CRAVER'S COMMENTS

December 2003

IN THIS ISSUE

·         RESOLUTION OR TEST

·         DEFENDING THE SYSTEM

               

FUTURE ISSUES

        EVERY COUPLE OF MONTHS OR SO. I HAVE REALLY BEEN SLOW THIS TIME.

 

THINGS TO BE PROUD OF

     HARRISON ATWILL CRAVER WAS BORN OCTOBER 22, 2003 TO PROUD PARENTS JEFF AND KIRSTEN CRAVER IN COLUMBIA, MO.  CHRISTMAS WILL PRODUCE THE FIRST GATHERING OF THE ENTIRE NEW GROUP INCLUDING THE EIGHT (EIGHT AND UNDER) GRANDCHILDREN. I’M TIRED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

DID YOU KNOW?

        THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS WILL BECOME ONE MILLION MEMBERS STRONG THIS YEAR. IT IS ALREADY THE LARGEST NATIONAL LOBBY, EDGING OUT THE TRIAL LAWYERS. IT’S NICE TO BEAT THEM AT SOMETHING.

 

RESOLUTION OR TEST

     I can’t think of a single New Year’s resolution that I have ever kept for very long but I thought it would be fun to present one to you. This can be a resolution for those of you who have been in the area for less than two years and a test for those of you who have been here longer. This resolution/test will be a random list of things that are fun, interesting, and educational. If you have been here a while, how did you score? If you are new to the Triangle make yourself a resolution to check off the items on the list so you will have maximized your enjoyment of the area. Here ‘s the list in no particular order:

·         Visit the Streets at Southpoint Mall (I started with an easy one which I suspect everyone of you have  already done)

·         Attend a service in the Duke Chapel.

·         Have a bowl of Fruit Soup at Vin Rouge.

·         Take your children or grandchildren to the obsevation platform at RDU

·         Have a picnic in the Duke Gardens.

·         Stand on the fifty-yard line in an empty Kenan Stadium.

·         Have a gruyere and cognac fondue at O’Neil’s Grille in Meadowmont.

·         Sit on a bench in the Butterfly House at Durham’s Museum of Life and Science and see what lands on your lap.

·         Have a bowl of Lobster Bisque at Nantucket Grill.

·         Stroll Franklin Street sober (for those of you who have never seen it this way it is quite nice).

·         Have lunch in Nordstrom’s café and feel like you have arrived.

·         Play the 27th hole at the Governor’s Club.

·         Walk the trails in the Duke Forest, especially around New Hope Creek.

·         Have a chocolate milkshake at McDonald’s Drugstore on Ninth Street.

·         Visit Bennet Place and find out what really happened there.

·         Have a filet at the Chop House or the Angus Barn.

·         Stroll through Farrington Village.

·         Attend a performance of the Duke Dance Festival.

·         Somehow get a ticket and attend a basketball game at Cameron or the Dean Dome.

·         Have Crispy Scallops at Pao Lim.

·         See the show and the exhibits at the Morehead Planetarium.

·         Have any meal at Magnolia Grill or Nana’s.

·         Spend time in the new Southern Season.

·         Bike the American Tobacco Trail

·         Attend a Bulls game.

·         Sit alone in Duke Chapel and listen to organ practice.

·         Have a pizza at Satisfaction.

·         Watch the UNC women play soccer.

·         Read all of the date plaques in downtown Hillsborough.

·         Cross the swinging bridge in Eno River State Park.

·         Visit the Witherspoon Rose Gardens

·         Have avgolemeno soup at Spartacus

·         Walk thru the North Carolina Botanical Gardens

·         Spend time with the lemurs at the Duke Primate Center (especially those famous ones on TV)

·         Shop at Morgan’s Imports at Christmas time.

How did you do? Is it time to drag yourself away from work and start enjoying life?

 

 

DEFENDING THE SYSTEM

     Recently, while getting my daily dose of nausea, i.e. the evening news, I started wondering why so many people at home and around the world do not like us as a nation. Then it dawned on me: our system works. The have-nots don’t like the haves—never have, never will. We are the wealthiest, freest and most successful nation in the history of time. There must be a reason. The reason is simple—our system works.

     Our system is not one idea but a combination of great ideas.  The forefathers of this nation put together a combination of a democracy and a republic. They financed  it with a mix of capitalism and free enterprise. This whole combination was wrapped with morality and religious heritage. Early in the process they wrote in the separation of church and state, not to eliminate all religion from our daily lives as the far left would have you believe, but to assure future generations that the government would not run the church and that no one church or religion would run the government. Their original model was good but not perfected. A number of important components have been added over time. Some of the more important ones were the elimination of slavery in the mid 1800’s, the industrial revolution of the late 1800’s that produced good labor laws, anti-trust actions in the early 1900’s that prevented any one company from upsetting the balance of the economy, and the civil rights movement of the second half of the 20th century that enabled us all to  think on the same page.

     No other country and no other system has come close to the success we experience. We don’t have the world’s greates supply of oil, or the largest amount of fertile soil, or the most gem stones,  or even the smartest people. What we have is the system that works, and we have opened this system to every American who wants to take advantage of it. We, also, don’t have the slightest hesitation to share our system with the rest of the world.

     Shame on those people around the world who want to destroy us because they do not have what we have or do not understand our system and the fact that we will share it. Shame on those within who want to tear it down just for political gain. Shame on those who say the system belongs to one group, gender  or race when so many have worked so long to perfect it.

     The policemen and firemen of New York City died on 9-11 defending our system. Soldiers around the world are dying daily to defend that same system. This Christmas season, let’s give thanks to all of those people who protect us and our system so that we can continue to live in freedom and prosperity.