Saturday, January 2, 2021

January 1, 2021 Ridley's Believe It Or Not Polar Bear Plunge

 

Ridley's Believe It Or Not January 1, 2021
        CV World Cases: The CV pandemic across the planet is welcoming the new year with a surging case note with 828,945 new cases (a .73%  increase compared to a .99% increase yesterday) to bring the total over  84 million to 84,318,010, 22,887,418 of  which  are active, 61,430,592 closed with 59,596,684 recoveries (97.01% compared to  yesterday’s 97.01%) and 1,833,918 deaths (2.99% compared to yesterday’s 2.99%) to continue the trend of increased cases with increased recovery  percentages and decreased death percentages with some plateaus.

        CV USA Cases: New cases of 332,219 (a 1.64% increase compared to yesterday’s 1.61% increase) to bring the  total over 20 million  to  20,603,784 with 8,087,008 active cases of which 29,179 (.36% of active cases and a decrease of 92 from peak of 29,271 on December 31), recently on a disturbing upward trend with no dips from a high of 19,155 on July 23  (29,271 yesterday), are in serious or critical condition as trend has shifted and is still continuing to go up if today’s number is not a dip, and 12,516,776 closures,  356,328 of which have been deaths (2.85% compared to yesterday’s 2.85%) and 12,160,448 of which have been recoveries (97.15% compared to yesterday’s 97.15%). Our death rate percentage continues to improve and after many months is now .14% lower than the world rate and .24% lower than Canada which has the socialized type medicine Biden may well want to implement here  and on a deaths per million population measurement on a steady climb to 1073 ranks behind Belgium (1681), Italy (1235). Peru (1136),  Bulgaria (1099),  UK (1089) which had passed us despite leading world in testing) and Spain (1087), and only slightly worse than Hungary (1002), France (991),  Mexico (971), Argentina (952),  Brazil (915), Switzerland (882) and (830) six days ago and so added to the list, Chile (868 that we recently passed), Sweden (861) that never closed its economy down like we did but has recently been experiencing a rapid rise in deaths, Ecuador (790) and Bolivia (780) and we have now conducted 1,140,086 more tests to bring the total to 254,682,726 (now at 767,159/M compared to Russia at 625,117/M so Trump was telling truth that we conduct more tests in number and on a per capital basis for nations (other than those nations that contain small populations like Bahrain, Denmark,  Israel, Singapore and UAE) but for the U.K. which remains off the testing charts with tests at 806,468/M.

        Non CV Case News: In the Georgia Senate runoff races, Perdue though testing negative has gone into quarantine while he and Reds are blasting Ossoff’s initially unreported payments from PCCW Limited, a Honk Kong company believed to be linked to China a claim which Ossoff dismisses as nonsense and refuses to respond; Warnock and Ossoff are both playing the race card against Loeffler claiming a selfie with former white supremacist Chuck Doyle at a campaign rally proves she is “campaigning with a Klansman” as she denies she even knows the man and candidates oblige selfie requests from almost anyone in public as a matter of course: Warnock caught with his hands in the anti-Semite jar has tried to walk back comments made in 2019 comparing Israel’s policies toward Palestinians to apartheid practiced by South Africa; on the college football front Alabama has just blown out Notre Dame in the College Football Championship Semifinals 31-14 to advance to play Ohio State who defeated Clemson 49-28; not sure if this will be typical of bridge burning acts for Trump following the inauguration of Biden, but he has tweeted that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem should mount a 2022 primary challenge against Senator Thune who he has labeled a RINO; California which is already seeing businesses leave in droves can expect more as a state law going into effect today require public companies to have at least 1 racial or sexual minority on their board of directors which minimum number will be increased based on size of board to at least 3 if board is 9 or more and all companies with more than 100 employees disclose diversity statistics to the state—for a short summary of new laws across the nation- https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-state-laws-2021-police-reform-health; prosecutors of the 4 officers charged in the death of George Floyd have asked for a 3 month delay of the trial citing CV concerns which means Minneapolis have another riot delayed if the officers are not convicted; De Blasio who is the mayor most people ridicule and detest in a do as I say moment and totally stupid or oblivious after shutting down Times Square for New Year’s Eve celebrations danced the night away with his wife on an empty stage (this is the mayor who is boosting he will have 1,000,000 New Yorkers vaccinated by end of January  and must have been smoking dope when he made that promise); the Senate as expected overruled Trump’s veto of the Defense Authorization Act; NFL put on its Grinch hat and fined Alvin Kamara for wearing red and green cleats on Christmas Day while tying Ernie Nevers TD rushing record of 6 (this ex Alaskan commercial fisherman thought since the colors were on the wrong feet for navigation purposes, the Vikings were confused and missed tackles); Portland ended the 2020 as sadly could be expected with another mini-riot throwing fire bombs at police and damaging businesses; during the peak of the pandemic and shut downs, stores ran out of hand sanitizers and small distilleries stepped up to meet the shortage only to find out that the federal government left hand knows not what the right is doing and the FDA levied fines of $14,000 per distillery which the DHSS  brought some needed sanity and banned the fines.

         Chicago/Baltimore Gun Violence: In Chicago as of December 31,  2020 with preliminary numbers as 2020 ends, compared to 2019 numbers,  the number of shootings increased to 4,174 (+51% of whom  719 (+55%) have died (total travesty of BLM when blacks are shot and killed by blacks in droves and only sounds of silence and complete absence of any protests in front of City Hall demanding action to curb the killings and shootings); Baltimore with a fraction of Chicago’s population and and thrilled that 2020 was not a record in terms of deaths at 335 ahead of 2016 (318) and 2018 (309) but behind 2019 (348) and 2017 (342) and ending behind Chicago by 384 (when will Chicago, Baltimore and other urban areas 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 way  more  deadly and way more numerous than shootings by  police or by random mass shootings which occur far fewer times),

As always, I hope you enjoy today’s holidays and observances, factoids of interest for this day in history, a musical link to “Angie Baby” by Helen Reddy, the the fact that you are not plagued with pseudacusis and a quote from the American Academy of Pediatrics on placement of cigarettes in movies and TV, secure in the knowledge that if you want to send 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. Please contact me for the details on the pricing.

         1. Polar Bear Plunge—started in Boston in 1904 to slowly spread across the country for brave or foolish souls to plunge into frigid waters on New Year’s Day to welcome the New Year and perhaps shock the coming hangover from a New Year’s Eve party out of their system.

2. National Bloody Mary Day—created for those New Year’s Eve party goers suffering the overindulgence but not willing to plunge into frigid waters, the perfect holiday hangover solution fortified with Vitamin C and Vodka to ward of the CV virus.

3. 1975 Number One Song— the number 1 song in 19754 on this day with 3 days left of its 1 week run that started on December 28, 1974 was “Angie Baby.” Here is a

recording of Helen Reddy singing “Angie Baby”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQKyGt_I5L4.

        4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day is “pseudacusis” which means hearing sounds that don’t exist.

        5. King and No I Is Deadly---celebrating the birth on this day in 1919 of  noted actress aka ”The Ping Girl”  Frances Lillian Mary Ridste better known to her fans as Carole Landis who racked up more miles visiting the troops with USO during WWII than any other actress, was married 4 times but while being separated from her last husband had an affair with Rex Harrison who given her marital track record wisely refused to divorce his wife Lilli Palmer and thus devastated, she committed suicide on July 6, 1048 at age 29.

         On this day in:
         a. 1902 the first post season bowl game, named the Tournament East-West football game, the predecessor to the Rose Bowl, was played in Pasadena’s Tournament Park and sadly for this dies hard Cardinal was won by Michigan 49-0 over Stanford.

         b. 1971 at 11:50 p.m. the last cigarette ad allowed on TV aired on the Johnny Carson Show as legislation signed by Nixon on April 7, 1970 banned cigarette ads on radio and TV effective midnight January 1, 1971, enabling Big Tobacco to fill the airways watching the floats and bowl games with the last ads for their deadly product.

        c. 1983 ARPANET changed over to TCP/IP, the official internet protocol and the internet is officially established and off and running.

        d. 1994 the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement which proved to be a disaster to American manufactures came into effect.

      e. 2010 starting off the year with a deadly bang a suicide bomber in a SUV believed to be a Taliban detonated 400 pounds of TNT next to a soccer game at the village of Lakki Marwat in Pakistan, killing 105 players and spectators and wounding over a 100, many seriously.

        Reflections on the Whack-a-Mo game of tobacco marketing: “"The case is strong for the argument that smoking shown in entertainment media plays a causal role in smoking onset. Certainly, it is time to eliminate all tobacco advertising and to decrease the depiction of smoking in mainstream media," American Academy of Pediatric Astute observation that removal of TV, radio, and print advertising just shifts the ad dollar to product placement on movies and TV; the real solution to the problem is a campaign that appeals to the fact that second hand smoke kills just like not wearing a mask spreads COVID-19.

         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.

© January 1, 2021 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet

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