Notes from around the Human Experience…

MOOCH, WE HARDLY KNEW YOU, WHICH IS A GOOD THING: The fun simply is not stopping at the White House. There was a time when we occasionally sat down to write this feature without much idea what we were going to cover.

Not anymore. In fact, the screed we had planned for today concerning some fight between a boxer and an MMA fighter was eagerly tossed aside for the latest from the White House.

This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us: President Donald Trump – President Donald Trump! – plainly deciding there was only room for one blowhard in his administration, allowed the dismissal his new Communications Director Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci Monday after ten days of loud, profane service.

But We Digress: Actually, it is with mixed emotions that we see The Mooch go. Based on his potty-mouthed, expletive-ridden beginning, it was reasonable to believe Scaramucci could be counted on to provide no shortage of material for us halfwit columnists. Which was probably the problem because nobody in the Trump Administration is allowed to produce more material or be louder than the president.

And let’s be honest, The Mooch wasn’t going to do anybody much good, especially new Chief of Staff John Kelly, who requested The Mooch be sent home.

Now Hear This: The usual people are saying the usual things about how some order might now be restored to the White House but don’t kid yourself. Trump is completely in his element here. Total chaos is reigning and since Trump’s greatest skill is drawing attention to himself he embraces chaos like he embraces and feels up women. It’s second nature and chaos will always be the order of the day or, if not center stage, at least off to the side awaiting her cue in the Trump White House.

Uh-Oh: Speaking of Kelly, he is the first former general to be chief of staff to a president since Alexander Haig in the Nixon Administration, and we all know how that ended.

Better Roll Up Your Sleeves, General: Kelly has his work cut out for him. Forget changing President Trump. No one will do that because Trump is too in love with himself to change anything. Kelly is no dummy and he probably won’t try. His challenge will be to change the culture in West Wing from backbiting and infighting to actually doing the president some good, even if the president is fighting and Tweeting you every step of the way.

A Warm, Personal Story: Maybe Kelly can shore things up in the mail room. A few weeks ago, just for funsies, we emailed the White House applying for the Secretary of the Army position, which is still vacant. We were interested in the Secretary of the Navy position, but the Administration had a nominee lined up. While our candidacy could charitably be called a long shot, we are not complete idiots and applied in the spirit of further and continuing service to our country. Last week we received a reply, a letter from the president not thanking us for our interest, but discussing how much good he was going to do our economy.

GOING…GOING…GONE: Mel Ott of the New York Giants hits his 500th career home run on this date in 1945, joining Babe Ruth and Jimmy Foxx as the only players to accomplish the feat.

FunFact(s): This was an era when home runs didn’t grow on trees. Ott would be the last player to join the 500 home run club until Ted Williams in 1960. Ott retired with 511 home runs and would remain in the Top 10 of the career home run list through the 1971 season.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: The Giants beat the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds that day 9-2. With the win, they move to 10.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs, who lost to Pittsburgh 1-0.

“I  Never Could Quite Make It. These Thoughts Are Too Much For Me.”: Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old  psychopath and student at the University of Texas, Austin, kills 15 people on this date in 1966. His own death, the death of an unborn child and the 2001 death of a man who died from injuries sustained in the attack would bring the total death toll to 18. 

It’s Good To Get An Early Start: Whitman started just after midnight murdering his mother and wife. His suicide note indicated he did this to spare them the embarrassment that would result from what he planned to do later in the day.

Whitman arrived on campus about 11:30 and killed three people on his way to the observation deck, from which he began firing about 20 minutes later, killing 13 more and injuring 31. Whitman would be shot and killed by Austin police officers after 96 minutes of shooting.

Dry, Technical Matter: An autopsy did show a Whitman had a small brain tumor, though it’s unclear if this led to his mental state.

Quote Book: Where there are so many, all speech becomes a debate without end. But two together may perhaps find wisdom. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Franziska van Almsick, a German swimmer, has won ten Olympic medals without winning a gold medal, the most of any athlete.

Today’s Stumper: Whitman’s massacre at the University of Texas was the deadliest college campus shooting to date. Which college campus massacre replaced it? – Answer next time!

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Notes from around the Human Experience…

BOY, GAYLON’S SURE BEEN ON THE RAG LATELY: Over the years, more than one person has said that a freely elected government is merely a reflection of the people who elected them. Let’s take a look at America today and see if that’s true.

Leading Off: Recently, we hired a president who is blatherskite, a brash and offensive man whose only real talent is drawing attention to himself. He governs off the top his head. He has a tendency to say things that are insensitive, insulting and false. He does not have a long-term plan for our country.

The Hard Truth: Of course, this is a reflection of America today. America can be brash and offensive and why should we expect our president to have a long-term plan for our country when, collectively, us Americans don’t have one? Admit it, we have been at war every day since 1989 and we are hopelessly and mindlessly in debt and if we really cared about changing those things we would have done something about them years ago.

We haven’t, though. America is without guidance, either from her leaders or her citizens and every Election Day we relentlessly send back to Washington the same leaders who got us into this mess. We expect things to change despite the fact we keep electing the status quo.

FunFact: Congress is a reflection of us, too: like us, it is a partisan, fractured and bickering hot mess utterly unable to discuss, much less do, anything of substance for our country.

Dry, Technical Matter: If we do not elect men of substance to govern us, it is because America is no longer a country of substance. The America that once sent men to the moon and back can no longer send anyone into space. The America that was once an example for other nations has left the building and if you doubt that go and read some foreign newspapers because the rest of the world is, collectively, wondering just what in the hell has gotten into us.

Stop Us If You Heard This Before/The Bottom Line: If you and me – we the people – do not start making some changes on Election Day our country is going to collapse, tossed aside the scrap heap of history, probably before this half-century is out.

Stop Us If You Heard This Before/The Bottom Line II: The fault for our government is ours. Not the incumbents, not the media and not the lobbyists, ours. We are tolerating all of this. Only when collectively we decide to stop tolerating this will America be great again.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Dr Patrick F Healy becomes the first black to become president of a mostly white university when he becomes president of Georgetown University on this date in 1874.

Technically. Healy was mostly white, the issue of a white father and a slave mother who herself was the daughter of a white father a slave mother. Since Healy’s mother was a slave, he was a slave, too, though his father sent him and his siblings north for school and more opportunities than being a slave could offer. Once north, Healy was able to pass himself off as Irish.

Close, But No Cigar: Bill Burns of the Chicago White Sox becomes the first major league pitcher to have two no-hitters broken up with two outs in the ninth inning on this date in 1909. Pitching against the Washington Senators, Burns’ no-hitter is broken up by Otis Clymer, though Burns would hold on for a 1-0 victory.

The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: In May of 1908, pitching for Washington, Burns lost to Detroit 1-0 when Germany Schaefer’s single with two out in the top of the ninth brought home the game’s only run.

Some Places Have Interns For This: Burns’ record would stand until Dave Steib of the Toronto Blue Jays would lose two no-hitters and a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning between September, 1988 and August, 1989.

Oh Yeah: Later, Burns would act as a messenger between the gamblers who wanted to fix the 1919 World Series and the Chicago White Sox who were willing to do it.

You Know, You’re Just Encouraging Them: The Nazi Party is the biggest winner in German federal elections held on this date in 1932, winning 37 percent of the vote and 230 seats in the German parliament. This was not a majority, however, and the Nazi’s were unable to form a coalition government because the communists and socialists were not about to align with them.

The results were so inconclusive the minority government of Franz von Papen continued to govern. A following election in November was equally inconclusive.

F*ck This Election Noise: All of  this became academic when Adolf Hitler seized power the following January.

Oh. Bloody Hell: After 315 years, the daily rum ration ends in the British Royal Navy on this date in 1970. The day is referred to as Black Tot Day.

FunFact: The rum ration had begun in 1655, replacing the issuance of a gallon of beer daily per sailor. The Royal Navy had made this change because that was a lot of gallons of beer to store on board a ship and it also resulted in really drunk sailors. 

USA! USA! From 1794 through 1914 the US Navy authorized a daily booze ration for its sailors. US sailors are still authorized a two-beer ration if they have been out to sea for 45 straight days and are at least five days away from returning to port. Other navies have beer rations, too.

More USA! USA!: Swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 19th Olympic medal, breaking the record of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina on this date in 2012 at the London Summer Games.

For The Record: Phelps would ultimately completely shatter the mark, having now won a total of 28 medals, including a record 23 gold medals.

Quote Book: We are going to sing so that they will remember this for the rest of their lives. There is no other reason to do it, folks, none. Garrison Keillor, Love Me

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The first game of the National Football League – then known as American Professional Football Association – was played on September 26, 1920. The Rock Island Independents defeated the St. Paul Ideals 48-0.

Today’s Stumper: What Olympian has won the most medals without winning a gold medal? – Answer next time!

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NFL = NOT FOR LONG: The evidence is hard to ignore: you play professional football, you get brain damage. We’ve talked before in this space about whether or not the National Football League (NFL) will be around in a generation or two and the more we think about it the more we think it may not.

The reason is there may not be enough decent players to field an entire 32-team league. High school and youth football participation numbers continue to decline. Not enough to herald an immediate end to the NFL, of course, but as more and more studies connect playing football with brain damage and as more and more former NFL players die too young and as more and more parents refuse to let their kids play football, it is not unreasonable to conclude the NFL might not be around forever.

Editor’s Note: since they are the most relevant to today’s Daily Dose, the following figures are for boys playing 11-man football. 

Running The Numbers: In the 1969-70 school year, over 850,000 kids at 13,959 schools played high school football, according the National Federation of High School Athletic Associations (NF), the national governing body for high school sports in the US. Football participation peaked in the 2008-09 school year at 1.112 million kids and in 2015-16, the most recent year figures are available for, 1.083 million boys participated in 11-man football, down about 300 from the previous year.

For The Record: There are 1,349 schools – all west of the Mississippi River – that offer 6,8 or 9-man football, as well as over two thousand girls that play interscholastic football.

Those Were The Days: Also in 1969-70, 16 states reported that 263 students participated in interscholastic rugger, which is similar to rugby, and had 465 participants in 22 states that school year.

Dry, Technical Matter: The number of schools offering football is dropping, too, from a high of 14,279 in 2009-10, to 14,071 in 2015-16. Also,youth football participation has dropped between a quarter and a third this decade, depending on who you believe.

Circumstantially, these numbers do not herald an immediate end to football as we know it. Intrinsically, however, they are troublesome.

Fly In The Ointment: Fewer high school players mean fewer lower level programs, meaning kids who really aren’t ready for it will be playing varsity ball. More kids will be playing both offense and defense. Fewer youth and middle school football players means kids that do show up for the first day of practice their freshman year are less prepared for high school football. All of these factors make it likely that more and more kids will not stick around for four years of high school football.

The Bottom Line: Friends, once this cycle gets some traction, participation numbers will start to plummet and in time not only will there be fewer kids playing football, there will be fewer good players playing football and in time, perhaps within a generation, the quality of play – and interest – in major college and professional football will decrease.

CAN THE LOBBYISTS BE FAR BEHIND: The Virginia House of Burgesses, the first elected representative assembly in what would become the United States, meets for the first time on this date in 1619.

Meeting at the church in Jamestown, 22 members showed up for a scheduled six-day session, thought a malaria outbreak means not much was accomplished.

Some Places Have Interns For This: The House of Burgesses would meet until 1776, when the colony of Virginia became a commonwealth and the House of Burgesses became the House of Delegates.

The End Is Near: Yielding a Supreme Court ruling from July 24, President Richard Nixon releases White House tapes that were under court subpoena on this date in 1974.

The tapes are not of Nixon and his aides ordering lunch. Among other things, they show Nixon and John Dean clearly discussing the cover-up and hush money payments. Nixon would resign the presidency on August 9.

The End Of An Era: After 65 years and 21,529,464 cars, the final VW Beetle rolls off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico on this date in 2003. The Beetle remains the longest produced and most manufactured car ever produced.

FunFact: The Beetle was designed by Ferdinand Porsche on orders from Adolf Hitler to produce a simple, cheap car. Volkswagen would produce the Beetle for the United States until 1977 and Europe until 1985.

Quote Book: Would he spend the rest of his life here…watching hope slip away along with the years, until there was nothing left to live for and time had finally run out? – Alex Haley, Roots

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Prince Charles has been the heir apparent to the British throne since his mother, Queen Elizabeth II became queen in 1952. He is longest serving heir apparent in British history.

Today’s Stumper: When was the first National Football League game played? – Answer next time!

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WHILE WE WERE OUT: The good thing about taking a couple of days off during the Trump Administration is you know there will be material for a column waiting for you when you return to work.

So it was this time, as earlier this week President Trump let it be known that transgenders will no longer be allowed to serve in the armed forces. Like other Trump pronouncements, precedents were followed.

Leading Off: One, it came via Twitter.

On Deck: Two, it surprised those who would be affected by it. The Pentagon was so surprised by the announcements they told reporters who asked about the new plan to “call the White House”.

In The Hole: And, three, no specifics were given.

This Is Not Your Father’s GOP: Like most everything else that has come out of the Trump Administration, this action is contrary for the sake of being contrary, spiteful for the sake of being spiteful. The GOP has nothing original to offer our country; it’s sole purpose is to undo everything done by the Democrats.

Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: Non-heterosexuals have been serving this country honorably since the Revolution and to keep transgenders from serving is wrong. 

With This Caveat: It is not unreasonable to expect transgender recruits to be fully transitioned to their new gender before enlisting or accepting a commission or a warrant. If you are a girl who really should have been born a boy and you are determined to become a boy and you want to join the service, become a boy before you join, at your expense, or at whomever’s expense you can foist the cost off on. There is no reason for the government to pay for it.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! The Olympics return when the Games of the 14th Olympiad open in London on this date in 1948, the first Summer Games since 1936 in Berlin, Germany. 59 countries and over 4,000 athletes participated but because they had tried to take over the world in War II, Germany and Japan were not allowed to participate.

USA! USA! Bob Mathias, 17-years-old and just a few weeks out of high school, won the decathlon and he remains the youngest male to win a track and field gold medal. He would defend his decathlon title in Helsinki in 1952 before retiring.

Dry, Technical Matter: Art competitions were held as official medal events for the final time, with medals awarded in architecture, literature, music, painting and graphic art, and sculpture. Despite the fact winners were issued the same medals as athletes, the International Olympic Committee does not count these in its official medal tallies.

Up, Up And Away: NASA comes into existence on this date in 1958, when President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act.

Holy Sh*t!: The Americans acted relatively quickly. The Soviet Union had launched the the first ever artificial satellite in October, 1957, and the US House passed the bill on July 2 and the US Senate two weeks later, thought it took some more time for the two houses to agree on a bill to send to the president.

Oh Yeah: NASA replaced the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, which had been around since 1915.

And So It Begins: David Berkowitz commits the first of what would become known as the Son of Sam killings on this date in 1976,when two women are shot in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx in New York City. One woman is killed and the other is injured.

All told, Berkowitz would kill six and injure seven. He was captured on August 10, 1977 and in May, 1978 pled guilty to six counts of murder and was sentenced to six consecutive terms of 25-years to life, meaning if he only served 25 years of each sentence, he would not be released until 2103.

Go In Peace, Serve The Lord: Berkowitz has found Christianity in prison, and is known to scorn his old Son of Sam moniker, preferring to refer to himself as the Son of Hope.

Till Divorce Do Us Part: Prince Charles, then and now heir apparent to the British throne occupied by his mother Queen Elizabeth, marries Lady Diana Spencer on this date in 1981. Their union was troubled almost from the start, and the couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: John Demjanjuk, a retired American auto worker born in the Ukraine, is acquitted by the Israeli Supreme Court of all charges associated with being a Nazi on this date in 1993. He had been deported to Israel from the United States to stand trial in 1986.

Though he was acquitted by the Jews he had been accused of murdering, Demjanjuk troubles were just beginning. In 2005 the United States ordered him deported to Germany, Poland or the Ukraine and would be deported to Germany in 2009 where he was charged with 27,900 counts of murder, which is a lot. In May, 2011, at the age of 91, Demjanjuk was convicted as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 people and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released pending appeal, and the presiding judge suspended the remainder of the sentence on the theory he had already served two years in Germany, plus eight in Israel on charges that were later overturned.

The End: Demjanjuk died in Germany in March, 2012. 

Quote Book: And yet I knew that what I saw wasn’t as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for it all, a general falsity, that could easily be believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end street. – Charles Bukowski,  Ham On Rye

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The 94th Engineer Battalion, the last all-black United States military unit, was disbanded in 1954.  

Today’s Stumper: How long has Prince Charles been heir apparent to the British throne? – Answer next time!

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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…: You know, one of the things us whack-jobs who run as third-party candidates like to say is there really is not much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans.  

The More They Stay The Same: Sure, they might claim some philosophical and policy differences and they have different animals as their mascots, but in the end it doesn’t matter who’s in power because nothing gets done. Neither individually nor collectively are our two major parties able to do anything of substance for our country.

Now Hear This: While some might be heralding a new era with the Trump Administration, there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between presidents Obama and Trump. Both talk a good game. Obama had a smooth, resonant voice, but we spent his two terms marking time. America is still at war and we got farther and farther in debt. OK, there are a lot more people with health insurance now, but you and I  – we the people – subsidize most of those purchases with our tax dollars. A government subsidizing private businesses is the utter antithesis of what a free-market economy is about. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not in the spirit of a nation conceived in liberty.

Trump talks a good game, too, blathering and yapping and never offering specifics. It’s what earned him the White House. But despite having a GOP majority in Congress, he’s has accomplished nothing of substance. The GOP plan to repeal the ACA is petty and spiteful, as bad in its own way as the ACA itself.

No matter who’s in power, nothing is getting done. We are still fighting wars not declared by Congress. We remain hopelessly and mindlessly in debt. The innocent are still being convicted.

Stop Us If You Heard This Before: This is all our fault because we have taken a flier on holding our leaders accountable for the crap they’ve done to this country. We continue to sanction it every Election Day. We have no one to blame for our partisan, fractured and bickering government but ourselves.   

WE DELIVER FOR YOU: What would become the United States Postal Service is founded on this date in 1775 when the Second Continental Congress establishes:

…that a line of posts be appointed under the direction of the Postmaster general, from Falmouth in New England to Savannah in Georgia…

Already in revolution to the King, the Congress  slashes prices, too, declaring that postage would be “20 percent less than those appointed by Parliament”. Congress also decreed the post office would be headquartered in Philadelphia, that Benjamin Franklin would be the first postmaster general and that he would receive a yearly salary of $1,000.

Hindsight Is 20/20: Major General George McClellan takes command of the Army of the Potomac on this date in 1861, relieving Brigadier General Irvin McDowell after the First Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War.

While a fine organizer, McClellan spent most of his time preparing for war and overestimating enemy troop counts instead of actually fighting, exasperating President Lincoln. He would serve until Lincoln finally had enough in November, 1862.

Uh, Thanks For Everything Winston, Now Go: Despite having guided Britain through World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his Conservative Party lose the the general election to Clement Attlee’s Labour Party on this date in 1945. Attlee would serve until 1951 when he was replaced by Churchill.

Ten-Hut!: President Harry Truman signs an executive order desegregating the United States military on this date in 1948.

Fly In The Ointment: There was not immediate racial harmony, however. Some post facilities would remain segregated for years and, like their civilian counterpart, military courts would be disproportionately hard on blacks and Truman’s order did little to address off-post discrimination.

3…2…1…Blastoff: Apollo 15 launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida on this date in 1971. Four days later Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irvin would become the seventh and eighth humans to land on the moon.

Far from the two-and-a-half hours Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent on the moon, Scott and Irvin had the longest stay to date, spending three days on the lunar surface and 18-and-a-half hours exploring the moon. Apollo 15 would return to Earth on August 7.

Quote Book: He stood in that infrequent but dread state of knowing he had observed history with his own eyes. – McKinley Kantor,  Andersonville

Editor’s Note: The above is the first quote in Gaylon’s personal quote book, begun in a motel room in Berkeley, California in the fall of 1988. 

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words long.

Today’s Stumper: When was the last all-black military in the United States disbanded? – Answer next time!

Gaylon was the Colorado Libertarian Party’s nominee for the United States Senate in 2014 and the United States House of Representatives in 2016. All told, he was able to con just under 70,000 to vote for him.

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