Notes from around the Human Experience…

HUT, HUT HIKE: Protests during the national anthem by black National Football League players continued this past weekend and so did white Americans getting their shorts in a knot over it. The Trump Administration, already on record as saying blacks should fall back into line, even kicked it into high gear orchestrating Vice President Mike Pence’s leaving a game before kickoff because players continued to have the nerve to protest by kneeling during the national anthem.

Write This Down: While there are many, including the Trump Administration, who are suggesting people who kneel during the anthem are doing so because they wish to denigrate the flag and those in the American military, this is false, an attempt to draw attention away from they want to protest in the first place.

NFL players are not protesting our flat or our servicemen and women. They are protesting the fact blacks do not get a fair shake in this country. That’s it. It’s insulting to every American to suggest otherwise.

The national anthem is merely the vehicle they are using to protest because as NFL players this is how people will pay attention to them. The flag and those currently in the service have nothing to do with it, despite the fact there are those who want us to think they do.  

Dry, Technical Matter: National anthem protests began during the 2016 preseason with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Initially, he sat on the bench for the anthem and for the first couple of weeks nobody paid attention because it was a San Francisco 49ers exhibition game and who cares. Later, Kaepernick was asked about it and he said he was doing it to protest the deaths of an awful lot of black men at the hands of the police. Kaepernick said nothing about hating the flat or first responders or those in the military. Protests have continued and grown in the NFL and have since spread to other sports and into the amateur ranks as well.

Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: We’re veterans here at the Daily Dose and we render the hand salute when we hear the anthem, a privilege we’ve earned as veterans. But one of the reasons we served was to ensure others can continue to speak their mind as they see fit and if players want to kneel during the national anthem, more power to them. Knock yourselves out. Taking offense is a choice and we choos not to let this bother us.

USA! USA! And Lord knows there’s a lot for anyone – black, white, you name it – to protest in our country. For our part, we protest by running for the United States Senate and House from time to time. All of us, both as individuals and collectively as citizens, have an obligation to get involved when we see things we feel aren’t right.

The Bottom Line: Our nation, led by a president so divisive he makes Richard Nixon seem like a healer, is as divided as it’s ever been. Blacks cop an attitude and kneel during the national anthem and whites immediately condemn them without bothering to hear what they are saying. Our country is as divided as it’s ever been, no closer to having all of us get along than we were when the Civil War ended 152 years ago.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: The United States Naval Academy, then known as the Naval School, opens in Annapolis, Maryland on this date in 1845. 50 midshipmen and seven professors opened the school and the original course of study was for five years. Years one and five were spent at the academy while the middle three years were spent at sea.

Fly In The Ointment: The Navy fled the site, however, during the Civil War, with the senior students being shipped off to sea and lower level students being sent to Fort Adams in Rhode Island while the Academy was used a military hospital.

FunFact: The Naval Academy occupies land that has been in service to America since the Revolution when it housed a fort. Later, the Army’s Fort Severn occupied the site.

USA! USA! Construction on the Panama Canal ends on this date in 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson throws a switch in the White House which triggered the explosion of the Gamboa dike which flooded the last remaining dry area in the canal zone. The canal would officially open the following August.

I’m Outta Here: Spiro Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States on this date in 1973 after being charged with tax evasion. Agnew would plead no contest to one count of tax evasion, was fined $10,000 and sentenced to unsupervised probation. He died in 1996.

Quotebook: Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you. – Napoleon

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: In 2006 The Phantom of the Opera eclipsed Cats as the longest-running show in Broadway history, a record it still holds.

Today’s Stumper: Spiro Agnew was the second vice president of the United States to resign. Who was the first? – Answer next time!

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Notes from around the Human Experience…

GAYLON FOR CONGRESS…VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN: We said this regularly carrying the Libertarian Party banner in races for the United States Senate and House of Representatives:

We support the Second Amendment without qualification or restriction.

We still do; the Founding Fathers included it in the Bill of Rights for reasons that are as relevant today as they were then.

Can We Talk?: But as we noted in our last column, the Las Vegas massacre has brought America pretty close to its breaking point. Americans have grown weary of the carnage. There has been too much for too long and we are close to the point where enough Americans will summon enough strength to overcome the citizens, legislators and lobbyists who refuse to discuss the matter. Pretty soon this nation will start having a national conversation about regulating weapons whose sole purpose is the wholesale slaughter of human beings. It’s inevitable and has been a long time in coming. We can neither ignore nor avoid it.

Nor should we, because every American should embrace this opportunity. The Second Amendment itself was born out of no small amount of debate and compromise and it’s future – like the future of every element of our republic – should be subject to the continued scrutiny.

If we’re smart, not only will us Second Amendment supporters take part in this discussion, we will also pace it by making reasonable points in a reasonable manner instead of merely chanting slogans and citing statistics and studies. It will be an opportunity to step out from behind the shield of the Second Amendment and have a rational discussion and we must seize the opportunity and not be seen as the fly in the ointment.

The Bottom Line: The discussion about whether or not to regulate weapons whose only purpose is to kill a lot of people is only beginning. Second Amendment supporters can lead it or have it led by others but they cannot ignore it.

USA! USA! US Army Corporal Alvin C York, stationed with his unit in the Argonne Forest in France in World War I, earns the Medal of Honor for killing 28 Germans and wounding 132 more on this date in 1918. He also took out 35 machine guns.

After some fighting had killed nine in his outfit and left him in command, York attacked the German machine gun positions. When he ran out of ammunition he fought with his pistol, killing six Germans before accepting an offer of surrender.

FunFact: Originally, York was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the army award immediately below the Medal of Honor, but it was upgraded a few months later.  

“We’re Live From Forbes Field…”: College football is broadcast live on the radio for the first time when KDKA in Pittsburgh carries the Pitt/West Virginia Game from Forbes Field on this date in 1921.

As he was for the first major league radio broadcast a couple of months earlier, Harold Arlin was the announcer. Pitt won the game 21-13.

FunFact: Arlin would retire from radio in 1925, moving his family to Ohio where he continued to work for Westinghouse as well as making himself useful around town. He would return to the air in 1952 to announce presidential election returns to a nationwide audience and in 1972 he broadcast a few innings of a Pittsburgh Pirates game.

Play Ball: Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitches the only perfect game in World Series history on this date in 1956, as the Yankees defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: It was the sixth perfect game in major league history, the first since Charlie Robertson’s in 1922. The win gave the Yankees a three games to two lead in the series, which they would win in seven games.

Great Moments In The Revolution: Che Guevara, an Argentinian revolutionary in Bolivia to spread his usual goodwill, is captured by Bolivian Special Forces on this date in 1967.  He would be executed the following day.

Ready, Aim, Fire: The Bolivians could have used lessons in how to conduct a firing squad, which shouldn’t have been too hard to find because they were backed by the Americans. The soldier who killed Guevara was ordered not to shoot him in the head because the Bolivians believed they could pass off a story about Guevara being killed in action which further confirms they were advised by the Americans. The soldier assigned to kill Guevara shot him in the arms and legs before finally shooting him in the chest and throat.

Meow Meow: The musical Cats debuts on Broadway on this date in 1982. It would run until September 10, 2000, and in 1997 become the longest-running show in Broadway history, a mark it would hold until 2006.  

Quotebook: If you’re headed for the top, the pleasure of going by stairway will outlast that of a fast elevator ride. – Dr. David Myers

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The crew of Apollo 8 – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders – were the first humans to see the far side of the moon in person.  

Today’s Stumper: What show eclipsed Cats as the longest-running show in Broadway history? – Answer next time!

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