Notes from around the Human Experience…

IF TRUMP IS INEVITABLE…: You must give President Donald Trump credit: he refuses to be anything but himself. In Texas to make the obligatory presidential visit to a natural disaster site – or as close to the disaster as it was practical to get him – Trump declined to take advantage of opportunities to look and sound presidential or even to look or sound human. This, of course, is completely in step with how he has conducted himself in the past. 

Donald Being Donald: Despite the fact Trump won the November election, he treated this like another campaign rally, just like he did his stop in Arizona earlier this week. Like he has since he first declared for the GOP nomination two years ago, Trump talked big and offered nothing of substance.

We are going to get you back and operating immediately.

Good gravy, this isn’t even decent presidential rhetoric. It is, however, pure Trump. Despite the fact  the Son of Man would have trouble getting Houston up and running immediately, much less the bureaucracy that is the federal government, there Trump was talking big when he should have had a better grip on the magnitude of the disaster and the enormous scope of what will be required to actually get Houston back and operating.

Let’s Go To Fred With The Weather: Hurricane Harvey has accounted for more rainfall than any other storm in continental United States history, breaking the record of 48 inches established, also in Texas, by Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978. It is still raining, of course, so Harvey’s final total is not known.

Back On Message: Faced with an opportunity to show some compassion and empathy Trump took a flier. Instead he, remarked at the size of the turnout while waving a Texas flag and wearing his usual tacky ballcap.

We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, ‘This is the way to do it.’

Well, this is certainly better than saying he planned to emulate the government’s humiliating response to Hurricane Katrina. And maybe the government will do it better than ever before. Maybe the government learned its lessons from the Katrina debacle. Perhaps they will do some good fairly efficiently. Perhaps not. 

Notice Me: If Trump was devoid of empathy for those suffering, perhaps it’s because he lacks empathy for himself. As he has shown time and time again, his only real talent – and only real concern – is drawing attention to Donald Trump. If he cares about anything other than that, he does a good job of keeping it to himself.

The Bottom Line: America tends to get the government they deserve and no one should be surprised at what we have now. Trump the president is no different than Trump the candidate or even Trump the private citizen. He has never offered anything other than blather and barring a conversion on par with St Paul that is all he will ever have for his country. We elected it and we have it for three-and-a-half more years.

IS THIS THE PARTY TO WHOM I  AM SPEAKING?: The hotline between the Washington, DC and Moscow goes operational on this date in 1963. Almost interesting is the fact the hotline never consisted of telephone, much less a red one.

Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, a teletype was used, then a fax system was established and now it utilizes email, though it’s the second decade of the 21st century and why they can’t just Facetime is a mystery.

Dry, Technical Matter: Messages to Washington actually go to the Pentagon, where they are translated and sent to the White House Situation Room. The system is tested hourly, by the US during even hours and the Russians during odd hours. It has not been used for tactical communications since the Reagan/Gorbachev era.  

FunFact: The US also has a similar hotline with Beijing, China. It was established in April, 2008.

Welcome Aboard: Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on this date in 1967. He was the 96th associate justice and the first black to hold the position.

Before his nomination to the court, Marshall had been the Solicitor General of the United States, which is the person who represents the United States before the Supreme Court. Before working for the government Marshall was chief counsel for the NAACP and won numerous civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark 1954 case Brown vs. Board of Education.

Marshall served on the Supreme Court for 24 years, earning a reputation as a judge who favored individual rights, particularly those accused of crimes, as well as abortion rights while opposing the death penalty. Marshall retired from the court in 1991 and died in 1993.  

Quotebook: Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man is contributes more to his happiness than what he has. – Schopenhauer

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Billy Preston is the only musician to receive label credit on a Beatles record, for his contributions on the 1969 single Get Back. The performance was credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston.

Today’s Stumper: Who was the first justice to hold the supreme court seat occupied by Thurgood Marshall? – Answer next time!

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SLOW NEWS DAY: Usually a topic for this treasured feature presents itself before we sit down to write it. Something will grasp our attention – usually an item from the news, but not always – and thoughts will start forming and all that is left to do is put the words down.

Fly In The Ointment: Not today, though. As we sat down to write this our mind was all over the place, with several dozen different items popping in and out, but nothing really demanding our complete and undivided attention.

Uh-Oh, Now What?: So you double check your usual suspects to see if anything interesting is going on.

Hail To The Chief: In 2017 any columnist’s go-to source for inspiration is, of course, the Trump Administration. Headed by a man whose only real talent is drawing attention to himself, Trump is well on his way to presiding over the worst administration in the history of this republic.

Not much there is asserting itself, however. Trump is blathering about shutting down the government if Congress doesn’t fork over money for his treasured border wall, but that showdown is still a few weeks away.

Regular readers of this crap know that last year we said that Trump losing the 2016 presidential election – as then seemed likely – might well be the death knell of the GOP. Then he won, of all the silly things, and then we thought that might herald the end of the GOP.  

It hasn’t yet, but we are starting to see the first significant cracks, as both GOP leaders and rank and file congressmen and senators are starting to publicly get their shorts in a knot, so maybe there’s still hope. But there’s not enough there for a full column. 

Don’t Try This At Home, We’re Trained Professionals: Then you check the headlines. Our preferred news source is the Associated Press because of their objectivity. Nothing there is striking us, either. Sure, Hurricane Harvey is making news, but our job is to come up with funny lines and natural disasters are traditionally lousy sources of funny lines.

Dry, Technical Matter: Of moderate interest, however, is the havoc Harvey is playing with sports schedules. Crap like this interests the hell out of us, and we gleefully noted the Houston Astros will play their three game series against the Texas Rangers in Tampa Bay. A decision regarding their weekend series against the New York Mets has been made but hasn’t been made public yet.

Hut, Hut Hike: The Houston Texans football team moved their Thursday preseason game against Dallas to Dallas. The BYU/LSU college football game scheduled for Saturday in Houston has been moved to New Orleans. Why it was scheduled for Houston in the first place isn’t immediately clear.

You’re Not Really Writing About Anything, Are You?: We could, we suppose, have taken the day off, but here we are at the time we usually with a keyboard in front of us. Sue us.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! An American Indian, given the name Ishi, wanders out of the northern California wilderness into the town of Oroville on this date in 1911. Though no one, especially Ishi, is entirely sure, he is believed to be about 50-years-old and this is his first contact with the Western world.

Up Against The Wall And Spread ‘Em: Americans being Americans, Ishi wasn’t taken in by a concerned citizen but rather taken into custody by the sheriff. His story caught the attention of two professors at UC Berkeley who took him in, hired him as a research assistant and gave him quarters at the UC San Francisco law school.

Fly In The Ointment II: Lacking immunity to some of the diseases regular contact with Californians produces, Ishi was often sick and died in 1916

Great Moments In The Cold War: The Soviet Union tests its first nuclear weapon on this date in 1951, in what is now northeast Kazakhstan. Though this and future nuclear tests were not conducted on anyone’s front porch, the effects on locals living nearby was as significant as it was tragic with exponential increased in, among other things, cancer and birth defects.

The Soviets didn’t broadcast the proceedings and the first signs the Western world got of the test was a US weather plane flying near Japan picked up traces of the fallout on September 1.

The Long And Winding Road: The Beatles appear on stage for the last time, playing at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on this date in 1966. A baseball and football stadium, Candlestick was set up with the stage behind second base with a chain link fence set up around it. With an attendance of 22,000 or so, the stadium was half full. The opening acts were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes.

Running The Numbers: The Beatles were paid $90,000 – about $666,000 is today’s money – and took 65 percent of the gross, which resulted in a net loss to the promoters.

Quotebook: All rising to great place is by a winding stair. – Francis Bacon

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Strom Thurmond served 47 years in the United States Senate, the third longest tenure on record.

Today’s Stumper: Who is the only musician other than the Beatles to receive label credit on a Beatles record? – Answer next time!

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REED AND MALLOY THIS AIN’T: The Trump Administration will once again permit the federal government to distribute surplus military equipment to municipal and state police agencies. This means local police departments will once again have access to armored vehicles, grenade launchers and large caliber firearms. For a nation conceived in liberty, this is wrong and troubling.

Crystal Ball Me: A hundred years from now when History looks back at what used to be the United States and chronicles what led to our downfall, this will be a contributing factor. The militarization of police – or, more accurately, our tolerance of it.

Consider This: Organizations tend to use the resources they have and eventually the police will use their grenade launchers and large-caliber weapons on us. And as the police get better armed, so will the citizens they are sworn to protect. There will be more and more confrontations and these will become more and more violent. It probably won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen. 

Dry, Technical Matter: The authority for the federal government to give surplus military equipment to police departments had been rescinded by President Obama in 2015. It was originally granted by Congress in 1990.

Can We Get Back On Message Here?: Police say us citizens are increasingly violent, and they’re right, but you know what? It’s our government’s fault this is happening.

Leading Off: Our nation has been at war continuously since 1989. That means we are coming up on 30 years without our nation having a single day at peace with the world. The ramifications of this are profound:

If a country cannot be at peace with the world, it is folly to expect it to be at peace with itself.

Once More…With Feeling: Violence begets violence and it is not reasonable to expect an America perpetually at war to produce peaceful citizens. America’s government is violent and America’s citizens are violent and thinking that is a coincidence is folly.

And Now This: Honestly, the violence that drug’s continuing criminalization causes is all our fault, too. The drug war has failed on so many levels it isn’t even funny. Actually, it’s tragic. Decriminalize drugs – which people are going to use whether they’re legal or not – and the violence disappears. Dealers become vendors, users become customers and nobody is a criminal. The violence associated with getting drugs into the country and to consumers will disappear.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We said this every hour on the hour while campaigning for both the United States Senate and House of Representatives:   

Just because something is legal does not make it mandatory. If you don’t like drugs, you are under no obligation to use them.

The Bottom Line: If America had been at peace every day for the last three decades this would not be an issue because America would be significantly less violent than it is now and police would not think they need surplus military equipment. The fact they will be able to access them again means we are counting down to the day they will use them.

GREAT MOMENTS IN US RACE RELATIONS: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black visiting relatives in Mississippi, is kidnapped and killed on this date in 1955. Four days earlier Till and some friends had been in a Money, Mississippi grocery store where Till had an encounter with a white named Carolyn Bryant, 21, who owned the store with her equally white husband, Roy. Exactly what happened still isn’t clear, but Roy Bryant took offense and along with his half-brother J.W. Milam took Till to a barn where he was beaten, shot and thrown into a river. Till’s body was found three days later.

Yeah, This Is The Upset Of The Year: Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury. Since you cannot be tried again for a crime you’ve been acquitted of, Bryant and Milam would later admit in a magazine interview they had killed Till, which everybody already knew anyway.  

I Have A Dream Where Blacks Can’t Vote: South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond begins a 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster in the United States Senate on this date in 1957. Thurmond was trying to prevent Senate approval of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which ultimately become law on September 9.

FunFact: Thurmond’s speech remains the longest filibuster in US Senate history.

Really FunFact: Thurmond’s oldest child, a daughter who died in 2013, was half-black. She was the issue of Thurmond’s affair with his family’s black maid.

I  Have A Dream, Too: Martin Luther King, Jr delivers the I Have A Dream speech – one of the great speeches in American history – on this date in 1963. King was speaking at the March For Jobs and Freedom in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. An estimated 250,000 people, 60,000 of them white, were in attendance.

Fly In The Ointment: The sound system had been sabotaged the day before the march. Organizers were unable to fix it themselves and the government, seeing organizer’s point about a quarter of million people rioting when they couldn’t hear anything, had the Army Corps of Engineers fix it.

Quotebook: I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal”. – Martin Luther King Jr, 8/28/1963

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The three future presidents that served in the Black Hawk War were presidents of the United States Abraham Lincoln and Zachary Taylor and president of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis.

Today’s Stumper: How long did Strom Thurmond serve in the United States Senate? – Answer next time!

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DID WE CALL IT OR…WELL, ACTUALLY WE DIDN’T CALL IT: Saturday night’s boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor actually lasted longer than a lot of people – including the wizards here at your Daily Dose – thought it would go, with Mayweather stopping McGregor by TKO in the tenth round.

CYA! CYA! Regular readers of this crap might recall we had our bases nicely covered, having bravely offering scenarios showing neither fighter getting out of the second round. Mayweather was too old. McGregor was too inexperienced. Good thing we didn’t offer betting advice.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: Mayweather, now 50-0, got lucky. His put his undefeated record, not to mention his legacy, on the line for one final payday and got away with it. There was no guarantee he would. He can now retire as one of the very best there was at what he did, boxing and making piles of cash.

Once McGregor made it out of the early rounds, everything else was gravy. Nobody knows what he felt inside once the brash exterior was brushed away, but he has every right to feel that 10 rounds with Mayweather, even though he lost, wasn’t too far removed from victory. McGregor did well early, too, before Mayweather restored some order in the later rounds and McGregor tired.

Dry, Technical Matter: We were hoping for a complete mismatch so we could jump on our high horse and say what suckers everyone was for buying into this fiasco, but we were wrong. Make no mistake, this bout was not sanctioned by any of the 83 international boxing governing bodies and was nothing more than a spectacle, about as athletically relevant as a regular season NBA game. Its sole purpose was to make rich people even richer, but the sporting public, more or less, got their money’s worth this time.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Rome falls to a foreign enemy of the first time since the 4th century BC on this date in 410, when the Visigoths complete their invasion and sacking of the city after three days.

While there wasn’t a wholesale slaughter of the natives as was common back then, many Romans were made refugees, taken prisoner or sold into slavery and, of course, the entire city was relieved of their valuables. Though Rome would continue for a few more decades, this invasion was a major reason Rome would fall before the century was out. 

FunFact: It was the first time Rome had fallen since 390 or 387 BC, depending on whose accounts and dating system you want to believe, when they were invaded by the Gauls. 

USA! USA!: The Black Hawk War ends on this date in 1832 when Sauk leader Black Hawk surrenders to the US Army.

The war had begun in April when Black Hawk led a group of Indians from Iowa, which was then Indian territory, into Illinois. No one is entirely sure why Black Hawk entered Illinois, though it was possible he was trying to reclaim land ceded to the United States in 1804. It wasn’t the first time Black Hawk had done battle with the US, having fought for the British in the War of 1812.

Oh Yeah: After his surrender, Black Hawk, along with some other Indians, were taken on a tour of eastern cities. After the tour, Black Hawk settled in what is now southeastern Iowa, where he died in 1838.

Those Zany Canadians: Five women from Alberta – known in Canada as the Famous Five – ask the Supreme Court of Canada to decide whether women are persons on this date in 1927. The question stemmed from Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867 which states, in part:

The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen’s Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified Persons to the Senate…

The Famous Five wanted to know if Persons included women.

Not The Opinion They Were Looking For: Turns out it didn’t. The Court heard arguments the following March and ruled in April, 1928 that:

Understood to mean ‘Are women eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada,’ the question is answered in the negative.”

“The Exclusion Of Women From All Public Offices Is A Relic Of Days More Barbarous Than Ours…”: The opinion would later be overturned on appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a quaint, British institution that at the time was the final court of appeal Commonwealth nations, and still is for some.

Really Dry Technical Matter: This was not a court case the Supreme Court was ruling on, it was what is known up north as a reference case, which is a request for an advisory opinion from the court.

Great Moments In Being Close To Mars And Stuff: Mars and Earth are a mere 34.646 million miles apart on this date in 2003, the closest they’ve been in 60,000 years. It will be the closest the two planets will get until August, 2287 when they will be 34.603 million miles away.

FunFact: When both planets are on opposite sides of Mr Sun, Earth and Mars can be as many 249 million miles apart.

Quotebook: There must have been something more those men struggled for…something that held out great promise to all the people of the world for all time to come. – Abraham Lincoln, speech to New Jersey legislature, February 1861

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The last time prior to 1978 the Catholic Church had three popes was 1605: Clement VIII, Leo XI and Paul V.

Today’s Stumper: Three future presidents fought in the Black Hawk War. Name them. – Answer next time!

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AT LEAST WE’RE CONSISTENT: The cacophony over Robert E Lee statues – some of which are being covered up or taken down – is as illuminating as it is disheartening. It shows our racial divide is as wide as ever and national discourse – never our strong suit, going back to the founding of this republic – is as chaotic and disjointed as ever.  

Fly In The Ointment: This got us thinking. We start taking down monuments to Confederate slave owners, what do we do about American slave owners? Where does it stop? Should Charlottesville, Virginia – which has covered up a Lee statue – take down their Thomas Jefferson statues, too?

A Valid Question: Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States has a lot to answer for because though he wrote the words “All men are created equal” he did nothing to end slavery either on his plantation or in his country.

You can say this and you can say that, but it is difficult to argue with the last part of that sentence:

…he did nothing to end slavery either on his plantation or in his country.

But not only are there statues of him, one of three main monuments in our nation’s capital is dedicated to him and he is one of four presidents memorialized on Mount Rushmore. 

Dry, Technical Matter: Their slaves notwithstanding, both men served their country well. Jefferson, of course, attended our nation’s birth and later served as secretary of state, vice president and president. Lee served America honorably and well, too, before deciding his allegiance was with his home state of Virginia. He served the Confederacy honorably and well, too, if not particularly brilliantly as he had a tendency towards high casualty encounters when he had few men to spare.

The Bottom Line: Let’s leave all the statues up. If someplace has a statue or a monument to someone that offends you, don’t go there. The disgraces and inequalities of the past – and of the present, for that matter – are acknowledged. Lee and Jefferson, and others were men, not images on stained glass windows; they were as flawed as we are.

Some Philosophy Crap: This nation has done enough bickering on this matter and by continuing to do so we are allowing our past to define and control us. This is paralyzing our tomorrows.   

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Michelangelo receives a commission from a French cardinal to carve what would become The Pieta on this date in 1498. Michelangelo, then in his early 20’s, would finish the work in less than two years. The Pieta shows a dead Jesus Christ laying on Mary’s lap and is currently housed in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. 

Oh Yeah: It remains the only work Michelangelo ever signed. It’s been said that shortly after the work was put on public display, Michelangelo overheard someone say it had been done by someone else, so Michelangelo put his name on Mary’s sash to remove all doubt, a move he later regretted.

Hey Batter, Batter: Owen Wilson of the Pittsburgh Pirates hits three triples in a doubleheader against the Boston Braves, giving him 32 for the season, a new major league record. Wilson would finish the year with 36 triples, a record that still stands.

Yeah, This Is Interesting: While we haven’t put this mark on our personal list of records that will never be broken, it has yet to be seriously threatened. The most triples anyone has hit in a season since 1950 is 23, done by Curtis Granderson, then of the Detroit Tigers, in 2007.

Go In Peace, Serve The Lord: John Paul I is elected pope on this date in 1978, replacing Pope Paul VI. John Paul would die 33 days later, the tenth shortest papacy ever. The College of Cardinals would then report back to Rome for duty and elect John Paul II pope in October.

Welcome Back: Kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard, who had been kidnapped in June 1991 while walking to a school bus stop, is found on this date in 2009.

Criminals Are Stupid: One of Dugard’s kidnappers had shown up on the campus of UC Berkeley two days earlier with the two daughters Dugard had borne him looking for a permit to distribute religious fliers. Two female campus police officers were immediately suspicious and asked Phillip Garrido to report to his parole officer the following day. Garrido complied, showing up with the girls and Dugard, whom he identified as his wife. Everyone was separated and after no small amount of questioning, Garrido confessed to kidnapping Dugard.

Oh Yeah: Garrido is serving a prison term of 431 years and his wife Nancy was sentenced to 36-years to life. Dugard’s whereabouts are unknown.

Quotebook: Lost in the cacophony of Oprah and O.J. are those classical values that once made a Saturday afternoon track meet so appealing. Of running for the love of competition, of throwing a javelin for applause and an olive wreath. Of sweating for hours on a lonesome track at dusk for the chance of maybe one day hearing the anthem. Of honor and glory and the spirit of victory, not the spoils. – Mark Zeigler, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/20/95

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: 2,271 Americans have died in the war in Afghanistan.

Today’s Stumper: 1978 is the last year there were three popes. When was the last year before 1978 that there were three popes? – Answer next time!

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