Washington once known as
the “Evergreen State” looks like it has lost all marbles passing a bill that
strips parents of their rights to learn about the transitioning of their
children and the right to block or
hinder gender affirming care like hormones, puberty blockers, or surgeries
(watching what has happened to adult veterans languishing in VA hospitals
should be a wakeup call that State Child Support Services are likely up to the
task). Space X, weather permitting and all systems go, will test tomorrow its
massive rocket Starship that will be used to send astronauts to the Moon and to
Mars. News out of Iran is not encouraging as the regime angered by the protests
over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, have poisoned some 300 students
mostly girls. On the good news front which too often is far and few between,
Sammy Berko, a teen from Missouri City, Texas went to a rock climbing gym,
climbed to the top to ring the bell then slumped over with an apparent cardiac
arrest causing paramedics to arrive and start CPR and after 2 hours said to his
anxious parents “He’s gone” and left the grieving parents to say good bye, only
after they stood up to leave, he started moving a and was breathing with no
apparent brain injury.
April 16, 2023 Michael P.
Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet
Noted Holidays: Day of the Mushroom:
Created by the Mushroom
Council which came into being in 1993 and celebrated on this day to promote the
sale and consumption of mushrooms, of which there are some 14,000 varieties
some of which are very poisonous and some like psilocybin have psychedelic
properties. My mother, who was the head of the county mycology association,
used to love to bring home a selection of different mushrooms most of which as
a young teenager I was terrified to eat.
Word of the Day: The word
of the day is “ambustion” which means to be burned or scalded which are very
painful and it really severe deadly or leaving gnarly scars.
Number 1 Song: As we have left the past and returned to start the clock backwards
from the present, the number 1 song on this day in 2012 was “We Were
Young” by Fun feat. Janelle Monáe on a run of 6
weeks to share with 12 other songs that achieved number 1 status while 6
acts including Fun and Janelle Monáe
achieved number 1 status for the first
time. Here is a recording of Fun feat. Janelle Monáe performing with lyrics “We
Were Young”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6dMFF_yts
April 16 Famous Birthdays: Kareem Abdul Jabbar, born
on this day in 1947 in Harlem, was a football player who played for UCLA to
dominate the NCAA and then drafted to play 20 seasons in the NBA, setting many
records some of which have been broken but by most this 7’2” agile player would
be revered as probably the best player to step on a basketball court with
possible exception of Michael Jordan, or Kobe Bryant and Le Bron James when he
retires in a few years.
Noted Events on April 16:
1. 1945—The MV Goya, a freighter seized by the Kriegsmarine after the surrender
to the Germans was as part of Operation Hannibal, created to transfer soldiers
and fleeing civilians from the advancing Red Army was sunk in four minutes by 2
torpedoes, causing the deaths of over 6,000 soldiers and civilians who mostly
drowned or died from hypothermia in the frigid Baltic Sea Waters.
2. 2008—SCOTUS ruled in the case of Base v. Rees that death by lethal
injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual
punishment.
3. 2012—The
trial of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik
who was accused of planting
a bomb in Oslo on June 11, 2011 that killed 8 people and injured 209, 12
seriously and then hopping on a ferry to go to a summer camp on the island of Utøya
organized by the youth wing of the Norwegian Labor Party dressed like a
policeman and opened fire, killing 67 and wounding 32, before being arrest. He
was found competent to stand trial and was convicted and sentenced to 21 years
in prison subject to parole after serving 10 years and further subject to 5
year extensions if he is found to remain a threat to society. He is rotting in
solitary confinement and his first request for parole has been denied.
4. 2019—A fire broke out in Notre Dame
Cathedral which took almost an hour for fire trucks to arrive to mistakes made
by personnel in locating the fire and delays being able to call it in and
before it was extinguished on the morning of April 16 to cause massive damages
to the structure that are expected to cost in the neighborhood of $865 million
with construction scheduled to be finished prior to the opening of the Paris
Olympics in 2024.
5. 2018—The New
York Times and The New Yorker were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
Public Service for exposing the Harvey Weinstein Sexual Abuse Scandal that
would ultimately cause him to be convicted in both New York and California and
sentenced to serve terms the length of which will mean he will die in prison.
Famous Quotes on Events and Issues:
Kimberly Guilfoyle, Fox Journalist
on The Five on Harvey Weinstein: “[Harvey]
Weinstein appointed himself as the arbiter of your family safety. When was the
last time his life was in danger, probably choking on a veal chop. He doesn't
need a gun because he has security. He travels in rarified air. His feet never
touch the street - feet, mind you, that he can't see because he's a corpulent
cretin.”
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
Poems on Events of the Day
Unique Commissioned Poems
No comments:
Post a Comment