My Country Tis of Thee

    That commencement address always gets folks stirred up.  Yes, I made my annual standing offer to Erskine.  I’ll deliver that one free of charge at UNC –  IF Erskine will supply me a Kevlar vest and a phalanx of security guards.  Those faculty squirrels would be in full war paint if anyone so thoroughly debunked their sanctimonious crap.  Luckily for the future of civilization, their sanctimonious crap usually gets debunked by everyday life within 3-5 years of a young grad escaping their clutches.

For all of you outside the Triangle who snoozed thru last year’s Stanley Cup, bet you are thrilled with Anaheim vs Ottawa ???  Combining my apathy towards horse racing …. You could list the entire rosters of both Anaheim and Ottawa, the field of horses in the Preakness AND the Top Ten Ultimate Fighters and World Series of Poker finalists and I could not correctly identify who goes in which category.  I only knew one Utah Jazz player.  I am simply being phased out of the sports mainstream …. by my own choice.

On Monday, Duke was playing a team wearing light blue jersies.  I was pulling for Duke.  I bet many of you were too.  For those of you unable to do so, I understand.   All those Duke Lacrosse “legitimate student-athletes” will go on to lead successful productive lives even without NCAA championship rings.  But the name Mike Nifong will never leave their memory.  “Rotting in Hell” is too good for him.  Incidentally, I was pulling for “the team of kids and coaches”.  Not an institution led by Richard Broadhead.

This recently ended season of “24” was officially “a dud”.  Start next season with Jack taking a Bobby Ewing shower and lets move on.

I’ve made the 15 hour overland journey between North Carolina and Missouri often enough to be recognized on sight at 64% of the Cracker Barrels along the route.  I know which comes first between Cookeville and Clarksville Tennessee and I know the rest stop outside “Metropolis” Illinois where you can get your photo taken in the Superman cut-out.  The Bunny Bread sign in Anna, Illinois means we are an hour from Grandma’s house in “Cape”.

In Missouri, the interstate highways have mile markers every 1/10^th of a mile.  Between “Cape” and Columbia there are over 2,000 little green metal signs … trust me, I know for a fact.    Tennessee, Missouri and North Carolina seem to be populated by the “same kind of people”.  Whatever other qualities they share …. A whole lot of them are quite overweight.  That concerns me.  Allowing for the handful of people with “thyroid conditions”, obesity indicates a lack of pride in one’s self.  If one doesn’t care about ones self, chances are one doesn’t much care about his/her fellow citizens or one’s country.

WARNING …. BobLee is going into a bit of a political rant now.  But I might surprise you so probably best for you to read on anyway.

Victor Davis Hansen might be The Smartest Guy writing anything these days.  You could lobotomize that guy and he could still think rings around 50,000 loonie leftists while playing Boris Spassky in chess blindfolded.  I’ve been a devoted VDH fan for years.  He’s a Conservative but I’m pretty sure his pick-up truck doesn’t have a gun rack.  Vic thinks America WILL pull out of its current ideological death dive just before we bury ourselves Payne Stewart-style nose first in a cornfield in South Dakota.  He poo-poos the obvious comparison to the Fall of The Roman Empire.  He bases his assessment on that indominable American spirit which stormed the beaches at Normandy, invented baseball, and recognizes the opening theme of the Andy Griffith Show in only two notes.

I used to believe that too …. But an increasingly slovenly populace of cloudy-eyed dullards is altering the dynamics of that equation.  Over my three day cross-country trek I did not see a dozen steely-eyed lean, mean Americans who looked capable of assembling on Concord Green or looking a Nazi in the eye and saying “Nuts”.  America’s deadliest threat is not Islamo-fascists although they are quite real and quite nasty sumbitches.  America’s deadliest threat is not even the lunatic Extreme Left that has taken over the Democratic Party although they are quite real and also quite nasty sumbitches.  The greatest threat to “America” is its own slothfulness.  A dull, soft, slothful America is easy pickins for any/all ideological predators.

America will get what it deserves whether it fights for it against external aggressors or whether it lethargically surrenders, grabs its ankles and allows itself to be marginalized and humiliated.  To their “credit”, the Extreme Left is not at all shy about its intent to reshape America to its ideology.

 I refuse to “blame” the Extreme Left and/or “the mainstream media”.  Whooooa there BobLee, what are you saying?  Do you “blame” a rattlesnake for biting you …. That’s what rattlesnakes do.  I deplore the intentions of the Extreme Left and their arrogant media cohorts but any inroads they make towards their stated objectives are because the rest of us allowed it to happen.  I have always had enough confidence in my fellow Americans to say to any enemies “Bring it on you loathsome bastards.  Give us your best shot.  You might rock us back on our heels with Pearl Harbour or 9/11 but we (“America”) will bounce back and we WILL prevail.” I am not so confidant any longer.

I voted for George Bush twice and, given the same pitiful options, I would do so again.  As disappointing and mediocre as Bush has proven to be, Crazy Algore or Foppish Kerry would have been oh soooo much worse.  The current gaggle of eager claimants to The Oval Office on either side only reveals our serious crisis in leadership.

The much-ballyhooed Immigration Amnesty Bill will of course immediately produce millions of poor uneducated lemming unable to be assimilated.   They will gather at the Liberal trough of subsistence entitlements.  They will trade their vote and their self-respect for empty promises and perpetual dependence …. dooming their children to the same free Bubble-up and Rainbow Stew that African-America has “enjoyed” for the past 50 years.  There is nothing particularly clever or complicated about that political strategy.  It “worked” effectively with the Civil Rights Act.  It will “work” with Illegal Immigrant Amnesty.

My Democratic friends who base their politics on caring about poor people will have plenty of new permanently poor people to care about as well as all the current poor people who sold their souls and self-respect decades ago.  There IS a formula for giving these “new citizens” a path out of perpetual poverty, but that would defeat the primary purpose of giving them votes wouldn’t it?

….  Meanwhile “America” sops its gravy and debates the fates of Paris Hilton and Barry Bonds.

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Who was the Editor of Metroplis’ Daily Planet?

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    A number of you become concerned if I do not post a new commentary for a week or so.  I sincerely appreciate that this website has become such a part of your life that it is missed.  I do not take such trust and loyalty lightly.  Because I do appreciate you so much, I hesitate to post uninspired commentaries.  I like to think the bar is set high here regardless of the topic.

   Believe it or not, some regular readers refer to me and this site as “a hard-core Tar Heel sports site” simply because I spent four years in Chapel Hill over three decades ago.  Some see this as an ultra-right wing political site because I acknowledge my political leanings.  To some I am simply a front porch philosopher with a bit of a flair for the whimsy.   With over 1,050 columns in the archives, you can find enough of any one topic to stick me into whatever niche suits your purpose.  We even have a card-carrying Shineola faction that is addicted here.  Go figure.

   We have never established a regular column pattern here but rather left it to the ebb and flow of what’s happening of interest.  I have no editor standing over me with a deadline.  Whether I increase or decrease column frequency I HAVE NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER OF “GOING AWAY”.  Trust Ol’ BobLee …. If I EVER considered “that” it would definitely be with a bang, not a whimper.  Nor do we plan to increase our current subscription rates. (!!!)