Ridley's Believe It Or Not-This Day History-March 15, 2014-Ides Of March

 Ridley's Believe It Or Not--March 15, 2014:  Two days to St. Patrick's Day and counting and today is the day--The Ides of March-- to wear your toga but beware of fellows nicknamed "Brute" also similarly clad if your first name is Julius. Tough blow out loss for the Cardinal against UCA in the semifinals last night against  UCLA, but still a good chance to go to the March Madness Dance. 

            1. World Contact Day--celebrated since 1953 by the International Flying Saucer Bureau to communicate telepathically with any aliens observing the Earth--Roswell and the success of E.T. notwithstanding, no response back yet.

           2. International Consumer Rights Day--promoting the rights of consumers to be able to purchase reliable and safe products from sellers that stand behind readable and understandable warranties and that caveat emptor be banned from human language.

           3. Buzzard Day--not as famous or noteworthy as Swallows Day in San Juan Capistrano but celebrated in Hinkley, Ohio as the day those beloved birds, the turkey buzzards, return to the town...Never let it be said that Americans lack the ability to create an event designed to attract tourists and their spending dollars.
           4. International Day of Protest Against Slaughter of Baby Seals--with all due deference to our Canadian allies, this is a practice driven solely by fashion where thousands of baby seals in their white pelts are clubbed to death in front of their mothers and skinned. Anyone who sees the protest videos and then wears a garment of white seal fur is a pretty pathetic human being.
On this day in:
            a. 1783 George Washington made an impassioned plea to the officers of the Continental Army, frustrated by (sound familiar) the Congress reneging on bonus and pension promises, thereby halting the Newburgh Conspiracy in its tracks and avoiding a coup d’état of our fledging government.

            b. in 1935 in a great advance for highway safety, Percy Shaw formed his company Reflecting Roadstuds Limited to make the "cats's eyes" you see on almost all highways today.

            c. in 1985 the first internet  domain name (symbolics.com) was registered, now joined by over 252 million as of April of 2013 and increasing at a rate of 100 thousand a day.

Our Founding Fathers in creating our Constitution were almost perfect but not quite: "Our Constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S, Senators." Will Rogers, great humorist sadly killed in a plane crash in Alaska and had he been aive today would have added "including the likes of Senator Harry Reid.

Please enjoy the 140 character poems on events of interest on my twitter account below (if you like them, retweet and join almost 140 growing followers and please follow me) and follow my blogs. Always good, incisive and entertaining poems on my blogs--click on links below. www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com for an original poem to honor Cindy Abbott, a half blind 54 year old mother suffering from a rare disease who competed in last year's Iditarod until forced out with a broken pelvis after 600 miles; an original poem on Bode Miller and the human spirit; an original poem for Cupid on Valentine's Day; an original poem to honor Cory Remsburg to join a great collection of my poems to inspire, touch, emote, elate and enjoy. Go to Rhymes On The Newsworthy Times for poems on Jolly's upset win over Sink in the House's 13th District of Florida this Tuesday; USS Coronado doing a little whale watching of Dana Point; China's red line on war in Korea; De Blasio's payback to his union contributors by attacking charter schools; Rutgers' faculty despicable attempt to ban Condi Rice from being a commencement speaker; the holiday creep of St. Patrick's Day; the crash of a Malaysian Air flight; Obama's need for vacation time as Ukraine crisis unfolds; Newport Beach's assault on recovery homes, including the Ohio House; food fight between Issa and Cummings as Lerner takes the 5th again; Sally Jewell, Department of Interior, telling the residents of King Cove, Alaska to take a hike in placing wildlife over their lives; on students protesting Keystone XL as the world's largest oil producer militarily occupies the Crimea: the banning the wearing of the American flag on Cinco de Mayo; Putin winning the Great Game against Obama to join numerous other comments on news events always in rhyme of course.

©March 15, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com  www.twitter.com/alaskanpoet  Rhymes On The Newsworthy Times  Ridley's Believe It Or Not  www.facebook.com/Alaskanpoet  www.linkedin.com/in/octechlaw