The Duck Hollow University Department of Applied Speculative Research recently distributed a long survey in order to answer the two related questions “How well informed are American citizens?” and “How willing are American citizens to waste their time filling out long surveys?” Among the more interesting and suggestive results:

To the question “Who is Barack Obama?” 19% of respondents answered “George W. Bush” and 27% answered “The Battle of Camifex Ferry.”

Asked to point out the Straits of Magellan on a map, more than 52% of respondents went over to the coffee machine instead.

37% of respondents identified Islam as “a spice used in Thai curry.”

More than 8% of respondents were unable to identify Kathleen Merrigan as the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, even when presented with a photograph.

61% of respondents believed that global warming is caused by evolution.

Respondents were asked to name their U.S. representatives, but evidently they misunderstood the question, as their responses were unprintable.

Dear Dr. Boli: I recently inherited $750,000 from a Nigerian prince to whom I was not aware that I was related. In fact, I was not even aware that Nigeria had a royal family, and I feel a little bit ashamed of my ignorance. What would you recommend as a good recession-proof investment? —Sincerely, A Proud Second-Generation Ruthenian Immigrant.

Dear Sir or Madam: There are many so-called experts who would advise you to invest in mutual funds or bonds or some such rubbish, but Dr. Boli would suggest that you ignore their advice unless you want to come across as a complete naif. Instead, you should ask yourself a simple question: What is it that Americans simply cannot do without? Find that one thing, and you have found your surefire investment. And, when the question is posed in those terms, it is clear that the answer is hair-care products. Since the days of macassar oil, Americans have been more willing to go without food than without hair-care products. Even in times of prosperity, many Americans put more nutrition into their hair than into their stomachs. Hair-care products and a warehouse in which to store them: that is the investment Dr. Boli would recommend.

In response to Saturday evening’s article by the Rev. Bob-Bob Lee, and in particular in response to the street address at the end of the article, reader Dies Irae writes:

Hey, Virginia ended Lee-Jackson-King Day as early as 2000 (taking effect in 2001, since the holiday being in January snuck in before the legislative session). Now it has King Day on Monday like the rest of the country, and Lee-Jackson Day the Friday before that. See Va. Code Ann. § 2.2-3300. I find it hard to believe Chesapeake, in the heart of the Tidewater and not Coal Country, would retain such a throwback name for a thoroughfare. Now, perhaps if they had renamed the Eastbound lanes King Blvd and Westbound lanes Lee-Jackson…

Indeed, Dr. Boli was very disappointed when Virginia scuttled Lee-Jackson-King Day. It was his second-favorite holiday, after Hitler-Stalin-Churchill Day. There is simply nothing else like it in the calendar. When else is it appropriate for Dr. Boli to fly his special Black Power Edition Commemorative Confederate Battle Flag?

As for the Lee-Jackson-King Boulevard in question, however, Dr. Boli believes that the “Lee” in the name is the Rev. Bob-Bob himself. On the planning map provided by the City of Chesapeake Public Works Department, Division of Public Works, it is marked as a gravel driveway.

FROM: The Demonic Forces, LLC
TO: Local Coven No. 4872, Blandville High School

Mesdames:

It has been a matter of some discussion among supervisors and staff down here that the quality of rhymes in your spells has fallen off markedly in the past few years.

It costs us a lot of effort to make the head cheerleader sprain her ankle or give your algebra teacher hives. It seems to us that the least you can do is cast spells with real rhymes. Just yesterday we heard this sorry attempt at a spell from one of your members:

Seven goats and six young lambs,
Make this year’s musical go off with a bang.

Never mind the rhythm, which is sorry indeed. What made anyone think that “lambs” rhymed with “bang”? Have you young ladies learned nothing at all in English class? Are we rappers or guitar-strumming coffeehouse-open-mike-night folk singers, that we should be satisfied with half-rhymes and assonance? No, we are not. We are proud members of the Kingdom of Evil. We demand the real thing, and will not come through with the goods for anything less. Our tender, shell-like ears sometimes burst into flames when we hear especially atrocious spells, and we have enough to do with flames already without aggravating our condition.

We still remember a lovely spell by Miss Aralia Lumpen, Class of 1923, that nearly moved us to tears:

Eyebrow of weasel and leaf of begonia,
Make Mr. Bittern come down with pneumonia.

We were glad to comply with such a beautifully worded request and sent Mr. Bittern his pneumonia at once—although, as it was a highly contagious strain, Miss Lumpen ended up joining us down here much sooner than she expected.

It is plain that your members require remedial training in the elements of simple doggerel. We have decreed, therefore, that all spells from your coven must henceforth be submitted to your English teacher for evaluation. (Miss Pym has been in our service for some time. How do you think she snagged the vice principal last year?) Only if she approves of your rhymes will the spells be forwarded to our Action Committee. This extra step is regrettably necessary to ensure the quality of your work.

Love and kisses,
Your Friends Below.

by the Rev. Bob-Bob Lee.

Did you know that President Obama lives at number 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Did you know that the Goryeo army defeated an army from Hubaekje in Korea in the year 934?

These two facts seem utterly unrelated, but the sinister meaning becomes clear when we realize that 934 from 1600 leaves 666!

I will go further. Did you know that Joseph Robinette Biden has a girl’s middle name? More importantly, did you know that he is the forty-seventh Vice President of the United States? Now, what do we get if we multiply 47 by 14.170212766? It cannot be mere coincidence!

Christian men and women, you must be aware that we are living in the end times. The number of the beast is everywhere. You yourself may be bearing the beast’s mark without knowing it! Try this simple exercise: assign each letter in your name a numeric value (A=1, Z=26, and so on for all the letters in between except H, which is equal to 734), and add all those values together. Let us call the result n. Now add n to the product of 111 multiplied by 12. Now subtract n. Now divide the result by 2. If your quotient is 666, you are bearing the mark of the beast and have already been claimed by Satan!

What, then, can we do? Well, of course, we must remember that God hears every prayer. Then he checks to see whether it came from someone bearing the mark of the beast, and if it did, he tosses it in his big old incinerator. So, for most of you lost souls, there’s no point in praying. Your best bet is cowering, which will not spare you on the Day of Judgment, but may preserve your doomed life for a few hours or days during the time of tribulation.

But there is one alternative. We can be saved by faith. God has promised salvation to all who believe in Jesus Christ. And how can we demonstrate faith? We demonstrate it by showing God that we do not rely on worldly goods to protect us. Instead, we show utter contempt for the things of this world by selling them all and sending the entire proceeds to Bob-Bob Lee Ministries, Inc., 666 Lee-Jackson-King Blvd., Chesapeake, Va. (The street address is one of those silly coincidences to which the wise will pay no attention whatsoever.)

In sweeping up after the recent conclave, the Pontifical Department of Sanitation has come across a number of items that appear to have been left behind inadvertently. They may be claimed at the Pontifical Department of Lost and Found whenever Cardinal Bertolli is at his desk.

Three commemorative Nerf brand foam baseball bats with the legend “Vatican Conclave 2013″ printed on them.

A “Super Secret Spy Pen” brand video-recording device.

A bottle of cheap Australian port.

A pajama shirt, size adult medium, with little pictures of racing cars on it.

A book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.

A large crate of commemorative medals bearing the face of Cardinal Arthur Duncan and the legend “ARTORIUS I PONT MAX MMXIII.”

An elderly German gentleman who gives his name as “Benedict XVI” and remained unclaimed when the last bus left for Fiumicino.

The Action Committee on the Unjustly Incarcerated has asked us to inform the public that the Committee is no longer calling for all citizens to attend the rally in the Convention Center tomorrow evening. It seems that the Committee was misinformed: there never was any such person as Will Baptist, the words “Free Will Baptist” having an entirely different meaning from the one the Committee had understandably derived from them.

Dear Dr. Boli: The news media (by which I mean KDKA, which is the only station my old Philco radio gets) keep saying that the resignation of Benedict XVI sets a “precedent.” Is that true? What does it mean? —Sincerely, Raoul Castro, Havana (North Dakota).

Dear Sir: It means simply that other people in positions of power who find their labors more difficult than they anticipated will now feel empowered to step down. Already we see the effect of the precedent in Pittsburgh’s Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who suddenly refused to run as the machine candidate for mayor, explaining that he had stopped enjoying politics because sometimes people were mean to him. The difference is that the Vatican knows exactly what to do when a pope retires, but no one has any idea what to do when the machine candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh drops out at the last minute. Right now the Vatican is cheerfully implementing the Celestine Protocol, but in a smoke-filled room somewhere near the City-County Building in Pittsburgh there are men praying sincerely for a comet to strike the earth before the primaries in May.

Each chapter of Dr. Boli’s Complete and Utter History of the World has been written on one of a large number of typewriters Dr. Boli keeps for the purpose. Dr. Boli ordinarily sticks to his steel pens, but the typewriter seems to encourage the brisker and more utilitarian style demanded by readers of serious historical works. Below, a page written on a Hermes 3000 typewriter with an unusually attractive script face.