Random News: February 1, 2023

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 February 1, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. Here’s what I think may be going on, among many other things that are also going on but I don’t know about them or don’t care…

• Rabbit rabbit rabbit.
• It’s a new month. Some people hate February. I don’t have any feelings about it either way.
• My friend Matthew Broyles wrote and recorded a whole album about it. It’s called ‘February’. It’s a good album. You should check it out.
• February is Black History Month in the USA. 
• It got its start in 1926 when Carter G. Woodson — at the time only the second Black American after W.E.B. Du Bois to earn a doctorate from Harvard University — established Negro History Week to focus attention on Black contributions to civilization. He was the son of slaves.
• Woodson chose a week in February because of Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was February 12, and Frederick Douglass, who was born enslaved and did not know his actual birth date, but chose to celebrate it on February 14.
• In 1951, California became the first state to actually mandate Black history in public schools.
• By 1976, it became official, with President Gerald R. Ford declaring February as Black History Month and calling on the public to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."
• I hope that Black History Month isn’t canceled in places like Florida and Virginia, whose leaders are averse to any teachings about race.
• Moving on…
• Former president Donald J. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights over 400 times in newly-released video from his deposition last summer in the New York attorney general's civil fraud investigation.
• As a reminder, in 2018, the same man said this…
• "You see, the mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
• Welp.
• You know who never took the Fifth? Hillary Rodham Clinton.
• Speaking of people who’d like to be president, former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to announce her 2024 presidential campaign on February 15 in Charleston, SC.
• Haley, 51, had previously said she wouldn't run against former President Trump. Now she is.
• Before you laugh, Haley would present a seemingly less insane alternative to the other two presumptive extremist GOP candidates, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. She polls equally well with both MAGA people and traditional Republicans.
• I’m going to enjoy watching them all stab each other repeatedly. It’s likely a couple of other Republicans will join the fray over the next few months.
• And now, The Weather: “Gamma Rays” by Temples
• It’s very cold in many places today. Stay warm, please.
• Don’t laugh (or do, I don’t give a shit), but it’s 40 this morning here in SoCal and that’s definitely cold for us.
• The very last 747 rolled off the assembly line at the Boeing plant in Everett, WA yesterday and was delivered to cargo operator Atlas Air. Frankly, I assumed they’d stopped producing 747s a long time ago.
• The 747 started service over a half century ago, entering service in January 1970, and it represented the glamour of the jet set back in the day. Pretty much everyone who took longer flights was on a 747 at least once. It was the first passenger plane dubbed a “jumbo jet”.
• My favorite aspect of that plane? Going up the spiral stairs into first class. I only did it once, but it was pretty rock star.
• From the Sports Desk… Tom Brady, 45, has re-retired, and he says this time it’s for good.
• Brady ends his career as the NFL's leader in passing yards (89,214) and touchdown passes (649).
• He won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and one with the Buccaneers. He was the league MVP three times. No matter how you feel about him,, there’s really no argument that doesn’t leave him as the best quarterback in NFL history.
• Even this past season with Tampa Bay, which wasn’t one of his best by a long shot, Brady passed for 4,694 yards -- third most in the NFL -- and 25 touchdowns.
• Today in history… The teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer (1327). The Chinese general Koxinga seizes the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege (1662). France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (1793). Texas secedes from the United States and joins the Confederacy a week later (1861). President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1865). Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, NJ (1893). “La bohème” premieres in Turin at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini (1896). Trygve Lie of Norway is picked to be the first United Nations Secretary-General (1946). Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, NC (1960). The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand” (1964). Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran after nearly 15 years of exile (1979). The Communications Decency Act is passed by the U.S. Congress (1996). Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard (2003). A coup d'état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule (2021).
• February 1 is the birthday of violinist Francesco Maria Veracini (1690), opera singer Clara Butt (1872), film director John Ford (1894), actor Clark Gable (1901), writer/activist Langston Hughes (1902), singer-songwriter Don Everly (1937), actor Garrett Morris (1937), actor Sherman Hemsley (1938), pianist Joe Sample (1939), actor/director/writer Terry Jones (1942), journalist Jessica Savitch (1947), singer-songwriter Rick James (1948), guitarist/songwriter Mike Campbell (1950), singer-songwriter Exene Cervenka (1956), actor Brandon Lee (1965), actress Sherilyn Fenn (1965), singer-songwriter/actress Lisa Marie Presley (1968), actor Pauly Shore (1968), actor Michael C. Hall (1971), martial artist/actress Ronda Rousey (1987), and singer-songwriter Harry Styles (1994).

I’ve been spending a good amount of my days running back and forth between home and the hospital where my parent is in their last days, presumably. It’s not my favorite way to spend my days, and I am still staying on top of work in the meantime, and none of it is easy. But this is temporary, and I’m doing what I can to be of assistance to everyone involved. That’s all I can do. Side note: it creeps me out to be walking around the COVID wing of an ICU almost every day, but I’m as vaccinated as can be and constantly masked in there, so I can just hope for the best. Enjoy your day.