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The Daily Dose/November 6, 2007
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
More notes from around the human experience, including cracking down on evil lawyers in Pakistan, while On This Date relives the excitement of the first ever college football game, including the first instance of the BCS mucking things up, the final Confederate surrender, and the Column Four Foto, world famous pole vaulter Allison Stokke.
LEADING OFF: Pakistan's suspension of its constitution seems to be going over well as police are enthusiastically clubbing, gassing and arresting lawyers left and right for defying the government's ban on rallies. Estimates on the number of arrest range from 1,500 by the government to 3,500 by opposition groups.
The Usual Suspects: President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has instituted all the usual martial law controls dictators throw out in these circumstances: suspension of personal liberties, the granting of wide powers of arrest to the police and, of course, once you're arrested you can be held without being told on what charge you're being held, and, you can also be denied access to a lawyer, although the way things are going right now if you're in jail in Pakistan there's a good chance your cellmate is a lawyer.
Musharraf even personalized this very special martial law imposition by imposing new rules - and we are not making this up - about how what is left the media can cover suicide bombings.
Maybe They Could Do Something About FOX While They're At It: The government also shut down tee vee networks and radio stations, though, thankfully, the Internet and newspapers have more or less been left alone, since only about half of Pakistani's are literate and most get their news from tee vee and radio.
USA! USA! The Bush Administration took a strong stand against the imposition of marital law, calling it "ill advised" which should be strong enough words to make a foreign dictator do whatever we want. The United Nations, too, who went completely overboard and expressed 'strong dismay', which should do the jailed lawyers and out of work journalists a lot of good.
Maybe The CIA Could Stage A Coup: Turnabout is fair play, after all. Gen. Pervez Musharraf didn't come to power in 1999 on the wings of angels heralding his arrival with trumpets, or even following an election; he himself overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who had the nerve to try and remove Musharraf as army chief.
Don't Bet On It: While there is certainly precedent for coup's in Pakistan, there is no history of the military overthrowing a military government, only the military throwing rascal civilians that were no longer in favor.
ON THIS DATE: In 1869, Princeton and Rutgers played the first college football game at New Brunswick, New Jersey, with Rutgers winning 6-4. On Novemeber 13 the teams met again, with Princeton winning 8-0. For reasons that are still not clear, the BCS misreads their slide rules and dispatches William and Mary and Columbia to play in the Singer Sewing Machines Fiesta Bowl for the national championship, despite the fact Rutgers and Princeton were the only two teams to play football that season.
We Are Not Making This Up: A third game was cancelled because of, get this, faculty concerns at both schools about the new sport being over-emphasized.
Chalk Talk: The game played back then was completely different than the college football game played today. There were 25 players a side and the game more resembled rugby than anything else. The ball could only be advanced by kicking or batting it and the object was to kick the ball through the other team's goal posts.
History Lesson: Princeton and Rutgers would meet 56 times over the years, with Princeton leading the series 39-16-1. They last met in 1980, with Princeton winning 44-13.
FunFact: After losing the first game, Princeton would not lose again until losing to Yale in 1876, a span of eleven games.
In 1860: Abraham Lincoln, who was known to take a liberty or two of his own with his own constitution, was elected president of the United States.
In A Related Story: In 1861 Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.
Didn't They Have Their Ship-To-Shore Dish On?: On this date in 1865, the CSS Shenandoah becomes the last Confederate combat unit to surrender. It was causing havoc off the coast of Alaska when it learned the Civil War had ended four months earlier. Fearing being imprisoned if it surrendered to the United States, the Shenandoah disarmed and sailed to Liverpool, England, where Capt. James I. Waddell surrendered to British authorities.
The Shenandoah's final deck log entry matter-of-factly described the ships final act: Monday the 6th surrendered the Shenandoah to the British Nation by letter to Lord John Russell, Premier of Great Britain.
Well, Why Didn't You Say So?: Today is the 44th day of the season, meaning the northern hemisphere is halfway through autumn, and the southern hemisphere is halfway through spring.
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