Ridley's Believe It Or Not--March 7, 2014:  Another day in the creeping shadows of St. Patrick's Day.  Found these worthy holidays and due to popular demand in the Iditarod, the Last Great Race on Earth, 64 year old Sonny Lindner and King have slipped back and the new leader with a an over 2 hour lead coming out of Galena is 44 year Ms. Aily Zirkle, a 12 time finisher in the Iditarod and a resident of Two Rivers, Alaska. (update tomorrow).  Hope you enjoy the holidays, factoids and quote for the day, wearing blue for the right reason, and find time for prayer and meditation now that you have momentarily unplugged from the high tech world to replug into the spiritual.

           1. World Prayer Day--celebrated on the first Friday in March; a world wide ecumenical movement of Christians united in prayer and prayful action. Given what is going on it the world in terms of attacks on Christians needed more than ever.

           2. Employee Appreciation Day-- on the calendars since 1995 as a day for all employers to recognize and convey appreciation of the work done by their employees; if you are self-employed give yourself the day off.

           3. Dress in Blue Day--not to inspire you to vote Democratic but to create awareness for colon cancer, which, pardon my words, is a real sh***y disease.  

           4. National Unplugging Day (7-8)--a time to slow down the hectic world by unplugging from technology talk don't text, write don't autotext, exercise for real not virtual, go outside and smell the greenery not into a virtual world and the list goes on. Only reason the day is two must be in unplugging one might forget to save and have to spend another day recovering all one's data.

           On this day in:
              a. 1908 in a Bob Ford mayor like statement Cincinnati's mayor, Mark Breith announced before the city council that, "Women are not physically fit to operate automobiles."
              b. 1927 the US Supreme Court ruled unconsitutional a Texas law that barred Blacks from voting (wonder why it took them so long).

              c. 2003 creating one of the reasons for National Unplugging Day (7-8), scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center announced that they had transferred by fiber-optic cables  6.7 gigabytes of uncompressed data from Sunnvale, CA, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 58 seconds.

If only our politicians could listen to the last sentence: “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” Mahatma Gandhi
   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 blind in one eye 54 year old mother suffering from a rare disease who competed in last years Iditarod with a broken pelvis suffered in the first day until scratched 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, elateand enjoy. Go to Rhymes On The Newsworthy Times for poems on 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; Obama need for fund raising trumping Russian moves into Crimea; Potomac fever infecting the Governors’ Conference; the Cal Ripken, Jr. equivalent in the House, John Dingell after almost 60 years announcing his retirement; FCC plan to investigate diversity of news coverage to the great concern of the media (now shelved due to outrage in the media); Nebraska judge saving Obama by enjoining Keystone XL;  Kerry calling global warming the new weapon of mass destruction; chaos in the Ukraine; OC Sheriff's Deputies getting paid for donning and doffing their uniforms;  Chairman of OC Board of Supervisors double dipping to join numerous other comments on news events always in rhyme of course.

©March 7, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet