The Daily Dose/May 1, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
One thing that is fun to see as candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination jockey for position is how many ways they are trying to buy votes by offering, bribing, voters with stuff. Things like raises and free college and health care to student loan forgiveness, even a universal basic income. None of these things are the purpose of government. It’s an easy trap to fall into, however.
Consider this: It’s human nature to want to depend on someone. As kids, we depended on our parents. As a husband, Lord knows I depend on my good wife. But that’s where it ends: we cannot depend on our government to take care of us. That’s our responsibility. All we should require of our government is to provide for our liberty, to ensure that the 24-hours we have every day – the only commodity every human is issued in equal measure – our ours to do with as we choose.
None of these things are in the interest of a free people. You want a raise, find a job that pays what you want and put yourself in a position to go and get it. Don’t depend on a minimum wage increase because businesses will merely raise prices, meaning your spending power hasn’t changed at all. Free college? No, a college must be subject to the same free market demands as every other business. If you want to go to college, go and earn it. It’s the same with doctors and health insurers: the government must butt out: we depend on the free market to provide food, clothing, shelter, and video games, we should allow it to provide medical care, too.
If you find yourself chatting with a Democratic presidential hopeful and they start in on how many things they want to give you show them a palm and ask them what they are going to do about stopping our perpetual wars and getting our national spending under control. For added hilarity, mention that you feel these to issues will, if not attended to, will destroy our country, perhaps before this half-century is out and see what they say.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow passes a routine night at the hotel, and The Wife is back from some housesitting and, in what is not the Upset of the Year, the house is a mess. Today’s Diary.
Clothes were everywhere, including the kitchen table, where I’d put my clean clothes for the week because it’s too much work to carry them all the way down the hall to the bedroom…Of course, there were dirty dishes but before I could wash them the clean dishes had to be put away, too.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1328 – The First Scottish War of Independence ends with the ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton. The war had begun in 1296 with an English invasion and England was so intent on maintaining Scottish independence they would fight a second war from 1332-57 to make sure the Scottish were still free.
In 1920 – The Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves tie 1-1 in 26 innings, establishing a still-standing record for the longest game in major league history. Both starting pitchers, Brooklyn’s Leon Cadore and Boston’s Joe Oeschger pitched complete games, nobody had more than three hits and Boston’s Charlie Pick remains the only person to go 0-for-11 in a major league game. The game took just under four hours to play and broke the old record of 24 innings established 1906 when the Philadelphia Athletics defeated the Boston Americans 4-1.
In 1976 – The Bellamy Brothers are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for their only week with Let Your Love Flow. It was the first Top 40 hit for the Bellamy Brothers and only a #39 hit in 1979 prevented them from being a one-hit wonder. Let Your Love Flow went to #1 in six other countries including Switzerland and Rhodesia and also peaked at #21 on Billboard’s country chart, where the Bellamy Brothers would go on to have ten #1 songs.
Quotebook
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Hunter S. Thompson
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
I Heard it Through the Grapevine was Marvin Gaye’s biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100, spending seven weeks at #1.
Today’s Stumper
What was Billboard’s biggest song of 1976? – Answer next time!
