The Best of Radio Free Bubba By Meg Barnhouse, Pat Jobe and Kim Taylor ISBN: 1-891885-03-3 Paperback 192 pages, 5 x 7 Publication Date: November 1998 $13.00

Four commentators from a popular public radio program, "Radio Free Bubba," are included in this collection of social commentary that is passionate, humorous and offbeat. No subject is off-limits to these "kinder and gentler" Bubbas, who address everything from pizza delivery and permanent waves to tabloids and war toys.

Bubbas writing about the protecting the planet? About foster parenthood, feeding the hungry and feminism? About love, tolerance and sharing what you find at the dumpster? Only in The Best of Radio Free Bubba!

These Bubbas' hearts were molded and cast in the fires of the rebellious sixties and early seventies. They see a planet that needs more heart, more soul, more rock and roll. They sing Baptist hymns with the Moonies and the Buddhists. They set off fireworks at weddings. They look for the voice of God in magic eight ball toys.

These Bubbas are pecularly Southern, but definitely not redneck. All four -- Meg Barnhouse, Pat Jobe, Kim Taylor and Gary Phillips -- spoke their minds on western North Carolina's WNCW and had loyal listeners in a three-state area.

"To be a Bubba, you don't have to cary a card, survive a hazing, or pass a test," singer/songwriter Wanda Lu Greene writes in the book's preface. "The only criteria are to be a member of the human race and not be perfect."