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The Daily Dose/November 20, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
Notes from around the Human Experience...Danielle Bollinger is - not for the first time - the Column Four Foto!
SURE, WHAT THE HELL: On this date, in 1789, New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution.
Fly In The Ointment: Not everybody favored a Bill of Rights. Alexander Hamilton, for one, found them unnecessary, insisting that Americans were not surrendering the rights simply because certain rights weren't stated when they ratified the Constitution.
Quote That Sucker: Writing in The Federalist Papers, Hamilton stated:
...the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations.
FunFact: Hamilton also feared that the delineation of protected rights might well mean that any rights not specified as protected could be forfeited. It was this fear that led to the Ninth Amendment being included.
And You Wonder Why You Don't Get Invited To More Parties: The Ninth Amendment states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
FunFact: The Bill of Rights would not be ratified until December, 1791.
Um, Could I Get A Last Name Here? Concluding a clinic in marrying well that had noblemen from Scandanavia to the Iberian Peninsula getting their notebooks out, former Grecian royal and then no-account sailor Phillip Mountbatten marries the future Queen of England, Princess Elizabeth, on this date in 1947. Phillip had been farting around in the Royal Navy when a relative arranged for him to meet Princes Elizabeth in 1939.
Phillip was born into the Greek royal family, his uncle being King Constantine, who was overthrown in 1922 while at war with Turkey. His family fled to France, and Phillip was schooled at not-all-that prestigious institutions throughout Europe before joining the Royal Navy in 1939.
Family Gatherings Must Be Fun: Proving that the ruling classes are all more or less inbred, Phillip is both a third cousin and a second cousin once removed to his wife, Queen Elizabeth.
Give Nuclear War A Chance: On this date, in 1962, President John F. Kennedy ends the naval quarantine of Cuba, after the Soviet Union agrees to removes its missiles from the island.
Please Hold: On this date, in 1974, the US Justice Department files its final lawsuit against AT&T, which in 1982 would result in an agreement where AT&T agreed to divest itself of its local exchange services.
Back To The Paleozoic Era: On this date, in 1985, Windows 1.0 is released.
WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON HERE? Despite the fact presidents of the really big colleges and universities insist they would never work, NCAA college football playoffs continue this weekend in Division II and begin in Division III, while the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs will get underway Nov. 29. Year in and year out they provide outstanding competition, while major college football fans get stuck with teams with five and six losses playing in the Eagle Bank Bowl, the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the Rose Bowl, which is now nothing more than a place for Big Ten and Pac-10 teams not good enough to make the BCS title game to pout while whining about not being in the BCS title game.
Our Best USA Today Imitation: A Capsule Look At All Three Division!
Football Championship Subdivision: Defending Champion: Appalachian State, defeated Delaware 49-21. Number of Teams: 16. Championship Game: Dec. 19, Findley Stadium, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Reasons To Watch: Ivy League schools still to stuffy to lower themselves to play in commoner playoffs! Highest level college football playoffs on Earth! Appalachian State going for fourth straight national championship!
Division II: Defending Champion: Valdosta State, defeated Northwest Missouri State, 25-20. Number of Teams: 24. Championship Game: Dec. 19, Braly Municipal Stadium, Florence, Alabama. Reasons To Watch: Northwest Missouri State trying to become the first team in NCAA history to lose four straight football national championship games. They are also the only team to lose three straight!
Division III: Defending Champion: Wisconsin-Whitewater, defeated Mount Union, 31-21. Number of Teams: 32. Championship Game: The Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, Dec. 20, Salem Football Stadium, Salem, Virginia. Reasons To Watch: Writer's Shack faves Mount Union, 10-0 in 2008, will try to rebound from last year's shafting to win their 10th D-III national title!
Hut, Hut Hike: Though the regular season doesn't conclude for a couple of weeks, the Saturday before Thanksgiving still has lots of rivalries renewing, including Michigan at Ohio State, Indiana and Purdue playing for the Old Oaken Bucket, Iowa and Minnesota playing for Floyd of Rosedale, which is actually a bronze pig, and Illinois and Northwestern meet for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk, which is funny because you would have thought the NCAA, which is pretty anal about using Indian names and icons, would have made them switch to something innocuous like the Sparkletts Water Canon or something like that.
Interesting: Only one Big Ten game this weekend features two ranked teams, #17 Michigan State at #7 Penn State, for the Land Grant Trophy, which isn't to be confused with Paul Bunyan's Ax, but Penn State hasn't been in the Big Ten all that long, though.
Our Sewer Runneth Over: Meanwhile, somewhere out west, 0-11 Washington meets 1-10 Washington State for some reason. Stanford and Cal meet in the 88th version of a rivalry where a game was once decided because a tuba player threw a key block.
Oh Yeah: The most played college football rivalry is renewed Saturday as Lafayette and Lehigh meet for the 144th time. Lafayette has won the last four games and leads the series 76-62-5. It is known simply as The Rivalry and is so old it predates trophies, tradition holding that the winning team merely keeps the game ball.
Thought For The Day: I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous…Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Edward Everett went to Germany and returned as the first American to possess a PhD degree.
Today's Stumper: Who won the first NCAA football championship? - Answer next time!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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