Ridley's Believe It Or Not-This Day In History-January 29, 2014 Thomas Paine Day

Ridley's Believe It Or Not--January 29, 2014:  Slow day for mainstream holidays today but managed to pull these out of the lapin hat along with my favorite week at least until final stanzas of The Quitter are delivered in the Burma Shave format.
             1. Curmudgeon Day--ok to observe but stay young in spirit and mind and do not become one.

             2. National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week (1/27-2/2)--celebrated in Elko, Nevada; grab your hat and enjoy a unique American art form, e.g. a few more lines from my favorite poet whose works taught me how to read at an early age--Robert Service--The Quitter: "Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It's the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit; It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard." Worth reading as are most of his works--after listening to the State of the Union and ending ovations for Cory Remsburg, I think our President reads Service also.
             3. National Puzzle Day--great day for a crossword puzzle to prepare for the American Crossword Puzzle Contest 2/19-2/21 Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, NYC
             4.  Freethinkers Day and Thomas Paine Day-- cannot celebrate one without the other--good day to start reading the Rights of Man and Common Sense while celebrating his birthday on January 29, 1737.
On this day in:
             a. 1834 The Raven was published by Edgar Alan Poe in the New York Daily Mirror.

             b. 1967 the ultimate high of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance took place in San Francisco featuring Janis Joplin (OD’d in 1970), the Grateful Dead and poet Alan Ginsburg.

             c. 2002 in his State of the Union Address, President Bush named nations which sponsor terrorists as the Axis of Evil--Iraq, Iran, and North Korea--amazing how 12 years later, not much has changed and Iraq may soon rejoining the list that North Korea and Iran never left. 

Be a free thinker but perhaps a bit of Common Sense-- "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Common Sense, Thomas Paine, one of the great pillars of the American Revolution barely studied by our students today.

As we approach Super Bowl XLVIII which may be played in sub freezing temps with snow falling, it is not who wins or loses, but the quality not of the play but of the Super Bowl ads! 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 Martin Luther King, Jr. and an original in poem honoring a 17 year young Progeria victim who died on the eve of becoming an honorary captain for the Patriots  (have tissues handy). Just posted for your enjoyment on www.alaskanpoetcommentary.blogspot.com poem on the growing Imperial Presidency; the promotion of Charlene Lamb, the woman in charge of no security at Benghazi; and the collusion between the EPA and environmental groups to kill KeystoneXL with the end of Canadian patience.

©January 29, 2014 Michael P. Ridley

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