The Daily Dose/December 23, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
THE SMOKING LAMP IS LIGHTED…IF YOU’RE 21 OR OVER: Lost in the defense spending legislation recently passed by Congress and signed by President Trump is the raising of the legal age to smoke from 18 to 21.
Dry, Technical Matter: The new law takes effect next summer and includes vaping products. The United States will join Honduras as the only countries in the Americas whose legal tobacco age is 21. Everyone else’s is 18, though some states and municipalities have already raised the age limit in their jurisdictions to 21.
FunFact: The African nation of Gabon has the world’s youngest legal age to buy tobacco. There you only have to be 12-years-old to legally buy a pack of smokes.
Back On Message: A couple of thoughts: one, if you’re old enough to vote and to go to war, you should be old enough to smoke. Two, proponents like to say this will prevent more kids from smoking, but let’s not kid ourselves, anyone who hasn’t started smoking by the time they’re 21 probably is on their way to a cigarette-free life. In fact, most figures we’ve seen show well over nine out of ten smokers started before they were 18.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: This isn’t going to stop anyone who really wants to from smoking. It is merely going to make criminals of those who are under 21 who had been smoking legally. Laws must reflect the way people live and people aged 18-21 smoke and passing a law isn’t going to change that. The law will merely be ignored which means all we’ve done is create another class of criminals.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow trots out his Spanglish at the hotel. Today’s Diary.
About 0300 a Mexican guy walks in announcing he has a reservacion…He has little English, so I trot out my pretty serviceable Spanglish which he evidently interprets to mean I’m f*cking Don Juan because he starts hablaing like we’re Latino diplomats negotiating a trade agreement.
I suspected from the start he had the wrong hotel…All of our incoming reservations were in, but I checked Sunday’s incoming reservations just to make sure and there wasn’t anything there, either, not under his name and not under the name of whoever made the reservation…So, more or less speaking in tongues, I manage to ask him if he has an email confirmation…He dutifully gets out his phone and shows me a text thread that has the addresses of Hotel A and Hotel B, where I used to work, both of which are next door.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1688 – King James II of England flees his country for Paris after being deposed by his daughter Mary and her husband, Holland’s Prince William of Orange. Both had landed in England in November at the invitation of members of the English elite, who feared a Catholic dynasty. James was also deposed as king of Scotland, where he had reigned as James VII and after failing to regain his thrones the following year, he spent his remaining years in France.
In 1933 – Howie Morenz of the Montreal Canadiens establishes a new NHL record for most career goals in a 3-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings. Morenz’s third period goal gave him 249 for his career, breaking the record that had been established by Cy Denneny of both Ottawa and Boston between 1917 and 1029. Morenz died the following year from complications after breaking a leg in a game and finished his career with 271 goals. The record is now held by Wayne Gretzky with 894 career goals.
In 1978 – Chic is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second of six non-consecutive weeks with Le Freak. The song also in its fourth of five weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart, went to #1 in four other countries, including South Africa, and peaked at #7 in Great Britain. Due to when it charted, it was Billboard’s 3rd biggest hit of 1979 and placed 24th on their 60th anniversary Hot 100 in 2018. It was the first of two #1 songs for Chic (Good Times, 1979).
Quotebook
One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been. – Sophocles
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
David Seville’s real name was Ross Bagdasarian,
Today’s Stumper
How long did King William and Queen Mary rule over England? – Answer next time!
