The Daily Dose/January 25, 2017
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The Daily Dose/January 25, 2017
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
GET OUT YOUR HISTORY BOOKS: Earlier this month the University of Connecticut, commonly known as UConn, women’s basketball team, coached by Geno Auriemma, tied, then broke, the NCAA record for most consecutive wins by a basketball team with their 90th and then their 91st consecutive victory. The record covers both genders and all divisions.
They broke the record set by the UConn women’s basketball team, also coached by Auriemma, who won 90 straight from November 2008 through December 2010. This streak broke the all-time NCAA record set by John Wooden’s UCLA squads, who won 88-straight games from January 1971- January 1974.
Once More, With Feeling: The significance of this cannot be overstated:
A team broke its own record!
This does not happen too often. There are a few instances of it in the baseball record book but they are rare. For one person to do something better than anyone else is noteworthy enough. To do it again is almost super-human.
Some Places Have Interns For This Crap: The NBA has a couple of examples of this. In November 1957, Bill Russell established the record for Most Rebounds in an NBA game with 49. He broke it again with 51 rebounds in February 1960. Similarly, Wilt Chamberlain established the NBA single-game scoring in January 1961 with 78 points and broke it with his 100-point game in March 1962.
Back On Message: Some like to dismiss Auriemma’s accomplishments because he coaches chicks. Their loss. Not only is Auriemma the holder of the two longest winning streaks in college basketball, but he has won eleven NCAA championships, also a record for a NCAA basketball coach, and he has won three Olympic gold medals coaching the US women’s team. By any measure, Auriemma is one of the very best there has ever been at what he does, which is coach college basketball.
Some malcontents like to say further that the competition isn’t as tough in women’s college basketball, that they’re simply aren’t that many quality teams. OK, so what? If the competition is substandard why hasn’t anyone else done it?
The Bottom Line: Excellence was there for the taking and only Geno has put up these numbers. While the players are different, the coach is the same and matching and then breaking your own record is a tremendous accomplishment.
THOSE ZANY ROYALS: King of England Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn on this date in 1533. It’s the second marriage for Henry, who was actually still married to Queen Catherine, whom he had wed 24 years earlier, though she had been banished from court a couple of years earlier.
Henry, though, had the hots for Anne and was bound and determined to marry her. Pope Clement VII, however, declined to annul his marriage to Catherine, but the new Archbishop of Canterbury, no fool, had no such qualms and did his duty, annulling the marriage in May 1533. A few days later he declared Henry’s marriage to Anne valid and England’s break with the Catholic Church was underway.
Their union produced the future Queen Elizabeth I, but other attempts to produce a male heir failed and soon Henry VIII was dating around again and Anne was executed in 1536.
Is This The Party To Whom I Am Speaking?: Alexander Graham Bell in New York City and Thomas Watson in San Francisco conduct the first transcontinental telephone call on this date in 1915.
A Nice Accomplice To History: Watson was, of course, Bell’s assistant for several years, and was on the receiving end of History’s first telephone call on March 10, 1876 when Bell called him from the next room.
Higher…Stronger…Colder: What History now refers to as the first Winter Olympics open in Chamonix, France on this date in 1924. They were then known as the International Winter Sports Week and were held in conjunction with the 1924 Summer Olympics, to be held in Paris later in the year.
Dry, Technical Matter: Norway and Finland each won four gold medals. America won one, Charles Jewtraw in 500-meter speed skating, and the US hockey team won the silver medal.
Thought For The Day: When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is. – Louis L’Amour, The Lonesome Dove
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The oldest continuously operating military unit in the world is the King’s Own Immemorial 1st Infantry Regiment, founded in Spain in 1248.
Today’s Stumper: When was ice hockey first contested at the Olympic Games? Answer next time!
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The Daily Dose/January 22, 2017
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The Daily Dose/January 22, 2017
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
AMERICA…LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE ONCE GREAT: As we noted in our last column, President Trump’s inaugural address came in at about 1,400 words. Most of them sounded like he was back on the campaign trail and did not have the broad, historical perspective the very best inaugural addresses have had over the centuries.
Some of his words, though, weren’t too bad and the following 25 words hit the nail right on the head:
Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving…
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: Bingo. We have expressed similar sentiments before, both here and while campaigning for the United States Senate and House of Representatives:
America has stopped dreaming.
For a while now America has settled for being well-entertained and, frankly, well-fed. The America that won World War II and remains the only nation to put men on the moon has left the building. We have been derelict in our duties as the world’s only superpower and the consequences of this dereliction are widespread.
Leading Off: One, we haven’t put a human on Mars. Not only have we missed out on the accomplishment itself, but we’ve missed out on the innovations this effort would have required.
Two, no one looks up to America anymore.
They used to, despite all our problems. Despite having once allowing slavery, despite making every non-white male fight tooth and nail for every gain, despite every obstacle we threw up, America used to mean something to the rest of the world.
We can again. In fact, we’ve always felt America has an obligation to mean something to the rest of the world. However, America will not start meaning something to the rest of the world until we start meaning something to ourselves again, until we start thinking big again and start striving again.
The Bottom Line: America hasn’t strived since we left the moon in December 1972. We have stopped dreaming and striving and have become content. We have become a second-rate country, mired in perpetual war, mindless debt and fractured and divided society. We elected a president who – an occasional well-turned phrase notwithstanding – is utterly without qualification, class or civility. Four years from now we will probably still be at war and hopelessly in debt, four years closer to our ultimate collapse, probably before this half-century is out.
TEN-HUT! 150 members of the Swiss Guard arrive in the Vatican City to protect Pope Julius II on this date in 1506. Julius had been a bishop in Switzerland before becoming Pope, and upon becoming pope had requested a Swiss mercenary force for protection.
The Pontifical Swiss Guard still performs this role, as well as other security roles in Vatican City, and remains one of the oldest continually operating military elements in the world.
Now Hear This: The United States Supreme Court issues two rulings, Roe vs Wade and Doe vs Bolton, both of which remove all barriers to elective abortion in the United States. Roe decreed that the right to privacy established by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution extends to a woman’s right to have an abortion. The Doe ruling overturned Georgia’s abortion law, which had allowed it only in cases of rape, incest, deformity of the fetus or for the health of the mother.
Thought For The Day: …he who ceases to learn is already a half-dead man. Do not be like an oyster who rests on the sea bottom waiting for the good things to come by. Search for them. Find them. – Louis L’Amour, The Lonesome Dove
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The longest presidential inaugural address was 8,460 words in 1841 by William Henry Harrison. The shortest was George Washington’s second inaugural, 135 words, in 1793.
Today’s Stumper: What is the oldest military unit sill in continuous operation? Answer next time!
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The Daily Dose/January 21, 2017
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Donald Trump and the end of the American Century…
The Daily Dose/January 21, 2017
By Gaylon Kent=
America’s Funniest Guy
“WE ARE TRANSFERRING POWER FROM WASHINGTON, D.C, AND GIVING IT BACK YOU, THE PEOPLE”: Donald Trump – Donald Trump! – the divisive winner of the most divisive election in American history took the helm of a fractured and splintered country Friday in Washington, D.C.
“This Moment Is Your Moment…” Trump started out strong. Really strong, actually, and after a couple of minutes we were about ready to weep. Had he been able to keep this going the entire speech, History would be ranking it right up there with George Washington and John F Kennedy.
Die! Die! Die! But then he pissed the Muslims off by vowing to destroy the Islamic State and from there it deteriorated into something more resembling a campaign appearance than anything an incoming president of the United States speaking for History’s sake, with us citizens mere bystanders, might say.
Get Out Your History Books: Like you probably have, we’ve read every inaugural address here at the Daily Dose and we give Trump below average marks. He talked nothing about America’s place in the world, about our responsibilities to our fellow nations. It was if he was heralding the end of what some have referred to as the American Century.
The Bottom Line: Pros: While he didn’t look completely presidential, there was no doubt Trump was in complete command and not some wishy-washy politician trying to be all things to all people. He was Trump being Trump; if you like him, great, if you don’t, I don’t really think he cares.
Cons: Trump is, of course, a complete freakazoid. He made a complete ass of himself, and humiliated us, during the campaign and we remain confident he will be an utter embarrassment as president because the best indicator of future performance is past performance.
Me! Me! Me!: Considering Trump’s only real talent is drumming up interest in himself, and that he is one of the great egotists of all-time, the fact he only used the word “I” three times in his inaugural address is nothing short of miraculous. Here in the office, we had put the over/under at 546.
Dry, Technical Matter: Trump’s speech checked in at a bit more than 1,400 words, a bit less than the historical average of 2,000 or so for presidential inaugural addresses.
MEANWHILE, FROM THE AFRICA DESK: Friday’s peaceful transfer of power in Washington is in stark contrast to what is going in that bastion of democracy known as The Gambia, where president Yahya Jammeh initially refused to cede power. He had taken power 22 years ago in the obligatory African military coup but lost December’s election to Adama Barrow. During his term, Jammeh had the usual accusations such leaders are accustomed to, such as suppressed resistance and curtailed press freedoms, so it’s not a bulletin he was hesitant to give up power.
Dry, Technical Matter: Elections in The Gambia are conducted with marbles. We are not making that up. Voters receive a marble and place it in a sealed drum that has a picture of their desired candidate on it, a method that virtually eliminates disputed ballots.
Back On Message: Reports from The Gambia seem to indicate, however, that Jammeh – after some arm twisting by neighboring heads of state – has decided to step down.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE KING, AT LEAST UNTIL YOU’RE BEHEADED: Louis XVI, formerly the King of the French, is executed by guillotine on this date in 1793. The previous August Louis had been dethroned and arrested on charges of treason. He was indicted in December and had been convicted on January 15.
“The Saddest Day Of My Life…”: His home state of Mississippi having already seceded from the Union, Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate on this date in 1861. Three days later he would be appointed a major general in the Army of Mississippi and in February elected provisional president of the Confederacy.
Thought For The Day: Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. – Donald Trump, January 21, 2017
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The only other time in American history when four of five presidents were elected to and served consecutive terms was the period when George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe served two terms, sandwiching John Adams single term. The period that began with Ronald Reagan in 1981 and ended Friday with the end of Barack Obama’s term was the other.
Today’s Stumper: Which president of the United States gave the longest inaugural address and which president gave the shortest? Answer next time!
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