Ridley's Believe It Or Not For January 14, 2016 Ratification Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For January 14, 2016, 372 days to go in President Obama’s pathetic lame duck term. Trust you will enjoy the theater of the Republican debate tonight and better yet your Thursday is off to a great start with all or a majority of your  New Year’s Resolutions still being observed; as always, I hope you enjoy Thursday’s holidays and observances, a music link to Boyz II Men; factoids of interest, a relevant quote from Joe Biden who must be rethinking his decision not to run as Hillary Clinton continues to slide in the polls and may be indicted over her private email server and possible corruption while as Secretary of State, looking forward to enjoying a hot pastrami sandwich, blessed with a positive attitude and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient. You need only contact me for details.

1. Ratification Day—commemorating the ratification by the Confederation Congress on this day in 1784 of the Treaty of Paris bringing an end to the Revolutionary War.                

2. Take A Missionary To Lunch Day—commemorating the service of missionaries in the third world and in ghettos and rural poverty centers that bring the word of God and provide needed services to those to whom they are ministering. If no missionaries in your neighborhood, go to local churches with missionaries abroad and send a lunch basket with items not readily available in the third world country where they are providing missionary services. 

3. 1995 Number One S ong—celebrating the number one song in 1995 on a run of six weeks in that position On Bended Knee by Boyz II Men. Here is a link to Boyz II Men performing  On Bended Knee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSUSFow70no

4. National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day—celebrating a classic sandwich especially one made at Arnie’s Manhattan Deli in Newport Beach.

5. A Knee Is Too Precious To Lose—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1946 Green Bay and Los Angeles running back Travis Williams whose career was cut short after 5 years due to a knee injury; unable to cope with the loss of his ability to play spiraled into alcoholism and died at the age of 46.

On this day in:  

a. 1799 Eli Whitney received an order for 10,000 muskets from the U.S. Army.

b. 1896 in one of its really outrageous decisions Plessy v Ferguson the Supreme Court by a 7-1 vote upheld Louisiana’s law requiring blacks and whites to be seated in separate railroad cars. The court bought the myth of “separate but equal” which was factually preposterous and ignored the fact that Plessy was 7/8 white and only 1/8 black.

c. 1943 President Franklin Roosevelt became the first president to travel by airplane, flying to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill.                                                         

d. 1952 to the joy of coffee drinkers, the rationing of coffee ended in the Netherlands.

e. 1981 to the dismay of TV audiences, the FCC ruled that television stations could air as many commercials per hour as they wished.                    

Reflections on segregation and the fallacy of “separate but equal.” “America is the promised land, because each generation bequeathed to its children a promise, a promise that they might not come to enjoy but which they fully expected their offspring to fulfill. So the words 'all men are created equal' took a life of its own, ultimately destined to end slavery and enfranchise women. And the words 'equal protection' and 'due process' inevitably led to the end of the words 'separate but equal,' ensuring that the walls of segregation would crumble, whether at the lunch counter or at the voting booth.” Joe Biden

Please enjoy the poems on events of interest on my twitter account below (if you like them, retweet and follow me) and follow my blogs. Always good, incisive and entertaining poems on my blogs—click on the links below. Go to www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com for Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—This Day In History, poems to inspire, touch, emote, elate and enjoy and poems on breaking news items of importance or go to Ridley's Believe It Or Not  for just This Day In History.

© January 14, 2016, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
Alaskanpoet for Hire, Poems to Admire

Poet Extraordinaire Beyond Compare
The Perfect Gift, All Recipients to Receive a Lasting Lift