Random News: March 5, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s March 5, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. I seem to be awake, so let’s find out if anything interesting has transpired…

• The Vandoliers, a punk-country band, performed in Maryville, TN on Thursday night in dresses in protest of the recently passed bill that severely limits drag shows.
• Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation on Thursday that would severely limit where certain drag shows can take place. The proposal then bans adult cabaret from taking place on public property or any place where minors might be present. It threatens performers with a misdemeanor charge, or a felony if it’s a repeat offense.
• “It’s amazing our small act of defiance in front of a modest crowd has reached a level that’s allowing us to make our LGBTQ friends feel seen and heard on such a large scale,” the band said in a statement.
• Good for them.
• I’d perform in a dress, but literally no one would give a shit where I live in California, or in Second Life for that matter.
• In fact, I have performed in a dress in SL. I can’t remember why, but I’d gladly do it again.
• More than 40 million federal student loan borrowers could be eligible for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness, but they will likely have to wait several more months before the Supreme Court rules on whether President Joe Biden can implement his proposed relief program.
• Until then, they’re in limbo. Much like Schrödinger's cat, they both owe and don’t owe a lot of money.
• I mentioned the other day that self-help author Marianne Williamson was going to be the first Democratic candidate to launch a 2024 presidential bid.
• Yesterday she did. Much like her 2020 campaign, no one cared.
• In actual president news, Joe Biden is in Selma, AL today, marking the 58th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, now regarded as one of the defining moments in the nation’s civil rights movement.
• On that day in 1965, Alabama state troopers savagely clubbed peaceful marchers as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They chased men, women and children back across the steel-arched structure, beating them again and again with clubs, whips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire.
• Their crime was being Black.
• And now, The Weather: “Milksugar” by Crushed
• In local news, five people were shot after an altercation escalated to gunfire on a beach in San Pedro last night. LAPD said it first heard reports of the shooting at Royal Palms Beach at around 5:45 p.m.
• All five victims were struck by gunfire, according to the LAPD. Four of the victims were in stable condition, and one was in critical condition, police said. All five are seeking treatment at local hospitals.
• I used to hang out at Royal Palms as a teenager, drinking wine coolers and smoking weed.
• Sigh.
• Walgreens won't distribute abortion pills in states where Republican officials have threatened legal action — including some places where abortion is still legal and available.
• Fuck Walgreens. Buy your shit at CVS or Rite-Aid or anywhere else.
• Former president and eternal asshole Donald Trump said Saturday that he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race if he were indicted in any of the federal and state investigations he faces.
• Derp.
• From the Sports Desk… NBA All-Star and Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant will not play in at least the next two games after his Instagram Live video, in which he displayed what appeared to be a gun while at a nightclub early Saturday morning.
• Morant deactivated both his Instagram and Twitter accounts on Saturday afternoon.
• Derp.
• Today in history… King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to explore unknown lands (1496). Nicolaus Copernicus's book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres is added to the Index of Forbidden Books 73 years after it was first published (1616). Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War five years later (1770). Samuel Colt patents the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber (1836). George Westinghouse patents the air brake (1872). Winston Churchill coins the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College, MO (1946). Country music stars Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and their pilot Randy Hughes are killed in a plane crash in Camden, TN (1963).
• March 5 is the birthday of guitarist/composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887), Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (1898), actor Rex Harrison (1908), businessman Laurence Tisch (1923), actor Jack Cassidy (1927), actor Dean Stockwell (1936), actor/singer Murray Head (1946), singer-songwriter Eddy Grant (1948), singer Elaine Paige (1948), magician Penn Jillette (1955), singer-songwriter Teena Marie (1956), singer-songwriter Andy Gibb (1958), NFL player Michael Irvin (1966), guitarist John Frusciante (1970), and NFL player Justin Fields (1999).

Welp. I should get dressed and do things. Enjoy your day.