Ridley's Believe It Or Not For January 29, 2016 Seeing Eye Dog Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For January 29, 2016, 357 days to go in President Obama’s pathetic lame duck term. Interesting theater last night during the Republican debate with the candidates still attacking each other as opposed to focusing on Hillary with an occasional swipe at the absent Trump. As always, I hope you enjoy Friday’s holidays and observances, a music link to The Platters, factoids of interest, a relevant quote from Britain’s first recipient of a seeing eye dog, looking forward to enjoying a bowl of corn chips, blessed with a positive attitude and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like 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 Seeing Eye Dog Day—celebrating the contributions made by seeing eye dogs to enable the blind some semblance of independent mobility which until Google introduces a cane which has collision avoidance technology similar to its driverless car and which incorporates a GPS system informing the blind person of his location and when he must turn, the highly trained seeing eye dog remains the gold standard. The day also marks the formation of the first seeing eye dog school on this day in 1929 by a completely blind Morris Frank.

2. National Puzzle Day—celebrating a fun way to spend some challenging time with a crossword puzzle or Sudoku which if you believe the medical profession is also a great way to defer the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s such that when the Golden Years arrive that the senior will know where the person is, who the person is, where the person is going, and will know who the person is talking to.

3. 1959 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 1959 on a run of three weeks in that position Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by The Platters. Here is a link to The Platters performing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Hop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbQuYgPrM0k  

4. National Corn Chip Day--celebrating a chip so tasty that dip such as onion or guacamole is not needed to want to eat the whole bag.

5. Saving Speaker Ryan—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1970 Paul Ryan who given the dysfunctionality of Congress must wonder why he has already used up a disguise his beard grown during hunting season and now faces the growing chaos in Congress as November gets closer and closer.

On this day in: 

a. 1834 President Andrew Jackson summoned for federal troops in conjunction with a labor dispute for the first time in our history.

b. 1886 Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline powered engine.

c. 1896 Emile Grubbe became the first doctor to use radiation to treat breast cancer.

d. 2002 in his State of Union address President George W. Bush identified those nations which sponsor or support terror as the “Axis of Terror,” which included North Korea, Iran and Iraq—14 years later he is batting 2 out of 3.

e. 2015 Malaysian Airlines declared that the disappearance of MH 370 was an accident and declared that all passengers and crew were presumed dead.

Reflections on the importance of seeing eye dogs, lacking only the ability to read text and translate for their blind owner: "A guide dog is almost equal in many ways to giving a blind man sight itself.” Britain's first recipient of a seeing eye dog, 1931                                                                                 

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© January 29, 2016, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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