The Daily Dose/April 19, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Joe Biden, a former vice president and US senator, is expected to announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination later this month. Even though he hasn’t formally announced yet he is already billing himself as an “Obama-Biden” Democrat, the better to one, remind voters he has actually been elected to national office and, two, to differentiate himself from the other socialists clamoring for the Democratic nomination.
Biden, of course, has served our country long and honorably and some may remember him regularly running for president years ago. Biden is now 76 years and nominating him would be akin to 1996, when Republicans nominated Bob Dole, then a bit younger than Biden is now, for the presidency at a time when the country was really looking for the younger, more contemporary voice offered by Bill Clinton.
It will be a tough road. More and more Americans are expecting their government to do more and more things for them, with some even advocating complete cradle-to-grave government care for Americans, and there are no shortage of candidates peddling that message.
We are notoriously lousy prognosticators here at Leading Off, but boy, Biden might not be completely in step with what Democrats want to hear. Or maybe he is, because whoever thought Donald Trump was in step with anyone or anything besides whatever beat the drummer in his head produces?
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow buys some shoes and upgrades his rating of the hotel he is staying at on his business trip. Today’s Diary.
I’ve reconsidered my rating of the hotel, upgrading it from DUMP to OK…Yes, it is really a motel and not a hotel, and that’s bad for morale because, bottom line, I’m a classy guy, and the room is older and not up to snuff vis-a-vis the demands of 21st century power requirements for phones and laptops and whatnot, but it’s not too bad…I slept very well and the in-room coffee was easy to make and better than the swill they were passing off in the lobby and the chair was very nice to sit and read in, with my feet up on the bed, of course.
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On This Date
In 1995 – The Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is destroyed in a mid-morning truck bombing, killing 168 and injuring almost 700. Timothy McVeigh was arrested 90 minutes later on a weapons charge following a traffic stop and later Terry Nichols was arrested. Both were convicted of assorted crimes in connection with the bombing, and McVeigh was executed in 2001 while Nichols is serving the first of 161 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In 1948 – The Pittsburgh Pirates become the first major league baseball team to change their uniform colors when they debut black and gold as their road uniforms in a 4-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. Previously, the Pirates’ colors had been red, white, and blue. The change is made to match the colors on Pittsburgh’s city flag.
1975 – Philadelphia Freedom by the Elton John Band is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the second and final week. The song’s title was inspired by the Philadelphia Freedoms professional tennis team, which John’s friend Billie Jean King played for an coached. The song also went to #1 in Canada, was Billboard’s 3rd biggest song of the year and even peaked at #32 on Billboard’s soul chart. It was the fourth of eight number one songs in John’s career.
Quotebook
You must live your life for something more important than your life alone. One who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life’s mountaintop experiences.
Richard Nixon
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Before Pawtucket and Rochester played 33 innings, the longest game in the history of professional baseball went 29 innings, when the Miami Marlins defeated the St Petersburg Cardinals 4-3 in a Florida State League game on June 14-15, 1966. It remains the longest uninterrupted game in professional baseball history.
