The Daily Dose/October 24, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
MOUSEKETEERS, ROLL CALL: Bolivia. Hong Kong. Spain. Lebanon. Chile. There are other places, too, where the protests are, and have been, on. Our fellow world citizens are protesting everything from transit fare increases to fuel shortages to extradition bills. The entire world isn’t on fire, but it might seem that way to some
Dry, Technical Matter: They are protesting everywhere except, seemingly, in America. Here we’re taking it. We’re taking mass shootings. We’re taking a president whose only talent is drawing attention to himself, who has no regard for anyone but himself, who thinks the moon is part of Mars and that the Continental Army won the Revolution by securing British airports. We’re taking a government that is a partisan, fractured and bickering mess incapable of doing anything of substance.
@USA: America, by and large, is not in any particular mood to rock the boat. Too bad, because the boat needs to be rocked.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Our country has been at war every day for the past 30 years and we are $22 trillion in debt, a figure that grew by $1 million in the few seconds it took to write this sentence.
Running The Numbers: Despite an economy that is believed to be doing well, 10% of Americans get food stamps (actually, it’s an EBT card, now) and more than one-third of us, 35.5%, received some sort of government assistance in 2017, an astonishingly high figure that is not a sign of a flourishing economy.
Source: US Census Bureau
Some Philosophy Crap: Friends, we get the government we deserve. We have a half-cocked, half-witted president because we elected one. We have a government incapable of governing because we elected one. We have a violent government producing a violent country and a violent world because we’ve been electing one for years.
Gaylon For US Senate: Vote Early, Vote Often: We deserve better than this. We deserve a flourishing country and we deserve a country that both Americans and the world respect again. But nothing good is going to happen in this country until we start protesting, too. Not in the streets because police departments armed like the Fifth Marines will mow us over, but at the ballot box on Election Day.
More Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: We will always get the government we deserve. We deserve better than what the status quo is giving us and they are not going to change anything because if they were they would have done so by now. It’s up to us to dismiss the status quo.
#TeamAmerica: It starts with you and it starts with me and it starts on Election Day 2020.
Today At The Site
It’s Read Free Week! Enjoy both The Diary of a Nobody and The Bottom Ten on the house.
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow shreds some papers at the hotel. Today’s Diary.
Yours truly is on record as believing the night audit is not a repository for crap day and swing shifts don’t want to do, but it’s not unreasonable to expect your night auditor to catch up on the shredding…There was so much I had to replace the bag in the basket twice, once shortly after starting and again at the end…It didn’t really need it at the end but, as I think I’ve noted here, the red full basket warning light isn’t working and nobody but ol’ Sparrow ever checks and its easier for everyone if I replace the bag.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
The Bottom Ten/NFL Week 9: The race for NFL Bottom Ten glory limps up the backstretch. Here are three (3) funny lines from this week’s NFL Bottom Ten:
…the race for the most coveted trophy in sports – The Dan Henning Trophy, symbolic of NFL Bottom Ten supremacy – is still as wide open as a receiver in the Cincinnati secondary.
Giants petitioning NFL for ‘technical win’ designation, pointing out that had they not committed three (3) turnovers and if Easter bunny actually existed they probably would have won game…
Though CFL actually has two (2) 3-13 teams, B-10 pollsters unwilling to pay new import duties required to rank two (2) CFL teams…
It’s Read Free Week: click here to enjoy the Week 9 NCAA Bottom Ten.
Read Free Week won’t last forever! Click here to get in on the laffs. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually.
On This Date
In 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph in the United States is completed in Salt Lake City, connecting the east coast of the United States with the west coast. The project totaled 27,500 poles and 2,000 miles of telegraph wire, cost $500,000 to build and $1 a word to send a message – roughly $14 million and $29 in today’s money. The telegraph put the Pony Express out of business two days later and the telegraph ran until 1869, when it was replaced with a multi-wire system.
In 1943 – The Green Bay Packers establish a new NFL record, intercepting nine passes in a 27-6 win over the Detroit Lions. Also in the game, Detroit quarterback Frank Sinkwich tied an NFL record by throwing seven interceptions, a record that was broken by Jim Hardy of the Chicago Cardinals who threw eight in a 1950 game. The Packers broke the team record of eight, done by the Chicago Bears in the 1940 NFL Championship Game and the record was tied in 1965 by the Philadelphia Eagles.
In 1970 – The Jackson 5 are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second of five consecutive weeks with I’ll Be There. The song was also in its third of six weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart and was Billboard’s seventh biggest song of the year. It was the fourth #1 song – all consecutive – of 1970 for the group on both charts, their final #1 pop hit and the fourth of six #1s on the soul chart. The song returned to #1 in 1992, done by Mariah Carey.
Quotebook
…perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not estimate honor and justice by dollars and cents.
Harried Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Minuet in G major was composed by German composer and organist Christian Petzold, though over the centuries it has often been attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Today’s Stumper
How many teams were in the NFL in 1943? – Answer next time!
