Wednesday, May 3, 2017

May 3, 2017 Ridley's Believe It Or Not World; Press Freedom Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For May 3, 2017  Blues are high fiving it that they have trumped Trump in the interim budget deal which kicked the can down the road until September and Ryan and McDonnell are making a big mistake in not keeping Congress in session to repeal and replace Obamacare so they can work on tax cuts which will spur the economy and doom the Blues to more losses in the dysfunctional Senate strangled by the partisan fanatic Schumer; Hillary is still in delusional mode unwilling to accept her primary role in losing by continuing to blame WikiLeaks and Comey for her loss; Comey back before the Senate revealing massive amounts of classified emails were on Weiner’s laptop but defending the FBI’s role in the Clinton investigation; Colbert absolutely went over the top and should be fired for his rant that Trump’s mouth is good only as a c**k holster for Putin (if I were an advertiser on Colbert’s show on CBS I would be cancelling my ads); thanks to Obama we now find that Iran is using the billions paid to it under his idiotic nuclear deal to fund a massive buildup of military forces to transform the Iranian military into an offensive juggernaut; Napolitano, the head of the UC University System is under fire by both Reds and Blues for her handling of an audit of her hidden $175 million slush fund (she really should also be in the hot seat for the retreat by the UC University System on the issue of defending free speech on campus); just when we thought we had heard the last rant by Debbie Wasserman Schultz she is back in the news defending Obama’s $400k speaking deals;  almost like a stuck record or a remake of Groundhog Day, Chicago style,  the carnage in Chicago continued unabated in April with a total of 46 killings in for the month of April (24% higher than April of 2016)   with total shootings in 2017 through May 2 increasing  to 1064 and the death toll stuck at 183 (God help those poor minorities being shot mostly by minorities when the weather gets warmer and the shooters’ aim gets really better and there is more daylight to find and shoot victims) and yet nothing, absolutely nothing, appears to be occurring to address this blight on blacks and minorities which is what racism from a black mayor really looks like who appears to care only about the rights of illegal aliens in his sanctuary city  (when will Chicago residents through the city council try to impeach this pathetic, inept mayor who seems not to care that 90 percent of the homicides occurring in his city do not result in arrest ?). 
    As always, I hope you enjoy today’s holidays and observances,  a music link to Gwen Stefani, factoids of interest for this day in history, happy that you are not a uniped,  a relevant quote from Naomi Klein, secure in the knowledge that 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. World Press Freedom Daya UN observance since 1986 to promote awareness of the need for a free and open press although a growing threat to the independence of the press is the growing bias of outlets like MSNBC, CNN or The New York Times whose “journalism” is being replaced by advocacy journalism.
2. Sun Day—commemorating the importance of expansion of solar power and observed since 1978; amount of electricity produced by solar power has risen from 337 megawatts in 1998 to over 13,000 megawatts in 2015 (impressive but still only .6% of total electricity generated by  utilities.
3. 2005 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 2005 on a run of 4 weeks in that position “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani. Here is a recording of Gwen Stefani performing the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgjkth6BRRY  (only 12 more days to endure this rap nonsense).
4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day is “uniped” which is a person or animal unfortunate to have only one leg.
5. Do You Believe In Magic—celebrating the birth on this day in 1947 of Canadian born magician Doug Henning who could not create the illusion of being cancer free and died of liver cancer 5 months after being diagnosed on February 7, 2000.
On this day in:                                                                                   
a. 1948 SCOTUS in the case of Shelly v. Kramer ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were not legally enforceable.  
b. 1952 the Kentucky Derby was televised for the first time.
c. 2000, one day after President Clinton allowed civilian use of GPS, the sport of geocaching began with the GPS coordinates of the first cache posted on Usenet.
d. 2001 the United States lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time since 1947.
e. 2015 two native born Americans inspired by ISIS attacked an anti-Islam exhibit protesting the Paris Charlie Hebdo massacre in Garland, Texas, killing an unarmed security guard before being killed by a SWAT team.    
Reflections advocacy journalism: “I usually define myself as an activist journalist, by which I mean a journalist who is embedded in movements for social change.  I identify with the movements I write about. I am not a propagandist for those movements, I am committed to the truth, I am committed to fact-checking. But I am proud to be associated with these movements and aligned with these movements. And of course I am an author.” Naomi Klein, “Naomi Klein on Activist Journalism” What makes advocacy journalism so dangerous is not the bias displayed which most Americans can see through but the bias hidden by the press not covering the stories that would refute a journalist’s leftist point of view which explains why Fox News is such a powerful voice on cable news. 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.
© May 3, 2017, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet 
Alaskanpoet for Hire, Poems to Admire
Poet Extraordinaire Beyond Compare
The Perfect Gift, All Recipients to Receive Lasting Lift
                 


No comments:

Post a Comment