Notes from around the Human Experience…
HUT, HUT HIKE: Protests during the national anthem by black National Football League players continued this past weekend and so did white Americans getting their shorts in a knot over it. The Trump Administration, already on record as saying blacks should fall back into line, even kicked it into high gear orchestrating Vice President Mike Pence’s leaving a game before kickoff because players continued to have the nerve to protest by kneeling during the national anthem.
Write This Down: While there are many, including the Trump Administration, who are suggesting people who kneel during the anthem are doing so because they wish to denigrate the flag and those in the American military, this is false, an attempt to draw attention away from they want to protest in the first place.
NFL players are not protesting our flat or our servicemen and women. They are protesting the fact blacks do not get a fair shake in this country. That’s it. It’s insulting to every American to suggest otherwise.
The national anthem is merely the vehicle they are using to protest because as NFL players this is how people will pay attention to them. The flag and those currently in the service have nothing to do with it, despite the fact there are those who want us to think they do.
Dry, Technical Matter: National anthem protests began during the 2016 preseason with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Initially, he sat on the bench for the anthem and for the first couple of weeks nobody paid attention because it was a San Francisco 49ers exhibition game and who cares. Later, Kaepernick was asked about it and he said he was doing it to protest the deaths of an awful lot of black men at the hands of the police. Kaepernick said nothing about hating the flat or first responders or those in the military. Protests have continued and grown in the NFL and have since spread to other sports and into the amateur ranks as well.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: We’re veterans here at the Daily Dose and we render the hand salute when we hear the anthem, a privilege we’ve earned as veterans. But one of the reasons we served was to ensure others can continue to speak their mind as they see fit and if players want to kneel during the national anthem, more power to them. Knock yourselves out. Taking offense is a choice and we choos not to let this bother us.
USA! USA! And Lord knows there’s a lot for anyone – black, white, you name it – to protest in our country. For our part, we protest by running for the United States Senate and House from time to time. All of us, both as individuals and collectively as citizens, have an obligation to get involved when we see things we feel aren’t right.
The Bottom Line: Our nation, led by a president so divisive he makes Richard Nixon seem like a healer, is as divided as it’s ever been. Blacks cop an attitude and kneel during the national anthem and whites immediately condemn them without bothering to hear what they are saying. Our country is as divided as it’s ever been, no closer to having all of us get along than we were when the Civil War ended 152 years ago.
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: The United States Naval Academy, then known as the Naval School, opens in Annapolis, Maryland on this date in 1845. 50 midshipmen and seven professors opened the school and the original course of study was for five years. Years one and five were spent at the academy while the middle three years were spent at sea.
Fly In The Ointment: The Navy fled the site, however, during the Civil War, with the senior students being shipped off to sea and lower level students being sent to Fort Adams in Rhode Island while the Academy was used a military hospital.
FunFact: The Naval Academy occupies land that has been in service to America since the Revolution when it housed a fort. Later, the Army’s Fort Severn occupied the site.
USA! USA! Construction on the Panama Canal ends on this date in 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson throws a switch in the White House which triggered the explosion of the Gamboa dike which flooded the last remaining dry area in the canal zone. The canal would officially open the following August.
I’m Outta Here: Spiro Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States on this date in 1973 after being charged with tax evasion. Agnew would plead no contest to one count of tax evasion, was fined $10,000 and sentenced to unsupervised probation. He died in 1996.
Quotebook: Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you. – Napoleon
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: In 2006 The Phantom of the Opera eclipsed Cats as the longest-running show in Broadway history, a record it still holds.
Today’s Stumper: Spiro Agnew was the second vice president of the United States to resign. Who was the first? – Answer next time!
