The Daily Dose/April 6, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
CAPSULE BOOK REVIEW: The Path Between the Seas, The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough: As we’ve noted here before, one of the pleasures of reading is rereading old favorites. As we discovered with this book, one of the pleasures of aging is not recognizing books we’ve already read.
We Are Not Making This Up: We found what turned out to be our second copy of this book at a library sale. We’re fair-sized McCullough fans here and while we seemed to recall having read a Panama Canal book in the past, we did not recall this one specifically. It was only when we were farting around a bookcase that we found the original copy, with some dog eared pages showing that we’d read it before.
Well, That Was A Nice Waste Of Two Paragraphs: The story of how the US came to build the Panama Canal is a story of government at its worst and at its best. Panama used to be a province of Colombia, but the Colombians annoyed President Theodore Roosevelt so the US decided to make Panama an independent country. On the credit side of the ledger, despite the enormity and complexity of the project, it came in ahead of schedule and under budget and, get this, every aspect of the canal worked perfectly from the get-go.
Few do their work as well as McCullough and as with his book 1776, you get the feeling you are right there, shaking off mosquitos and dodging mudslides with the original French workers and sharing in the triumphs and intrigues – and more mudslides – of the American efforts.
Final Rating: A: We don’t throw out the top rating too often here, but there are an awful lot of elements to this story – political, financial, engineering, personal – all complicated and McCullough, as usual, steers you through them in his usual expert but very readable manner. Both scholars and general readers will find this book well worth their time.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
Read Free Fortnight continues.
The Diary of a Nobody: The Sparrow Spring Collection (SSC) makes its seasonal debut.
It’s starting to warm up and summer pants made their debut tonight and I rolled with the green carpenter pants because they were at the top of the stack in the drawer…(There’s also a pair of jeans and two pairs of khaki work pants.)…
Click here to get in on the laffs: Sparrow, The Bottom Ten, the funniest books you’ve ever read. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually.
On This Date
Great moments in us.
In 1865 – The final major battle of the American Civil War is fought when Union troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S Grant defeat Confederate troops led by General Robert E Lee. The battle was fought near Farmville, Virginia and is referred to by History as the Battle of Sailor’s Creek. During the battle, Union Army Captain Tom Custer earned the Medal of Honor for heroism, his second Medal of Honor in four days. Lee would surrender to Grant three days later at Appomattox Courthouse.
In 1896 – The first Olympic Games since the first century AD open in Athens, with 14 nations sending 241 athletes, all of whom were men. The United States won the most gold medals (14), while the Greeks won the most overall medals (45). All nine sports contested at the Games are still held, although tennis was not a medal sport between 1928 and 1984. The Olympics would not return to Athens until the 2004 Summer Games.
In 1963 – The Chiffons are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the second of four consecutive weeks with He’s So Fine. It was the first of five Top 40 hits for the group and remains their only #1 song. The song peaked at #16 in Great Britain, was also at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart for the first of four consecutive weeks and was Billboard’s fifth-biggest song of the year.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in the person’s determination. – Tommy Lasorda
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
The United States Congress first overrode a presidential veto in 1845 after President John Tyler vetoed a bill that would have prevented from authorizing presidents to build Revenue Marine Service ships without Congressional approval. The Revenue Marine Service is now the Coast Guard.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
How many Americans have won two Medals of Honor for separate actions? – Answer next time!
