April 30, 2019 Ridley's Believe It Or Not International Jazz Daya

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For April 30, 2019  Schumer and Pelosi met with Trump on the issue of infrastructure spending and signs are looking like a $2 trillion effort with a further meeting in 3 weeks to consider how to pay for it (Pelosi coy about whether they could come to an agreement while in a froth to investigate the president for his alleged transgressions); thousands upon thousands of Venezuelans are protesting in the streets demanding Maduro leave office as the U.S. ratchets up its demands that he resign in favor of Guiado who has called for a military uprising to overthrow Maduro; CNN aka the Cack News Network is seeing its rating being dumped in the ratings toilet as Fox continues to dominate cable news; Schiff has indicated he will send a criminal referral to the DOJ alleging that the founder of Blackwater and brother of Betsy DeVos Erik Prince perjured himself in front of Congress concerning a meeting with a Russian banker (Prince is also in the news for advocating private mercenaries to be engaged to overthrow Maduro); Pete Buttigieg is polling second in New Hampshire while being the subject of a hoax orchestrated lobbyist Jack Burkman and  blogger Jacob Wohl claiming a man named Hunter Kelly was sexually assaulted by Buttigieg; Sanders is in the news calling for Disney to share the profits from its Avengers: Endgame with its workers while videos have surfaced of him in the 80’s praising the socialist revolutionaries in Nicaragua, Chile and Cuba; The New York Times which was caught with its anti-Semite pants down corrected an op-ed that claimed Jesus was a Palestinian not Jewish; shades of Valeriy Borzov winning the 100 and 200 meter dash in the 1972 Olympics, white high school sprinter Mathew Boling of Strake Jesuit College Prep high school in Houston, Texas won a 100 meter dash in 9.98 seconds but did not set a high school record because the tailwind exceed acceptable limits; Rod Rosenstein has announced he will be leaving the DOJ on May 1; Trump has filed suit to block two banks from releasing financial information subpoenaed by the House; the FBI announced that it had thwarted a planned terrorist attack by an Army veteran who was radicalized and wanted to avenge the New Zealand mosque attacks;  through April 29, 2019 675 people  have been shot in Chicago of whom 132 have died (what makes the Smollett case so frustrating is that it forced the city of Chicago to allocate scarce detective resources when in only 9% of the shootings resulting in murder have a suspect being charged this year).

       As always, I hope you enjoy today’s holidays and observances, music links to TLC and Johnny Horton, factoids of interest for this day in history, the fact that you will not commit a parapraxis, and  a relevant quote from Brian Vian on jazz, secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable events like college graduations, 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. Honesty Day—created by M. Hirsch Goldberg to promote honesty and straightforward communications in politics, relationships, consumer relations and historical education. Why on April 30? Appropriate to mark the end of a month that begins with April Fool’s Day to celebrate falsehoods and honors the inauguration of George Washington on this day in 1789.

2. International Jazz Day—created by UNESCO in 2011 to promote jazz and its role in uniting societies.  

      3. 1999 Number One Song—the number one song on this day in 1999 on a run of 4 weeks in that position was “No Scrubs” by TLC. Here is a recording of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrLequ6dUdM. The creative driver of the three girl band was “Left Eye” Lopez who was killed in an automobile crash in Honduras on April 25, 2002 at the age of 30,  

4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day as we move from words beginning with “o” to words beginning with “p” is “parapraxis” which means blunder which describes our political climate to a tee.

5. Go North Young Man—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1925 of noted country western and ballad singer Johnny Horton best known for such songs as”Battle of New Orleans”, “Sink the Bismark” and my favorite “North to Alaska” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSt0NEESrUA Sadly his career at the peak of his fame was cut short by a drunk driver on November 5, 1960.

       On this day in:                                        

a. 1927 Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford became the first two celebrities to have their footprints cast in concrete outside Grumman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

b. 1939 NBC began regularly scheduled television broadcasting in New York City with its first showing the opening ceremony with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the New York World’s Fair.

c. 2008 the skeletal remains found at Yekaterinburg, Russia were confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of two of Tsar Nicholas’ children Alexei and Anastasia murdered by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918.

d. 2009 Chrysler filed for Chapter XI Bankruptcy.

e. 2019 Emperor Akihito of Japan abdicated his throne to be succeeded by his son Nuruhito. 

        Reflections on jazz: “There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. ” ― Boris Vian, artist manager at  Association Management Consultants
        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   www.Alaskanpoethistory.blogspot.com for just This Day in History.

© April 30, 2019  Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet