The Daily Dose/January 3, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Notes from around the Human Experience…

USA! USA!: Recently Andy Craig of The Jack News came out with a proposal to eliminate the presidency of the United States. He called the presidency “the broken institution at the heart of America’s dysfunctional politics” which, like a lot of statements, is neither completely true nor completely false.

Craig’s plan calls for an elected commission of federal councilors, with Craig citing successes of this method in other countries, specifically Switzerland. It’s a thoughtful and well-reasoned proposal, deserving of any thinking citizen’s time.

Dry, Technical Matter: But it is not what America needs right now. We are not other countries. We are a collection of assorted races and faiths virtually unprecedented in human history and our Constitution, wonderfully ambiguous in places, provides a good context for governing – not micromanaging, but governing – large numbers of diverse people. From the Pilgrims to the Founding Fathers to now, our American experience has been utterly unique, advancing in spite of the obstacles we’ve been presented and the ruins we’ve caused.

Some Philosophy Crap: Besides, us humans need a leader. Be it the patriarch or matriarch of a family, or the CEO of a company or the head of a government, a chief executive gives us someone to shake our fist at and to rally around and to comfort us when space shuttles explode shortly after liftoff. It’s the way the world is built. We are rudderless without a leader.

Write This Down: The broken institution at the heart of America’s dysfunctional politics is not the presidency, nor is it Congress or the media or incumbents or lobbyists:

The problem is an American electorate that is tolerating all of this!

Time and time again we Americans rubber stamp the status quo at the ballot box. Time and time again we reelect those who have given us perpetual war and a functionally broke country, two conditions that, if left unchecked, will eventually destroy America, probably before this half-century is out, because no nation can withstand non-stop war with impunity.

When we stop tolerating this, when American voters start to hold our leaders responsible for what they’ve done to our country, then we will have a government we can be proud of.

The Bottom Line: So let’s keep the presidency. But let’s get an empowered American electorate taking charge at the ballot box again.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Pope Leo X excommunicates rebel Martin Luther from the Catholic Church on this date in 1521. Luther was a bit more than three years removed from having posted the 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany and in December had declined a papal invitation to recant his beliefs.  

FunFact: Lutheran Church requests that the Catholics lift Luther’s excommunication are routinely denied on the fairly reasonable grounds the Catholics only reinstate those still living.

Great Moments In US Intervention: Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrenders to US forces on this date in 1990. Noriega had been holed up in the Vatican embassy for the previous ten days but surrendered after US forces blared rock music and had helicopters land continuously nearby.

Noriega was taken to Miami and in 1992 was convicted on eight of ten counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. Noriega would be extradited to France in April 2010 and then back to Panama in December, 2011. He died in Panama last May.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night: After almost 50 years, the final daily Peanuts comic strip runs on this date in 2000. Author Charles M Schulz was in failing health and the final daily strip featured Snoopy sitting atop his doghouse with his trusty typewriter and note from Schulz about how he was ending the strip and thanking his readers.

FunFact: Sunday Peanuts strips would continue for another month. Schulz died the day before the last one was published. 

Get Out Your History Books: Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans finishes the NFL season with 2,509 yards from scrimmage on this date in 2009, establishing a new record for most yards from scrimmage in a single season. Johnson’s total broke the record of 2,429 yards Marshall Faulk of St Louis had established in 1999.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Hertz, Where The Winners Rent: Johnson had 134 rushing yards and 20 receiving yards and scored two touchdowns in the Titans 17-13 victory over Seattle. Johnson’s 2,006 rushing yards was the sixth highest single-season total in NFL history.

Quotebook: {This} whole book…has been written under the influence of a kind of religious awe produced in the author’s mind by the view of that irresistible revolution which has advanced for centuries in spite of every obstacle and which is still advancing in the midst of the ruins it has caused. – -Alexis De Tocqueville,  Democracy In America

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Catholic Church has had 23 Pope Johns over the centuries.

Today’s Stumper: What three characters appeared in the first Peanuts strip on October 2, 1950? – Answer next time!

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Notes from around the Human Experience…

WHILE WE WERE OUT: It took almost a year but the Republican Party – in control of both the White House and Congress – finally was able to pass something more substantive than a motion to adjourn last month when Congress passed a tax reform bill, which was signed by President Trump before Christmas.

Dry, Technical Matter: Substantive tax reform in this country must include two things: simplification of our tax code and reducing the amount of money our government takes from us.

Fly In The Ointment: The GOP plan does neither of these things. Our tax code will still have over nine million words and the IRS will still give out incorrect information one-quarter of the time. Every American making more than $38,700 will be required to give at least 22 percent of their income to the government and some will be required to give one-third of what they make.

FunFact: It will still cost individuals and businesses over $400 billion to pay their taxes.

More Dry, Technical Matter: There are still seven individual income tax levels ranging from 10 to 37 percent, depending on your income. The top rate came down a bit, and the minimum income required to pay it went up and there might – or there might not be – some modest relief for wage earners, but for a lot of us paying our taxes will still be an exercise in pulling our hair out.

Some Philosophy Crap: The government is not entitled to 37 percent of anyone’s money, rich, poor or somewhere in between. Some will say they are entitled to none of it. They have a point.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: On the campaign trail for both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives we’ve supported a flat tax of no more than ten percent – and ideally five percent – on individual incomes. The government is not entitled to any more of our money than this. A flat tax would simplify our tax experience, too, with individual returns consisting of a single sheet of paper.

Oh Yeah: The new law also reduces the tax on corporate profits from 35 percent to 21 percent.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often II: This is 21 percent too much.  As a business owner pointed out to me one day on the campaign trail, a corporate tax is nothing more than an expense he passes on to his customers making it, in essence, another tax on us and we are taxed enough and deserve better.

The Bottom Line: The GOP took a flier on substantive tax reform and did nothing of substance. Their plan will do nothing to provide the low tax environment America needs for a flourishing, long term economy. All they did was some intra-party dickhandling, hoping we’d believe they actually did something. Don’t kid yourself; they didn’t. The GOP continues to show they are utterly incapable of governing.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! A Roman named Mecurius is elected pope on this date in 533. Mecurius takes the regnal name John II, the first pope so to do. He did this because he thought Mecurius – after the pagan god Mercury – was not appropriate for the papacy. John II died in 535.

3…2…1…Blastoff: The Soviet Union, still well ahead of the United States in the space race, launches Luna 1 on this date in 1959. Designed to crash into the Moon, an incorrectly timed burn, however, ensured Luna 1 got no closer than 3,725 miles of the Moon. It eventually settled into orbit around the Sun, somewhere between Earth and Mars.

How Quaint: Among other things, Luna 1 discovered the Moon lacks a magnetic field and it made the first direct observations of the solar wind.

This Should Work: President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the speed limit to 55 mph on this date in 1974. The new law – which could not have been more widely ignored had prizes been issued for non-compliance – was designed to save gasoline during an OPEC oil embargo.

Great Moments In Scotland Yard: British police arrest a suspect in the Yorkshire Ripper murders on this date in 1981. The Yorkshire Ripper had murdered 13 women from 1975-80. Peter Sutcliffe would plead not guilty to the murder charges, but did plead guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and seven charges of attempted murder. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 concurrent life terms.

Let Us Pray: Sutcliffe advised authorities that God had directed him to kill these women, though God has never spoken publicly on the matter.

Home Sweet Home: Now 71, Sutcliffe was returned to prison in 2016 after years in a mental hospital. He has been attacked numerous times while incarcerated, including an attack that left him blind in his left eye.

Quotebook: All they ask of God is a kind of spiritual minimum wage and in return they are ready to give up the sweets of life – which God also made, let me remind you. – Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Suez Canal was Ferdinand de Lesseps first attempt at building a canal. It was completed in 1869.

Today’s Stumper: Over the centuries, how many popes have been named John? – Answer next time!

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Notes from around the Human Experience…

HE’S BACK, AND HE’S GOT DRY, TECHNICAL MATTER: As you read this, the entire planet has rung in the New Year. As I write this, however, not everyone has, though we are about to here at Daily Dose World Headquarters in the Mountain Time Zone of the United States.

Dry, Technical Matter: Though there are 24 hours in a day, we humans have managed to tweak local time to the extent there are now no less than 36 separate time zones on this planet. There are the 24 standard time zones, of course, but there are also twelve others that are either a quarter of an hour or, more likely, a half-hour off of Coordinated Universal Time, which is a fancy-pants way of saying Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time at the Prime Meridian, which runs from the North Pole to the South Pole through Greenwich, England.

Speaking Of The South Pole/Oh, Jesus H: All 24 time zones converge at the South Pole and manned stations in Antarctica generally use New Zealand time since that is where they are supplied from, though some stations keep the time of whatever country they are from.

Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: Samoa, Kiribati and Christmas Island started the festivities off at 3am Mountain Standard Time Sunday. 15 minutes later New Zealand’s Chatham Island rang in 2018.

Please Step Away From The Dry, Technical Matter: Due to the fact the International Date Line looks like it was drawn by a team of drunks and is not entirely straight, Kiribati rings in the New Year 25 hours before those zanies in American Samoa – the last inhabited place to ring in the New Year – despite the fact American Samoa is actually a bit west of Kiribati.

Kiribati is so intent on starting the New Year before anybody else it will actually be early morning on January 2nd there when Baker and Howland islands and some other US possessions finally straggle into 2018.

If Dry, Technical Matter Is Inevitable…: All told, it took our planet 26 hours to usher in 2018.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: The Emancipation Proclamation, ordering the freedom of slaves in ten states, takes effect on this date in 1863. It had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln the previous September.

The Proclamation applied only to those areas of the Confederate states not under Union control. The four slave states that remained in the Union – Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri – were not affected and the 25 Virginia counties that would later form West Virginia and join the Union that summer, were excluded as well.

Great Moments In Canal Building: After several years of planning, surveying and, as it turned out, bribing, the Panama Canal Company of Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps begins construction on the Panama Canal on this date in 1881.

The project was difficult from the start, with landslides, malaria, yellow fever and financial difficulties all taking their toll and the project was abandoned in 1888. The project would later be bought by the United States, which overcame the health problems and completed the canal in 1914.

Oh Yeah: de Lesseps, his son and others were later convicted of bribery for their efforts in trying to get the French government to help fund the project.

Hut, Hut Hike: The first American college football bowl game is played on this date in 1901 when Stanford and Michigan play in the first Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

8,000 people showed up at Tournament Park – now an athletic facility for the California Institute of Technology – to watch Michigan route Stanford 49-0. Tournament of Roses officials were so thrilled with the first Rose Bowl chariot racing resumed the following year and the Rose Bowl would not return until 1916 when Washington State defeated Brown 14-0.

Quotebook: The wise man has no ambitions. Therefore, he has no failures. He who never fails always succeeds. And he who always succeeds is all-powerful. -Master Li, Creation, Gore Vidal

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Army/Navy football game has been played three times at West Point (1890, 1892, 1943) and three times at Annapolis (1891, 1893, 1842).

Today’s Stumper: The Panama Canal was Ferdinand de Lesseps second attempt at building a canal. What was his first? – Answer next time!

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