Random News: February 14, 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 14, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. Things have happened, and I’ve found out about them, and since you’re my friend, you shall as well…

• Like most nights in the USA, there was another mass shooting last night, this time at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. 
• Since the Second Amendment of the US Constitution says that, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” I’m going to assume that all these mass murders are carried out by this aforementioned well regulated militia.
• Last night, the well regulated militia killed three students and shot five more, some of whom have life-threatening wounds, and then the well regulated militia shot himself in the head and died.
• One of the college students at MSU who escaped the gunfire had, herself, been a student at Sandy Hook Elementary and survived the mass shooting there. So that’s the world we live in.
• Will it happen to you and your kids or friends or loved ones in the USA, at a school or a church or a grocery store or on the road or in a club or at an office or elsewhere? Statistically, yes. 
• Moving on.
• Nikki Haley has announced her bid for president as expected. She is the second Republican to announce her 2024 candidacy after Donald Trump.
• Frankly, she has zero chance of winning and will likely take away votes from other eventual candidates rather than from Trump. In the meantime, she will still be treated like shit by the MAGA base for going up against their Orange God.
• Speaking of whom, portions of a Georgia special grand jury's final report on Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election should be publicly released over the objection of prosecutors, a state judge ruled yesterday.
• Shrug. Let’s see it.
• Local officials in East Palestine, OH where a train full of toxic chemicals derailed, have insisted that the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink. I’m sure they’d never lie.
• Jesus. Let’s move on to less depressing shit.
• Today is Valentine’s Day. You probably know what it is.
• It’s the day to commemorate the Christian martyr Saint Valentine. You can go see the flower-crowned skull of Saint Valentine exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. That’s it, right?
• No, of course not. It’s the day to celebrate love. The cynical me says it’s a marketing event to sell cards, candy, flowers, and jewelry, but most holidays have a capitalist component, and that’s just life.
• While there had long been a pagan connection between springtime and renewal and love (as in, sex and procreation), the more modern connection between Valentine’s Day and love first dates from a poem by the man himself, Geoffrey Chaucer, from 1382. Wanna check it out?

"For this was on seynt Valentynes day
Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make
Of every kynde that men thynke may
And that so huge a noyse gan they make
That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake
So ful was, that unethe was there space
For me to stonde, so ful was al the place."

• Well that was delightful. By 1400, the ‘Charter of the Court of Love’ describes lavish festivities to be attended by several members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song and poetry competitions, jousting and dancing. Amid these festivities, the attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers.
• Hmm.
• Ophelia refers to Valentine’s Day directly in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ (1600)…

"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more."

• Yikes!
• Here’s the OG version of a well-known cliché poem for the day, published in 1784…

"The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.”

• Aww.
• Anyway, it’s been around a long time. We know what it is. Happy Valentine’s Day. If you love someone in a romantic sense, send them a heart or something. Not, like, an actual heart. That’s disgusting.
• And now, The Weather: “Kill Me I Got You” by Mazey Haze
• From the Sports Desk… let’s get this final note on the Super Bowl out of the way.
• That holding call at the end of Super Bowl LVII. Was it a tacky-tack foul that doesn’t always get called? Sure. Did it influence the outcome of the game? Yes, absolutely.
• Was it wrong? No.
• Philadelphia Eagles cornerback James Bradberry took full responsibility, the way a grown man is supposed to do. "I was hoping he would let it go, but of course he's a ref, it was a big game. It was a hold, so they called it."
• I agree. Was it a huge, blatant hold? No. But did he grab the uniform of JuJu Smith-Schuster even slightly? Yes, and that’s a hold.
• People love to pin a win or a loss on one play, or one missed kick, or one call by an official, or whatever. But they play the game for 60 minutes where dozens of plays happen for good or bad. No sporting event has ever been decided on a single play, despite it feeling that way.
• Today in history… Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg (1349). The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones (1778). James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii (1779). In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken (1849). Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state (1859). Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray (1876). Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections (1899). Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state (1912). The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation, aka IBM (1924). Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago (1929). The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden (1945). The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convenes for the first time (1949). Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California (1961). Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster (1989). The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as ‘Pale Blue Dot’ (1990). YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world (2005). A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries (2018).
• February 14 is the birthday of painter/poet/philosopher Leon Battista Alberti (1404), composer Francesco Cavalli (1602), composer Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (1679), businesswoman Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813), journalist/politician/inventor Christopher Latham Sholes (1819), soldier/drummer Julian Scott (1846), engineer George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859), actor John Barrymore (1882), actor Jack Benny (1894), union leader Jimmy Hoffa (1913), journalist Hugh Downs (1921), actor Vic Morrow (1929), actress Florence Henderson (1934), politician Donna Shalala (1941), businessman/politician Michael Bloomberg (1942), actor Andrew Robinson (1942), saxophonist Maceo Parker (1943), journalist Carl Bernstein (1943), film director Alan Parker (1944), actor/dancer Gregory Hines (1946), singer-songwriter Tim Buckley (1947), guitarist Roger Fisher (1950), journalist Terry Gross (1951), NFL player Jim Kelly (1960), NFL player Drew Bledsoe (1972), singer-songwriter Rob Thomas (1972), and NFL player Steve McNair (1973).

My back seems a bit better this morning — not a lot better but definitely improving. I’ve dealt with this for a long time, with a herniated disc and scoliosis, and while it’s never fun, it does get better. I get impatient, as one does while being in varying degrees of pain day after day. I also refuse to take medication day after day, having seen the negative results of that treatment in many other people. (though I’ve hit the ibuprofen a couple of times when I couldn’t stand the pain anymore). Avoiding that pain is the main reason I’ve worked out every morning for the past 12 years to build my core muscles, which has definitely headed off the worst of it. But it gets better. Most things in life do. Enjoy your day.