Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

In New York the climate change warriors have been replaced by the military called up to enforce the traffic ban in Buffalo due to the deadly blizzards  and to patrol the roads and highways as the winter storm finally is abating. Unfortunately the winter storms have not abated fast enough as on Monday some 5000 flights were cancelled and thousands more were subject to flight delays. For those celebrating the 2nd day of Kwanzaa and having the misfortune of having lost power due to winter storms, on the bright side the red candle burning to represent Kujichagulia, or self-determination will burn brighter.  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 27, 2022
          Noted Holiday: National Snowflake Day, not sure who created this day and when but it is celebrated by cutting out paper snowflakes which seems somewhat of an overkill when the real stuff is many inches or feet deep and snarling all traffic.
          Word of the Day: The word of the day is “acronyx” which means an ingrown nail which can be painful and best treat by cutting a “v” in the nail and rubbing a file across the center of the nail. 
          Number 1 Song of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 1995 was “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men on a run of 5 weeks to share with 11 other songs achieving number 1 status while 5 acts achieved their first number 1 song,  Here is a music video with lyrics of Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men performing “One Sweet Day”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
=UXxRyNvTPr8

          Noted Birthdays: Hayley Williams, born on this day in 1988, is the lead vocalist, principal songwriter and keyboardist for the pop rock band Paramore.
          Notable Events that occurred on December 27
          1.      1845—To the joy and relief of future mothers destined to undergo painful delivery, Doctor Crawford Long used ether anesthetic for the first time in Jefferson, Georgia.
          2.      1845—Having previously coined the term “manifest destiny” in July, journalist John L. O’Sullivan argued in his newspaper The New York Morning News that the United States had the right and duty to claim all of the Oregon Territory.
          3.      1929—Soviet General Secretary ordered the liquidation of the “kulaks” as a class in Ukraine through mass murder, starvation and deportation.
          4.      1978—Spain became a democracy after 40 years of General Franco’s fascist rule commencing from his victory in the Spanish Civil War.
          5.       1989—The Romanian Revolution which resulted in the execution of Communist Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elana on Christmas Day came to an end with minor street protests and stray shootings in Bucharest.
          Quotes of the DayEugene Lyons, United Press correspondent in Russia during the genocide of the Ukrainian kulaks on complicity of foreign journalists blind to the killings: “ The truth is that we did not seek corroboration for the simple reason that we entertained no doubts on the subject. There are facts too large to require eyewitness confirmation. … Inside Russia the matter was not disputed. The famine was accepted as a matter of course in our casual conversation at the hotels and in our homes.”
Garath Jones, a 27 year old former secretary to Britain’s Prime Minister David Lloyd George who managed to visit 20 villages and broke the story of the famine to the West: “I crossed the border from Great Russia into the Ukraine. Everywhere I talked to peasants who walked past. They all had the same story.” “There is no bread. We haven’t had bread for over two months. A lot are dying.” The first village had no more potatoes left and the store of burak (“beetroot”) was running out.” “They all said:” “The cattle are dying, nechevo kormit’ [there’s nothing to feed them with]. We used to feed the world & now we are hungry. How can we sow when we have few horses left? How will we be able to work in the fields when we are weak from want of food?”

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

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