The Daily Dose/July 29, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
SAY, THIS IS PROGRESS: The federal government recently announced they will resume executing prisoners that have been issued death sentences.
Dry, Technical Matter: Currently five federal prisoners have execution dates. They begin on December 9 and the final one is scheduled to die on January 15. They would be the first federal executions since Louis Jones was killed in 2003. There has been an unofficial federal moritorium on federal executions since then.
Maybe They’ll String Them Up To A Tree: Good gravy, how much farther back can the GOP time-machine take us? Will they next be issuing white hoods at their national convention next year? How vindictive a nation do we need to be? We’re already locking them up forever, what else do we need to do?
The death penalty has one use: revenge. That’s it. It doesn’t deter anyone from doing anything and it costs exponentially more to execute a prisoner than it costs to lock them up for life. It’s only purpose is to cause prosecutors to achieve and maintain a state of arousal and the familes of the victims have the satisfaction of revenge, nowadays known as closure.
Fly In The Ointment: America has executed innocent people. Don’t kid yourself. To date, 156 people have been released from death row because it had been established they did not commit the crime(s) they were condemned for. To think the innocent have been strapped to the chair or gurney and asked to say some last words is folly.
Final Answer: The death penalty should be abolished. It has no place in a nation conceived in liberty.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: It’s Sunday Spaghetti Nite (SSN) at The Shire, plus the new sleep week is off to a good start. Today’s Diary.
The big news for Sunday Spaghetti Nite (SSN) is that, at the request of The Wife, I only made half as much…There are always leftovers which The Wife was having problems with because she found herself consuming them at times your more classically trained dieticians would frown upon, like one in the morning…So I bought a smaller jar of sauce and only cooked half the spaghetti I usually do and there were no leftovers….The only downside – or upside, depending on your point of view – was that I did not similarly alter the amount of Sparrow’s Classic Sausage Chunks SCSC) that goes into my Secret Recipe Sauce (SRS)…The result was there were an awful lot chunks in there, more than I’m looking for, actually, which are words ol’ Sparrow never thought he would say…For her part, The Wife had no problems with the number of chunks and she remarked she thought tonight was the best SSN yet.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1976 – What History refers to as the Son of Sam killings get underway when David Berkowitz shoots two women in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx. Donna Lauria, 18, was killed and her friend Jody Valenti, 19, was injured and Berkowitz’s third shot didn’t hit anybody. Over the next year, Berkowitz would kill five and injure six more people before being captured in August 1977. Berkowitz is currently serving six life sentences and despite parole hearings every two years consistently declines to request his release.
In 1948 – The XIV Summer Olympics open in London. Basketball made its second appearance at the Games and was played indoors for the first time with the US defeating France 65-21 to win their second straight gold medal. Because of World War II, these were the first Olympics since the 1936 Berlin Games and neither evil Japan nor Germany were invited. London had also hosted the 1908 Summer Games and in 2012 became the first city to host three Summer Olympics.
In 1972 – Gilbert O’Sullivan is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of four consecutive weeks and six weeks overall with Alone Again (Naturally). It was O’Sullivan’s first of five Top 40 hits and remains his only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada and was Billboard’s second-biggest hit of the year. The song’s stay at #1 was broken up for one week by Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass.
Quotebook
The Lord never visits these parts…
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Cassy, a slave in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The last US Navy ship to be named the Constellation was an aircraft carrier that saw commissioned service from 1961 until 2003.
Today’s Stumper
What was Billboard’s biggest hit for 1972? – Answer next time!
