The Daily Dose/July 20, 2022
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
Editor’s Note: Today’s Leading Off item has been trotted out for the past two years on July 20 and we see no reason to end that streak with fresh material. Except for some minor factual corrections, it runs as it did then.
“WE COPY YOU DOWN EAGLE…”: Today is the 53nd anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon and of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first humans to walk on another heavenly body.
Here We Go Again: Regular readers of this crap know our feelings on this matter: Apollo 11 – indeed, the entire Apollo program – was mankind’s finest hour, one of History’s few lines of demarcation separating all that came before from everything that followed. We mark the occasion every year in this space – either here or in On This Date, sometimes both – because we feel it’s important to look back and say “look what we did, not bad”.
We went to the moon!
Fly In The Ointment: And we haven’t gone back since. Apollo 17 left the lunar surface in 1972 and not only haven’t we returned to the moon, no American, no human, has left lower Earth orbit since then. Our own opinion is that had we wanted to, America could have put humans on Mars in the 1980s but we didn’t want to. Congress canceled Apollos 18-20 and there never was a push to go to Mars.
Dry, Technical Matter: Why this does not cause every one of us to go stand in the corner in shame is beyond me. Greatness – and its attendant failure – was there for the taking and America took a pass, ignoring man’s instinct to explore places they’ve never been.
The Bottom Line: And we’re the lesser for it. For a while now, Americans have been content to be well-fed and well-entertained and we can no longer be bothered to pay attention to our government and we are reaping that harvest right now, with our country now at the midway point between relevance and oblivion.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – A guest tells Sparrow two groaner jokes. Today’s Diary.
I forget the exact jokes, tho…One had to do with blondes flying to the sun at nite and the other had to do with a farmer cattle branding his son.
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1969 – People from Earth walk on another celestial body for the first time when Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command module. Apollo 11 was the third mission to reach the moon; in May Apollo 10 had done everything but land and in December Apollo 8 orbited the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin spent two-and-a-half hours walking on the lunar surface and were the first of twelve humans to walk on ground other than Earth.
In 1984 – Uwe Hohn of East Germany establishes a new world record in the javelin at a meet in East Berlin. Hohn threw 343 feet, 9.75 inches to break the record of 327 feet, 1.92 inches set by American Tom Petranoff in 1983. Hohn’s record lasted until 1986 when track and field officials moved the javelin’s center of gravity forward four centimeters and the current record is 323 feet, 1.1 inches, done by Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic in 1996.
In 1959 – Johnny Horton is at #1 on Billboard’s country chart – then known as the Hot Country Sides chart – for the tenth and final consecutive week with The Battle of New Orleans. The song also went #1 pop in Australia and Canada, peaked at #16 in Great Britain, had earlier spent six weeks at #1 on the Hot 100, was Billboard’s #1 song of the year, and ranked 37th on Billboard’s 60th anniversary Hot 100 in 2018. It was the first of two country #1 songs for Horton and remains his only pop #1.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.
John F Kennedy
9/12/62
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Knowledge is power.
Rube Wahlberg, who pitched mainly with the Philadelphia Athletics, gave up 13 home runs to Babe Ruth, the most of any pitcher.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
How many times did Apollo 8 orbit the moon? – Answer next time!
