Ridley's
Believe It Or Not—May 22, 2014: Hope you looking forward to the Memorial Day Weekend and will enjoy these holidays,
or celebrate in a culinary fashion, found for today along with the factoids and
quote.
1. National Maritime Day—created by Act of Congress in 1933 honoring the
contributions of our Merchant Marine, a truly endangered segment of commerce
which my father served in before enlisting in the US Navy to fight the Japanese
in WWII. God help us if the ships of the world no longer fly the U.S. flag due
to high costs of shipbuilding and high cost of unions manning those ships.
2. World Bio-Diversity Day--another UN
holiday promoting biological diversity with
this year’s theme being music to the Alaskanpoet’s heart since he grew up on an
island in Alaska—“Island Diversity.”
3. National Buy a Musical Instrument Day—promoting the
playing of musical instruments although in this tone deaf Scot/Irish poet’s
opinion the holiday needs to be melded into International
Bagpipe Day on March 10!
4. National Vanilla Pudding Day/ Chardonnay Day
picking one may be a tough choice but you cannot go wrong with vanilla pudding
for the kids and a class of chardonnay watching the sunset with the love of
your life.
On this day in:
a. 1856 in a truly partisan moment that would warm the cockles of all Blue
partisans, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles
Sumner of Massachusetts with a can in the hall of the U.S. Senate after Sumner
made a speech attacking Southerners who sympathized with pro-slavery violence
in Kansas.
b. 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his War on Poverty to end poverty and racial injustice.
c. 1980 Namco released one of the iconic computer games Pac-Man which compared to the video games today seems almost
primitive, like comparing reading a Nook to reading writings chiseled in stone or
formed in clay thousands of years ago.
As the world grows flat and the oceans shrink, we need more than
ever ships to carry goods and the sailors to crew them:
“Agriculture, manufactures and foreign commerce are the true sources of wealth and power of nations. . . . but without shipping and seamen, the surpluses of agriculture and manufactures would depreciate on our hands; the cotton, tobacco, breadstuffs, provisions and manufactures would turn out to be of little worth, unless we have ships and mariners to carry them abroad, and to distribute them in foreign markets.” Senator Rufus King of New York, Minister to Great Britain 1796-1803 Amen to that thought which is also very true today.
“Agriculture, manufactures and foreign commerce are the true sources of wealth and power of nations. . . . but without shipping and seamen, the surpluses of agriculture and manufactures would depreciate on our hands; the cotton, tobacco, breadstuffs, provisions and manufactures would turn out to be of little worth, unless we have ships and mariners to carry them abroad, and to distribute them in foreign markets.” Senator Rufus King of New York, Minister to Great Britain 1796-1803 Amen to that thought which is also very true today.
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 poems on volunteering to work at Second Harvest so food can be distributed
to the needy; climbing into the mountains to be nearer to God; the 2014 Boston
Marathon; on the Mustangs going to the Dance with a losing record; 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 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 indictment on Obama finally breaking
silence on the VA scandal; Doctor Monica Wehby winning the Oregon Primary; 5
Chinese generals for hacking and stealing trade secrets; Marine shackled on
Mexican jail bed; on the death of academic freedom; senior prom students
wearing surgical masks so fellow student undergoing chemo could attend; Sudan
preparing to hang a pregnant apostate wife for marrying a Christian to
join numerous other comments on news events always in rhyme of course.
©May 22, 2014
Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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