May 26 History Sally Ride Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—May 26, 2015 Trust your Memorial Day weekend was a great one and the batteries are recharged to start the week. As always, I  hope you enjoy the holidays and observances, factoids of interest, a music video by Lil Wayne with Static Major  and  relevant quotes from George Bush and two of his Iraq War generals, looking forward to powering down a slice of blueberry cheesecake, blessed  with a positive attitude even though you know you may have to wade through tons of spam in your inbox, and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like Fathers’ Day, birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient. You need only contact me for details.
       1. National Paper Airplane Day —commemorating that cheap but classic toy—the paper airplane; record for distance of a paper airplane is 222 feet 10 inches and time in the air record is 27 seconds.
       2. World Lindy Hop Day—celebrating the formulation of the Lindy Hop aka swing dancing or jitterbug by Frankie Manning in Harlem in the 20’s and 30’s.
        3. 2008 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 2008 on a brief four week run Lollipop by Lil Wayne featuring Static Major, another rapper who appeared in 1996 and sadly for us rock fans still performing today. Here is a link of Lil Wayne and Static Major performing Lollipop.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IH8tNQAzSs  
       4. National Blueberry Cheesecake Day—a great way to end that summer barbecue especially with a cooler loaded with dry ice and ice cream to add to the
       5. I Am There for the Ride Day—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1951 of America’s first female astronaut and then youngest astronaut into low earth orbit, Sally Ride, noted Stanford graduate and honored today by a Google doodle.
On this day in:                                            
        a. 1647 Alse Young of Hartford, Connecticut became the first person in British North America to be executed for witchcraft; at least for her suffering she was hanged not burned at the stake.
        b. 1896 Charles Dow published his first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average which is getting hammered today in early trading.  
        c. 1923 in a great endurance race for driver and car the first 24 hours at Le Mons was run. The two man team Legache and Leonard from France managed to travel a little over 2200 kilometers in the 24 hour period.
        d. 1998 in a map redrawing moment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ellis Island was primarily located in New Jersey, not New York.                        
        e.  2004 in a hindsight is always a 20/20 moment, The New York Times admitted a major journalistic failing in its reporting in 2003 on the claimed existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction which we now know did not exist.
Reflections on the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist in Iraq: “He tried to fool the United Nations and did for 12 years by hiding these weapons. And so, it's going to take time to find them. But we know he had them, and whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth.” ~George W. Bush April 25, 2003  “I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.” ~Maj. Gen. David Petreaus, Commander 101st Airborne, May 13, 2003  “It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.” ~Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, May 30, 2003 If Saddam would have admitted there were no weapons of mass destruction and given inspectors full and complete access, we would have saved trillions and thousands of lives and regardless of his repressive state, ISIS would not exist. Tragic miscalculation by him and by the Bush administration and even the media like The New York Times.  
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© May 26, 2015 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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