Ridley’s
Believe It Or Not For March 20, 2020 In a sobering fact that none of us are
immune to the coronavirus, a member of Pence’s staff who fortunately had no close
contact with the VP has tested positive and Trump Properties is reducing staff
and closing down Mir-A-Lago; Governor
Newsom of California has just issued a “stay at home” order for all of
California putting in potential peril its $3 trillion economy; at a time more
that ever when we need to be closing ranks to fight a deadly enemy, a total
Fellini Circus at the press briefing today with members of the press and Trump
going after each other which has to be counterproductive at best and disastrous
at worst (I support Trump but he really needs to develop a thicker layer of
epidermis); in a sobering reminder that it is not only the elderly who are at
risk, Larry Edgeworth, a 61 year old 25 year veteran audio technician for NBC
News has just died after testing positive for the coronavirus a week earlier
(even though he had existing health issues still a sobering thought and why the
stay at home orders are critical); as the Senate moves in high gear to try to
move a stimulus package forward to help Americans, Senator Joni Ernst has
introduced legislation to allow the federal government to raid the outdated
Presidential Election Fund to purchase needed medical supplies to fight the
coronavirus epidemic; while the coronavirus epidemic is bringing out the best
of humanity it is also bringing out the worst as INTERPOL has arrested some 122
people in 90 countries for selling counterfeit coronavirus protective items
(sadly using them probably is a total waste of money in terms of any protection);
more and more the head of the WHO is looking like a total puppet of China as
China continues to push the narrative that it is not responsible for the
epidemic and is in the forefront of fighting and aiding in the fight of it);
even though only 3 of the 9 Justices of SCOTUS are under the age of 65, SCOTUS
has announced that all Justices are healthy and participating in arguments
before the court; Trump has halted all student loan payments and standardized
testing in the schools and banned all non essential travel between U.S. and Mexico
(watch for a greater push to seal the Southern border due to the fear of rising
coronavirus infections in Mexico); Africa which heretofore has been somewhat
immune to infections of the coronavirus now has 800 cases; in a potential
example of do as I say not as I do because we are above the rules that apply to
you, Senators Diane Feinstein and 3 Republicans, Richard Burr of North
Carolina, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, sold
substantial shares before the coronavirus epidemic started to tank the market;
in Chicago, as of March 19, 2020, 457 people have been shot of whom 84 have
died but none on yesterday; Baltimore with a fraction of Chicago’s population
and hoping against all hopes that 2020 will not be a record in terms of deaths is
still 22 behind Chicago with 62 murders by shootings (when will Chicago and
Baltimore get serious about this carnage or is this the case of true racism as
a Blue run city turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to the slaughter of people of
color by people of color and when will the left focus on the problem of color
on color shootings in Blue run cities which have been more deadly and more
numerous than random mass shootings?).
As always, I hope you enjoy
today’s holidays and observances, factoids of interest for this day in
history, a musical link to the SSgt. Barry Sadler, the fact that you are
not suffering from oligophrenia, a quote by Gary Paulsen on racing in the
Iditarod, secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any
memorable events like Father’s Day, 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. International Day of Happiness—created by Jayme
Illien, CEO of the UN New World Order project in 2006 to promote happiness as a
human goal and right and needed today more so than ever as the world reels
under the corona pandemic.
2. World Storytelling Day—ca celebration having
its roots in Sweden in 1990-1991 as a national day of telling stories which
died out and was resurrected in Perth, Australia in 1997.
3. 1966 Number 1 Number One Song— the
number one song in 1966 on this day on a run of 5 weeks in the position was “Ballad
of the Green Berets” by SSgt. Barry Sadler. Here is a recording of
the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjkeXKPQOI.
This former Green Beret Vietnam combat veteran was shot in the head in Guatemala
City in 1984 by a robber, spent six weeks in a coma, partially recovered as a quadriplegic
and died of a heart attack on November 5, 1989 4 days after his 49th
birthday.
4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day is “oligophrenia”
which means feeble minded a trait which too many elderly incumbents in the Senate
often seem to have.
5. Time
To Hang It Up—celebrating the birth on this day in March, 1974 of noted singer,
song writer and vocalist for such bands as Linkin Park and Death by Sunrise who
battled drug addiction and alcoholism and ended up taking his own life by
hanging on July 20, 2017 with a half empty bottle of alcohol at his side.
On this day
in:
a. 1854 the Republican Party was organized in
Ripon, Wisconsin.
b. 1985 in a blow against the glass
sled, Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Last Great on Earth, the
Iditarod.
c. 1987
the FDA approved the first anti-AIDS drug AZT.
d. 1999 Legoland California,
the first Legoland outside of Europe, opened just outside of Carlsbad,
California.
e. 2003 in the early morning
hours, military forces of the United States, aided by those of Australia,
Poland and the United Kingdom, began military operations against Iraq to
destroy Hussein and his nuclear weapons that never existed.
Reflections on the Iditarod:
““I'm sorry. I was just running them. Running the dogs." I swallowed more
soup and looked at the sky. The cold air was so clear the stars seemed to be
falling to the ground. Like you could walk right. . . over . . . there and pick
them up just lying on the snow. "I couldn't come back.”
― Gary Paulsen, Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod. This year Thomas Waemer finished first on March 18, 2020 into Nome followed over the next 2 days by 22 mushers with another 14 mushers strung out on the trail still trying to finish.
― Gary Paulsen, Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod. This year Thomas Waemer finished first on March 18, 2020 into Nome followed over the next 2 days by 22 mushers with another 14 mushers strung out on the trail still trying to finish.
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.
©
March 20, 2020 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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