The Daily Dose/August 14, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
BREAKING NEWS…FROM LAST WEEK: Now. we’re not any happier about the death last year of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs than you are, but the recent arrest of one-time Angels employee Eric Kay in connection with Skaggs’ death brings up an interesting point:
If Kay hadn’t delivered the drugs to Skaggs, someone else would have.
Dry, Technical Matter: Skaggs was found dead in his Southlake, Texas hotel room on July 1 last year. He had choked on his own vomit after getting both high and drunk, a death that was ruled an accident.
More Dry, Technical Matter: Kay currently faces one federal count of distributing fentanyl, a schedule II controlled substance. A conviction carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Back On Message: You know, if drugs were legal in this country, if adults were allowed to put in their bodies what they wanted, Skaggs’ death would still be a tragedy, of course, but it would not have resulted in any criminal charges. You can pass whatever judgment you want on drug dealers, but they are nothing more than vendors moving products there is a demand for. Kay did not force Skaggs to do anything he wasn’t of a mind to do: he brought the drugs to Skaggs because Skaggs and asked him to. You take drugs and drink heavily, you stand a good chance of going John Bonham and choking on your own ralph.
The Bottom Line: This cannot have been the first time Skaggs had gotten stoned and/or drunk. If Kay hadn’t been a supplier, someone else would have stepped in. As long as we keep treating drug addiction as a criminal problem and not a health problem, America will continue to miss the points associated with drug use.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow checks the status of his passport application. Today’s Diary.
I checked on the status of my passport application, today…Recall I’d only sent it in a few weeks ago so even if the passport agency was running at full strength – and with particular alacrity – it probably still wouldn’t have arrived yet, but ol’ Sparrow checked anyway. So I entered some information and the result was “In Progress” which was to be expected. This was better than “Unable To Find” or “Declined” but hardly as good as “En Route”
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: It’s a busy night at room 4-207.
– Gaylon, did you say room 4-207? Jones?
– Yeah.
– Cause he just called asking for security.Five seconds later Junior is on the horn dispatching all Henry units and the Fifth Marines back to 4-207.
Click here for the first two months of complimentary entries.
Criminals, Courtesans and Constables/Chapter 17 – The Colonel: The Colonel, a colleague of the late Abigail, spearheads a last-minute rush to save our hero from execution.
I’d always found her intuition to be trusty, too, so after she died I remembered she had said he was a good sort and that she was certain he wasn’t a murderer. Pimp, yes. Extortionist, of course. Kidnapper, well, ransom collector, acknowledged. These things fell from him as leaves fell from a tree.
But Abigail was adamant he was not a killer.
Click here to read the first four chapters with our compliments.
You’re probably thinking reading all three of these features will cost you an arm and a leg. Wrong-0. $4.99 gets you access to all three of these American classics.
On This Date
History’s long march to today.
In 1980 – Lech Walesa, a former auto mechanic and shipyard electrician, leads a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland after the government raised food prices. The strikes spread and at the end of the month the Solidarity Free Trade Union signed an agreement with the government earning the right to strike, the first labor union in a Communist country. Walesa would later become the first popularly-elected president of Poland, serving from 1990-95. Now 76, Walesa still remains active in world affairs.
In 1936 – The United States wins the first Olympic basketball gold medal, defeating Canada in the championship game 19-8 in Berlin. It was the classic 21-team tournament, and the US was only obliged to play three games after their first-round opponent, Spain, withdrew. The US had defeated Mexico in the semifinals, who would later defeat Poland for the bronze medal. The entire tournament remains the only Olympic basketball competition to be played outdoors, and the final was played in a driving rain.
In 1971 – Marvin Gaye is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Hot Soul Singles chart – for the first of two consecutive weeks with Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology). It was the eighth of 13 #1 songs on Billboard’s soul chart for Gaye. The song also peaked at #4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and returned to the Hot 100 in 1991 when Robert Palmer took it to #16 as part of a medley with I Want You.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
Democracy had fallen by Plato’s formula: liberty had become license, and chaos begged an end to liberty. – Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol III: Caesar and Christ
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
According to a variety of sources, there are about 100,000 payphones left in the US, about a fifth of them in New York City.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
Who was the first team to defeat the United States in Olympic basketball? – Answer next time!
