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The Daily Dose/June 18, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
News from both sides Human Experience plate, campers, as homosexuals are allowed to marry in California, long after most of us thought they already had, plus the On This Date action, including our fave 1908 Chicago Cubs, the latest from Mars, plus get out the restraining order, Danielle Bollinger is the Column Four Foto again!
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU…UH, HOLD ON A SEC, HERE: Queers all over the great state of California invaded county clerk's offices Tuesday, the first day homosexuals could legally acquire marriage licenses and exchange vows.
What The Hell's Going On Here: Exactly why a group that has been outcasts throughout history would want official, government sanction of their most intimate personal relationship from one of the institutions responsible for them being outcasts (the others being society and the church) is beyond us here at the Writer's Shack, especially when that institution only has around a 50 percent success rate, anyway.
Quotebook: "We decided we would not have a civil union until it was legal," California lesbian Cindy Gise said. "We felt like we were already legitimate. We still feel that way. But it's nice to have a piece of paper and recognition from the state."
Whatever for?: Why? Why would two people, any two people, straight, gay or any combination thereof, care what a government thought of their union? And why should the government care either? All this really means is now they can file income tax together and now have the pleasure of going through messy, traumatic divorces.
OTOH: We feel compelled to point out that a healthy number of gays getting married today have together for a long time, some as long fifty years, so it's unlikely they'll be getting divorced anytime soon, anyway.
Dry, Technical Matter: We were hoping to accent this segment with an alarmingly high figure for American divorces, like two-thirds or, at the very least, something over fifty percent, but exact figures aren't all that easy to come by. The official government agency responsible for US marriage and divorce stats is the Centers For Disease Control, which seems appropriate enough, and they don't offer an easy-to-digest percentage figure. They do offer per capita marriage and divorce rates, but these just offer raw figures, not a definite divorce rate. For example, if there were 8.4 marriages per thousand people in a year, and 4.2 divorces, it would be easy to conclude that half of marriages end in divorce, but people rarely get married and divorced in the same year, even in laid back California. Another method - counting the number of people who have ever married and are now divorced produces, according to several sources, a figure on around 40 percent.
FunFacts: Figures from a variety of sources also more or less agree that about 10 percent of the population is currently divorced, and that at any given time a quarter of the population has been divorced.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: If gays want to marry, let them. The purpose of government is to provide for the liberty of its citizens, and if people of the same gender want to marry, the government should do what it can to facilitate that.
HERE WE GO AGAIN: On this date, in 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain. The War of 1812 would last until 1815.
Couldn't We Have Just Commissioned David Foster Or Lee Greenwood?: The US did get their National Anthem out of the war, though, as one Francis Scott Key, a lawyer in town to help negotiate a prisoner release, witnessed the Battle of Fort McHenry in September, 1814 and was so moved he wrote a poem called The Star Spangled Banner.
The Rocket's Red Glare: This wasn't really a battle at all because while the British did bombard the fort for 25 hours, the Americanscouldn't be bothered to return fire and the British packed up and left when land reinforcements never arrived.
Editor's Note: Whenever we bother to do a column, On This Date is pleased to take a look back at the 1908 Chicago Cubs season, because 2008 is the 100th anniversary of the Cubs' last World Series victory. It's always fun to take a look back at the past of the grand old game, and it's especially satisfying to remind Cubs fans it's been an entire century since their team's last World Series triumph.
The Long And Winding Road: The Cubs begin the final series of their 18-day, 15-game road trip (only their second longest road trip of the year, by the by) with a 7-5 victory at New York. The Cubs get six hits and four runs in the third inning, and Ed Ruelbach goes all the way for the victory. With the win, the Cubs remain two games in front of Pittsburgh in the National League with a 32-17 record.
AND NOW FROM OUR MARS BUREAU: Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, California announced this week that the initial tests conducted with soil from Mars' northern plains did not produce evidence of water. The samples were baked twice, once at 95 degrees and again at 350 degrees, hot enough to have melted any ice hidden.
On The Bright Side: When baked at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, the sample did produce some marginally passable brownies.
GONE WITH THE RAIN: The annual major league baseball Hall of Fame game, a quaint, amiable tradition dating back to 1939, is no more. The final edition, scheduled for this past Monday in Cooperstown, New York, was rained out. As much as possible, the game featured an American League team against a National League team, though this year the Padres and Cubs were scheduled. Both teams were near Cooperstown this past weekend, the Cubs in Toronto before heading to Tampa Bay and the Padres in Cleveland on their way to New York.
Players have historically whined about having to travel to Cooperstown in the middle of the season. And rightly so, because Cooperstown is not conveniently located to any major league city, or even a major airport. Participating teams are required to fly from wherever their Sunday game was to Albany, New York, and then bus the hour-and-a-half to Cooperstown.
The Cubs, in fact, showed their complete disdain for their assignment by not even arriving in Cooperstown until a couple of hours before the game. For reasons we're sure they thought good, they elected to leave Toronto Monday morning.
FunFact: The Cubs played in the first Hall of Fame game involving two major league teams on June 13, 1940, against the Red Sox. (The 1939 game had been an all-star game). On June 11 they played a doubleheader in Chicago and on June 14 they opened a series against the Braves in Boston.
Bonus FunFact: The San Diego Padres were in the Pacific Coast League in 1940.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Two holes is most sudden-death hole required to determine a US Open champion. In 1994 Ernie Els needed two holes to defeat Loren Roberts after they both tied their playoff round with 74's.
Today's Stumper: How many verses are there to the Star Spangled Banner? - Answer next time!
Threats? Recipes? Trivia question answers? Email The Writer's Shack Here!
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