Sunday, September 3, 2023

September 2, 2023 Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

              On the weather front, Biden and Jill are supposed to be in Florida today to review the damaged by Idalia but De Santis will not join him as he is visiting another part of the damaged state and has probably heard enough renditions of the lightning fire that almost cost him his wife,  his Corvette and his cat. The counter culture massive gathering and festival known as the “Burning Man” in Black Rock City experienced a ½ inch of rain making it very difficult to get in and out of the location as organizers are urging attendees shelter in place and conserve food and water.
             On the political front, Biden was asked if he planned to fulfill his promise to visit East Palestine after the train derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in many of the rail cars and his response was he has been too busy (being on a Delaware beach does have priority in the Biden household). Trump has filed court papers in Fulton County, Georgia entering a not guilty plea while an inmate was stabbed to death in the Fulton County Jail where Trump was booked.
             On the music front noted artist Jimmy Buffett, best remembered for his laid back beach rock song “Margaritaville” which he used as a springboard of for a plethora of business enterprises like restaurants, bars and clothing and accessories has died at age 76.
             On the student loan front, the interest free holiday is over as interest starts accruing again after being halted in March of 2020 and payments start again in October to the joys of lenders like SoFi who have made the billions of dollars of loans to students. 
            On the transgender front, the Texas Supreme Court blocked the injunctions issued by lower courts blocking the Texas legislation blocking minors from receiving treatment for gender dysphoria like hormone treatment and puberty blockers.
            On the food front, Trader Joes who has been plagued recently with food recalls for products contaminated with metal pieces or rocks has been hit with another need to recall—frozen tamales without the “may contain milk products” warning.
             On the weather front, Virginia is embarking on a massive $2.6 billion project to prevent damage from hurricane induced surge flooding but will do nothing to alleviate the flooding  that Norfolk experiences after any significant rainfall due to the 1-2 punch of climate change and sinking land.
             On the sports front USC who plays Stanford next Saturday in the Coliseum slaughtered Nevada 66-14, racking up 671 yards of total offense, 453 through the air and 218 on the ground including 46 yard scamper by Heisman Trophy Winner Caleb Williams.
              September 2, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet 
              Noted Holidays: National Tailgating Day: Created  in 2016 by Luke Lorick and first celebrated on September 3, 2016 and thereafter on the first Saturday in September to promote the cuisine and libations gathering in the parking lot or lawns outside the stadium that a football game or other sport is to be played.
              Word of the Day: The word of the day is “athymia” which means melancholy.
              Song of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 2000 was  “Doesn’t Really Matter” by Janet Jackson on a run of 3 weeks to share number 1 status with 17 other songs achieving number 1 ranking while 10 acts achieved  number one status for the first time.  Here is a music video with lyrics of Janet Jackson performing “Doesn’t Really Matter”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGo4WebNIjM
              September 2 Birthdays: “In the Black Should Be an Olympic Sport”—Peter
Ueberroth, Born on this day in 1937 in Evanston, Illinois  to become  the Commissioner of the Los Angeles Olympic Committee which held the first privately financed Olympics in Los Angeles which ended up with a heretofore unheard of surplus of $250 million and later become the Chairman of Major League Baseball.
              September 2  Historical Events in Rhyme
              1.     On this day in 2019 the MV Conception anchored off the California island of Santa Cruz/Caught fire in the early morning and 33 passengers and 1 crew would their lives lose/Sleeping below deck in bunks they could not escape the flames and smoke/Exits to safety blocked by fire--sheer terror as their lives quickly to be revoked/The captain and 4 crew sleeping above deck and the flames had no way to sound an alarm/Had to jump into the ocean to save themselves from harm/Fire was the deadliest maritime disaster in California since on July 30,1865/Carrying 244 passengers and crew and a fortune in gold, the Brother Jonathan sank after hitting a rock and only 19 survived.
              2.     On this day in 2013 after 10 years of construction/The Eastern Span Replacement of the SFO-Oakland Bay Bridge to replace the span lost due to the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake’s destruction/Was opened to vehicles, pedestrians and bikes/The $6.4 billion cost compared to its original estimate was quite a hike/Just what the escalating costs of California’s partially completed Bullet Train are like.
              3.     On this day in 2008 Google released to the public its beta version of Chrome/So named for association with cars and fast speeds on the data search highway a user could roam/Usage has grown at a fast pace/To be on 65% of platforms in the browser space.
              4.      On this day in 1998 the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its first case/Found  Jean-Paul Akayesu, a former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of genocide trying to the Tutsi erase/Guilty of 9 counts of genocide and sentenced to life in prison serve/A warning that perpetrators of genocide harsh punishments deserve.
              5.      On this day in 1987 in Moscow, the trial of Mathias Rust commenced/ For hooliganism, violation of aviation laws, and breach of Soviet air space as the offenses/Convicted and sentenced to serve in a labor camp for 4 years/Instead at a high security temporary facility in Moscow he appeared/He had flown his private plan from Helsinki to Moscow to bring the East and West together and reduce the risk of war he had great fear/Red Square where he wanted to land was crowded so he landed on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge which was near/His effort for peace was certainly a noble goal/But his penetration of Soviet air space caused some senior military heads to roll.
              Quote on the Rwanda Genocide by Christopher Hitchens, noted journalist, commentator and author: “I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, exam results, illnesses, friendships, kinships—gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar and notebook. I think of this every time I hear of the callow ambition to 'make a new start' or to be 'born again': Do those who talk this way truly wish for the slate to be wiped? Genocide means not just mass killing, to the level of extermination, but mass obliteration to the verge of extinction. You wish to have one more reflection on what it is to have been made the object of a 'clean' sweep? Try Vladimir Nabokov's microcosmic miniature story 'Signs and Symbols,' which is about angst and misery in general but also succeeds in placing it in what might be termed a starkly individual perspective. The album of the distraught family contains a faded study of Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about.

© September 2, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet

www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
Poems on Events of the Day
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