The Daily Dose/June 13, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
USA! USA!: President Trump, of course, says a lot of things that aren’t true, turning fact-checking from a cottage industry into a full-blown career path. So the following quote concerning his administration’s handling of the coronavirus is hardly news, merely continued witless blathering:
We’ve made every decision correctly. We may have some embers or ashes or we may have some flames coming, but we’ll put them out. We’ll stomp them out…We understand the disease now.
Dry, Technical Matter: We’ve long wondered whether Trump is a genuine liar, meaning he knows better but is saying otherwise, or whether he is merely delusional, living in his own fantasy world and choosing to share it with us. It doesn’t really matter, though. What matters, as we’ve discussed here before, is that we are taking it. Trump’s falsehoods are seldom accompanied by a headline saying our president is out to lunch. I appreciate having due regard for the presidency, but Trump has little regard for anybody but himself and – as we’ve noted here before – it’s time to call an orange an orange Trump is a liar. He governs, lives, off the top of his head. His only real talent is drawing attention to himself. He is not reframing the narrative, he is destroying our country.
Oh, Jesus H, Here We Go: The media is as much to blame as anyone else. A real media would have had the blustering billionaire with no credentials out of the race shortly after he announced his candidacy. But Candidate Trump meant ratings and clicks, so the media ushered him straight through to the primaries and then the White House. An America that is dying, both literally and figuratively, is the harvest we are reaping right now. They’re still enabling him, too, treating him as legitimate news, instead of as a witless rambler.
The Bottom Line: America’s response to the coronavirus was delayed and remains incompetent. This administration understands nothing except lies, insults and dissension. America is irrelevant now, at the midpoint between the esteem and influence we once held and the oblivion that awaits us.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: The new restaurant still hasn’t opened. Today’s Diary.
No news to report on the new restaurant they appear to be working on across from the post office…Not only that, nobody has any rumors about it, either…There are some at the county building that live in Hayden, but none of them know anything, either…The local paper has been no help, either, but their busy doing features on their few remaining advertisers that are still in business…
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Nobody really knows what in the hell is going on.
I was walking with Shana in front of the cage when we get word there is a fight in front of the cage.
This is news to me. I am standing in front of the cage and don’t see anything, except for a couple of guests cashing in their chips. Ted, watching from dispatch, also wonders what all the fuss is about and I tell him everything is code four and he says OK…
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On This Date
History’s long march to today
In 1805 – An advance scout team from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, consisting of Meriwether Lewis and four others, become the first whites to see the Great Falls of the Missouri River. The Great Falls consist of five falls along a ten-mile stretch located in central Montana. The falls were not navigable, forcing the expedition to portage past them, a difficult task that took them about a month. Today four of the five falls are damned, with only Crooked Falls still existing in its natural state. The Expedition would reach the Pacific Ocean on November 15 and would return to their starting point of St Louis on Sept. 23, 1806.
In 1993 – Kevin Johnson of the Phoenix Suns established a new NBA Finals record for minutes played in a 129-121 triple-overtime win over the Chicago Bulls in Game 3. Johnson played 62 of the game’s 63 minutes, which tied Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals (Boston 128, Phoenix 126) for the longest game in Finals history. The win was the first of the series for the Suns, which was won by Chicago in six games. Johnson played the first 62 minutes of the game, only coming out in the final minute of the third overtime and the record still stands.
In 1970 – The Beatles are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of two consecutive weeks with The Long Winding Road. The song leaped to the top from #10 and was in its fourth of ten weeks on the Hot 100 and it was the 20th and final #1 song for the group, a Billboard Hot 100 record that still stands. The song also went to #1 in Canada and was not released as a single in Great Britain. The song has been covered many times, but only one hit a Billboard chart, Billy Ocean’s 1985 version which peaked at #24 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
A secret to being more revered than resented , he learned, was to display a self-deprecating humor, unpretentious demeanor and an unaggressive style in conversation. – Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
The second perfect game in major league history was pitched five days after the first one, on June 17, 1880, by John Montgomery Ward of the Providence Grays, a 5-0 victory over the Buffalo Bisons.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
How much time elapsed from the Beatles’ first #1 single to their last? – Answer next time!
