The Daily Dose/March 26, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Leading Off will return.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: It’s a moderately busy night a the hotel, while Sparrow’s Sleep Log details a tough day in the sack.

I was breathing normally while awake but then BOOM I fall asleep and I’m breathing thru my mouth and since I don’t have front teeth it is, as noted, like having an air intake pipe attached to your face…I’d wake up periodically feeling lousy, my mouth like it had just finished drilling for oil…

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Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables: Friends, my latest novel is now available, for $3.99 until April 1, 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.

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The Daily Dose/March 25, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
The New Zealand government continues to take action in their efforts to mitigate the damage done by the man who killed over four dozen people in separate shootings at two mosques on March 15. Sunday we chatted about the government’s banning of the semi-automatic weapons and magazines believed to have used in the shootings. Today we are going to talk about the government’s decision to ban the possession, sending and reading of the killer’s manifesto. 

(The manifesto is over 16,000 words long and starts off with some whining about declining birth rates amongst whites. He refers to his victims as “invaders” and his acts a “partisan action against an occupying force” a phrase he uses more than once. The attacks were two years in the making and said he chose guns as his weapons in part because of the effect it would have on political discourse here in the United States. Yeah, right.)

The chief censor of New Zealand, David Shanks, said he banned the manifesto because it was:

…deliberately constructed to inspire further murder and terrorism…

OK, fair enough. We read the manifesto – without penalty because I live in a country where I can read what I want – and we can see where he came to that conclusion, though we didn’t come to that conclusion. 

More than anything though, we found ourselves thinking about the title of Chief Censor. Good gravy, you might expect this title in Cuba or China or North Korea, but in New Zealand? Some research, however, shows New Zealand has been deciding what its citizens can and cannot read since the 19th century. Anyone caught with the manifesto faces ten years in prison and up to 14 years for sending it to someone. Again, like the government’s immediate ban on certain semi-automatic weapons, New Zealanders are not, by and large complaining. They’re taking it. 

Yesterday we noted that you cannot legislate perfection. And forbidding people from reading the manifesto may well backfire because, as any kid can tell you, the best way to ensure they read or watch something is to forbid it, especially if they weren’t going to read it anyway. 

The manifesto talks at no small length about the United States, and he actually hits the nail right on the head with this:

The United States is in turmoil, more so that at any other time in history. States hate other states, the electoral college is under attack at every turn and the races are at each others throats. On top of this is a two party political system, split by racial, social, cultural, linguistic and class divides.

The end result is a nation in gridlock, unable to respond to any great change, unable to commit to any great projects. A political and social stalemate that makes any advancement impossible.

And hatred is our now our greatest export. 

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: There are rubber ducks all over the lobby at the hotel, and it is Sunday Spaghetti Nite (SSN) at The Shire. Today’s Diary. 

The Wife continues to rave about the quality of pasta, saying it is perfect every week…The key is not to cook it too long…Or too short…You gotta cook it just right and you gotta be careful because thin spaghetti takes a couple of minutes less than regular spaghetti…The last couple of weeks I’d rolled with thin pasta, but it was normal size today and I adjusted accordingly: nine minutes, tho remember we are at altitude here, so your time may vary…Something else I do is pour oil in the boiling water right after you throw the pasta in…This is an old bachelor trick from the macaroni and cheese days, decades, and you do this to keep the water from overflowing…

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 Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables is now available for $3.99, a price that goes up to $5.99 on the official release date of April 1.

Would you like to read excerpts and a sample chapter? Anyone would. Click here to do just that.

On This Date
In 1979 – The space shuttle Columbia is delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to be prepared for its first launch, scheduled later that year. Assorted delays put this off until April 1981 and its first operational mission came on its fifth mission in November 1982. Columbia would spend 300 days in space over the course of its 28 missions until it disintegrated upon re-entry in February 2003.

In 1972 – Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks scores a goal late in the third period, giving the Blackhawks a 5-5 tie with the Boston Bruins. The goal is the 600th of Hull’s NHL career, joining Gordie Howe as only the second NHL player to reach the mark. Hull would leave the NHL after the season to join the Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association, returning to the NHL for the 1979-80 season. Hull would retire with 610 NHL goals, now good for 18th on the all-time NHL goal-scoring list.

In 1972 – America is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time with A Horse With No Name. The song would spend three weeks at the top and was the group’s first of eight Top 40 hits. A Horse With No Name also went to #1 in Finland and Canada and peaked at #3 in Britain. America, a group formed in Britain by sons of American servicemen, would hit #1 again in 1975 with Sister Golden Hair. 

Quotebook
If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Elvis Presley had 10 Top 40 hits while he was in the Army from 1958-60. Four went to #1.

Today’s Stumper
Who was the crew of the first space shuttle flight? – Answer next time!

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