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| | John Derbyshire on Spongebob Squarepants on National Review Online |
 | | Spongebob, in case you have never seen the show, is a small cuboid of yellow sponge who lives at the bottom of the sea, in the town of Bikini Bottom. |
 | | Unpleasant things happen to Spongebob from time to time (see below), but he rises above them all, invariably insisting, when asked, that he is "Ooohh-kay!" There is some exploration of the minor kinds of adult tribulations that kids might be aware of having difficult neighbors, for example. |
 | | Watching Spongebob with my children, I find myself sinking into a melancholy awareness that they, and he, live in a realm that I myself was once at home in, but that is now closed to me for ever, the entrance guarded by an angel with a flaming sword. |
| nationalreview.com /derbyshire/derbyshire030503.asp (1486 words) |
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