Random News: July 6, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s July 6, 2022, and I think it’s a Wednesday. A variety of various thoughts and things coming at ya…

• I was in a shit mood yesterday but still chortled in schadenfreude joy as I read that Fulton County, GA has sent subpoenas to the team behind the former President who attempted to commit election fraud in Georgia, including Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell, Jacki Pick Deason, and Kenneth Chesebro.
• The specific crimes being investigated include solicitation of election fraud, making false statements, conspiracy, racketeering, and threats related to election administration.
• I’m going to continue not spending much time on the Highland Park, IL shooter. The only thing I want to impart is that this asshole kid was able to legally buy his AR-15 despite having had run-ins with the police, suicide attempts, and had made violent threats in the past.
• When we say we want nationwide background checks and red flag laws, this is why.
• A bunch of people would still be alive today had those proposed laws not been quashed by Republicans and NRA sycophants.
• It’s game over for UK prime minister Boris Johnson. Members of his cabinet are resigning and he’s lost the confidence of the people. Expect some changes there soon.
• Not gonna spend much time on this topic either, but I spent all day yesterday with a sore throat, and then did a live music show last night where I sang for an hour and exacerbated it. Still hurts a lot this morning.
• And there’s a huge wave of COVID Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 going around here in California. And my son and his friend were with tens of thousands of people at AnimeExpo over the weekend.
• Sigh.
• Shout out to Carlos Santana. He collapsed onstage last night in Michigan, but the good news is that it seems to be heat exhaustion and dehydration. The dude is going on 75, had heart surgery last year and COVID this year. Hope he’s doing okay.
• While we’re on the topic… COVID was the leading cause of death for Americans aged 45-54 in 2021, and the third leading cause of death overall. Keep treating it like it’s over, and you very well might join that morbid club.
• Back to Carlos. Something you may not know but makes sense timing-wise: Santana and Peter Frampton were big influences on me as a young guitarist in the ‘70s when I first started playing.
• They fired up the Large Hadron Collider for the third time, this time at a record high energy level. Assuming all goes well, it will be running for the next four years in search of new particles and perhaps even answering the mysteries of dark matter.
• It probably won’t cause the Earth to collapse into its own black hole.
• Fun fact: if the Earth was to be a black hole with its mass staying the same, its size would be almost the same as a regulation ping pong ball, with a radius of just under an inch.
• Poof.
• QotD: “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” - George Sand.
• Side note: George Sand (1804-1876) was the pen name of French novelist Aurore Dupin. They dressed in male clothes and smoked cigars in public to subvert dominant gender stereotypes. Their contemporary Victor Hugo commented, "George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother."
• Good call, Victor.
• Sand was also the lover of renowned composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin as well as actress Marie Dorval.
• One of the biggest problems that humanity has always faced is the assumption that everything that happens is new. “There didn’t used to be gay people! There weren’t any trans people when I was a kid!"
• Of course there were, you idiot, and there were when your grandma was a kid, and her grandma, and her grandma and so on, going back to when we were barely human.
• Just because you had no personal experience with something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It just means you were ignorant to its existence until you weren’t.
• Today in history… Mindaugas is crowned king of Lithuania (1253). Richard III is crowned king of England (1483). The first GOP convention is held (1854). Louis Pasteur successfully tests a vaccine for rabies (1885). Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of a bus (1944). The AK-47 assault rifle goes into production in the Soviet Union (1947). John Lennon meets Paul McCartney (1957).
• July 6 is the birthday of railroad tycoon Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884), artist Frida Kahlo (1907), first lady Nancy Reagan (1921), TV magnate Merv Griffin (1925), rock and roller Bill Haley (1925), actress Janet Leigh (1927), actress/singer Della Reese (1931), President George W. Bush (1946), actor Sylvester Stallone (1946), rapper 50 Cent (1975), and baseball player Manny Machado (1992).

Here’s wishing you a good day. Here’s wishing me that this sore throat turns out to be nothing. Here’s me waving goodbye at you for now.