The Daily Dose/June 21, 2021
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Editor’s Note: Gaylon is working on a project and most elements of The Daily Dose – Leading Off, The Sunday Bottom 5, On This Date, Some Philosophy Crap, Trivia – are either on hiatus or running intermittently. Your full-service Daily Dose will return later this summer.
Leading Off
Notes from around our human experience.
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Juneteenth, a day commemorating the end the of slavery in the United States, recently became a national holiday. Yay, because it’s appropriate for this nation to celebrate the day one race stopped holding another race in bondage.
Boo because Juneteenth – June 19, 1865 – was not the actual day slavery ended in the US. Slavery was still legal in both Kentucky and Delaware and would remain so until the ratification of the 13th Amendment the following December.
Dry, Technical Matter: Juneteenth, more accurately, celebrates the day the state of Texas got around to telling its slaves they were free. This came two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation actually freed slaves in the rebel states and History shows Texas slaves were only informed of their freedom because there were sufficient Federal troops in Texas to do it for the state.
And You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More Parties: This is analogous to the 4th of July, another holiday that celebrates something that happened on another day. The 4th is billed as Independence Day even though the US had actually declared its independence from Great Britain on July 2, when Congress passed the Lee Resolution. The 4th is merely the day Congress got around to signing the Declaration of Independence.
The Bottom Line: It’s good this country has a holiday celebrating the end of slavery and Juneteenth is a nice, symbolic date to do this on. A more accurate date would be December 6, but who needs another holiday in the middle of the holidays? The Leading Off staff would not have presented violent objection to 86ing President’s Day and holding it February, which is both the month of the birth and death of noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass, but overall, America did well.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – At the hotel, Sparrow covers his arse. Today’s Diary.
And per Standard Sparrow Policy (SPP), yours truly went out of his way to make sure Head Housekeeper Gloria knew ol’ Sparrow authorized zero of these late checkouts…(As it was, Gloria sighed deeply when she saw the list, which for the easy-going GloGlo is an expression of some anger.)
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
I grew fond of her company, and at this time being under no religious restraints, I attempted familiarities (another erratum), which she repulsed with proper resentment.
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography
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