The Daily Dose/September 7, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
In The News
The attack by a gunman in Cincinnati only killed three people, four if you count the gunman, so, of course, it wasn’t as big a story as President Trump continuing to get his shorts in a knot over an anonymous editorial one of his staff members wrote, or as big as hearings on a supreme court nominee. The shooting produced the usual people saying the usual things and the Cincinnati Reds made everything better by holding the obligatory moment of silence before a baseball game.
Some point out that America has a lot of shootings because America has a lot of guns. Fair enough. To deny that is folly: countries that have fewer guns per capita than America have fewer gun deaths per capita than America.
It’s more than that, though, because gun ownership has been a constant in this country since before the founding of this republic and we can remember a time when large numbers of Americans weren’t shot to death on a regular basis. Yeah, it happened, but they were comparatively rare occurrences.
We’ve long felt that America has violent citizens because America has a violent government. America has been at war every day since 1989. That is almost 30 years – three decades – of daily warfare and violent citizens is one of the prices we are paying for this. Inspired by their government, violence is the go-to reaction for Americans now. The truly depraved that do things like this have thrown up their hands and surrendered. They are no longer gassing cats or making obscene phone calls or hiding in bushes. They see their violent government and, inspired by that, they see no reason not to resort to violence themselves.
We will not have a peaceful America, or a peaceful world, for that matter, without a peaceful American government. Violent families do not produce peaceful children, they produce the adults who populate our prisons. To think a violent government will produce peaceful citizens is folly.
Today at the Site
Sparrow enjoys a day off on today’s edition of The Diary of a Nobody. He goes to the store to get provisions for lunch and dinner but ends up eating dinner at the Mexican joint in the next county. Also, the Sleep Log is updated, though the weekly total is pretty anemic, despite twelve hours of sleep last night.
Excerpt: The Wife has barely been gone one full day and already the clean clothes are back on the kitchen table…My commitment to using the hamper, however, remains strong.
Hardly for the first time, Gore Vidal has The Thought for the Day. Today’s quote is from his fine novel Lincoln and concerns people dying soon after it becomes plain they will not get what they want from life.
Excerpt: Dreams coming true and getting what you want in this life is not reserved for those we read about in history books or see on TV. They are there for anyone willing to learn what they are about, form a plan for their lives that comes from deep inside and work that plan with diligence and courage.
On This Date
In 1159 – Alexander III is elected pope following the death of Adrian IV. His support was not universal in the College of Cardinals and after some disruption at his installation, he and his supporters flee and the few remaining cardinals elect Victor IV antipope. Three other antipopes followed and the schism lasted until Alexander’s supporters bribed their way into then-antipope Innocent’s castle in 1180 and took him prisoner. Pope Alexander would die the following year.
In 1916 – The New York Giants defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-1, the first win of a major league record 26-game winning streak. The streak, though, did not spur the Giants to the pennant and they remained in fourth place in the National League the entire time, though they did go from 14 games back of the Philadelphia Phillies to five games back of the Brooklyn Robins, later known as the Dodgers. It would remain the longest winning streak in American professional sports until the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA won 33 straight games in 1971.
In 1935 – East of the Sun (and West of the Moon) by Tom Coakley is the #1 song on Your Hit Parade, a radio show heard on Saturday nights across America. Your Hit Parade had begun chronicling the biggest selling 78rpm singles and sheet music earlier in the year and would remain America’s authority on charted music until the appearance of the first Billboard chart in July 1940. The song spent two weeks at #1 and Coakley, a popular bandleader on the west coast, would soon leave the music business to pursue a career in law.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Of the 265 sailors who embarked on Magellan’s voyage, 18 returned to Spain with the Victoria.
Today’s Stumper
What song spent the most weeks at #1 on Your Hit Parade? – Answer next time!
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