The Daily Dose/October 24, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around our human experience.
Editor’s Note: today’s Leading Off item first ran one year ago today, October 24, 2019. It is still relevant.
MOUSEKETEERS, ROLL CALL: Bolivia. Hong Kong. Spain. Lebanon. Chile. There are other places, too, where the protests are, and have been, on. Our fellow world citizens are protesting everything from transit fare increases to fuel shortages to extradition bills. The entire world isn’t on fire, but it might seem that way to some
Dry, Technical Matter: They are protesting everywhere except, seemingly, in America. Here we’re taking it. We’re taking mass shootings. We’re taking a president whose only talent is drawing attention to himself, who has no regard for anyone but himself, who thinks the moon is part of Mars and that the Continental Army won the Revolution by securing British airports. We’re taking a government that is a partisan, fractured and bickering mess incapable of doing anything of substance.
@USA: America, by and large, is not in any particular mood to rock the boat. Too bad, because the boat needs to be rocked.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Our country has been at war every day for the past 30 years and we are $22 trillion in debt, a figure that grew by $1 million in the few seconds it took to write this sentence.
Running The Numbers: Despite an economy that is believed to be doing well, 10% of Americans get food stamps (actually, it’s an EBT card, now) and more than one-third of us, 35.5%, received some sort of government assistance in 2017, an astonishingly high figure that is not a sign of a flourishing economy.
Source: US Census Bureau
Some Philosophy Crap: Friends, we get the government we deserve. We have a half-cocked, half-witted president because we elected one. We have a government incapable of governing because we elected one. We have a violent government producing a violent country and a violent world because we’ve been electing one for years.
Gaylon For US Senate: Vote Early, Vote Often: We deserve better than this. We deserve a flourishing country and we deserve a country that both Americans and the world respect again. But nothing good is going to happen in this country until we start protesting, too. Not in the streets because police departments armed like the Fifth Marines will mow us over, but at the ballot box on Election Day.
More Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: We will always get the government we deserve. We deserve better than what the status quo is giving us and they are not going to change anything because if they were they would have done so by now. It’s up to us to dismiss the status quo.
#TeamAmerica: It starts with you and it starts with me and it starts on Election Day 2020.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow takes measures to get the winter washer fluid in the new ride.
In auto maintenance news, I drained the washer fluid reservoir this morning…It is getting cold and the current fluid is not designed for anything below freezing, which is impractical now, of course…It merely freezes instead of working in tandem with the windshield wipers to get ice off the windshield…The only way to drain the washer fluid is to use it and it was pretty low and only took a couple of minutes to drain and I was able to put the minus-32 F fluid in.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Prime rib makes an appearance in the employee dining room.
Prime rib was on the general menu for the night and Daryl cut me off a special hunk just for old time’s sake and it was the best prime rib yet, about the size of a craps table and so rare all Daryl did was wipe its ass before throwing it on the grill, which is just the way I like it.
Free Stuff
The same trick the drug dealers use.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo
Clock in with the graveyard crew of the Monte Carlo Security Department on the glamorous Las Vegas Strip.
Click here for the first two months of the funniest Vegas memoir ever.
Criminals, Courtesans and Constables
Gaylon’s latest novel takes place everywhere from throne rooms to death row.
Click here to read the first four chapters with our compliments.
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On This Date
The long march to today.
In 1946 – A captured German V-2 rocket takes the first pictures of Earth from outer space. Launched from New Mexico, the rocket reached its 65-mile maximum height in about three minutes before falling back to Earth, crashing in the Utah desert. The camera sent up was a 35-millimeter motion picture camera encased in a steel cassette that began filming shortly after liftoff and while the camera was destroyed, the film survived. The previous high point of pictures from Earth was 13.7 miles, taken by a balloon in 1935.
In 1998 – Ricky Williams of the Texas Longhorns establishes a new NCAA record for most points in a career in a 30-20 win over Baylor. Williams had two touchdowns, giving him 428 points, breaking the record of 423 points established by kicker Roman Anderson of Houston from 1988-91. Williams would finish his career with 450 points, a record broken in 1999 by Travis Prentice (468 points) and the mark is now held by Keenan Reynolds of Navy, who had 522 points from 2012-15.
In 1942 – Take It and Git by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy are at #1 on Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade, the first #1 song on Billboard’s first soul chart. The song fell off the ten-position chart the following week and Kirk’s only other Billboard chart appearance came on May 11, 1946, when I Know made its only appearance on the Most Played in Jukeboxes chart, at #14. The Harlem Hit Parade then tracked records that were popular in Harlem jukeboxes, a best sellers chart debuted in 1948 and an airplay chart debuted in 1955, with Billboard publishing its first unified soul chart until 1958.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
You will have seen that this life is…something produced by the self.
Gore Vidal
Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
Lefty Gomez of the New York Yankees holds the World Series record for most wins without a loss, going 6-0 in seven starts.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
Who is the highest scorer in NCAA football history amongst players who had at least one touchdown, one field goal and one kicked point after try? – Answer next time!
