Albrecht developed slowly; his genius lay in ambition, perseverance, patience. – Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Reformation
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a German artist who flourished in a variety of mediums including, but not limited to, woodcutting, engraving, pen-and-ink drawing and oil painting. His Self-Portrait at 28 is regarded by some as one the finest self-portraits ever and Durer’s high opinion of himself is plain in this painting, as it bears no small resemblance to a portrait of Christ. His influence on other artists was profound and both the Lutheran and Episcopal churches commemorate him with a day of remembrance.
We thought it interesting, however, that Durant would attribute these characteristics to Durer because Durer was an accomplished and well-known artist in his 20’s. Durer started out plying his father’s trade of goldsmith, but his talent at drawing was plain and he was apprenticed out at age 15. He traveled extensively learning his crafts, though he generally always returned to Nuremberg.
As we tend to say every hour on the hour here, we are all born with certain talents and ambitions. Not only that, we have these talents and ambitions in varying measures, too, and it is good to note that ambition, as noted here, is not merely wanting to become rich or famous, it is about knowing what you are about and having a plan for your life.
…his genius lay in ambition, perseverance, patience.
While we all have varying amounts of talent, all of us can have a full measure of ambition, perseverance and patience. If we have these elements, we don’t have to wait till our time comes to die to be looking back on a good life. Even now perseverance and patience should have yielded some attainments, life’s great prize. If you have tried to attain anything of substance you will also be looking back at some failures, life’s great lesson and until you die you should also be persevering for further accomplishments, life’s great challenge.
As we say here a lot, it doesn’t really matter what those attainments are. All that matters is they are the result of things we are compelled to do from deep inside us, that we are living from the inside out, that we are following our hearts and trusting our instincts.
Not all of us have the measure of talent that Durer had. But all of us can have full measures of the ambition, perseverance and patience required to live the life we were meant to lead.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
The Daily Dose/February 10, 2018 By Gaylon Kent America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
HIGHER…STRONGER…STONED: The 2018 Winter Olympics are underway. The first Olympic record is in the books with Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai appearing in his eighth Games, the Nigerians, of all people, have a women’s bobsled team and the next two weeks will be filled with the usual triumphs and heartbreaks an Olympic fortnight produces.
As usual, though, the big story is doping – athletes gaining an advantage by using processes and substances that are currently illegal. Doping is so prevalent the IOC was unable to prepare for this year’s scandals because it only cleared the decks of doping issues from the 2014 Games as the torch bearer was limbering up for Friday’s opening ceremonies.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: We’ve said this before:
Professional athletes should be able to put whatever they want into their bodies. Make everything legal and nobody is cheating.
Long-time readers of this crap know we have always supported legalization, for a variety of reasons:
One, they’re doing it anyway. Current testing methods catch only a fraction of dopers. Also, current testing methods are always a step-and-a-half behind the latest doping protocols. This is borne out by the number of samples from past Olympics that are later found to be illegal.
Two, doping doesn’t give you talent, it merely helps you get the most of the talent you were issued at birth. We are regular weightlifters here and we take a pre-workout supplement. It makes about a three percent difference. It has its benefits, but it hasn’t made us Arnold.
Three, while some say legalization would put some athletes in less developed countries at a disadvantage, they’re already at a disadvantage. Making doping legal would do more to level the playing field for them than keeping doping illegal would.
Four, it puts us fans in a bind because we are never certain which performances are legal and which are not until after the event is completed.
Five, us fans don’t really care. Time and time again we continue to watch and spend our money to attend events where there are no guarantees top performances are compliant with current anti-doping standards.
The Bottom Line: The resources given to ensuring compliance with current doping regulations are not getting the job done and are ultimately being wasted. The current anti-doping system is broken and beyond repair. It is time to let athletes put whatever they want into their bodies.
CSA! CSA!: Jefferson Davis, who had resigned his seat in the United States Senate on January 21, is notified by telegram of his election provisional president of the Confederate States of America on this date in 1861. A convention meeting in Montgomery, Alabama had elected Davis the day before, and he would be inaugurated on the 18th.
Great Moments In The Cold War: The United State and Soviet Union swap spies on this date in 1962, with the Soviets releasing spy plane pilot Gary Powers and the US releasing captured spy Rudolph Abel. The exchange took place on Glienicke Bridge – also known as the Bridge of Spies – spanning West Berlin and East Germany
Powers, flying a CIA spy plane, had been shot down over Soviet airspace in 1960. Powers’ cover story of being a wayward weather plane was not believed, though it was months before he admitted anything. Powers was ultimately convicted of espionage and been serving his sentence in a prison east of Moscow. Abel had been convicted of espionage in 1957 and was four years into his 30-year sentence.
Hot, Constitutional Amendment Action: The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution takes effect on this date in 1967 when those rascals in Nevada take time out from shooting dice and become the 38th state to ratify the amendment.
The amendment is rather useful. It clarifies that when a president dies the vice president becomes president and not acting president, provides for filling a vacant vice presidency and provides for how a president can be declared unfit.
The amendment was necessary because the constitution was rather vague on rather a vice president became president or acting president, said nothing about filling a vice presidential vacancy and did not cover an incapacitated president.
Oh Yeah: The Twenty-Fifth Amendment had been sent to the several states on July 6, 1965.
No, I Guess We Can’t All Get Along: An estimated 5,000 male Kenyans of Somali descent are massacred by Kenyan security forces at an airstrip in northeast Kenya on this date in 1984. Before being slaughtered, the males had been held at the airstrip for several days without food and water.
The Kenyan government would not admit anything until 2000. Until then they had only acknowledged a few dozen deaths in a “security operation”.
Quotebook:The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. – Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988), 1965 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Pluto will next move inside of Neptune’s orbit in 2227.
Today’s Stumper: How many constitutional amendments are still awaiting ratification?- Answer next time!
Citizens no longer listened to good advice, for the belly has no ears. – Cato
Cato (95-46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger and born Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, was a Roman statesman and orator. His parents died when he was very young, and the uncle who raised him was assassinated when Cato was four. He studied philosophy and politics before accepting a commission in the Roman army and History remembers Cato as rather stubborn and impervious to bribes. He had a running feud with Julius Caesar and killed himself in 46 BC. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, was named after him.
Today’s thought concerns the Romans who at the time were prosperous and well-fed and unwilling to acknowledge the warning signs their empire was dying. This is what is happening in America right now.
There are a couple of ways to look at things: circumstantially, a view which is mainly derived from outside sources, and intrinsically, which are things that happen naturally.
Circumstantially, things aren’t too bad in America right now. Government figures tell us the economy is doing pretty good and that unemployment is low. It’s not quite at the point where everyone who wants a job and can hold down a job has a job, but it’s not too far from that, actually. American business adapted, as they always have, and learned how to make a profit in the Great Recession and they are still operating that way. Yes, unemployment is low, but it is still difficult for working people to make a go of it.
…for the belly has no ears.
Intrinsically, however, America is heralding warning signs for us to hear if we would listen. Our country is as fractured as it’s ever been, breaking over an ethnic and economic divide that might be beyond bridging. Our perpetual wars and fiscal insanity are not the calling cards of a flourishing nation with long-term prospects. If her citizens do not do something, America eventually will be tossed aside the scrapheap of history, probably before this half-century is out.
We must not let the relative prosperity of a full stomach cause us to go deaf. A circumstantial view seldom yields the complete picture. In all aspects, we must look deeper to see what is happening both fundamentally and intrinsically.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
The Daily Dose/February 7, 2018 By Gaylon Kent America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
READY…AIM…FIRE: We haven’t had a mass shooting in a while, but there have been no shortage shooting deaths in America, of course.
There have been over a dozen shootings at US schools this year and in Colorado, three police officers or sheriff’s deputies have been shot to death – and ten more injured – since New Year’s Eve, numbers that are as high as they are tragic. Gunfire continues to replace a verbal greeting as our primary form of social interaction.
If those numbers surprised you, they surprised us, too, but deaths of this sort are so common nowadays they barely draw a second glance. We might see the headline and issue some thoughts and prayers, or we might not see the headline. Either way, shootings in the US are hardly news anymore unless an awful lot of our fellow citizens are slaughtered at one time.
We The People: We once thought that a national conversation on gun control was forthcoming, but we’re not so sure about that anymore. This country is so fragmented and the wagons are so circled that anything more substantive than the spouting of opinions may not be possible. The left wants gun control while the right won’t even discuss it.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We’ve said this on the campaign trail for years:
We support the Second Amendment without qualification or restriction.
We don’t really think guns are the problems. Violent people hell-bent on causing tragedy and mayhem are going to cause tragedy and mayhem. It’s the way the world is built. Earlier this decade China, whose citizens are unarmed, endured a rash of stabbings at schools, though those have abated, probably because the Communists have outlawed cutlery.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: The fault for violent American citizens can be laid squarely at the doorstep of a violent American government. America has been at war continuously since 1989, almost three decades of non-stop warfare. Violence has become the go-to reaction for America’s government so it should be no surprise violence has become the go-to reaction for America’s citizens. It’s all some Americans know. We have an entire generation of Americans that have never known a peaceful day in their lives.
The Bottom Line: We will not have a peaceful world without a peaceful America, nor will we have peaceful American citizens without a peaceful American government.
More Bottom Line: And, frankly, we will not have a peaceful America until you and me – we the people – start demanding it at the ballot box.
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified on this date in 1795, following ratification by North Carolina. It had been sent to the several states on March 4, 1794, following passage by Congress.
A Good Bar Bet: The Eleventh Amendment was passed to override the Supreme Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, which ruled that federal courts had jurisdiction in matters between a citizen of one state making a claim against another state. The case started when one Mr Chisolm of South Carolina sued the state of Georgia in federal court for payment for goods he had provided during the Revolution. The Eleventh Amendment repealed the Supreme Court’s opinion.
We Are Out Of Here: After getting smacked around by Allied forces for most of the past six months, the Japanese complete their evacuation Guadalcanal on the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific on this date in 1943. While there were some aerial and naval skirmishes during this operation – known in Japan as Operation Ke – there was not an all-out assault by the Allies, who really didn’t know what was going on. The following morning, February 8, elements of the US Army resumed an advance and were surprised to see no one there as Army leaders had thought the Japanese were reinforcing their troops, not evacuating them.
Aichiwawa: The United States announces a complete embargo on imports and exports from Cuba on this date in 1962, in response to Cuba not complying with every American demand.
The More Things Change…: It was not the first time America had started an embargo against Cuba. In 1958 America banned the sale of arms to Cuba and in 1960 President Eisenhower, in response to Cuba nationalizing oil refineries owned by Americans, had prohibited all exports to Cuba except for food and medicine.
…The More They Stay The Same: Despite annual condemnation from the United Nations and assorted human rights groups, the embargo is still in effect, the most enduring trade embargo in modern history.
Great Moments In Pluto Being Closer To Mr Sun Than Neptune: Pluto moves inside of Neptune’s orbit for the first time since either planet’s discovery on this date in 1979. It would remain closer to the Sun than Neptune for 20 years and four days.
FunFact: Those waiting for the two planets to collide shouldn’t hold their breath. Due to the nature of their orbits, including the fact Pluto’s is on a different plane than Neptune’s, the two planets will never collide.
Quotebook:Cleopatra encouraged him to dare the last gamble for omnipotence… – Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Queen Elizabeth II broke her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s record for longest reign by a British monarch on September 9, 2015, her 63rd year, 217th day on the throne.
Today’s Stumper: When will Pluto again move inside of Neptune’s orbit?- Answer next time!
‘Cause you ain’t done nothin’ new…Time you settled down and made de best of things de way de is… – Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Alex Haley (1921-92) was an American writer, best known for his 1977 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. We would have preferred that Haley had not admitted to plagiarizing portions of Roots, but History’s verdict on this has been kind and by any meas, re Roots remains one of American letters most profound and lasting works and it is one of the best books we’ve ever read.
Haley began writing in the Coast Guard, where he spent 20 years. Originally a mess attendant, one of the few jobs open to blacks back then, Haley had a knack for writing and later became a journalist in the Coast Guard.
‘Cause you ain’t done nothin’ new…
Circumstantially, this is true. We aren’t anything new. We’re humans, put on this earth to fulfill Mother Nature’s mandate to produce more humans just like our parents did. We live and then we die. The death rate for us humans will always be 100 percent.
Intrinsically, however, this is false. We are something new because each one of us is utterly distinct from those humans that preceded us and we are different from those that will follow.
Time you settled down and made de best of things de way de is… –
We got it pretty good in this country, though it might not seem like it sometimes. Livings must be earned and problems dealt with and our fellow humans tolerated. However none of us have ever been chained in the hold of a ship wallowing in our own filth waiting for transport to a foreign land to begin a career in slavery, a part of Roots that got me to swear never to whine about anything ever again, a vow I violate daily.
Those who make a go of it in this life make the best of the way things are. It takes work to do this. We can’t wake up each day and mindlessly fritter away our time. We must have the wisdom to know ourselves and realize what we are about. We must have the courage to go and live the life we were meant to live and the patience to see it through to the very end. Every day there are a hundred and one things to distract us from this and it can sometimes be supremely challenging to make the best of the way things are.
When we do this, however, when we put the way things are to advantage, then we are well on the way to having a good day. Enough good days and we’ve had a good year and a succession of good years leads to a good life.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
The Daily Dose/February 6, 2018 By Gaylon Kent America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
INSERT OWN FUNNY LEAD LINE HERE: One of the great things about President Trump – President Trump! – is that while you can generally be sure he is going to say or tweet something, you’re kept on your toes because you’re never entirely certain what it is going to be. I mean, we are dealing with a man whose only real talent is drawing attention to himself, so while Trump usually can be counted on to stay on message, sometimes he goes off on a tangent.
Extra, Extra, Read All About It: Monday was a good example when Trump tweeted about the crucial issue of universal health care. Sure, Senator Bernie Sanders and a few other left wingers like to yap about this, but it is not really an issue that is on our collective radar right now. Exactly why this was on the president’s mind isn’t clear, though the tweet did come an hour or so after a British official appeared on FOX News claiming Britain’s health care problems were to be blamed on immigrants – a fave Trump topic, of course – but who knows?
Trump also said that Britain’s system – where the government provides and pays for its citizen’s medical care – was “not working” and that Brits had taken to the streets to protest this fact. Like a lot of things Trump says this wasn’t entirely true, as the majority of marchers at a recent rally merely wanted their government to provide the system with more money to alleviate long waits for routine things because right now there aren’t enough doctors to treat everyone immediately.
Fly In The Ointment: Actually, America does have a single-payer system, Medicare, a government-funded program that provides health insurance for American 65 and older, as well as some others. It originated in 1966 during the Lyndon Johnson Administration. The government also attempts to provide medical care to a few million veterans, something it fails miserably at.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: The midterm elections are later this year and even if universal health care isn’t our biggest issue right now, it’s good to talk about it. Despite the fact our government does not provide medical care for its citizens, health care remains one of the most regulated segments of American life, which is the problem.
We’ve always said that doctors are commercial enterprises in business to make a profit, not have their industry taken over by the government. We let the free market provide food, clothing, housing, and sneakers, we must also allow it to provide medical care, too.
When you have a free market where doctors and health insurers must provide the goods and services the public wants to buy at the prices they are willing to pay, then you have a system built on service and innovation. Prices will come down and the quality of care, already pretty good in this country, will rise and innovation will flourish.
The Bottom Line: Doctors and health insurers must be allowed the same access to the free market that your plumber or lawyer has. It is the only way we are going to get a healthcare system that works for everyone, from citizens to doctors to insurers.
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: A day of the week is mentioned for the first time in recorded history, as some scribbling on a wall in Pompeii identifies this date as a Sunday in 60 AD. Using modern reckoning, February 5, 60 AD was actually a Wednesday.
All Aboard: New Jersey grants the first railroad monopoly to a consortium led by businessman John Stevens on this date in 1815. It was the first railroad charter granted by a state and allowed Stevens and his partners to build a railroad between New Brunswick and Trenton.
Though not the most famous American from this era, Stevens had a useful life. In the 18th century, Stevens had built the first steam locomotive in the US, as well as the first steam-powered ferry and he inaugurated the first commercial ferry service in the country. His pestering of Congress to protect inventors – like John Stevens, for instance – led to the first patent law being passed in 1790 and the land his family’s estate was on is now home to the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Long Live The Queen: King George VI of Britain dies on this date in 1952 at the age of 56. He is succeeded immediately by his daughter Elizabeth, 25, who at the time of his death was in a tree house at a hotel in Kenya.
Long Live The Queen II: While her heir apparent Prince Charles nervously looks at his watch and taps his pencil on his desk, Elizabeth II continues to reign and at 65 years and she has had the longest reign of any British monarch.
Quotebook:He decided, as usual, that it was wisest that he mind his own business… – Alex Haley, Roots
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Philadelphia Eagles have won their four NFL championships at the following stadiums: US Bank Stadium, Minneapolis (2018), Franklin Field, Philadelphia (1960), the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1949) and Shibe Park, Philadelphia (1948).
Today’s Stumper: Whose record for longest reign by a British monarch did Queen Elizabeth II break? – Answer next time!
The Daily Dose/February 5, 2018 By Gaylon Kent America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
DID WE CALL IT, OR WHAT?: Following their triumphant 52-0 whitewashing of the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII, the New England Patriots must now be considered one of the great dynasties in American professional sports.
Oh, Bloody Hell: Well, that didn’t happen.
Those rascals known as the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t blink when in the past other teams had and actually ended up winning Super Bowl LII 41-33. The steadying, brilliant hand of Nick Foles played no small part in the win, though you look up Team in the dictionary you may well find a pic of this Eagles team.
Over The Hump: It was the first Super Bowl win for the Eagles and their first NFL title since 1960 and their fourth overall.
FunFact: It was the fifth Super Bowl loss for the Patriots, tying them with Denver for the most loss Super Bowl losses.
Yawn…Whatever: In fact, it was another Super Bowl for the Patriots in an era where Super Bowls are regular occurrences. It was the franchises record tenth Super Bowl appearance overall and the eighth Super Bowl of the Belichick/Brady era, a testament to the unselfish work they’ve demanded of themselves and everyone else who’s worn a New England uniform over this century.
GOAT: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady showed why he is the very best ever at what he does and maybe, perhaps, the best athlete in a team sport ever. Brady became the first quarterback to pass for over 500 yards in a Super Bowl and is now 8-for-8 in having his team in position to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Football is a team game, though, and the Patriots are only 5-3 in these games. With some luck, good or bad, they could easily be 8-0 or 0-8 because all eight have been close games.
Fly In The Ointment: While the Patriots are a model for long-term success, they are not quite a dynasty, however. Their five Super Bowl wins have simply been spread over too many years for that.
Consider this: the Green Bay Packers won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls – then a game between the NFL and AFL champions – in seven seasons in the 1960’s, which might well be the NFL’s greatest dynasty.
Other sports have seen even more impressive championship runs: the Boston Celtics won 11 NBA titles from 1957-69, the Montreal Canadiens won 15 Stanley Cups between 1965-79 and the New York Yankees won the World Series twelve times between 1936-53.
The Bottom Line: Bully for all of them. A win Sunday would have made the Patriots shine a little brighter, but the sustained excellence of the past 18 years – an era filled with salary caps and labor strife, among other things – is still a very impressive feat.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…: The Immigration Act of 1917 becomes law on this date in 1917 when Congress overrides President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the previous December. It was the first immigration that restricted immigration where previous policy had merely regulated it.
The Act barred immigration from most of Asia and the Pacific Islands, though it did not include Japan or the Philippines. It also featured a literacy test for European immigrants, which actually wasn’t all that difficult, consisting of merely reading several dozen words from the person’s native language. There were waivers to allow Mexicans to continue to come and work our fields and railroads.
Oh Yeah: It would remain America’s governing immigration policy until 1952’s Immigration and Nationality Act.
DBF: The SS Tuscania is torpedoed and sunk in the Irish Sea on this date in 1918, becoming the first ship carrying US troops to Europe during World War I to suffer that fate. It was sunk by the German U-boat UB77, killing an estimated 210 US troops. Approximately 2,300 troops and crewman had been aboard.
This Is Definitely A Violation Of Regulations: The US Air Force loses a hydrogen bomb off the coast of Georgia on this date in 1958. The bomb was on a B-47, which was on a training mission when it collided with an F-86. The F-86 pilot ejected, but the B-47 remained airborne, eventually regaining control. The bomb, however, was jettisoned over the ocean and was never found. Occasional checks of the area have yet to find any radioactive contamination.
Quotebook:Realizing that the function of a political leader in a democracy is not to impose his will, but to help the people decide wisely for themselves… – Benjamin Thomas, Abraham Lincoln
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The last country to land a spacecraft on the moon was China. Their rover Chang’e 3 landed on the moon on December 14, 2013.
Today’s Stumper: What stadiums have the Philadelphia Eagles on their four NFL champions in? – Answer next time!
But all the same, I simply can’t imagine his thinking the world would be able to get on without him. – Agatha Christie, Dead Man’s Mirror
Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was a British writer, primarily known for her mystery stories, though she wrote other things, too. It is estimated Christie trails only Shakespeare and the Bible in number of books published and Christie actually caused a mystery of her own when she disappeared for ten days in 1926. She was having a spat with her soon-to-be-divorced husband and was holed up in a hotel under the name of her husband’s lover. Today’s Thought concerns reasons why the murder victim would never kill himself.
It’s OK to have a high opinion of yourself. It’s healthy to admit you do something well, perhaps better than most, because false modesty only serves those who have nothing to be modest about.
But that confidence must come from within and is only gained after many years of diligence and effort. It is gained as the early failures that attend any great effort are replaced by more and more successes. Among its other yields, success provides a wonderful dividend of confidence.
Confidence coming from without, however, as the result of purely external factors such as the rewards you might earn is not confidence at all but merely cockiness, which does not do you or your fellow humans much good.
When you are on your path, when you are living the life you were meant to live you will, perhaps without really realizing it, become good at some things. Because if you are on your path you are utilizing, and maximizing, the talents you were born with. Invariably you enjoy this and in time your skill turns into mastery.
It’s good to acknowledge this, if only to yourself. There is seldom any need to burden others with this knowledge.
I simply can’t imagine his thinking the world would be able to get on without him…
Again, you do not want to be cocky. You do not want to go around beaming certainty that the world would not get along without you. That will make you annoying because, plainly, the world will get on without us and the sun will still rise the day after we’ve died.
But, after many years of diligence, patience and, perhaps, accomplishment, it’s OK to suspect it, even if we know it’s not true.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
The Daily Dose/February 3, 2018 By Gaylon Kent America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
TO THE ARCHIVES WITH YOU!: In the upcoming Sunday Bottom Ten – our hilarious new feature based on the Bottom Ten’s that run during football season – you will see a figure, the Average Margin of Victory (AMV) of an NFL game this past season. This figure was not easily arrived it.
Dry, Technical Matter: We wanted to know the AMV of victory for an item concerning Thursday Night Football, which will be ranked in the Sunday Bottom Ten this week after the NFL announced a deal with FOX TV to carry it for the next five seasons. Players hate these games and they are often lousy to watch. To illustrate how lousy these games are, we calculated the AMV for all 17 Thursday NFL games this past season, which came out to 12.5 points, which didn’t really prove our point like we had hoped. We calculated this figure a couple-three years ago and seemed to recall it being a bit higher, but that is neither here nor there.
We wanted to compare the 12.5 figure to the AMV for the entire 2017 NFL season. So we did some searching thinking it’s the second decade of the 21st century, the Internets should be able to fork over the figure in fairly short order.
Fly In The Ointment: Shows what we know. There were some places had the AMV for a portion of the season, or past seasons, or that had variants thereof (these were usually found at sports betting sites) that we didn’t really understand, but nowhere could we find the AMV for 2017 NFL regular season games. We are enthusiastic and able researchers here at The Daily Dose and this surprised us, especially since you can find the average caloric intake for males over the age of 37 in Chad if you know where to look.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: We actually greeted this development with a small amount glee because this meant we would be obliged to figure it out for ourselves. It wasn’t particularly difficult but it was pretty labor intensive, taking a couple-three hours to figure out that 2017’s 256 NFL games yielded a cumulative margin of victory of 3,202 points, producing an AMV of 11.8 points per game. We thought the difference between the Thursday Night Football AMV and the 2017 AMV would be greater, but what do we know?
If Dry, Technical Matter Is Inevitable…: We’d hate to see other results of this seminal work go to waste, so here are some other figures. One or two might even be interesting:
The median AMV figure – the figure were half were above it and half below it – was 12.5, by coincidence the Thursday night AMV
The highest AMV came in Week 10 (15.1) and lowest in Week 5 (7.9)
You might think the AMV might be higher the last part of the season, when teams are saying screw it, let’s go home, but the AMV the last three weeks was right at the season average, 11.8. By contrast, the AMV for the first three weeks, when everybody still has a shot, was a bit higher at 12.4
The midseason actually produced the highest AMV as weeks 7-10 produced an AMV of 13.5.
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! The Massachusetts Bay Colony becomes the first colony to issue paper money in what would become the United States on this date in 1690. Known as bills of credit, later shortened to bills, they were originally printed to help pay for soldiers in the French and Indian War.
The Day The Music Died: Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson, professionally known as the Big Bopper, and their pilot Roger Peterson are killed in a plane crash in north-central Iowa on this date in 1959. Holly was tired of the long rides in cold busses between shows and had decided to charter a plane. Valens won a coin flip with Tommy Alsup for his seat on the plane, while Waylon Jennings gave his seat to Richardson because Richardson was sick.
3…2…1…Touchdown: Man lands on the moon for the first time as the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 touches down on the lunar surface on this date in 1966. Later, it would send back the first photographs from the surface of the moon. Luna 9 had been launched on January 31.
Previously, the Soviets had been the first country to reach the moon at all when Luna 2 crashed into the moon in 1959.
FunFact: The Luna program last reached the moon in 1976 when Luna 24 landed, dug out some lunar soil samples and returned them to Earth. The Russians are planning further unmanned Luna missions in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Quotebook:Mackenzie was a good guy, but he was a guy after all, not an image on a stained glass window. – William Irish, After-Dinner Story
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The 61 years between the ratification of the Twelfth and Thirteenth amendments to the United States Constitution is the longest such interval between the ratification of consecutive amendments.
Today’s Stumper: Who was the last country to land a spacecraft on the moon? – Answer next time!!
