… Lots of hubba hubba on the campus of 2005 NCAA Basketball Champs and its not because kids are opting for Escalades instead of pursuing bogus degrees in YouMajoredInWHAT?. The cash-strapped institution is turning down mega-$$$ because the donor has (TaaDaa!) “an agenda”. BobLee’s opinion on this latest silliness will likely surprise you.
To many Carolina fans, Kenan Stadium’s “Pope Box” is where the sno
otiest of the wine & cheese snoots gather to sit on their hands, discuss Figure Eight Island marital scandals and whatever else “rich folks” do at football games. The “Pope” of “The Pope Box” is not that dude at The Vatican but rather an “ultra right-wing extremist uber-capitalist” in Raleigh. At least that’s the frightening picture being painted by those goggle-eyed squirrels otherwise known as “the ultra left-wing extremist uber-socialists” on the UNC faculty who like to think the UNC Chapel Hill campus is their private dacha.
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A fairly objective account of the Mr. Pope vs UNC Faculty Squirrels brouhaha can be found in the current issue of UNC Alumni Review. I say “fairly objective” since Dougie Dibbert does have editorial say so over that publication so it is devoid of humor and takes itself QUITE seriously.
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The extremism of “The Pope People” is a matter of perspective. I actually see the point of the faculty loons on this one. That they actually have a point beyond simply their periodic public bed-wetting is remarkable.
My right-wing brethren get quite torqued at the on-going antics of the UNC faculty squirrels. I appreciate their concern for America’s youth having to run that gauntlet of faux intellectual nitwitism but fully 95% of kids do get thru it just fine. Whether having to tolerate faux intellectual faculty nitwits leads to binge drinking among 18-22 year olds has never actually been proven but the premise has merit.
When the UNC faculty loonies feel the urge to embarrass themselves, The University, and even their own fellow faculty members, it’s a given that the local info babes and satellite trucks will seek out Susan Estroff. If you think Dickie Baddour is UNC’s primo quote monkey, you haven’t met Susie Estroff.
Susie Estroff was once “Faculty Chair” at UNC. Step an inch off of the UNC campus and “UNC Faculty Chair” carries all the impact of being Sergeant At Arms for the Siler City Kiwanis Club but among Susie’s peers she was/is hot stuff. During the halcyon days of yore when UNC football and basketball were in turmoil, Susie uttered one of the two most astounding quotes of the new millennium.
Back then Susie was viewed by UNC’s sports Lunatic Fringe as “that power mad lesbo out to destroy UNC Athletics”. What set them off, as I recall, was (1) her opposition to Jumbo The Mega Scoreboard and (2) her insistence that UNC football recruits be able to spell SAT given the S and the A. Challenged as to her dislike for athletics, Susie countered:
“Actually I enjoy intercollegiate athletics. Why I even play racquetball.”
I said there were two great quotes. Susie’s above and the immortal words of American Express Leadership Icon Micheal Krzyzewski who, questioned about his sideline profanity, responded
“Why do people get upset about my foul language? I give a lot of money to charity.”
So, anyway, we have Susie and her gang of tenured pseudo-intellectual nitwits all atwitter about Popes bearing gifts.
This is NOT a Democrat – Republican thing at all. Don’t blame “Democrats” for this bunch. These folks are not “nitwits” because they happen to be hardcore left-wing extremists. They are; but these loons were born nitwits who gravitated to extremist politics as their reason d’etre when they realized they could not compete in a competitive real world society. There definitely are right wing extremists nitwits too just not on the UNC faculty, and not in The Pope Foundation.
Among the supposedly evil “Pope People” is a young fellow named Jon “Beowolf” Sanders who weilds a satirical putdown like a Jedi light sabre. He has been known to give the UNC faculty squirrels verbal wedgies but only on days that end in “y”; flagrantly ignoring “the rule” that namecalling is only allowed BY faculty loons and not AT them.
To hear Susie’s gang tell it, Old Man Pope was a slave owner, a sweatshop operator, and pinochle playing buddy of Eric Rudolph. In truth, The Popes made their fortune providing geegaws, notions and nick-naks to “dime stores”. Before Sam Walton conglomerated the “dime store business”, it was a special place on America’s Main Street where a kid with a quarter could while away a Saturday afternoon wondering how to spend his fortune. The Popes supplied all those trinkets and geegaws. They supplied a whole helluva lot of geegaws over the years.
Like most of UNC alums, Mr Pope matriculated at UNC in a quite apolitical fashion. He carried his love for “The Well and The Bell, etc” with him as geegaw sales soared over the years. He grew to appreciate the benefits of entrepreneurism and became a flag waving God-fearing American patriot. Whether you share Mr Pope’s views or not (I do, but this isn’t about me) his “radical” views scare the bejebbers out of the Franklin Street politburo. After all UNC does belong to them … doesn’t it?
Over the years, The Pope family has given significant dollars to UNC for both academic and athletic interests (that fancy Kenan enclave for snoots to disassociate themselves from “real fans”) and done so relatively quietly. The faculty squirrels have gobbled up every previous Pope penny, wiped their geasy fingers on their pants legs and ravenously cried “MORE”. Not “more please Mr Pope” or even “thank you, Mr Pope” just “MORE”.
This time Pope wants to fund a curriculum at UNC in Western Civilization. UNC Alums of the “baby boomer” generation will recall Mod Civ as a core General College requirement. Apparently during the 80s and 90s while most UNCers were distracted by Ye Olde Legend’s hardwood heroics and/or too busy dealing with real world issues, the faculty loonies hijacked that General College curriculum, especially courses that dealt with actual historical happenings that they preferred had not happened … the term is “historical revisionism” and it is all the rage among the tenured loonie faction at Liberal Arts institutions across America.
Silly Mr Pope and his ilk think that the college experience should include at least a passing familiarity with people, places and events that actually did happen and served as building blocks to the socio-cultural mélange known as The United States of America. The loonies, rightly so, fear that such knowledge might lead to an appreciation of those principles thereby derailing their ambitions to someday be the intellectual commissars of The Union of Soviet Socialists America. You can see the problem here. After all, UNC does belong to them … doesn’t it?
The faculty squirrels want Mr Pope’s money (and yours too if you are a North Carolina taxpayer) but they want, and expect, it to be unfettered with “strings”. The concept of wanting to get paid without being held accountable for quantitative production is not new. Any 8-year old having his/her allowance tied to feeding the cat or eating broccoli would join the UNC faculty bunch in a heartbeat. Tenured navel-gazing at $100,000/year ain’t a bad gig and it sure beats “working”.
The problem with Mr. Pope’s largesse is what would happen if George Soros (avowed atheist 
bankroller of MoveOn.org, and world’s most voracious Bush-hater) showed up on Meezie’s doorstep with a blank check if UNC would simply change their name to The Carolina Transexual Bolsheviks, behead anyone with an AM radio, and outlaw the use of the word “God” on campus unless combined with “damn” and applied to Chuck Amato. The hypocritical faculty loons would lap that up like thirsty cats left overnight in a Ben & Jerry’s but the rest of us who supply the operating capital for the Franklin Street Cirque Soleil might take exception.
The day will come when rejecting Mr Pope’s “strings attached” gift will bite the UNC faculty squirrels in the butt. They are counting on this incident being forgotten by then. That malevolent satirist on Pope’s payroll won’t forget. That sumbitch is a Wuffie and they NEVER forget.
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Swagger’s Stumper
It was an itsy bitsy ___ ___ ____ ___ ____!
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“I keeck a touchdown” was said by Webster’s Daddy (aka Mongo) Alex Karras to lampoon European soccer-style kickers in the late 60s.
GUESS WHAT! … The Powers That Be in WuffWorld ARE taking steps to clean up F-bomb Alley on Trinity Road. The human hairball faction is being powerwashed out by turning the area into reserved parking. Oh, they will surface somewhere else like the resilient cockroaches they are; but not as disgustingly prominent as they have been to visiting fans. Yo Bobby and Lee – Swagger Kudos!
With Ol’ Roy and Darth K dividing up any/all BlueChippers with any interest at all in college, how long before the rest of NCAA Div 1-A start crying “break up Tobacco Road!”.
