June 12. 2019 Ridley's Believe It Or Not World Child Labor Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For June 12, 2019 Kamala Harris eschewing a Ford moment which would be great for the country vows to prosecute Trump if she is elected (talk about energizing the Red base to blow this resister illegal alien supporter queen out of the electoral waters); Blue Representative stoops to House decorum low but reading a letter from a “pastor” calling out Trump supporters as racist and plain dumb (shame on her for giving this “pastor” a podium for bias and racial hate); it’s good to see that the reptilian brain is alive and well and crosses party lines in Virginia home of alleged raptist Lt. Patrick as in the Blue primary for a state senator’s seat Morrissey who had been convicted of a misdemeanor of having sex with a minor and served 6 months in jail won and since the seat is considered a safe Blue seat will take his pedophile ways to the Virginia State Senate; the intolerant LGBT community is up and arms because the Texas Governor signed a bill called the “Protect Chick-a-Filet Bill prohibiting governmental bodies from taking adverse actions against businesses making contributions to religious organizations and with less outcry a bill legalizing children’s lemonade stands; the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has been slammed for excessive celebration over its 13-0 blowout of a hapless Thai team; in a potential overkill prosecution, Thomas Franzen who is suffering from Stage 4 Cancer has been sentenced to 4 years for possessing 42 pounds of marijuana laced chocolate with intent to sell even though he claims the marijuana was to self-medicate due to the pain and nausea of the disease; the massive protests in Hong Kong over the proposed extradition law turned violent as police used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse demonstrators; Democrats in the House introduced a bill to allow gun shooting victims to sue gun manufacturers which should go nowhere other than to advance their anti-Second Amendment platform; Biden and Trump were both in Iowa where Biden’s plan to eviscerate Trump fell flat before two miniscule crowds, one less than a 100 and the other less than 250  (although could not find reports on turnout for Trump have to believe it was much larger and way more enthused); through June 10, 2019 1070 people  have been shot in Chicago of whom 200 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).

1. World Day Against Child Labor—created by the International Labor Organization to promote the end of the use of child labor which deprives children of education, exposes them to unsafe working conditions and condemns them to a life of poverty due to lack of education.                                       

 2. Loving Day--celebrating the decision by SCOTUS in the case of Loving v. Virgina handed down on June 12, 1967 which declared that the law of Virginia and 15 other states banning miscegenation of blacks and white was unconstitutional. 

3. 1943 Number One Song—the number one song on this day in 1943 was “Taking a Chance on Love” by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra with vocals by Helen Forrest who was known as the “Voice of the big bands” and died at the age of 82. Here is a recording of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E65N6d_vBVw  

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 “penury” which means deprivation or poverty a condition to which far to many Americans are in or within a loss of one paycheck away from.

5. Pretending To Be Sober—celebrating the birth on this day in 1952 if British musician Peter Farndon who co-founded the British rock band the Pretenders; sadly his drug use caused him to be fired from the band on June 14, 1982 an event that did nothing to curtain his drug useage and he died from a heroin overdose less than one year later on April 14, 1983.

    As always, I hope you enjoy today’s holidays and observances, a music link to Benny Goodman and His Orchestra with Helen Forrest,  5 factoids of interest for this day in history, the fact that you not in or facing penury; a quote by Grace Abbott on child labor and poverty, 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.

    On this day in:                                        

a. 1964 Nelson Mandela was sentenced in South Africa to life imprisonment for sabotage and served 26 years before being released in 1990.

b. 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, President Reagan challenges President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

c. 1994 Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman are murdered outside her home in Brentwood, California; O.J. Simpson is charged with their murder but is acquitted by a predominantly black jury in downtown Los Angeles.

d. 2016 Omar Mateen enters a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and kills 49 and injures 58 others before being shot and killed by police.

e. 2017 Otto Warmbier after spending 17 months in a North Korea prison returns home in a coma and dies one week later.

Reflections on child labor: “Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time. Grace Abbott, noted 20^th Century American social worker who campaigned against the use of child labor in this country.
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 for just This Day in History go to   www.Alaskanpoethistory.blogspot.com.

June 12, 2019 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet