The same way, differently.

 

Today's Tids Issue 5,044 

Thank God for Contrarians:

 

Are you shopping yet, or has sanity returned? The Gods of retail are trying to make abstinence from shopping a guilt trip, depriving all of our hardworking shop owners of their daily bread.

 

If yesterday felt like Saturday, then this morning it must be Sunday. Maybe that’s why I seem to be typing biblically.

 

The preferred family must be five people. Why else would most cars being built only accommodate two in the front and three in the back? Let’s hope the middle child doesn’t always get the middle seats.

 

According to Cassatt, Brookins and McNelly, for many a bucket list means having one always full of fried chicken. I’m with that.

 

The world is a better place because varied people can look at the same thing and see it differently.

 

Think about how dull a homogenized society would be. For instance, some people can read my typos.

 

I have always been in favor of finding new ways of doing old things. Maybe that’s why I had a hard time passing English in all of my various schooling adventures, you know, like avoiding basic rules of grammar. So, I latched to this concept from a guy named Demetri Martin: “I’m writing my book in fifth person, so 
every sentence starts out with: ‘I heard from this guy who told somebody ...” Which if you think about it, it is the way our news is being reported these days.

 

The Question:

At which college was the first Fraternity established?

 

The Headlines:

--Dow Crashes; New Covid Variant From Africa Stirs Lockdown Fears; Down 1000 Points Just Ahead Of Early Closing.

--New Africa Strain Of Covid Features High Number Of Mutations And Rapid Spreading Among Young People; Breaking: UE Recommends Barring Travel From Africa; Fauci Says, “No Indication Africa Variant Is In US.

--Wisconsin Parade Massacre Has Authorities Reexamining Softening of Bail Procedures.

 

Ugh!, Department:

The Dow opened today 800 points down. The new strain of Covid coming out of Africa now seems to affect stock traders most. Put on the blinders and eat Tums or Rolaids for a comfortable weekend.

 

The big rivalry games are this weekend, including Army versus Navy which as has always been a part of my life from way back in the 1940’s when they were tops in the country. But today everybody is talking about Ohio State and Michigan, mainly because the Wolverines haven’t won in 8 years and only once in sixteen years. (Mich leads all time series 58-51-6) And frankly, despite the rivalry implications, after watching the Buckeyes last week, this could be a laugher. Maybe this will be the one where the fans stop giving alum Jim Harbaugh a second chance.

 

If you study the rise and fall of fraternities and sororities on campuses you actually find that they behave as a microcosm of  our broader society, a model that might predict the rise and fall of global societies: start up, success, leadership, complacency, decline and finally obliteration due to excessive abuse of societal rules and decline in responsible behavior.

 

Have you noticed that all classical music is performed by cover bands?

 

Today 1941, 6 Japanese aircraft carriers set sail form the Kuril Islands towards Hawaii. At the same time US Secretary of State Cordell hull was delivering to the Japanese ambassador a list of US concerns over Japanese aggression in southeast Asia ad China, including a plea for… “Lasting extensive peace throughout the Pacific areas.” It is always good to be on the que vie for adversaries making love to you.

 

Examining the history behind that note we see it provoking a lot more controversy within the US govern than may have been politically acknowledged. This might be a good movie. (Note: FDR and the US analysts were concerned that the Japanese were planning a sneak attack on Thailand and other smaller countries.)

 

Google photos is an annoying AI wanabee.

 

Remember the NBC show “Manifest”? It is now the number one Streaming show on Netflix. I guess NBC execs shouldn’t have cancelled it. Other leading shows nationally on Netflix are Bridgeton, Squid Game and Stranger Things.

 

Here’s something I thought I knew forever but now the UK government and scientists there has made it official: Decapod Crustations and Cephalopod Mollusks feel pain. Yes, those two marine life classifications which include Lobsters ad Crabs, and Squid and Octopus feel something like you would if somebody cut off your arm. And because of this new official declaration they are now protected from severe ad unusual punishment. New laws will be coming to regulate treatment and slaughtering of these food staples. And probably next we’ll see our beloved Brit ancestors exporting these theories to eager animal rightists in the USA. And the already enormous prices for these tasty treats will climb out of reach forever. There’s always something when populations have too much free time.

 

BTW, Mich-OSU are not among the 15 oldest rivalries. In fact in the Big Ten Wisc-Minn, Minn-Iowa and Perdue-Indiana are the oldest there. A lot of earliest big time rivalry games are between Ivy League schools with the first three oldest being Yale-Princeton, Harvard Yale and Penn-Princeton. After the several Ivy combinations is Lehigh-Lafayette (Most games played – 158), and then North Carolina-Wake, Miami (Oh)-Cincinnati, North Dakota State-South Dakota, and Army versus Navy ahead of the three Big 10 mentioned above. The first College football game was in 1969 between The College of New Jersey (Now Princeton) and Rutgers. The final score was 6-4.

 

By the way, standardized rules for football were not officially passed util 1883. The oldest rivalry that began after the standardized rules were Lehigh-Lafayette.

 

The Answer:

The first fraternity Kappa Alpha Society was established in 1825 at Union College in Schenectady, NY. There is always controversy about lists, one being that social fraternity Chi Phi was founded at Princeton a year earlier. But I have always held that Union was number one. Phi Beta Kappa was founded at Willima And Mary in 1776.

 

The mind is a terrible thing to garbage. Whoops, I think I’m relying to heavily on a Thesaurus. It’s always better to think for yourself.

 

Happy Black Friday, E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y!!

I hope you survive, and that even more so, so does your Mastercard or Visa.