April 28, 2016 Ridley's Believe It Or Not Read Great Poetry Day

 Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For April 28, 2016 Unfortunately still 267 days to go in President Obama’s   pathetic lame duck term; I am not sure whether Cruz’s naming of Carly Fiorina was a sign of desperation or after hearing her speech a brilliant move in the political theater that is the hallmark of this campaign season but one this is for certain it has shifted the focus on Trump’s Tuesday sweep and Trump’s first attempt at delivering a “presidential” foreign policy speech. If you live in Orange County Trump will be holding a rally at the Orange County Fairgrounds. On the Blue side Sanders is cutting staff and Hillary is ramping up the gender card to play with a vengeance. As always, I hope  you enjoy today’s holidays and observances,  a music link to USA for Africa, factoids of interest, a  relevant quote from Harper Lee,  while looking forward to a large slice of blueberry pie (recipe included), blessed with a positive attitude and  secure in  the knowledge that on this Read Great Poetry Day, if you want to find a gift for any memorable events 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. International Workers’ Memorial Day—promoting awareness of the need to promote and improve workers’ safety and to commemorate those workers who have died or been injured at work. 

2. Read Great Poetry Day—here is a day to pay homage to all those poets either living or dead by reading some of their works, good or bad; by going to my blog www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com or by writing a poem yourself. Since it is also Kiss Your Mate Day try writing a romantic one to your mate—Like the oak that starts as acorn so small/Slowly grows so majestic, sturdy and tall/Love of you can start with a gaze/ A smile to you amaze/Followed  by a gentle kiss/ In holding you I would be remiss/ If my heart did not pound/ With romantic notions to abound/ As we walked along the beach hand in hand listening to the waves’ crashing sounds/ Strolling together barefoot on the sand heading slowly back into town.© April 28 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet 

3. 1985 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 1984 on a run of four weeks in that position We Are The World by USA for Africa. Here is a link to USA for Africa  (see how many of this incredible ad hoc group of talent who checked their egos at the front door to raise money for famine relief you can recognize) performing We Are The World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI                    

4. National Blueberry Pie Day—celebrating one of this highly evolved omnivore’s favorite pies; here is a link to an easy recipe you should enjoy if you want to avoid going to the bakery:http://www.blueberrycouncil.org/blueberry-recipe/blueberry-pie/?gclid=CPrlhvnfsMwCFQ6maQodjZcFmQ     

5. Royalties and Copyrights Are a Writer’s Best Friend—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1926 of Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird which is estimated to have sold over 40 million copies. She never wrote another novel and the book Go Set a Watchman published in 2015 before her death on February 19, 2016, originally thought to be a sequel, was in fact the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.  

On this day in:

a. 1789 the crew on the HMS Bounty mutinied against Captain Bligh putting his in an 18 foot boat with 17 loyal crew members and in perhaps one of the greatest feats of seamanship Bligh was able to navigate the boat to Timor, the closet European settlement some 4100 miles away with the loss of only one man. To be expected from a man who joined the British Navy at the age of seven.                                                                

b. 1932 a vaccine for Yellow Fever was announced for use in humans; the vaccine has made cases of Yellow Fever almost nonexistent in the U.S. but it still infects some 200,000 people annually and causes 30,000 deaths, mostly in Africa.

c. 1986 high levels of radiation are detected in Sweden, forcing the Soviets to disclose the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl which had occurred two days earlier and which in typical Soviet fashion had been concealed from their own citizens and the rest of the world.       d. 1988 in a don’t leave home without your parachute moment an Aloha Airlines 737 over Maui, a flight attendant was blown out of the plane and falls to her death when a large chunk of the fuselage separates from the plane. Fortunately for the other members of the crew and the terrified passengers, the pilot was able to land the plane safely.

e. 2001 in what has to rank as the ultimate bucket list achievement for a 60 year old, Dennis Tito, the founder of Wilshire Associates and a billionaire, paid the Russians $20 million to be a space tourist on one of their launch vehicles to spend 8 days aboard the International Space Station.                                                                                

Reflections on attempts of a Virginia School Board to remove To Kill a Mocking Bird from its school libraries: “Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read. Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is 'immoral' has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink. I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore, I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.” Harper Lee. Great writing style to expose fools.

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.

© April 28, 2016, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet 
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