Notes from around the Human Experience…
DUCK, COVER AND TWEET: Well, it certainly is an exciting time to be an American.
Between our president bickering with North Korea and our continuing and insurmountable racial divides, we here at The Daily Dose think circumstances are presenting our country with its best opportunity to self-destruct since the 1960’s.
Leading Off: We are closer to nuclear war than ever! With the US and North Korea both being led by attention-needing rabble rousers, both refreshingly ignoring protocol and common sense. The rhetoric has toned down a bit this weekend, but we are never more than a tweet away from having it ratchet up again and the world is just one knee-jerk reaction away from enjoying – for the third time – the blazing afterglow of nuclear annihilation.
Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: For a third time white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia. The protests in May and July had some unrest, but nothing like Saturday’s, where a young man drove a car into a group protesting the white supremacists, killing one and injuring over 30.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: Friends, if no one shows up to these white power pow wows nothing happens. With no one there to antagonize them, they’ll mill about for a while patting themselves on the back and basking in the depths of their ignorance before sashaying off to the nearest white sale to stock up on hoods. No one will get killed and once they realize no one is paying attention to them they’ll stop gathering.
The Bottom Line: We’re not quite at the threat level of the 60’s. The racial divides were probably deeper and the Cuban Missile Crisis certainly took us tantalizingly closer to the brink of nuclear war than we probably are now.
But we’re close. Too close, really, and far closer than we really should be.
GO IN PEACE, SERVE KING THEODORIC: Pope John I is elected pope on this date in 523.
This was in a time when other rulers could smack around a pope and tell him what to do and Pope John I was soon dispatched to Constantinople by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, to help smooth over some troubles he was having with Eastern Roman Emperor Justin. It’s recorded that John I was not unsuccessful, but Theodoric imprisoned him anyway because he felt Pope John and Emperor Justin were in league against him. Pope John was ill-treated, and perhaps even starved, in prison and he died in 527.
Take That, Bloody Colonists: The Royal Navy completes its defeat of the American Navy off the coast of what is now Maine on this date in 1789. It wasn’t particularly close either, as the British lost exactly zero ships, while the loss of all 44 ships would be the worst American naval loss until Pearl Harbor.
A Few Good Women: Chicks enlist in the Marine Corps for the first time on this date in 1918 when Opha Mae Johnson, who happened to be the first in line, is the first to sign up. She would spend the war at Marine Corps headquarters, keeping the records of those women who followed her.
Numbers Game: All told, 305 women enlisted in the Marine Corps in World War I. All were discharged when the war ended and women would not be allowed back in the Corps until World War II was a year old.
Great Moments In The Death Penalty: Britain executes people for the final time on this date in 1964, hanging Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans at the same time in different prisons for murdering John West the previous spring. Britain would do away with the death penalty for murder the following year, and for treason in 1998.
Busy Day: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are released from quarantine on this date in 1969. They are immediately traveling again, the crew being dispatched to New York City and Chicago for parades, then to Los Angeles for a parade and a state dinner with President Richard Nixon.
Quotebook: Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. – John Adams, second president of the United States
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Four US submarines have been lost since World War II: Cochino, Scorpion, Stickleback and Thresher.
Today’s Stumper: When did the United States stop quarantining astronauts after returning from the moon? – Answer next time!
