Notes from around the Human Experience…

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU: We’ve come to the conclusion it’s time for the Republican Party to fold up their tent and call it a day. They have not produced a decent elected president since Eisenhower and now that they control both the White House and the Congress, they are incapable of governing. The circus music is playing so loud now the capitol dome is now a circus tent and you get the impression Republicans in Congress could not agree on a resolution to wear black shoes to church on Sunday. 

Not Your Fathers GOP: Faced with a golden opportunity to provide an economy anchored in low taxes and free markets and an America at peace, the GOP has taken a flier, preferring spiteful, partisan bickering to doing anything of substance. There is no better example of this than their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) where they cannot get anything done.

They are getting zero leadership from President Trump, whose guidance is usually as vague as it is contradictory. The GOP-controlled Congress is in a box because they do not have anything of substance to offer, they are merely attempting to repeal the ACA out of rancor and spite, seldom the source of anything good in any aspect of human endeavor.

Mouseketeers Roll Call, Sound Off Now: Not only can they not govern now, the GOP has not produced a decent elected president since gas was 31 cents a gallon.

Nixon was a crook. Ford, never elected either vice president or president, was the best of the bunch, a decent, honorable man whose pardon of Nixon is, we think, generally looked upon favorably by History. Reagan’s great gift was being able to simply and powerfully state his goals. However, he was the most managed president in history, a precedent which still plagues us today. Neither George Bush could produce a decent spoken sentence, and and the second one lied to get us into war. Trump had nothing of substance to offer the country as a candidate and he has nothing of substance to offer as president.

Running The Numbers: Ford notwithstanding, that makes over five (5) decades since the GOP has produced a decent president. Five decades! Why we continue to tolerate them is almost beyond comprehension. It is time for the GOP to call it a day.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! French soldiers find the Rosetta Stone in Rosetta, now Rashid, Egypt on this date in 1799, while they were reinforcing a fortress.

The stone is more or less a Valentine from Egyptian priests to their pharaoh. It was carved in 196 BC and is written in two languages, Greek and Egyptian.

Dry, Technical Matter: Later, the British would defeat the French in battle in Egypt and by the treaty known as the Capitulation of Alexandria, the French were obliged to turn over all archaeological finds to the British, and the stone is now in the British Museum. Requests to return the stone to Egypt are routinely denied.

Speaking Of French Army Losses: The Napoleonic Wars come to an end when Napoleon surrenders to the British on this date in 1815. They had begun in 1803, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Napoleon was promptly exiled to an island in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821.

Great Moments In Georgia Rejoining The Union: Georgia becomes the last of the Confederate states to rejoin the Union on this date in 1870.

Despite the fact that all former Confederate states could now hold elections and send representatives to Congress, Reconstruction didn’t really end until 1877, when new president Rutherford B Hayes removed the remaining US troops from Louisiana and South Carolina.

Get Out Your History Books: Satchel Paige of the St Louis Browns becomes the first pitcher in major league history to give up two game-ending grand slam home runs in one season on this date in 1952.

Paige, who could not have been more than 73 years-old at the time, came on in the ninth inning against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park to relieve Duane Pillette, who had started the inning leading 6-1 but left after giving up a solo home run and a single. Paige was hardly a puzzle, giving up three singles and then the game-ending home run to Eddie Joost.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: On June 11 in Boston Paige had also given up a game-ending grand slam to Sammy White.

Oh Yeah: The feat has since been equaled by Lindy McDaniel, Lee Smith and Francisco Rodriguez.

QuoteBook: To be free, the slave must first refuse the master’s gruel. – Vin Suprynowicz, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: It took 36 ballots for the House of Representatives to elect Thomas Jefferson president of the United States in 1801.  

Today’s Stumper: Who was vice president of the United States under President Gerald Ford? – Answer next time!

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HERE WE GO AGAIN: We are going to let others discuss the facts and ramifications of the Trump family’s relationship with Russia. But let’s take a look at the bigger picture here.

Distractions like these preclude any actual governing from getting done.

All this is is merely another opportunity for the Trump White House to batten down the hatches and circle the wagons and remain distracted from what they were elected to do. 

Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: It means is nothing of substance is going to get done. We weren’t entirely optimistic this would happen in the first place, of course, our expectations for the Trump Administration being kept low from the start to avoid complete disappointment.

But America is going to spend the next three-and-a-half years marking time because some zero progress is going to be made on the two issues that will destroy our country before this half-century is out: our perpetual wars and our national debt.

More Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Anyone who believes any country can sustain constant warfare and mindless spending is deluding themselves. No nation in history has been able to and America isn’t going to buck the trend. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deluding themselves, trying to delude you or – as likely as not – both. Come Election Day 2020 we still be at war and well over $20 trillion in debt.

LOL: Nothing is getting done despite the fact the GOP controls both the White House and the Congress. If they were controlled by different parties, sure, we could understand the logjam. Lord knows America has lived through that before.

But to have a controlling party unable to get anything done? That is bad.

The fact the GOP hasn’t been able to pass anything in just under six months in power means Trump is unable to provide the two things a chief executive of anything is paid to provide: a long-term vision and the inspiration to others to go and get it done. It also means GOP Congressional leadership is unable to produce legislation that members of their party will vote for.

GREAT MOMENTS IN STORMING THE BASTILLE: French citizens, peeved at numerous and assorted things, get the French Revolution off to a rousing start by storming the Bastille prison on this date in 1789. Though the prison only held a handful of prisoners, it did hold weapons and was a symbol or royal power.

The Bastille fell by afternoon. King Louis XVI managed to hold on for a few years, but he was executed in 1793 and the revolution continued until Napoleon took power in 1799.

USA! USA! President John Adams signs the Sedition Act on this date in 1798, which made it a crime to, among other things:

To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President…

The law mandated a fine of up to five years in prison and a fine of $2,000, about $39,000 in today’s dollars.

Dry, Technical Matter: The Sedition Act was one of four bills known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were passed by the Federalist Party mainly to annoy the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, who was then vice president of the United States. To some extent it worked, as many pro-Jefferson newspapers were shut down, however, Jefferson would defeat Adams in the presidential election of 1800.

And You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More (Any) Parties: Actually, Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr both defeated Adams in 1800. Electors in the Electoral College cast two votes, but which was for president and which was for vice president wasn’t specified back then and all 73 Democratic-Republican electors voted for both when one was supposed to withhold their vote for Burr so Jefferson would have one more electoral vote and win. The House of Representatives eventually elected Jefferson.

Still Boldly Going: Man visits Pluto for the first on this date in 2015 when New Horizons conducts the first flyby of what used to be our ninth planet.

New Horizons launched in January, 2006 and took its first pictures of Pluto that September, though Pluto was just an unrecognizable speck then.

FunFact: The data haul was so massive and the distance it had to travel back to Earth so great that the data transfer from New Horizons to Earth wasn’t complete until this past October.

QuoteBook: There is always something else to be done. But if you want the world you must forget insignificant places… – Gore Vidal, Creation

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Army Private Jacob Parrott was the first Medal of Honor recipient. On March 25, 1863, Parrott was the first of six men to be awarded the Medal.

Today’s Stumper: How many ballots did it take for the House of Representatives to elect Thomas Jefferson president in 1801? – Answer next time!

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YE OLDE NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SPORT: For the first time since the turn of the century, home field advantage for the World Series did not go the winner of baseball’s all-star game.

Good. Which league is scheduled to host four World Series games instead of three is too important to leave to the result of a meaningless exhibition game. This year home field advantage will go to the league champion with the best record.

Oh Yeah: The American League won Tuesday’s game in Miami, 2-1, in ten innings.  

More Baseball Crap: Home runs are up – home runs and scoring have been going up since immediately after the 2015 All-Star Game – and a lot more pitchers than normal are reporting blisters on their hands. This is giving conspiracy theorists, those that still pay attention to baseball, the opportunity to proclaim that MLB juiced the ball in the middle of the 2015 season.

But I‘ll tell you what, even sane, rational people like us wonder. Since the middle of the 2015, more home runs are being hit than there were in the steroid era and immediate, significant gains like that do not happen without a reason.

Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: It’s too bad baseball thinks scoring is the only way to hold our interest. It isn’t. Good pitching and tight defense are equally fun games to watch, and the tension this produces in the late innings keeps casual fans excited and cause real fans to achieve and maintain a state of arousal. Besides, lots of runs lead to more at bats and more pitching changes, which lead to longer games which baseball is trying to avoid.

AND IN THIS CORNER: The smack talk leading up to the Floyd Mayweather/Connor McGregor fiasco on August 26 has begun. This may well be the best part of this whole imbroglio, because the fight is probably going to be very bad, because it will not be very close.

We can’t decide who will dominate, however. Perhaps Mayweather’s skills have not diminished all that much and McGregor will be completely bamboozled by the mechanics and rules of boxing and Mayweather will hand him his lunch.

OTOH: Perhaps McGregor will have plan that will be so well executed Mayweather’s head will be spinning.

The Following Is For Entertainment Purposes Only: If we had to put money on this, we’d put it on McGregor. He is younger than Mayweather, and even Mayweather admits his skills have declined somewhat. McGregor can still bring MMA speed and ferocity within the context of boxing’s rules and by definition he will bring something Mayweather has never seen before. It might be enough to beat Mayweather at his own game.

NBA SUMMER LEAGUE: We do not understand the attention the NBA summer league gets at all. Now, we understand there are a lot of TV shows and countless Internet pages that need content, but your average, regular season NBA game is pretty meaningless, which makes any NBA summer league game is even more meaningless, which is hard to do. It’s the off season, give us a break.

REALLY, THIS IS FOREVER…I  MEAN IT: Britain’s King Henry VIII marries his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, on this date in 1543. Queen Catherine herself was of noble birth, descended through her father from King Edward III, and she and Henry shared many ancestors and were cousins many times over. They would be married until Henry’s death in 1547.

Bon Voyage: One of history’s great explorers, England’s James Cook, begins his third and final voyage on this date in 1776.

Leaving Plymouth, England, his flotilla of the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery sailed south around the Cape of Good Hope, then east to New Zealand and Hawaii. They then continued east, reaching the west coast of North America and heading north. In 1779 they returned to Hawaii.

Dry, Technical Matter: Cook would die in Hawaii. On February 14, 1779, Cook was  – get this – killed while trying to kidnap the King of Hawaii.

Say What? We are not making that up. The natives had stolen of of Cook’s boats and Cook had decided to take the king hostage until it was returned.

Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty: The US Army Medal of Honor is established on this date in 1862. Originally for enlisted men, Army officers were made eligible the following year.

FunFact: In 1861 the Navy had established a Medal of Valor. The Medal of Honor is oldest continuously awarded decoration the US armed forces.

“Conspicuous Gallantry And Intrepidity At The Risk Of Life…” I  the old days the Medal was sometimes awarded for what essentially was winning a game of capture the flag, and other incidents that would not receive consideration today, mainly because the military did not have another award to issue. Sometimes, it would also be awarded for peacetime bravery and requirements for awarding the Medal of Honor were not standardized until 1963.

Dry, Technical Matter: 19 people have earned the Medal twice. Of these, 14 were awarded it for separate actions, while five others were awarded the Army and Navy medals for the same action.

QuoteBook: Man must deal with himself. It is his reality he must face each morning when he rises. – Louis L’Amour, The Lonesome Gods

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run on May 6, 1915, at the Polo Grounds in New York City.

Today’s Stumper: Who was the first Medal of Honor recipient? – Answer next time!

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DUDE…PASS THE DORITOS: The Oregon state legislature passed two bills last week further decriminalizing small amounts of six recreational drugs. Among them are cocaine, heroin, meth and ecstasy.

Good. The less criminal drugs are, the less crime there will be. The benefits of decriminalizing drugs are many. Citizens no longer become criminals for what they put in their bodies. Drug dealers are no longer evil arch criminals and become mere vendors trying to move some product. Cops are freed to to fight real crime, crimes with real victims.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We don’t think Oregon is going far enough, actually. The go  It’s not the job of our government to authorize or prohibit what we do in the privacy of our own home, it’s their job to see we are free to do what we want in our home. Every level of government should remove all penalties associated with the production, distribution and usage of recreational drugs.

If drugs aren’t your cup of tea, good, they aren’t mine either. Just because something is legal, does not make it mandatory.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Pluto moves inside the orbit of Neptune on this date in 1735, and will remain closer to the sun for the next 20 years. Pluto would again move inside Neptune’s orbit in 1979 and will do so again 2227.

Great Moments In Vice Presidential/Former Treasury Secretary Dueling: Vice President of the United States shoots former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel on this date in 1804 in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton would die the following day.

Dry, Technical Matter: The two had been bitter rivals for years and the challenge had been issued by Burr. Hamilton fired first, firing above Burr’s head. Burr could have done something similarly gentlemanly but declined, preferring to shoot Hamilton in the stomach.

Oh Yeah: Burr would be charged with murder in both New Jersey and New York, though he was never tried. After murdering Hamilton, Burr fled to Georgia, before returning to Washington to resume his vice presidential duties.

Well, That Didn’t Work: Swedish explorer and engineer Salomon August Andree and two others take off from Dane Island, Norway in an attempt to fly a balloon to the North Pole on this date in 1897. They crashed after a couple of days on the packed ice of the Arctic Ocean. With no one to rescue them, and ill-equipped for a long trek, the men survived for a while on the provisions they brought and the walruses and polar bears they shot, but would die in early October.

The remains, including the bodies, plus diaries and photographic film, weren’t found until 1930.

Get Out Your History Books: Babe Ruth makes his major league debut on this date in 1914. A pitcher back then, Ruth gives up three runs and eight hits in seven innings and gets the win as the Boston Red Sox defeat the Cleveland Indians, then known as the Naps, 4-3. At the plate Ruth would go 0-2 with a strikeout.

FunFact: Ruth was purchased by the Red Sox from the Providence Grays of the International League only after Connie Mack, owner of the Philadelphia A’s, passed on aquiring Ruth, Ernie Shore and Ben Egan on July 7.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: With the win, the Red Sox move to five games behind the A’s, who split a doubleheader with the St Louis Browns. It’s a log jam atop the American League, as the Red Sox are still in sixth place.

I  Do Solemnly Swear: William Howard Taft is sworn in as the tenth Chief Justice of the United States on this date 1921, becoming the only person to date to serve as both president of the United States and chief justice. Taft had been the 27th president from 1909-13.

Taft would serve as Chief Justice, which is what he always wanted to be, until early 1930, when he resigned for health reasons about a month before his death.

All We Ask Is Give Train Bombings A Chance: Bombs explode on seven trains in Mumbai, India on this date in 2006, killing 209 and injuring over 700. The bombs exploded within seven minutes of each other.

QuoteBook: Any society, if it is to flourish instead of merely survive, must strive to transcend its own limits.– Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -128.6F, at Vostok Station, about 800 miles east of the South Pole, in 1983.

Today’s Stumper: When did Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run? – Answer next time!

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CAPSULE 1970’S MADE FOR TV MOVIE REVIEW: Jesus of Nazareth: It had been many years since we’ve seen this generally critically acclaimed movie. We were still kids and religion was a big part of our life back when Jesus of Nazareth first aired and we remembered being utterly spellbound watching this with mommy and daddy.  

We’re middle aged now and our spiritual path is different, but Jesus of Nazareth was still compelling to watch. Whether you believe the Bible is the divine word of God or the world’s best selling novel, to deny its influence is folly, and in this spirit it was pleasant to revisit the characters we grew up with again.

Dry, Technical Matter: The movie was produced by the British, which is why a bunch of Romans and Jews running around the Middle East make everything sound like tea at Buckingham Palace.

More Dry, Technical Matter: Assorted historians and scholars might have gotten their shorts in a knot over the fact there was a death scene for Joseph that wasn’t included in the Bible and that there were some made-up characters and Judas gets treated better here than in the Gospels, but they are quibbling. The movie is generally faithful to Biblical accounts.

In Living Color With An All-Star Cast: While the movie is well-stocked with superb acting performances, three stand out as having been example of parts perfectly cast.

Leading Off: Robert Powell was a brilliant choice to play Jesus because Powell conforms perfectly to how most of the Western world has long pictured Jesus. Powell did more than look the  part, however, because there were times when Powell did his work so well it seemed as if the Son of Man Himself had returned to Earth, gotten his SAG card, and gone to work.

Oh Yeah: Michael York as John the Baptist and Rod Steiger as Pontius Pilate were equally brilliant, too.

Editor’s Note: Following is the Daily Dose rating scale: The Very Best/Excellent/Very Good/Good/A Steaming Pile

Final Ranking: The Very Best. We don’t issue the highest rating too often here at your Daily Dose, but Jesus of Nazareth has aged so well that we feel it deserves it. Plus, in case there is a hell, we don’t want to end up there for annoying the Big Guy by not giving a movie about his only begotten Son a top rating.

IT’S NOT THE HEAT…WELL, YEAH IT IS: Death Valley, California has a high temperature of 134 degrees on this date in 1913, the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth. Death Valley has only held this record since 2011, when a 136 degrees temperature in Libya was decertified by the people in charge of these things.

Live, Via Satellite: Mankind’s first communications satellite, known as Telstar 1, is launched on this date in 1962. Though Telstar would start relaying private images the following day, the first public broadcast didn’t come until July 23. The first images were of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower side by side. President John F Kennedy wasn’t ready for his news conference in time, so viewers were treated to exciting footage of Tony Taylor of the Philadelphia Phillies flying out to right field.

There Sure Is A Lot Of Dry, Technical Matter Today: Telstar’s 14 watts of power were produced by 3,600 solar panels on its exterior. It could handle 600 telephone calls and a single black and white TV channel.

You Have Interns For This Crap,Right?: Since then Telstar has been the name of numerous other telecommunication satellites, and Telstar 18 was launched in 2004.

Showoff: Erden Eruc, a Turkish-born American, begins first solo, human powered circumnavigation of the globe on this date in 2007.

We Are Not Making This Up: Eruc first pulls out of Bodega Bay, California and rows across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. He bikes across Australia then rows to Africa, bikes across Africa then rows to Venezuela. He bikes across Venezuela then rows to Louisiana, where he then bikes back to Bodega Bay, arriving on July 21, 2012.

QuoteBook: Why should kingdoms differ from human beings? They are born. They grow. They die.– Gore Vidal, Creation

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The first women’s tournament at Wimbledon was held in 1884.

Today’s Stumper: What is the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth? – Answer next time!

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AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE KLAN: When we first saw the story of Saturday’s Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, we thought the Klan would have long ago realized how far out of step they are with current American thought and they would stop bothering us.

But then we realized that any nation whose census forms and employment applications still ask for race information is still not completely out of the racism woods. It’s human nature to note our differences and, like the KKK has been doing brilliantly since 1866, circle the wagons to protect the tribe. It’s the way the world is built. America is somewhat better at acceptance than we used be – blacks are no longer slaves and gays can marry – but we still have a long a way to go.

That the Klan, who have no more than a few thousand members nationwide, can still command the headlines illustrates this point nicely.

What In The Hell Is Going On Here?: But you would think non-KKKers would have realized a long time ago that showing up to be an agitating counter-protester is exactly what the KKK is looking for. Heck, the Klan needs protesters because without protesters and the attendant arrests and media coverage the wizards and dragons and other hood wearers would be left to wander around preaching to the choir and patting each other on the back.

Dry, Technical Matter: The Klan mobilized in Charlottesville to protest the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee from a city park. One citizen attending the rally asked, fairly logically:

Are we going to remove the Washington and Jefferson memorials because they were slave owners?

Fly In The Ointment: That is one hell of a question, actually, especially when asked in Charlottesville, which is near Jefferson’s beloved Monticello. Not only were Washington and Jefferson both slave owners neither, despite the reverence they are held in, really did much of anything to end slavery either on their plantations or in their country.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Zachary Taylor becomes the second president of the United States to die in office on this date in 1850, dying of a digestive ailment after a brief illness. He is succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore.

FunFact: Taylor and Fillmore would be the last presidents from the Whig Party in American history.

Speaking Of Presidential Slave Owners: Taylor was also the last sitting president to own slaves.

We The People: The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified by Louisiana and South Carolina and becomes part of the Constitution on this date in 1868.

The amendment, among other things, grants blacks, some of whom were freed slaves, full citizenship and grants all citizens due process. It had been approved by Congress and sent to the several states in June, 1866, and remains one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution.

The Bloody Championships: The first Wimbledon tennis tournament, which the British snobbishly refer to as The Championships, begins on this date in 1877. The tournament was organized as a fundraiser to pay from some repairs on some maintenance gear and 22 players paid one guinea to participate and the tournament showed a profit of ten pounds.

Oh Yeah: Spencer Gore would win the first title on July 19th.

QuoteBook: There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. – Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” speech to Virginia legislature, 3/23/1775

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: General Electric is the only company whose stock has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since its inception.

Today’s Stumper: What year was the first women’s tournament held at Wimbledon? – Answer next time!

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