The Daily Dose/May 8, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
America’s mass shootings, of course, simply are not stopping. Place of worship, college campus, it doesn’t matter: America remains a shooting gallery unprecedented in human history.
It’s not even really big news anymore: the place and victims are reported, thoughts and prayers are issued and that’s really it: our national conversation on the 2nd Amendment has turned into a murmur. Yeah, there are some calls for gun laws that criminals will never follow, but the wholesale arm-waving has left the American landscape. Us Americans have come to accept the wholesale slaughter of our fellow citizens.
As we have said virtually every hour on the hour on the campaign trail for the United States Senate and House, we have a violent world and a violent country because we have a violent American government. America has been at war every day for the past 30 years and we are reaping that harvest with every mass killing because we have a generation-and-a-half of Americans who have never known their country at peace. Violence has long been America’s calling card and it is now the calling card of America’s citizens.
It is not going to get any better until we have an American government at peace and we are not going to have a peaceful American government until you and me – we the people – start demanding it at the ballot box on Election Day. Reelecting the status quo will solve nothing because if the status quo wanted an America at peace we’d have an America at peace. You know it, I know it, and the status quo knows it, too.
We must do this soon, friends. No country has survived perpetual warfare and to think America will be the exception to that is as false as it is dangerous. Eventually, perpetual war – and our mindless spending – will destroy our country, with America eventually tossed aside the scrap heap of history, perhaps before this half-century is out.
The only dividend war provides is more war. We deserve better. Our planet and our country are entitled to see the dividends produced by an America at peace.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has his pants outlook for the spring and summer, and The Wife makes spaghetti for dinner at The Shire. Today’s Diary.
The Wife had spaghetti night going when I woke up tonight…Recall we missed it on our usual Sunday when I slept thru it, but The Wife was all over it tonight…Great timing, too…She had just put the noodles in the pot to cook and the bread was ready to go into the oven and dinner was ready just about the time my morning coffee was.
And while The Wife utilized the Sparrow’s Sausage Mix (SSM) that was still in the frig, the sauce was different than what I make for Sunday Spaghetti Night (SSN)…Usually, of course, I cut it into my patented chunks, but she cooked it with some chopped mushrooms and onions and The Wife and cook, so it was certainly edible.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
The drivel simply does not stop: please click on the button to read The Diary of a Nobody. $5.99 includes all entries, past, present, and future.
Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables: Friends, my latest novel is now available, for $3.99 until later this week when the price goes up a couple of bucks. Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables is about a nice guy who runs high-class call girls in and out of 5-star suites and throne rooms, collects ransoms and runs from the constables. Hilarity ensues. Seriously.
Click here to read excerpts and a sample chapter.
On This Date
In 1927 – Two French pilots take off from Paris in an attempt to become the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli, both aviation heroes of World War I, took off early in the morning in a biplane called The White Bird on a route that was to take them to Newfoundland and then, eventually, New York City. The duo was last seen flying over a village on the coast of western Ireland and their wreckage was never found. Twelve days later Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, taking 33 hours to fly from New York City to Paris.
In 1971 – Joe Frazier defeats Muhammed Ali in a 15-round, unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden to unify the world’s heavyweight title. It was the first time two undefeated fighters met for the heavyweight title, with each fighter guaranteed $2.5 million, about $15.6 million in 2019 dollars. It was Ali’s first professional loss, and he would beat Frazier in their other two meetings, in 1974 and 1975.
In 1982 – Chariots of Fire by Vangelis is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for its only week. The song took a then-record 22 weeks to reach the top, a mark that has since been topped many times, and Vangelis is one of the Hot 100’s few ultimate one-hit wonders: an act whose only chart record reached # 1. Vangelis remains the only Greek to hit #1 and his real name is Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou
Quotebook
…in straits such as these, the heart has no tears to give, – it drops only blood.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The first time a #1 song on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart was replaced by the same song by a different artist was in 1946 when To Each His Own by Freddie Martin and His Orchestra replaced the version by Eddy Howard and His Orchestra. The Ink Spots also hit #1 with the same song that year.
Today’s Stumper
Who was the first group to have their first chart single go to #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and never hit the Hot 100 again? – Answer next time!
