The Daily Dose/March 30, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
The Special Olympics were in the news recently, after President Trump said federal funding for the organization, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, would not be cut only hours after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had said it would.
(In 2017, the last year we could rustle up figures, the government granted the Special Olympics $15.4 million, a bit less than 12 percent of their total revenues of $134.1 million, a figure which includes $9.5 million in assets released from restriction.)
Now, we like the Special Olympics as much as you probably do. A malcontent reader or two has even suggested we should participate in them. But we don’t think our government should be subsidizing corporations, regardless of whether they are for-profit or non-profit. If you look at the United States Treasury as a repository your money and my money – which is exactly what it is – then you realize subsidies of this sort are nothing more than the government making donations for us.
This is wrong. When you and I, we the people, want to support an organization. we will buy their goods or services or donate to their cause. The government should not be doing it for us. America, deep down, is a caring country. Organizers would have to hustle a little bit, but there is no reason to think the Special Olympics would not continue to flourish without government support.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has over 90 $20s in his drawer, and the supervisors are cracking down on long breaks again. Today’s Diary.
The supervisors are cracking down on breaks again…Officially, they are 15 minutes, of course, a time that could not be more ignored if prizes were issued for non-compliance…I, myself, can usually be counted on to take a 20-minute respite from my labors and others take longer, and Daniel pissed Anacinth off by reminding her of the 15-minute limit, which caused Anacinth to raise her voice because Anacinth hasn’t even lost her mobile phone at the 15-minute mark…I could’ve copped a short-timer’s attitude and gone straight to the break room after clocking in because what are they going to do, fire me???…I’ve got four shifts left in my farewell tour.
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On This Date
In 1981 – President Ronald Reagan is shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan was shot in the chest and suffered a broken rib, a punctured lung, and internal bleeding, but fully recovered. James Brady, the White House press secretary, and Secret Service agent and a Washington, D.C. police officer were also shot and wounded. Hinckley, now 63, was found not guilty because he was crackers and was released from federal psychiatric care in 2016.
In 1925 – The Victoria Cougars of the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) defeat the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL 6-1 to win the Stanley Cup Finals three games to one. The WCHL was renamed the Western Hockey League the following season, after which it folded and the Cougars remain the last team from a league other than the NHL to win the Stanley Cup.
In 1963 – Don’t Let Me Cross Over by the husband and wife act of Carl Butler and Pearl is at #1 for the tenth of eleven non-consecutive weeks on Billboard’s country chart – then known as the Hot Country Singles chart. The song’s eleven weeks at #1 came in four separate stays at the top, beginning with the final week of 1962. The eleven weeks at #1 was the longest stint at #1 for an act’s debut single on the country chart until Florida Georgia Line spent 24 weeks at #1 in 2013 with Cruise.
Quotebook
…for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.
Martin Luther
Imperial Diet, Worms, Germany
April 18, 1521
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The Dow Jones Transportation Average, first issued on July 3, 1884, is the oldest market index in the United States. The second oldest, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, first appeared on May 26, 1896.
