December 22 Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

We are in the second day of winter and the climate warning bells are going off as at least 26 states are beginning to face monstrous winter storms of below zero falling temps with blizzards of snow many inches deep rendering many plan to arrive at friends and families for the holidays next to impossible to keep. Like the hurricane warnings governors in hurricane prone areas often give, Biden is warning residents to leave now if you want any chance to arrive in time to Christmas celebrate.  I hope you enjoy today’s Ridley's Believe It Or Not  and find it worthy to read and if not reply “Unsubscribe” to be removed.  
Ridley’s Believe It Or Not December 22, 2022
          Noted Holiday: National Regifting International Day, created by the National Money Management in 2006 and celebrated on the Thursday before Christmas as that is the day most Christmas Office Parties are held as is the perfect time to regift a gift previous received but rarely if ever used. The day is the cousin for procrastinators who hold White Elephant gift parties where gifts are received and traded with great speed and frequency.
          Word of the Day: The word of the day is “acratia” which means lack of strength, feebleness or debility which too often describe too many aging seniors who avoid exercise like the plague.                             Number 1 Song of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 1997 was “Candle in the Wind 1997”/”Something About the Way You Look Tonight” by Elton John on a run of 12 weeks to share with 9 other songs achieving number 1 status while 7 acts achieved their first number 1 song, including The Notorious B.I.G. who became the 5^th artist to achieve his status posthumously after being shot and killed in a drive by shooting in Los Angeles in the early morning hour of March 9, 1997. Here are music videos with lyrics of Elton John performing  “Candle in the Wind 1997”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PlrjTLQego  and Something About the Way You Look Tonight” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggm5kAYONcE
          Noted Birthdays: Steve “Lefty” Carlton, born on this day in 1994, a Hall of Famer who ended his career as the lefthander pitcher with the second most strikeouts and second most wins becoming the first pitcher to win 4 Cy Young Awards. He was one of the last pitching workhorses becoming the last National League pitcher to pitch 300 innings in a season and perhaps best remembered for in the 1972 season winning 46% of the last place Philadelphia Phillies games (27). Still alive owning an orchard of 150 trees content to be out of baseball.
          Notable Events that occurred on December 22
          1.      1937—The Lincoln Tunnel opened to vehicular traffic in New York City. the joy of future cruciverbalists everywhere, Arthur Wynne published “word-cross”, the world’s first crossword puzzle in the New York Herald.
          2.      1971—Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists founded the international aid group Doctors Without Borders in Paris, France.
          3.       2001—Richard Reid, a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 63, tried to destroy the plane by lighting explosives hidden in his shoes but fortunately for all aboard, he failed as passengers subdued him to be arrested when the plane landed in Boston where he was arrested and after pleading guilty was sentenced to 3 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole plus 110 and is rotting in a SuperMax Prison in Colorado.
          4.      2010—President Barack Obama signed an executive order ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which prevented openly gay soldiers from serving in the military.
          5.       2018—The U.S. Government was forced to shut down as a result of failing to pass an appropriations bill that also provided for funding a wall on the Mexican U.S. Border and remained shut down until January 25, 2018 for the longest shut down in U.S. history.
          Quote of the Day: Olivia Jane Cockburn, a noted American actress and film maker better known to her fans as Olivia Wilde: “I'd like to refocus everyone's attention away from the Kardashians and onto Doctors Without Borders or aid workers. Let's redefine scandal. Scandal is not who so-and-so is dating; scandal is the fact that 1.2 million people are still living in tents in Haiti, and cholera is rampant because Nepalese U.N. soldiers dumped s- from their Porta-Potties into the river. That's a f-ing scandal. If the average 15-year-old was hearing about that instead of so-and-so's plastic surgery or cheating in Hollywood, I'd feel better about our future.”

Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
Poems on events of the day
Commissioned unique poems