Cabin Fever, Super Patriots and Happy Birthday America
FanBoyWonder would like to salute our faithful readers this Independence Day and hope that everyone is enjoying this fine 4th of July.
Our apologies for our unexplained absence the past couple of days in case you were looking for us. FBW took the whole family plus our good friend Doctor Bill—who is practically family to us all—to Doctor Bill’s cabin in the woods of West Virginia for a nice relaxing couple of days by the river away from it all.
Turns out is was more “away” than we had intended as when we got there the phone lines were down, as was the satellite television hook up.
The TV satellite came online by the middle of the first evening (Thank God) but phone service to the cabin stayed down for the duration of our visit, hence no dial-out Internet and forget wi-fi as we had to ride half a mile into a clearing just to get a cell phone signal.
So we had to “rough it” with only 500 channels perhaps no Internet was a blessing in disguise as we all had time to really enjoy the cabin and the outdoors.
Brianna The Girl Wonder certainly loved it. T.J. The Wonder Lad had fun but at 7 months old, you can have fun anywhere. Grandpa had some extended quality time with T.J. the first morning as everyone was asleep and our streak in avoiding diaper changing ended when the lad left us a pretty spectacular “present.”
Yet Grandpa FBW DID manage to relax with a couple mile-long walks to the general store and back in the morning at first light for a newspaper and some time to reflect as we viewed the mountains, heard the river and communed with nature.
Better yet, we got much better at just doing nothing—we sat in a chair facing the river, watching it placidly float down stream as we read our newspapers then caught up on about three weeks worth of comic books we had backlogged—taking a nap here and there.
As we are back home everyone else in the house is sleeping except for FanBoyWonder and Brianna The Girl Wonder who immediately found her friends and is her room playing with them.
Yet since this is a comic book blog, let’s tie it all together by sharing with you a recurring thought as we watched the news about the never-ending electoral food-fight called Campaign 2008.
Cap for President???—We Should Be So Lucky!
Our mind kept drifting back to the instant classic “Cap for President” story from Captain America #250 (1980) by Roger Stern and John Byrne where an independent third party attempted to draft Captain America as their candidate for President of the United States.
As rumors of a Cap presidential run hit the media, much of the issue consisted of the general public and Marvel Universe’s reaction and serious consideration of a Super Solider President, even as Cap himself is bewildered that people—including his fellow Avengers—are even taking the notion seriously.
At the end of the issue, Cap addresses a crowd of supporters and explains why he can’t be a candidate—we repeat it below in its entirety:
“I have given much thought…to those stories…and to the public discussion they inspired. I have had to face the question of whether or not I should be a candidate for President of the United States.
“I gave this much thought…and I have come to my decision.
“The Presidency is one of the most important jobs in the world. The holder of that office must represent the best interests of an entire nation.
“…I have worked and fought all my life for the growth and advancement of the American Dream. And I believe that my duty to the DREAM would severely limit any abilities I might have to preserve the reality.
“We must all live in the real world…and sometimes that world can be pretty grim. But it is the dream…the hope…that makes the reality worth living.
“In the early 1940s, I made a personal pledge to uphold the dream…and as long as the dream remains even partially unfulfilled, I cannot abandon it.
“And so I hope you can understand….that in all fairness, I cannot be your candidate.
“You need to look within yourselves to find the people you need to keep this nation strong…and God willing, to help make the dream come true.”
Nearly 30-years later, those words mean so much more now, especially as we look up into the “real world” and observe the brass-knuckle, clusterf**k, clowns-in-a- Volkswagen process of picking our next President of The United States.
Yet, as much as a circus or sporting event as it seems to have become, there is no place we would rather live than the United States of America.
'Last Full Measure of Devotion'
Even as today is the U.S.A.’s 232nd Birthday, today also marks the 145th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Gettysburg is arguably the turning point of the War Between The States.
It is perhaps the outcome of that great battle that determined that we would remain one bloodied but stronger (if imperfect) nation rather than two (or more) fractured American provinces.
We close this posting with some of the wisest words ever spoken—Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—delivered Nov. 19, 1863.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. “
Our apologies for our unexplained absence the past couple of days in case you were looking for us. FBW took the whole family plus our good friend Doctor Bill—who is practically family to us all—to Doctor Bill’s cabin in the woods of West Virginia for a nice relaxing couple of days by the river away from it all.
Turns out is was more “away” than we had intended as when we got there the phone lines were down, as was the satellite television hook up.
The TV satellite came online by the middle of the first evening (Thank God) but phone service to the cabin stayed down for the duration of our visit, hence no dial-out Internet and forget wi-fi as we had to ride half a mile into a clearing just to get a cell phone signal.
So we had to “rough it” with only 500 channels perhaps no Internet was a blessing in disguise as we all had time to really enjoy the cabin and the outdoors.
Brianna The Girl Wonder certainly loved it. T.J. The Wonder Lad had fun but at 7 months old, you can have fun anywhere. Grandpa had some extended quality time with T.J. the first morning as everyone was asleep and our streak in avoiding diaper changing ended when the lad left us a pretty spectacular “present.”
Yet Grandpa FBW DID manage to relax with a couple mile-long walks to the general store and back in the morning at first light for a newspaper and some time to reflect as we viewed the mountains, heard the river and communed with nature.
Better yet, we got much better at just doing nothing—we sat in a chair facing the river, watching it placidly float down stream as we read our newspapers then caught up on about three weeks worth of comic books we had backlogged—taking a nap here and there.
As we are back home everyone else in the house is sleeping except for FanBoyWonder and Brianna The Girl Wonder who immediately found her friends and is her room playing with them.
Yet since this is a comic book blog, let’s tie it all together by sharing with you a recurring thought as we watched the news about the never-ending electoral food-fight called Campaign 2008.
Cap for President???—We Should Be So Lucky!
Our mind kept drifting back to the instant classic “Cap for President” story from Captain America #250 (1980) by Roger Stern and John Byrne where an independent third party attempted to draft Captain America as their candidate for President of the United States.
As rumors of a Cap presidential run hit the media, much of the issue consisted of the general public and Marvel Universe’s reaction and serious consideration of a Super Solider President, even as Cap himself is bewildered that people—including his fellow Avengers—are even taking the notion seriously.
At the end of the issue, Cap addresses a crowd of supporters and explains why he can’t be a candidate—we repeat it below in its entirety:
“I have given much thought…to those stories…and to the public discussion they inspired. I have had to face the question of whether or not I should be a candidate for President of the United States.
“I gave this much thought…and I have come to my decision.
“The Presidency is one of the most important jobs in the world. The holder of that office must represent the best interests of an entire nation.
“…I have worked and fought all my life for the growth and advancement of the American Dream. And I believe that my duty to the DREAM would severely limit any abilities I might have to preserve the reality.
“We must all live in the real world…and sometimes that world can be pretty grim. But it is the dream…the hope…that makes the reality worth living.
“In the early 1940s, I made a personal pledge to uphold the dream…and as long as the dream remains even partially unfulfilled, I cannot abandon it.
“And so I hope you can understand….that in all fairness, I cannot be your candidate.
“You need to look within yourselves to find the people you need to keep this nation strong…and God willing, to help make the dream come true.”
Nearly 30-years later, those words mean so much more now, especially as we look up into the “real world” and observe the brass-knuckle, clusterf**k, clowns-in-a- Volkswagen process of picking our next President of The United States.
Yet, as much as a circus or sporting event as it seems to have become, there is no place we would rather live than the United States of America.
'Last Full Measure of Devotion'
Even as today is the U.S.A.’s 232nd Birthday, today also marks the 145th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Gettysburg is arguably the turning point of the War Between The States.
It is perhaps the outcome of that great battle that determined that we would remain one bloodied but stronger (if imperfect) nation rather than two (or more) fractured American provinces.
We close this posting with some of the wisest words ever spoken—Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—delivered Nov. 19, 1863.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. “
'Nuff said....except for this--God Bless America!
posted by FanBoyWonder at 11:28 AM
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