The Daily Dose/April 1, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
QUOTE THAT SUCKER: Today’s Thought for the Day (see below) inspired today’s Leading Off segment. It’s from the book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham.
There was nothing foreordained about the future of democracy in the Jackson years.
USA! USA!: It’s not uncommon nowadays to hear talk of America’s democracy being at stake – more at least at a crossroads – and it got us to thinking. We concluded that rare was the time when the American Experiment wasn’t too far from being felled.
USA! USA! II: It came pretty close during the Jan 6 insurrection and would’ve succeeded if Trump were courageous and evil, but Donald Trump is neither of those. He is a coward whose only goal is to draw attention to himself. He’s stupid, intellectually lazy, and morally bankrupt, but he is neither courageous nor evil.
We The People: Even the most casual reading of US history shows that the first years of the republic were rather tenuous. If President Washington had been less weary after decades of service to his country, he may well have reigned as King George I, and who knows where we’d be now because he never bothered to reproduce.
Dry, Technical Matter: Other times in American history have been fraught with peril, too. A listing of all of them is, thankfully, beyond the scope of this column.
USA! USA! III: Democracy has always had to earn its keep in America, and freedom’s never-ending mortgage is again due this Election Day. It’s a lousy time for an election in America because we are a partisan, fractured, and bickering mess. We were unable to respond to the great challenge of COVID and we haven’t done anything great since since Apollo. Our last election was contentious and there is no reason to think this one won’t be, too.
The Bottom Line: We’re on record as saying our perpetual wars will destroy this country, perhaps before this half-century is out. There is still time to avoid this, of course, but we must make the next installment on America’s never-ending mortgage this November by taking charge at the ballot box and demanding better government than we are getting now.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow deals with a woman wearing only a towel and sneakers. Today’s Diary.
The question, of course, is why in thee hell she was out of her room in only a towel and sneakers???…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1984 – Singer Marvin Gaye, 44, is shot to death by his father at the family home in Los Angeles. Gaye had intervened in a fight between his parents and had started hitting and kicking his father, Marvin Gay (correct), Sr. Gaye had been shot with a pistol he had bought for his father to protect him from intruders and testimony from his mother, Alberta, had said that violence was common in the Gay(e) household. Gay, Sr. was charged with first-degree murder, though he later accepted a no-contest plea to involuntary manslaughter and was given a suspended sentence and probation.
In 1997 – The first major league baseball neutral site game since 1969 takes place at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, with the Toronto Blue Jays beating the Oakland A’s 9-6. It was the first of six games the A’s played in Las Vegas while renovations to the Oakland Coliseum were completed. The last major league neutral site games took place in 1969 when the Chicago White Sox played eleven games in Milwaukee.
In 1978 – The Bee Gees are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third of eight consecutive weeks with Night Fever. The song went to #1 in five other countries, including Spain and Great Britain, peaked at #8 on Billboard’s soul chart, and was Billboard’s 2nd-biggest song of the year. It was the sixth of nine #1 songs for the group.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
There was nothing foreordained about the future of democracy in the Jackson years.
Jon Meacham
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Knowledge is power.
The Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres are the oldest NHL expansion teams never to win the Stanley Cup. They both played their first game in 1970.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What was the first #1 song on the Hot 100 for the Bee Gees? – Answer next time!
