Random News: December 31, 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 December 31, 2022, and it’s a Saturday. It’s the last day of 2022 and I’m in my blue bathrobe, so let’s discuss whatever seems appropriate at the moment…

• It’s the end of another year.
• What is a year?
• Well, it’s a time frame that measures the orbital period of a planetary body, like our little planet Earth, around a star like the Sun. We say it’s 365 days, with 86,400 seconds in each day to be precise.
• Is a “year” an exact quantity of time? No. Does it exactly align with our number of days? Not at all. The average length of the calendar year is 365.2425 days.
• That’s why we have leap years every four years. Otherwise, shit starts getting off track pretty quickly.
• I should note here, as I do when we discuss time, that this is all completely bullshit. There’s no calendar in space. Time runs at different speeds depending on your frame of reference to various gravitational influences. Obviously a year on a different planet like Mars or Venus is not at all the same as it is on Earth. And there’s no arbitrary point in the orbit of any planet the denotes the change to a new year.
• The exact orbit of Earth around the Sun changes over the longterm as well, as does the length of a day. So, we can create calendars and schedules that work pretty well for the short term of, say, a human lifespan.
• We humans invent these things to help make the repetitive aspects of seasons and such more predictable. That’s a good reason.
• Anyway, the concept of a year allows us to denote somewhat of a bigger picture passage of time. You don’t get that many years.
• It’s a good reason to make the most of them.
• Another aspect of time in the human experience: years em longer when you’re younger and shorter when you’re older. I know why. It’s pretty simple really.
• When you’re ten, a year is 1/10th of your entire life. When you’re 50, that subdivision would equal five years. It feels about the same, perception-wise.
• And then there’s the aspect of nostalgia. “Life was so good in (insert year).”
• That’s bullshit too. First, nearly everyone equates better times to when they didn’t have nearly the level of responsibility as they do in their adult years.
• Second, life has always been challenging, and frankly the further you go back, the more challenging it was. You think life was easier in 1066? In 1347? In 1863? In 1942?
• Nope.
• Third and finally, the fact that information is now way more widespread than at any time in human history, you’re likely more aware of the world, with its myriad problems and injustices that have gone on for millennia.
• So you think things are worse now than they used to be. They’re not. You’re just a more informed person than any generation before yours, and you don’t get the benefit of blissful ignorance.
• That brings us to 2022. This past year. Was it a good year?
• I think it was. I made a living, I made some music. Neither me nor anyone in my immediate family suffered any serious illness or injury. I lived up to the majority of my responsibilities, for myself and for others.
• And I had some fun… good new music I discovered, good conversations with friends around the world, good foods I ate, good shows I watched, good games I played. I spent a decent portion of 2022 enjoying my day, as I advise each of you to do at the end of these news blatherings.
• And sure, there were downsides too, like every year brings, but if you go through life expecting only positivity, you’re going to end up pretty disappointed.
• So, hats off to 2022, and here’s hoping 2023 has good stuff in store. I’m pretty sure it will.
• And now, The Weather: “Speeding ‘72” by Momma
• A bit of actual news.
• An arrest has been made in the November murders of four University of Idaho students.
• Bryan Kohberger, 28, was arrested Friday morning in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. A SWAT team entered the location where he was staying in order to take him into custody.
• Another couple of notable deaths yesterday.
• Pioneering TV newswoman Barbara Walters died at age 93. It’s hard to imagine that there was a time where only men could be trusted to read the news on television, but there was, and it wasn’t all that long ago.
• Walters began her national broadcast career in 1961 as a reporter, writer and panel member for NBC’s “Today” show before being promoted to co-host in 1974. In 1976, she joined ABC News as the first female anchor on an evening news program.
• Second, the former Pope Benedict XVI died at 95. He’ll be remembered primarily for two things: being the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, and the sex abuse scandals of the Catholic church during his oversight.
• Rest in peace to both.
• I’m still not going to spend much time on FPOTUS’s tax returns that were released publicly yesterday. The main takeaways that should surprise no one…
• He claimed a large number of questionable items on his tax returns, like huge amounts of interest he claims to have received from loans to his children that seems to indicate he was disguising gifts.
• He had foreign bank accounts between 2015 and 2020 while he was in office, including a bank account in China between 2015 and 2017, something he denied during his candidacy. He paid more in foreign taxes than in US federal income taxes in 2017, the first year of his presidency.
• He pledged he would donate the entirety of his $400,000 salary to charity each year. His taxes don’t reflect that claim.
• He benefitted personally from his own 2017 tax law.
• Again, none of this is surprising news at all. He’s a sleazebag and every aspect of his life should be judged accordingly.
• In news that might give you some tiny measure of hope for humanity, super gross Congressional rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sent sell-wishes to rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD) regarding his fight against cancer.
• “We disagree often, but I’ll be praying for Jamie Raskin. Cancer is a terrible disease. I watched my father die from it, and it broke my heart,” Greene said. “It’s good Rep Raskin has hope and his form of cancer is curable with the treatment he will be starting.”
• Raskin responded, “Thank you, Marjorie, for this touching message, which my youngest daughter showed me. I’m grateful for your concern and very sorry to learn that you lost your father to cancer. Wishing you happy holidays with loved ones.”
• So that’s nice.
• In environmental news, yesterday, President Biden’s administration finalized regulations that protect hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, repealing a Trump-era rule that federal courts had thrown out and that environmentalists said left waterways vulnerable to pollution.
• It’s another Biden win.
• Today in history… Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul (406). The British East India Company is chartered (1600). Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness (1759). The incorporation of Baltimore, MD (1796). Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of the Province of Canada (1857). Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two (1862). Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, files for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine (1878). Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, NJ (1879). The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square in Manhattan (1907). President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II (1946). General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year (1955). The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government (1983). Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic (1992). The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor (1999). Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur (2009). The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan (2019).
• December 31 is the birthday of explorer Jacques Cartier (1491), English general Charles Cornwallis (1738), painter Giovanni Boldini (1842), painter Henri Matisse (1869), businesswoman Elizabeth Arden (1878), American general/politician George Marshall, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (1908), singer-songwriter/activist Odetta (1930), actor Anthony Hopkins (1937), guitarist Andy Summers (1942), singer-songwriter John Denver (1943), actor Ben Kingsley (1943), fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg (1946), singer-songwriter Burton Cummings (1947), singer-songwriter Donna Summer (1948), bass player Tom Hamilton (1951), actress Bebe Neuwirth (1958), actor Val Kilmer (1959), singer-songwriter Scott Ian (1963), musician Psy (1977), and whatever Donald Trump Jr. (1977) is.

Back when I was a gigging musician in a cover band, New Year’s Eve was always a busy night. The gigs were often really fun and paid well. But the whole aspect of playing until 1 or 2am and then tearing down and packing up while exhausted, and then driving home with all the crazy drunks on the road… I don’t miss that part. I also don’t miss the “going out to parties and getting hammered and starting the year feeling like I’m going to die” time frame of my life. But I will stay up until midnight and watch the silly ball drop and see in the new year for tradition’s sake. Enjoy your day.