Saturday, September 2, 2023

September 1, 2023 Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

             On the crime does not pay front,  Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Seattle chapter of the Proud Boys and labeled the undisputed leader of those storming the Capitol, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and 3 years of supervised releasee, less than half of what prosecutors had sought. Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys and one of the more recognizable faces of the riot at the Capitol, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and 3 years supervised release, 9 years less than prosecutors had sought.
             On the commercial office space front, landlords and downtown shops must be jumping for joy as during the pandemic working at home caused office occupancy to plummet to barely above 40% in cities like San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and New York with Houston on top but only at 60%. Now employers in both the private sector and government are demanding more and more workers telecommute less and in the office spend more time.
             On the like winning the lottery front, in 2017 a woman who wisely wanted to remain anonymous, in a thrift shop bought a used white frame with a painting for $4 later to discover the painting was an original painting by Andrew Wyeth which she is now going to sell and which it is projected will generate at least a $250,000 purchase price.
            Conservatives’  major complaints against social media have been the shadow banning or the outright banning of what Facebook and pre Musk acquisition of X, formerly Twitter of what the social media companies deemed to be “misinformation” which compared to the reaction of repressive countries like Saudi Arabia is a soft wrist tap. News out of that paragon of tolerance Saudi Arabia is that the Saudis are imposing 20-40 year prison sentences on social media users criticizing the government and the case of a retired 50+ year old teacher, Mohammad Alghamdi, sentencing him to death.
             On the rat birth control front, in New York City, the effort after a month long trial was proved to be failure after a 20 bait stations laced with contraceptives did result in the desire effect of less pregnant rats for the sad and disgusting fact that there is too much trash containing too much food on the streets.
             On the Green Energy front, Newsom’s ambitious plans to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for electricity has finally run into the face of reality, especially during the record heat waves California has been experiencing. Without fossil fuels we are doomed to massive blackouts so the California Public Utilities Commission has voted to increase the amount of natural gas in the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Unit to almost 46 billion cubic feet.
             On the sports front another stellar player on the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, Jacki Ernst, the only women to win 2 Soccer Player of the Year Awards and 1 Young Female Soccer Player of the Year Awards has announced her retirement.|
             On the music front which like water and wine have often thought to be able to dissolve barriers that exist to divide us, in Nashville it looks like the opposite is occurring as Reds and Blues are at each other’s throats.
             On the school shooting front after a professor at the University of North Carolina was shot and killed, the school paper at UNC was struggling for the right front page headline to come up with screen shots of the numerous text messages generated during the lockdown which brought into focus the fact that so far this year from K-12 through college  86 shooting incidents have occurred resulting in 27 fatalities and 57 injuries:   

               On the sports front, the Stanford Cardinal was not looking ahead to the USC game next Saturday to focus on the Hawaii’s Rainbow Warriors to open its season with a 37-24 win against a truly one dimensional team that passed for 355 yards in 30/53 attempts and gained a -5 yards while Stanford passed for 248 yards in 25/36 attempts and rushed for 163 yards, with Ashton Daniels rushing for 42 and Casey Filkins who rushed for 67 yards but who left late in the game on a golf cart. Stanford display its up-tempo game throughout and scored 1 of its touchdowns in a truly un-Shaw like manner with a flea-flicker pass.
              September 1, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet 
              Noted Holidays: National College Colors Day: Created  on September 1, 2005 by Collegiate Licensing Authority to promote appreciation of the benefits of colleges and universities to our society and promote awareness of alumni’s and students’ affiliation with a given college or university.
              Word of the Day: The word of the day is “athwart” which means in opposition to which sadly describes all too often the positions of our two political parties in relation to each other. 
              Song of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 2001 was  “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys on a run of 3 weeks to share number 1 status with 148 other songs achieving number 1 ranking while 12 acts, including Alicia Keyes achieved  number one status for the first time.  Here is a music video with lyrics of Alicia Keys performing “Fallin’”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYHDfJDPDc
              September 1 Birthdays: “Shaping the Law Not Just Reacting to It”—
Alan Dershowitz, Born on this day in 1937 in New York City to become a noted trial lawyer, constitutional law expert, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School, author,  member of the “Dream Team” of OJ Simpson, and contributor to Fox News and alert and sharp as at 86.
              September 1  Historical Events in Rhyme
              1.     On this day in 2004 in Beslan, Ossetia, 32 or more heavily armed terrorists stormed a school/Taking some 1200 teachers, students and parents as Chechnya independence hostage tools/Shot and killed many of the male hostages that were most physically fit/Made their demands that from Chechnya Russia must quit/3 days of negotiations went nowhere/On the third day as the sounds of gunfire, grenades and rockets filled the air/Russian troops stormed the school killing 31 terrorists/But when the smoke had cleared 750 hostages had been wounded and 334 , including 184 children ceased to exist.
|              2.     On this day in 1983 Korean Air Flight 907, a 747, had into Russian airspace strayed/Soviet jets fully armed were scrambled and heading the planes way/A 747 in no way can be mistaken for a fighter or a bomber with cabin lights and navigation lights flashing/No warning only the firing of 2 air to air missiles to send the 747 crashing/ Breaking apart and killing all 269 on board/In typical Soviet behavior the Soviets recovered the flight recorder which until after the Soviet Union dissolved the Russians to from South Korea and the United States continued to hoard.
              3.     On this day in 1974 on a New York City to London flight/The SR-71 broke every Transatlantic crossing speed record in sight/Flying at 1,435.587 miles per hour/Making the Concorde look like it was powered by propeller power.
              4.      On this day in 1973 a submersible 76 hour rescue attempt came to a success/ Pisces III while laying Transatlantic cable had sunk 1600 feet below the surface when an attached tow line had parted under stress/In the cold dark with limited oxygen slowly being consumed/A race against time to avoid a fatal doom/ Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson were barely moving not speaking to not run out of air/Finally towed by another Pisces to the surface with 12 minutes of oxygen left to spare.
              4.      On this day in 1967 at Khartoum, Arab nations signed the  Declaration The Khartoum Declaration/In response to Israel’s victory in the 6 Day War that prompted their collective condemnation/And the 3 noes-no recognition of Israel, no Israel peace and no negotiation with it/And demands that denial of Palestinian rights in their own lands Israel quit.
              5.      On this day in 1923 on the Kantō Plain in Japan a 7.9 earthquake took place/Massive destruction in Tokyo and Yokohama with large numbers of building needing to be replaced over 140,000 people lost their lives from fires and tsunamis; Japanese mobs attacked Koreans blaming them for the quake and rumors of poisoning wells killing some 6-10 thousand and prompting the Japanese Army to take 22,000 into protective custody to keep them alive/One ray of hope in a sea of debris/Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel damaged but still standing to become the interim American Embassy.
              Quote on the Kantō Plain Earthquake by President Grover Cleveland who was also the head of the Red Cross that raised $12 million: “An overwhelming disaster has overtaken the people of the friendly nation of Japan. The cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, and surrounding towns and villages, have been largely if not completely destroyed by earthquake, fire and flood, with a resultant appalling loss of life and destitution and distress, requiring measures of urgent relief.” T  there is no Ukrainian strong army, there will be no Ukraine, and that will be the case when everyone will understand… it’s not the war in Ukraine; it’s the war in Europe. We are defending our country, our land. We are not attacking anyone because that is immoral.” 
© September 1, 2023 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
Poems on Events of the Day
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