Random News: September 11, 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 September 11, 2022, and it’s a Sunday. Some thoughts while sipping coffee in a cloud…

• Yup. It’s 9/11.
• I’m not doing the thing where I tell you moment by moment about my 9/11 experiences. I’ve done it for 20 years. I don’t think I have it in me for a 21st.
• I will tell you that I was in New York on business for the first trade show at the Javitz Center after 9/11. The company for whom I worked at the time was scheduled to leave the following week for the show, which was obviously postponed.
• But when I was there a couple of months after the attack, it was eerie. Half of the convention center was being used as a makeshift morgue. I think we were all caught up in that “Let’s get America back to business!” jingoistic mentality.
• It was awful, trying to be pseudo-cheerful and talk about music/audio products, knowing there were hundreds of dead bodies in the same building, only separated from my location by a thin moveable partition.
• Like nearly all Americans, I do mourn those who lost their lives during the attacks and those who died and were sickened afterwards as a result of trying to help those afflicted.
• Get angry with me if you want, but the more horrifying day in my life was when we almost lost our democracy on January 6, 2021.
• At least the September 11, 2001 attacks were perpetrated by foreign adversaries. Saudi Arabians, to be specific.
• I got much angrier on January 6 when people who were citizens of the USA attacked our own capitol. Much like terrorists who strap bombs on themselves, many of those Jan 6 insurrectionists were also victims of intense propaganda who would have never have committed an atrocity against their own country had they not been subjected to a barrage of lies and misinformation.
• Unlike 9/11, the MAGA movement that was at the heart of January 6 is still an immediate threat to the USA.
• We searched the whole planet with our best investigative and military might to bring down Osama bin Laden for his role in 9/11. Keep in mind, bin Laden wasn’t there at the attacks.
• He just ordered susceptible people to perform his dirty work.
• Sound familiar?
• So no, I’ll never forget 9/11, and I’ll definitely never forget 1/6, and until ultimate justice is served for that event as it was for 9/11, I’ll make damn sure that no one else ever forgets.
• Moving on.
• If you recall when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, experts said Russia would take over the country in three days.
• The same experts advised Ukraine to not fight a hopeless battle against a larger adversary. They then said it would be a waste of time and money for international powers to help the Ukrainian people.
• But over six months later, Ukraine has been scoring key victories and recapturing Russian-held territories and liberating dozens of grateful cities and settlements. 
• Papua New Guinea got rocked by a 7.6 earthquake. That’s a big one. They, along with me, live on the Ring of Fire, where shifting tectonic plates push against each other, causing tremors.
• The Ring of Fire areas include the west coasts of South America (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, etc.), North America (Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska), Asia (Japan, Philippines, Indonesia) and Pacific islands including Papua New Guinea and others.


• When you look at an earthquake map, you will see nearly constant quakes in the 25,000-mile semicircle. Most are small. Some are big. Few are fun.
• From the Sports Desk… the first NFL Sunday starts in just over an hour. I’m going to monitor scores of all 14 games being played, trying to get some idea of who this year’s crop of teams are. My Las Vegas Raiders are an underdog to the Los Angeles Chargers, but I have a suspicion they may surprise people. Or not. I don’t know shit.
• And now, The Weather: “Day by Day” by Modern Bodies.
• Speaking of which… I put together a YouTube playlist of every song in my daily Weather report. If you want the link, I’ll put it in the comments.
• Today in history… Henry Hudson arrives on Manhattan Island and meets the indigenous people living there (1609). Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury (1789). United States Marine Corps invades Honduras (1919). Construction begins on The Pentagon (1941). Hurricane Edna hits New England (1954). Hurricane Carla strikes the Texas coast (1961). San Francisco’s BART begins passenger service (1972). General Augusto Pinochet leads a coup in Chile and topples the democratically elected president Salvador Allende (1973). Hurricane Iniki devastates the Hawaiian Islands of Kauai and Oahu (1992). The September 11 terrorist attacks kill 2,996 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda (2001). 
• September 11 is the birthday of organist William Boyce (1711), lens maker Carl Zeiss (1816), astronomer Mary Watson Whitney (1847), writer O. Henry (1862), writer D. H. Lawrence (1885), football coach Bear Bryant (1913), NFL Films founder Ed Sabol (1916), politician Ferdinand Marcos (1917), football coach Tom Landry (1924), director Brian De Palma (1940), guitarist Leo Kotke (1945), musician Tommy Shaw (1953), actress Virginia Madsen (1961), musician Harry Connick Jr. (1967), rapper Ludacris (1977), and NFL great Ed Reed (1978).

Welp. I’m gonna keep drinking coffee and sitting here until I am forced to do literally anything else. Enjoy your day.