The death count
in Maui has risen to 110 with only 5 victims having been identified with most of Lahaina not yet searched for
bodies and but the number of missing persons has dropped from 2,000 to 1300 as
cell phone service is starting to be
restored. Alejandro Diaz a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy discharged his fire arm
in his house in Fontana in a domestic dispute and armed with 2 guns ran to a
nearby golf course to start shooting at golfers there and when he refused to
stop shooting he was shot and killed by Fontana police. A Ksubi high end denim
store was the latest to be hit by a smash and grab of 11 who quickly stole
$100,000 of goods to escape in 2 cars. Alec Baldwin may be recharged with
involuntary manslaughter as an independent forensic report just released has
concluded that the trigger had to have been pulled for the gun to fire the
bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins, an act which Baldwin has consistently
denied performing. Celese Crowder, a perverted sex offender was caught on
camera at a Glendale Barnes and Noble sniffing women patrons’ behinds, arrested
on August 11 and set free on probation even though he has not registered
himself as a sex offender as required due to past misdeeds. Bradley Cooper, who
portrayed Leonard Bernstein in the movies Maestro and was attacked for
using a prosthetic nose as “Jewface” in social media, has been defended by the
late composers’ family members asserting
their father would have supported the portrayal. A 44 year old mother drowned
trying to save her young son who fell into fast moving water at a New Hampshire
State Park; but the older brother who also tried to save was saved by the
father. The clerk in Fulton County who released the Trump indictments to the
press before the indictment had been voted on, finally admitted it was human
error and not any bias to presume the indictment was a done deal. Fulton County
D.A. Fani Willis has proposed a March 4 trial date for Trump and 18 others
indicted for trying to overturn Georgia’s election results, 1 day before 14
states including California, Texas, and California hold their primaries (Trump
is not a Biden who is more comfortable being in his basement surrounded by his
beloved teleprompters and he needs to be on the campaign trail which is going
to be difficult to say the least with 4 trials hanging over his head that could
send him to prison for the rest of his life). ABC aka Always Biased Cack folded
under attacks by the Climate Change Warrior Zealots and changing its original headline on the Maui Fires by inserting “entirely” in the headline
to read instead: “Why climate change cannot be blamed entirely for the Maui
wildfires.” The cancel culture PC Warriors who were demanding Sandra Bullock
return her Oscar awarded to her for her role as Leigh Ann Touhy in The Blind
Side due to Michael Ohr’s allegations he was tricked into signing a
conservatorship consent to the Touhy’s being appointed may calm down after the
Touhy’s lawyer’s claim that Ohr was trying to extort $15 million from them to
avoid his publishing negative articles containing his allegations. Mike Pence
campaigning for the Republican nomination has forcibly come out to deny Trump’s
assertion that the Georgia election was stolen from him. In World Cup action,
England’s women’s team beat Australia 3-1 to go on to face Spain in the finals
on Sunday.
August 16, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The
Alaskanpoet
Noted Holidays: National
Rum Day: Celebrating that spirit beverage from sugarcane that was the
first spirit distilled in the New World starting with Barbados in 1650.
Sugarcane and cotton the two major crops of the South dependent on slave labor
created a lot of wealth which made it so difficult without a Civil War to rid
the nation of the stain of slavery.
Word of the Day: the word
of the day is “assiduity” which means diligences and attention to
detail in one’s pursuits which is a trait that seems totally missing in Karine
Jean-Pierre who seems woefully unprepared at most of her news briefings and
press questionings.
Song
of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 2015 was “Cheerleader” by Omi on a run of 6
weeks noncontinuous to share number 1 status with 8 other songs achieving
number 1 ranking while 6 acts, including Omi, achieved number one status for
the first time. Here is a music video with lyrics of Omi performing “Cheerleader”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGflUbPQfW8
August
16 Birthdays: “Don’t Keep on Truckin’” James Cameron: Born on this day in 1954 in Kapuskasing,
Canada who dropped out of college to become a truck driver before turning to
writing and directing whose films include Titanic, Avatar, Terminator,
Terminator 2, Aliens, Avatar the Water and 3 more Avatar movies
planned.
August 16, Historical Events
In Rhyme
1. On
this day in 2020 lightning strike in Northern California started to hit the
ground/In two days 38 fires had started merging and growing in leaps and
bounds/Mostly wilderness and thus hard
to fight and contain/Especially in the high temperatures with little chance of
rain/The raging merged fires soon had the August Complex fire name/It took
firefighters until November 12 to put out all the flames/After over a million
acres had been burned/1 percent of California’s
land to the title of “Largest Wildfire ” rightfully earned.
2. On
this day in 2008 Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower was topped off
at 1389 feet/Then the highest residencies above ground to the skies meet/So
high up in the clouds people wondering if those visiting there would hear the
sounds/Of the massive gunfire that in this shooting gallery city sadly abounds.
3. On
this day in 1954 thanks to Henry Luce’s assiduity Time published the
first issue of Sports Illustrated/Initially concentrating on “highbrow”
sports like polo, yachting and safaris which lots of red ink created/Luce felt
the growth of consumer sports would a weekly magazine covering popular sports
the public would need/Interest in sports took off like a rocket due to
prosperity, television and Sports Illustrated issues sports fans looked
forward to being able to read.
4. On
this day in 1920 when MLB players’ only head protection was a cotton cap/Standing
in the batter’s box against a wild pitcher was like being in a death trap/Ray
Chapman of the Cleveland Indians would be hit in the head by a fastball thrown
by New York Yankee Carl May/A pitcher who was often a leader in hit batsman as
after 12 hours Chapman died the next day/MLB’s response to his death was pretty
lame/Looked like from infection the death was to blame/New rules required ump
to a dirty ball replace and in following year spitball pitches ban/But it took
30 years before helmets were required so a batter hit in the head had a chance
to death withstand.
5. On this day in 1896
Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Charlie Camack/Discovered gold in
a tributary of the Klondike River to a 100,000 gold rush miners attract/Landing in Skagway
then hauling a ton of supplies up the Chilkoot or White Pass trail/Those who
arrived early finding gold fortunes did not fail/But the latecomers’ dreams of
riches met a bitter end/Until another gold find at Nome on the coast revived
another Gold Rush trend.
Famous Quote on the Klondike Gold Rush Pierre
Berton, author of Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush: 1896- 1899: “Soon much of Alaska
and the Canadian Northwest was speckled with men and pack animals. Every
Canadian community from Winnipeg to Victoria was permanently affected by the
boom. The Canadian North was seen as something more than frozen wasteland:
Klondike fever was the catalyst for a chain of later mineral discoveries. Sixty
steamboats plied the Yukon. The new town of Dawson at the Klondike's mouth, with a
floating population of some 30 000, became the largest community north of
Seattle and west of Winnipeg, boasting telephones, electricity and motion
picture theatres. Prostitution was tolerated, saloons, dancehalls and gaming
parlours wide open except on Sundays. The North-West Mounted Police kept
Dawson a law-abiding town while the Yukon Field Force, a military unit, maintained Canadian sovereignty in the face of a
predominantly American population. The Spanish-American War and the news of a
strike at Nome, Alaska, ended the stampede in the summer of 1898. By then, it
is estimated, the gold
seekers had spent some $50 million reaching
the Klondike, a sum about equal to the amount taken from the diggings in the 5
years following Carmack's discovery.”
© August 16, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
Poems on Events of the Day
Unique Commissioned Poems for Special Events
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