sunday after his wife called police to say that he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself.

He has since been hospitalized under the state’s Baker Act. The law allows officials to detain a person for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation if they’re deemed to be a threat to themselves or others.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said “Brad Parscale is a member of our family and we love him,” adding, “We are ready to support him and his family in any way possible.”

President Trump replaced Parscale as campaign manager in July. 

Under the state’s Red Flag Law, officials could also ask a judge to bar Parscale from possessing any weapons for up to a year.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

Judge gives TikTok temporary reprieve » The Chinese company that owns the popular social media app TikTok has won a temporary victory in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols has, for now, blocked the Trump administration from restricting U.S. app stores from doing business with ByteDance. 

The administration said the ban aims to protect U.S. users from possible data breaches by the Chinese government.

Americans can still access TikTok for now. But Nichols left in place a ban on all use of the app starting on Nov. 12th. 

American companies Oracle and Walmart are negotiating to purchase the app. President Trump said he wants U.S. corporations to have complete authority over TikTok, while ByteDance is trying to retain as much control as possible.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a visit to fire-ravaged California.

Plus, Andrée Seu Peterson on telling good stories.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD: It’s Tuesday the 29th of September, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: wildfires.

In August, lightning strikes, high winds, and downed power lines sparked fires up and down the West Coast. More than a month later, California firefighters continue to battle more than 20 major wildfires. Oregon has 10 and Washington state, 11. So far the blazes have torched more than 5 million acres.

REICHARD: Several small communities have also gone up in flames, including the rural town of Berry Creek, California. WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg visited the area last week.

RADIO: It’s one o’clock in the afternoon in Northern California. It is Monday, September 21 2020. 

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Butte County is an hour north of Sacramento. Today’s weather forecast says the county should enjoy clear blue skies and a high of 89 degrees. 

Half of that is true. A thick dome of gray smoke cloaks the county, blocking any signs of the blue sky. 

In August, lightning strikes sparked several small fires in the county’s Sierra Nevada foothills and canyons. The blazes grew into the North Complex Fire. 

So far, this one wildfire has consumed more than 300,000 acres of forest and two thousand homes and businesses. It’s killed 15 people. 

The fire took nearly all of those lives in Berry Creek—a small community set far off the main highways on heavily forested hillsides. When the fire reached it on September 8th, most of the town’s 1,200 people fled west. 

William Spradlin and his son, Michael, left their home just before it went up in flames.

WILLIAM: The sky was changing so many different colors it was unbelievable. And then the roar of it. It was like five freight trains sound like coming down through there. We stayed till we thought we should leave. And about 11 o’clock at night. Everything’s gone.

They fled so quickly, Michael put his jeans on backward. Now all they have is a diesel pickup truck and what William threw in the back for his grandson. 

WILLIAM: There’s his dirt bike, his mountain bike. And then we got a few tools, generators, a compressor. Nothing that we really need. We got out of there with a pair of pants and a shirt.

Butte County officials put the Spradlins and other fire survivors up at a Motel 6 in Oroville, a small town outside the forest. Other fire victims are staying in campers or with relatives. 

AUDIO: [People in line]

Two weeks after the town burned, FEMA arrived. The government disaster aid agency has set up tables and chairs under canopies in a Tractor Supply Company parking lot. 

The Spradlins and other Berry Creek residents stand under the smoky sky waiting to file claims and ask questions about cleanup efforts. 

AUDIO: [Diesel truck]

People leave their vehicles running so their dogs inside stay cool. 

As they wait, their neighbor Kathy Sheldon stops by to offer hugs. She’s trying to keep her scattered community encouraged. 

SHELDON: I’ve lived there for 34 years. My husband’s been there for 59 years up there. My husband and I are the one that’s getting people together for meetings, just the community, not officials, to see what we’re going to do and how we go about doing it.

For other Butte County residents, the smell of smoke and the sights of disaster relief brings back bad memories. An elderly woman walks through the parking lot, comforting the county’s latest fire survivors.

DROUILLARD: My heart goes out to you guys. I know exactly what you’re going through. I know exactly how you feel. I still haven’t gotten over that feeling. My loss. I still haven’t gotten into a home. 

Valerie Drouillard lost her house to the Camp Fire in 2018: another deadly blaze that devoured more than 19,000 homes and businesses. 

Drouillard says two years later, she’s still not back in a house. She lives in a trailer. 

AUDIO: [People standing in line]

Down the street, a much longer line snakes through another parking lot. These fire survivors are waiting to talk to county officials about housing and replacing lost documents. 

The lines are so long because this is the first day since Berry Creek burned two weeks earlier that a county resource center for fire victims has opened. 

Shelby Boston directs the Butte County Department of Employment and Social Services. She says that’s actually pretty fast. 

BOSTON: And so for example, the Camp Fire happened on November 8, and we opened up December 16. And so the fact that we’ve been able to mobilize as many people in two weeks is pretty good. 

But local churches and nonprofits jumped in as soon as the fire burned through. They provided clothes, food, and hygiene items. They also helped residents navigate the assistance claims process. 

Berry Creek resident Sarah Winters says one Christian non-profit called the Oroville Hope Center helped her file a FEMA disaster claim five days before FEMA even got here. 

WINTERS: They gave us like $300 in Visa gift cards and the lady even come out to my old man’s parents trailer park and helped us make sure that we got all the way through the process of the whole FEMA situation. 

Steve Sheldon stands under the shade of a tree waiting for his wife Kathy to finish up with FEMA. 

He says recovering from disasters like fires is a years long process. And it takes people in the community and from the community to see it through. 

And he plans on getting back to Berry Creek.  

SHELDON: By this time next year, I fully intend to be sitting on my front porch sipping a cold one. I got to do it. I got to do it for me.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg in Oroville, California.

NICK EICHER: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Brexit.

MARY REICHARD: That’s a blast from the past!

EICHER: Right? The pandemic has wiped just about every other global concern from the headlines in the last six months. That does not mean that untying Great Britain from the European Union stopped. It’s been an ongoing process.

REICHARD: Well, Brexit is again making headlines, and American politicians are weighing in. Here’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

PELOSI: We have been very clear in saying to the United Kingdom, if you do if you do harm to the Good Friday Accords in your Brexit arrangements, do not count on any bilateral U.S.-U.K. trade agreement.

So what’s all the fuss about? Joining us to explain is Glen Duerr [DO-ER]. He’s an international studies professor at Cedarville University, a Christian college in Cedarville, Ohio. And he specializes in secessionism and nationalism.

Good morning, professor!

GLEN DUERR, GUEST: Good morning!

REICHARD: Brexit made headlines and stirred up all sorts of consternation. But that was pre-pandemic. So please refresh us on what that was about and catch us up to where things stand now.

DUERR: Yeah, absolutely. So, the UK was a long-term member of the European Union from 1973 until 2020, but in the lead up there was a real debate within the country over sovereignty, immigration, housing prices, all of those things were mixed into the Brexit debate. And, ultimately, a referendum was held on June 23rd, 2016. It was certainly a surprise in many circles because 51.9 percent of the British voters voted to leave the European Union. And to further complicate matters, it was voters in England and Wales that said, “Yes, we want to leave.” 55 percent of voters in northern Ireland said no. 63 percent in Scotland said no. And we’ve seen the resignation of two prime ministers—David Cameron and Theresa May—and now Boris Johnson, it took him an election in 2019 to get fully out of the European Union.

REICHARD: British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab visited Washington earlier this month to reassure U.S. lawmakers about a proposed change in the agreement that would affect Northern Ireland. What is going on there?

DUERR: Well, it’s a very complex issue because it goes back to the time of the troubles—roughly 1968 to 1998 where there was real sectarian violence, Catholic/Protestant violence within northern Ireland, such that roughly 3,500 people died in everyday life as a result of it over the 30 year period. But there are a number of political agreements. Most notable is the Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and that really helped to pacify an awful lot and open the door to a Northern Irish assembly, such that politics was able to move through with a lot more compromise between the two groups within Northern Ireland. It also—under the European Union—it allowed for an open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which has really, again, helped to bolster trade and cooperation and peace. But now that the UK is outside of the European Union and the Republic of Ireland is still inside of it, technically the EU needs to have a border between the two, which gets us back to the time of the troubles. And so both the British, Irish, and EU governments have worked, really, to try to find a solution. They found a good one, but the UK recently reneged upon part of that because of an issue regarding the internal market and that’s really the big sticking point is how much the government can get involved in Northern Ireland and whether or not they’re abiding by the withdrawal agreement. 

REICHARD: What do you see as a feasible solution to that?

DUERR: I think it’s probably a watered down version of the current legislation, the internal market bill. I think in order to best cooperate and compete, British companies need some latitude and so hence the need for the internal market bill. But I also think the UK has got to be careful in terms of stacking the deck, which would run counter to what it said under the European Union. So, I really think watering it down, and also finding compromises on key issues as well. There’s still a number out there that haven’t been resolved. Access to fishing waters could be part of the deal. Access to medicines, law enforcement, pensions, a number of these areas have not been cleared up yet and they have another three months until the end of this year to do that. And at the end of the day, the European Union has been best noted for its compromise. It’s been a union of six countries to 28, down to 27 now. And it’s always figured out ways of solving very complex issues. This is another one and so I think there’s some posturing on both sides right now. But we’ll have to see how the European Union responds. And they could respond in a range of different ways and it could encompass these other areas that I mentioned—medicine, fishing, pensions, etcetera—that would be part of a wider compromise.

REICHARD: Glen Duerr is a professor at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Thanks so much for joining us today!

DUERR: Thank you so much for having me.

NICK EICHER: Police in Tampa, Florida responded last week to what sounded like trouble. 

It was about 8:30 on a Wednesday evening and somebody in a nearby apartment was sounding aggressive and impatient.

“Shoot! Shoot!” … “I dare you to shoot!”

Well, the neighbor’d heard enough of that and called 911 and police were on their way.

After a quick investigation, it turned out it was a hilarious false alarm.

Hockey fan Devon Garnett and some friends were yelling at the TV.

AUDIO: Here’s Hedman, then across now for Shattenkirk. And the shot … he scorrrrrrrrrrrrrres! Power-play goal!

Don’t you love sports fans? Just shooooooot. The game is so easy when you’re standing in your living room.

So you’ve figured it by now—the shooting wasn’t in Tampa. It was 2,800 miles away in a rink in Edmonton, Alberta.

All’s well that ends well. Garnett’s Tampa Bay Lightning skated away with the Stanley Cup last night—feels great, I can tell ya.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Tuesday, September 29th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Peanuts.

Whether dry roasted, boiled, or turned into butter, peanuts have always been a popular staple food, with more than 5 billion pounds produced in the United States last year. 

EICHER: But with more people eating at home, there’s even more PB&Js on the table than usual. That means the peanut industry is busier than ever. Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson takes us now to meet a Mississippi farmer doing his best to keep up with demand.

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Carlisle Lane is a strip of blacktop that leads to pretty much nowhere—except vast fields of whatever’s in season. Right now, it’s peanuts. 

AUDIO: [DIGGER]

The smell of them hangs in the air, thanks to a pair of combines working hard to get in this year’s harvest. They’re kicking up dust clouds, too, as thick, well, as peanut butter.     

FORTNER: You know, they grow in dirt. They have to come out of dirt. So it’s dirty… 

That’s Lonnie Fortner, owner of Bayou Pierre Farms. He manages nearly 4,000 acres of diversified crops spread out over 60 miles. He does it from his “office”—a 4 by 4 Tundra so dusty you can’t even read the tag. 

But in spite of the dust, it’s the rains from recent hurricanes that are causing problems. Fortner calls them “tornadoes on water skis.” 

FORTNER: At this point in time in the year, we can’t do anything different. We’re all in. It’s very expensive nowadays to grow crops. It doesn’t matter what crop it is. And so this time of year you’re in harm’s way. You live in fear all the time of the hurricane. And here we are two weeks in a row with the storm watch.     

While he talks, a trailer pulls through the gravel parking lot beside us. It’s something Fortner calls a “nut buggy,” and it’s carrying some 15,000 pounds of peanuts. 

FORTNER: We’re picking peanuts when you’re not supposed to be picking peanuts. It’s sprinkling rain and cloudy and overcast. And the vines are green, but they’re talking about 4 inches of rain coming tomorrow… 

Harvesting peanuts is different from harvesting other crops. First, you have to invert them, or dig them up. Then they’re supposed to dry on top of the ground for about 5 days. After that, a combine comes through and shakes them from their vines.

So the 400 acres of peanuts here—all planted in May—are at different stages. Some in a side field are still lush, green mounds waiting for inversion.   

FORTNER: Let’s see if we can find the bloom. Peanuts are a legume and they bloom on top of the ground, as you see. And when the bloom’s pollinated, it grows the peg, the peg grows to the ground, and that’s where the nuts form, as you see, there’s the peanuts, but a lot of people don’t understand that they actually start on top of the ground. You know, a lot of folks think that they’re a root, but they’re not. 

Fortner grew up on the seat of a tractor, but the ag crisis of the 1980s dampened his hopes of following in his father’s footsteps.

FORTNER: It was a lot of people that did not come out the other side of that, and my family was one of those. And so it, you know, a lot of people take it for granted, but when you get out of the loop, it is very hard to get back in. 

After college and a five-year stint with the USDA, Fortner joined a large farming operation and worked his way up from manager, to partner, to owner and operator.  Along the way, he’s been open to new technologies and methods. His corner field represents a research project for Mississippi State University. They’re testing a growth regulator for peanuts—a spray to produce more nuts and fewer vines. 

On his phone, there’s a John Deere app called “MyOperations.” 

AUDIO: [SOUND OF APP DEMO]

With it, he’s able to read data from equipment in the field. 

FORTNER: That button on the top left, hit that one, and then I can look and see what it’s doing. So it helps me troubleshoot some problems, um, from 20 miles away.

He has other apps that use GPS to improve planting accuracy and fertilizer application.  

FORTNER: This technology has been advancing over the years. They’ve sort of forced it on us, you know. We’ve taken it and we like it and we’ve figured out how to use it on our farm, but if you don’t figure out how to use it, it’s just an expensive toy…

Even with the latest technology, things break. Today, it’s a universal joint. An employee opens his tailgate and shows an implement to Fortner.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF TALKING, GATE SHUTTING]

FORTNER: Our repair and maintenance bill at the end of the year is hard to look at.

AUDIO: [DIGGER]

FORTNER: There’s just so much about farming that we have no control over. You have to just give it to the good Lord and let Him take care of the things that I can’t control. Only thing I can control is how hard I work… 

That work ethic has gained Fortner notice. In 2018, officials honored him with a regional farmer of the year award. Closer to home, his employees say he’s a good guy to work for. One noted, “It’s because he’s a Christian.” 

Even after so many seasons of sowing and reaping, Fortner says farming is still teaching him and his family lessons about relying on God.  

FORTNER: When you asked me the question about the hurricanes, my mind just rushes back. We’ve been down here for 25 years and just all the different storms we’ve gone through with crops in the fields. We still made a decent crop. We may not have made what we had, but we made enough to make it to the next year. 

SONG: [PEANUT JINGLE]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Carlisle, Mississippi.

MARY REICHARD: Today is Tuesday, September 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Andrée Seu Peterson now on the importance of telling good stories.

ANDREE SEU PETERSON, COMMENTATOR: Old farmer Brown in the back pew has drifted off to sleep as soundly as Eutychus at Troas, when suddenly comes the first whiff from the pulpit that a story is coming. The farmer is roused awake.

To say that people like stories is like saying Jacques Cousteau liked water. There is something profound afoot.

The rookie writer soon learns that story snags the reader like a Venus Trap flower snags flies. The politician knows he must be one part policy expert and one part Garrison Keillor. He never talks health care or global warming; he describes the mother of four in Warren, Michigan, whose husband was laid off and has to eat scrapple to afford her insurance premiums; and little Keya in Bangladesh whose hut floods periodically so that she can’t walk to school some days.

Everyone you know is a storyteller and no slouch to Stephen King or Virginia Wolfe in his own right. If someone were to sit you down and have you tell the story of your marriage, the incidents you would selectively present would be your story. It will be different from your spouse’s. It would have an intro, conflict moment, rising action, climax, and denouement. Someday God will tell you how he saw the story, at that appointment when every careless word we uttered in this life will be replayed (Matthew 12:36).

The Bible is not a systematic textbook but a string of stories. Story has an advantage over other forms of teaching in that it forces you to do some work—to keep turning the elements over in your mind till you arrive at a meaning.

As a child I was told that Jesus used stories to teach because that’s all that was available in primitive times. You can look at it that way, or you can instead say that God knew what he was doing when he chose to have Jesus born in an age when people told stories, because stories are more accurate somehow than abstractions.

There is nothing more tragic than to walk around all your life in the wrong story. C.S. Lewis writes: “I can imagine no man who will look with more terror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted upon millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer in future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist….The future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.”

I am told that the goal of good Christian counseling is to help the counselee to fit his story into the Bible’s story. I personally find it helpful to pray the Lord’s Prayer each morning to daily realign my purposes for getting out of bed with God’s own purposes for the day in the story he is writing—which had gotten out of focus over the previous few hours.

I’m Andrée Seu Peterson.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: The first presidential debate. WORLD’s Jamie Dean will join us for some analysis of the candidates’ verbal jousting.

That, World Tour, and much more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: 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.

The Apostle Paul wrote: let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Go now in grace and peace.

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