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The Daily Dose/January 23, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
More notes from around the Human Experience, more or less, as your intrepid Daily Dose staff mines all the usual sources for something resembling a column and comes up with squat but with a skill of a fine tailor that would have the Brothers Brooks achieving and maintaining a state of arousal we expertly weave a column that is more or less about nothing, and, we finish strong with the inevitably cute Column Four Foto of Jamie Lynn Sigler!
SLOW NEWS DAY: While trying to drum up material for today's column, the staff here at The Daily Dose was struck by how little caught our eye. Sure, the stock market was predicted to crash, but the predicted 500 point drop would only represent about a four percent drop from Monday's close of 12,099.30, which shouldn't cause anyone to go jumping off buildings or dusting off grandpa's soup mug.
Great Moments In Depression: By comparison, on Black Monday, Oct. 29, 1929, the stock market lost 12.8 percent of its value, falling 38 points, closing at 268. On 1987's Black Monday, Oct. lost a whopping 22.6 percent of its value.
Shameless Column Filler: The Dow published its first average on May 26, 1896, closing at 40.94 in moderate trading. It closed past the 100 mark for the first time on Jan. 12, 1906 and returned to it's pre-Depression era high on Nov. 23, 1954. From there it closed above 1,000 for the first time on Nov. 14, 1972, 5,000 on November 21, 1995, 10,000 on March 29, 1999 and hit its closing record of 14,164.53 on Oct. 9, 2007.
Yawn: As it was, though, the Dow did drop 465 points early, but recovered and closed at 11,971.19, down 128.11.
The Usual Suspects: Our usual haunts were pretty quiet, too. Not much is going on in the baseball steroids racket, so there really isn't any need to issue our usual and heretofore ignored call to legalize whatever athletes want to put into their body. Our friends in Africa our behaving themselves and our current unmanned spaceflights to Mercury and Pluto are more or less in auto-pilot for awhile.
Capsule Nothing Review: We haven't seen any movies recently, haven't dined at a notable restaurant in a while and our current book, Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler is turning into a read as leisurely as it is enjoyable.
So nothing there, either.
Super Hype At The Super Bowl: We were thinking of chiming in with how we thought the Patriots looked pretty beatable Sunday and how we really believe that if Norv Turner had a clue how to coach he would have replaced injured quarterback David Rivers with backup Billy Volek and the Chargers might well have won and how the Giants certainly have a chance to win Super Bowl XLII but they probably won't because the Patriots have a habit of being at their best in these games and they usually thrive when they have two weeks to prepare.
But that wasn't really asserting itself either, so we didn't bother.
In Other News That Didn't Really Interest Us: Fred Thompson withdrew from the Republican presidential race, but we've largely ignored the presidential race here, mainly because it started way to early for our taste, though the fact all candidates except for Ron Paul are interchangeable parts has something to do with it, too, so it's not surprising Thompson's exit didn't send the staff here into a tizzy.
THANK GOD FOR ON THIS DATE: On this date on 393, Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine-year-old son Honorius co-emperor. His first act is to have his friends Emeritus and Hilarius executed after having beaten him the day before in leapfrog at the winter revels.
Hey, Come On Now: Well, he didn't really have his friends executed, or, if he did, history didn't record it. When dad died in a couple of yeas later, Honorius split the empire with his brother Arcadius and became Western Roman Emperor and would preside over its gradual demise until his death in 423. Arcadius, for his part, was no great shakes as Eastern Roman Emperor, being dominated by various ministers and prefects until his death in 408.
Jouster Up: On this date in 1510 Henry VIII participated incognito at a jousting event. Then 18, he received high marks for his abilities before revealing his true identity.
In 1845: Congress mandated that federal elections take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Previously, states had been permitted to hold their elections anytime within a 34-day period ending on the first Wednesday in December, the date when presidential electors were counted in Washington, D.C.
Early November had always been considered a good time to have an election because the harvest was in in what was still mainly a farming country, and, it was still early enough in the season that roads were, more or less, still passable because voters more than likely had to travel a day to reach their polling place at the county seat and heaven forbid they begin their travels on the Sabbath.
Run Silent, Run Deep…Real Deep: On this date in 1960 the deep-submersible Trieste, manned by Jacques Piccard (who designed it, along with his father) and Navy Lt. Don Walsh, reached the deepest part of the ocean, spending 20 minutes at Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, near Guam. Trieste reached a depth of 35,813 feet, withstanding pressure of 16,000 psi. Descent took four hours and 48 minutes and it took three hours and 15 minutes to return to the surface. Piccard's and Walsh's dive remains the only time man has visited Challenger Deep, and, since the loss at sea in 2003 of a Japanese robotic vessel, mankind does not even have a craft capable of going to Challenger Deep.
This Kind Of Irony Hurts: Not having a craft capable of diving to the depths of the ocean despite having first done it 47 years ago is sort of like us not being able to go to the Moon whenever we want despite last visiting there about three-quarters of the way through the 20th century.
America's Defendant: On this date in 1985 OJ Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Later, he would become the first Heisman Trophy winner to be elected to the Hall of Fame and be acquitted of double murder.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Michelangelo is the Italian artist who is sometimes credited with designing the uniforms worn by the Swiss Guard even though he had nothing to do with their design.
Today's Stumper: Of the 12 companies that formed the first Dow Jones Industrial Average on May 26, 1896, which ones are still part of the average? - Answer next time!
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