I feel compelled to write about this because it just seems impossible, and that is after I have seen the game highlights from several sources (not all showing the same highlights). *Follow the money!
I looked at the highlights of this game and repeatedly, I found it difficult to imagine: 1. That Carolina lost this game playing as well offensively as they appeared to be doing. 2. That the other team ran up a score of 70 points.
50 points in a college football game is normally not a “losing score.”
I think Mack Brown “manned up,” taking responsibility for the outrageous loss saying, “I hired everyone, so ultimately I AM RESPONSIBLE.” And he is, but I don’t feel any animosity toward him, as a man, or as a coach. Shell shocked? Yeah, that may be the current feeling, but I still want to see the whole game to try to make some sense of this.
Out in the distance is a question which is asked to try and make some sense of this final score. Were points “shaved” or manipulated to come up with this lopsided outcome? Did gambling have anything to do with this loss/win? Was their a great deal of money either won, or lost on this game? More than is usually wasted in gaming the game?
Closer to home is the question to the Defense of, “How did you let this happen.” This question would need to be directed to the defensive players and to the defensive coaches. This outcome is the equivalent of someone giving you a “snuggy” or pulling down your drawers in gym class in front of a bunch of girls (if you are a guy). If you remember those tough, eaked out, hard fought wins for the rest of your life, surely (and you don’t have to call me Shirley) you’re going to remember ] you are going to remember being spanked in front of thousands of people on a Saturday afternoon.
Is this the greatest football loss in Carolina Football history? And, James Madison isn’t even on the radar (until now) as being “a hated rival.” Wouldn’t you have to think, “They aren’t even in the same league as Carolina?” Well obviously, they proved that statement last Saturday, but definitely not in the way any Carolina fan might want or approve of. This year at that moment, “We (Carolina) don’t deserve to be on the same football field, wasting our opponents time and efforts, and producing such a shitty product for all to see.” And, this isn’t the kind of thing you want to put on display in some Carolina Football Museum.
How do you ever bring your defensive team back from this? “It was an off week.” “We underestimated our opponent.” “We’ve got to cut down on our mistakes.”
Now this game fiasco occurred at the same time that Mark Robinson, the current Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, is facing an outrageous, if proven, scandal. A political career ending scandal that makes you wonder how a person could run for and be elected to the position, and serve a full term as a Lieutenant Governor. I mean, what group of stupid assed Republican leaders got together and said, “Hey this Mark Robinson would be great as Lieutenant Governor or even Governor someday?”
Hey, I’m against abortion. I definitely think chopping up a fetus is equivalent to killing a human being. It’s not like a fetus in a woman is going to turn out to be a three headed dog, or anything other than a human baby when it comes to full term. That’s not to say that a baby instead of being healthy and “normal,” might instead turn out deformed or retarded for life, either a long or short life.
Some years ago, I was living in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A prominent doctor that performed abortions had moved to Jacksonville from Chapel Hill. I recall reading one of his ads in the local newspaper, “The Daily News.” What caught my eye, was a phrase that was included in an ad for this doctor’s women’s clinic. The phase was, “Be good to your baby before it is born.” I thought that phrase was sort of ironic. If you can be good to your baby, before it is born, then wouldn’t having an abortion elicit the phrase, “Kill your baby before it is born?” *I cut the ad out and kept it for a while.
I believe that a woman should have the right to choose, but with that right comes a great responsibility, and ultimately destroying a fetus IS killing a child.
So he’s against abortion. But, it’s the way that he delivers his message. ABRASIVE to the nines! If you’re going to choose to be that offensive in the manner in which you deliver your message, then you would be stupid to think that when “the other side gets a chance” they’re not going to be just as abrasive “right back at’cha.”
Several months ago I was “feeling out” the idea of Mark Robinson becoming the Governor of the Great State of North Carolina with a friend of mine. And to my surprise, my friend rather than agreeing with me that Mark Robinson seemed a really odd choice for an NC Governor, said that he thought the negative press against Robinson was invalid and that Robinson would be his choice in this Race. Made me think. Wasn’t going to make me vote for the opponent, but made me think of why someone would vote for him. I had thought that I might vote for Mark Robinson because nothing would prove the Republican leadership more inept than a perpetual embarrassment in office.
But have I learned nothing? After all years ago I changed political parties. Having been a registered Republican for 35 years, I switched to the Democratic Party, not because I believe in what Democrats were saying or proposing, but because I wanted to vote against Hillary Clinton. And who was she running against? Well Barak Obama, of course! She lost, he won, and he won again. And Barak Obama, socially, would be on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Mark Robinson. Quiet, thoughtful, soft spoken but determined. *I’m not saying that I agreed with everything that President Obama was hawking.
So, I switched parties. But, I didn’t switch back after my Hillary/Obama vote. I remained a registered Democrat waiting. And, what happened was that the Republican Party seemed to make odd/wrong choice after odd/wrong choice for their candidates. They failed repeatedly to give me a reason or a candidate that I could get behind “solidly.” And I waited to feel good about voting for a Republican who had higher ideals. So in 2016, with Hillary Clinton running against Donald Trump, I chose not to vote for either candidate. First, I couldn’t believe that Republicans would actually present Donald Trump as a viable Candidate for President of the United States. And Hillary Clinton just had an agenda I couldn’t get behind.
Donald Trump’s visit to the Whitehouse proved chaotic. Severely chaotic. He ruled by instigating chaos, and it is tiring. It’s obviously tiring because you just had to look at the waves of noble Republican servants that filled positions in the Government because they wanted to “serve the common good.” And the waves of those same sincere servants that became frustrated and stepped away from service “for the good of their family.”
What happens when you get rid of wave after wave of qualified staff? Well eventually you end up with shit. The best and the brightest are going to step up and win out at first. But, if you frustrate them to the point of their leaving the game, the next row of candidates are not going to be the best and the brightest. They are going to be the second best and the second brightest. Repeat this process enough and we aren’t talking about best and brightest. We are talking about family and ultimately the “riff raff” that thought it thinkable to attack the US Capitol. So many good, staunch Republicans have stepped away that we now have the dreggs in leadership. If there are any of the “old guard” then they are going to have to step up, and suffer, rather than choose to step aside and let shit rule.
I’m not sure that I see a scenario where the old guard take back control of the Republican Party. And slapping a picture of an elephant, or a small American flag pin on someone doesn’t make them a Republican at heart. I have a photo, a scene from the original Star Trek, in which there are two mortal enemies shown side by side. One of the actors in this scene was Frank Gorshin, who also played “the Riddler” in the original Batman. The irony is that both of these persons are painted half white, and half black right down the middle. And we find their only difference is that the side of their body on which the white or the black color is shown is just reversed. A right or left Twixt dilemma. But they humorously, to the audience, are in a death match to destroy the other because of this unfathomable difference. Well, when this episode of Star Trek originally aired, I think both Republicans and Democrats (and even Independents and the Unaffiliated) would have agreed upon the absurdity of this scenario. I’m not sure that would be the case today. In fact for many years, probably since the Tea Partiers first uttered the phrase, “It’s our way, or no way,” Republicans began to only want it the Republican Way. There would no longer be any compromise, and “the other side” would be demonized. Hey, “the other side” be he Republican, Democrat or Independent isn’t some inhuman piece of shit that comes from Hell, and wants to destroy America, and the American Way. We are all infallible human beings with warts and all that are just trying to make the best of what we are given… or what we can take from those weaker than ourselves.
Working together, even if it means compromising, gets more people “across the line” than concluding that only half of us are going to make it, and we’re going to make damned sure we are the successful half. America was built on successful compromise. I don’t think that I’m living in a generation that can successfully protect America from foreign attack. We’ve walked away from God, and we can’t even work together within our own Party to get things done in Congress.
There was a change in America with the 9-11 Attack. It’s obvious because since that attack we have had one American President with the first name of Barak, and we may have another President with a first name of Kamala. And, God forbid, a woman become the American President.
America has been attacked, and a great part of that attack was from the inside. You can’t have an American President telling the American people that you can’t trust our Electoral System. Especially since it was never proved to be true. You can’t get much more subversive than that. If the American people can’t trust our election process, then why vote, all is lost already.
Bill Gibson, II 