Random News: July 26, 2022

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s July 26, 2022, and it’s a Tuesday. Both important and trivial thoughts forthcoming…

• I got called out yesterday by a number of people who noted that I didn’t mention what was, by every definition, a historical musical performance over the weekend. They were right; I should have mentioned it.
• Joni Mitchell is absolutely a) one of my favorite singer-songwriters, b) one of my biggest musical influences, and c) correctly regarded as one of the most important songwriting musicians of the past 100 or so years.
• She performed as the surprise headliner — and a guest of Brandi Carlile — at the Newport Folk Festival on Sunday. It was her first full-set performance since 2002. She’d left music aside due to health issues and a general disdain for the world of music as a whole, which is understandable.
• I had assumed, at age 78 and in her condition, that she was never going to perform again, but there she was. She mostly sat and sang in a regal-looking chair, but she also stood up and played some guitar.
• I don’t do the “favorite” thing about music; my preferred song at any given time is dependent on my mood and the circumstances of listening. But if I had to tell someone who’d never heard Joni before about five songs I recommend…
• “Amelia”, “Black Crow”, “Blue”, “Down to You”, and “Help Me”
• Or possibly “A Case of You”, “For Free”, “Jericho”, “Song for Sharon”, and “The Last Time I Saw Richard”.
• This is why I don’t do this, he said, while wanting to name 15 more songs.
• “Edith and the Kingpin”. Okay, that’s it.
• Back to terrible things. Ohio US Senate candidate JD Vance said that people should stay in violent marriages rather than get divorced.
• To be clear, he is saying unapologetically that if you’re a woman whose husband beats the shit out of you, you should be obligated to stay married despite this.
• Hey Ohio, you gonna send this guy to the Senate?
• Everyone favorite Nazi, Marjorie Whatever Greene, says that the GOP is a Christian Nationalist party. So if you’re not Christian and/or you believe in working with and doing business with other countries, you are not welcome in her version of the USA.
• Hey Georgia, you gonna re-elect her to Congress?
• Meet congressman Glenn Thompson (R-PA). On Tuesday of last week, he joined 157 other House Republicans who voted against the bill that would codify federal protections for same-sex marriage. And then on Friday, he attended his gay son’s same-sex wedding, for which I commend him, but the hypocrisy is fucking vile.
• Pertinent election year note: per a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support same-sex marriage.
• While we’re in Pennsylvania, let’s meet Gab CEO Andrew Torba, a consultant to PA gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Seems like a nice fellow. Let’s see…
• “We don't want people who are atheists. We don't want people who are Jewish. We don't want people who are, you know, nonbelievers, agnostic, whatever. This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country. Ben Shapiro is not welcome in the movement unless he repents and accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.” - Andrew Torba
• Hey Pennsylvania. Instead of Doug, I’m gonna have to recommend Josh Shapiro for governor, alrighty?
• Let’s wash away that disgusting quote with a better one.
• QotD: “Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.” - Kofi Annan
• The Choco Taco has been discontinued. If you work in any kind of manufacturing business, you’ve heard this one before. The ice cream maker Klondike is owned by giant international conglomerate Unilever, and they want to “slim down their portfolio to help meet demand for their most popular items.” Fuckers. How dare they?
• From the Sports Desk… get Britney Griner the fuck out of Russia. Jesus. If that was a well-known white male heterosexual athlete, it would have been done in days, not months. Sorry, but it’s true.
• Today in history… Muslim troops rout the Christians at the Battle of Valdejunquera (920). Francis Drake discovers the San Francisco Bay (1579). The Continental Congress establishes a Post Office Department and Benjamin Franklin is named Postmaster General (1775). New York ratifies the Constitution and becomes the 11th state (1788). France annexes Tahiti (1891). They staff the Office of the Chief Examiner, which is later renamed the FBI (1908). The US, Britain, and the Netherlands freeze all Japanese assets in WWII (1941). Aloha Airlines begins service from Honolulu (1946). Truman signs the National Security Act to create the CIA, DoD, USAF, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NSC… wow (1947). The US military is desegregated (1948). The Cuban Revolution begins (1953). Apollo 15 launches (1971). George H. W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee for POTUS by a major party (2016).
• July 26 is the birthday of playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856), psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875), novelist Aldous Huxley (1894), comedian Gracie Allen (1895), actress Vivian Vance (1909), director Blake Edwards (1922), writer/illustrator Jan Berenstain (1923), director Stanley Kubrick (1928), singer Darlene Love (1941), singer and icon Mick Jagger (1943), actress Helen Mirren (1945), drummer Roger Taylor (1949), skater Dorothy Hamill (1956), actress Nana Visitor (1957), actor and alleged sex criminal Kevin Spacey (1959), actress Sandra Bullock (1964), actress Kate Beckinsale (1973), and singer-songwriter Sam Beam aka Iron & Wine (1974). 

It’s Tuesday so… yeah, meetings and work and a grocery trip and all that. I’m not going to worry about things. I’ll just do them. Have you ever stopped to realize that the worst part of the day is the time you spend worrying about shit? I’m as prone to anxiety as anyone, but one thing about getting older is the awareness that time is one thing you don’t have to waste, so I do my best to not spend time in a negative space. Enjoy your day.