Random News: April 11, 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 April 11, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. My trade show is coming at me, and it’s like I can hear the theme from ‘Jaws’ as it moves purposefully in my direction, ready to eat me. Maybe I’m being melodramatic. Here’s some things…

• Let’s start with something good.
• Nashville Rep. Justin Jones has reclaimed his seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives with the backing of Nashville's Council, which unanimously voted 36-0 to reappoint him four days after he was expelled for leading chants for gun reform.
• Jones was reinstated as an interim representative until a special election can be held to permanently fill the position. He is eligible to run for reelection.
• After the vote, he marched triumphantly back to the Capitol with a crowd of thousands, and was re-sworn in to his post in Tennessee’s House.
• Of the other members of the “Tennessee Three” who were admonished for wanting to bring gun control to the state, Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), a White women, was not expelled (by only one vote from the two-thirds majority needed).
• The other, Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), was also expelled. He will find out on Wednesday if the Shelby County commissioners will reinstate him similarly to Jones.
• The attempt to expel Jones, Johnson, and Pearson was one of the very first legislative actions taken by the Tennessee House Republican supermajority following a shooting at a Nashville elementary school.
• Let’s talk about shootings now, I guess.
• A very common saying about the gun-promoting community is that is there are more guns in public, a “good guy with a gun” will stop the bad guy who also has a gun.
• Thy use this as a solution to answer horrible tragedies like school shootings. If teachers were all armed, or if all school had armed security, surely they’d be able to eliminate the senseless murder of children, right?
• Yesterday morning, a gunman opened fire at the Old National Bank Building in Louisville, KY. Six are dead, including the shooter, and another nine are injured, some critically. Several of the injured are law enforcement officers.
• At a BANK. A place filled with cops and armed security. No place is safe from gun violence, no matter how well protected it seems.
• The killer was a 25-year-old employee at the bank who’d been a 6’5” star athlete in high school, and very popular. He graduated from Alabama with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Business Administration — double major in finance and economics — and a Master’s in Finance.
• By all indications, a very motivated and successful young man. Perhaps your mental image of a mass shooter being a loner who was seeking revenge on society isn’t all that accurate anymore. Police aren't sure yet on a motive, or how the shooter got the rifle. They also declined to specify the type of rifle that Sturgeon used.
• The killer live-streamed his murderous rampage. He allegedly communicated with a friend that he’d been feeling suicidal. I’m not listing his name here; you can find it elsewhere.
• If it can happen at a bank, no amount of arming teachers will stop it from happening at your child’s/grandchild’s school.
• Side note: just hours after that mass shooting, there was a second shooting in Louisville at a nearby college that left one person dead and one injured. The shooter or shooters there fled the scene.
• The Republican contingent at all levels of government are far more concerned about the guns than the people they represent.
• In other news…
• The Justice Department appealed a Texas judge’s decision that would block access to a key abortion drug across the country. Their rebuttal was simple: the challengers had no right to file the lawsuit since they were not personally harmed by the abortion pill.
• Smart.
• The appeal was filed in the right-leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The government asked the 5th Circuit judges to keep the order of Texas Judge Matthew J. Kascmaryk on hold until the appeal is decided. Kascmaryk had ordered the Federal Drug Administration to revoke its approval of mifepristone on Friday.
• Several states say they are stocking up on medications used to induce abortions as a result of Kascmaryk’s ridiculous ruling.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office says it's made plans to secure an emergency stockpile of up to 2 million pills of misoprostol. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy said that her state has stockpiled some 15,000 mifepristone pills. Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced his state had prepared a stockpile of about three years' worth of mifepristone.
• It’s good to live in a state that cares about women’s health.
• Back on guns.
• A Virginia grand jury indicted the mother of a six-year-old who shot an elementary school teacher in Newport News in January, charging her with crimes related to felony child neglect and firearms possession.
• Do I feel badly for the mother? Sure, especially with all of the descriptions of the emotionally disabled child with a history of random violence. But that’s all the more reason the mother should be held responsible for having recklessly left a loaded firearm around for the kid to take to school.
• Moving on.
• Hey, I guess we’re all done with COVID-19! Pfffffttttttt…
• Yesterday, President Joe Biden signed a House bill immediately ending the COVID-19 national emergency, first enacted during the Trump administration in 2020.
• What that means is that the government won’t pay for waivers for federal health programs meant to help health care providers during the height of the pandemic.
• COVID is never going away, and people die from it every single day. Around 500 Americans die of COVID every day, right at this moment, in April 2023.
• But yeah, fuck it, guess it’s done.
• And now, The Weather: “Not the Same” by Packs
• RIP to Al Jaffee, Mad Magazine's award-winning cartoonist who did the art for the Fold-In, “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions," and more, has died. he was 102.
• Jaffee had retired a few years ago at the age of 99. If there was a single person who represented Mad Magazine, it was Al. Godspeed.
• From the Sports Desk… yesterday, the Tampa Bay Rays became the first major league team since the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers to open the season with 10 straight wins. Wow.
• Also in sports: the NBA play-in tournament — kind of like a wild card competition that the NBA started in the 2020-21 season — begins tonight, with the Hawks (41-41) facing the Heat (44-38) in the East, and the Timberwolves (42-40) facing the Lakers (43-39) in the West.
• Other Play-In teams include the Bulls at Raptors and the Thunder at Pelicans. Those games are tomorrow.
• Today in history… Premiere of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion BWV 244b at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony (1727). Former shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu surrenders Edo Castle to Imperial forces, marking the end of the Tokugawa shogunate (1868). The city of Tel Aviv is founded (1909). President Truman relieves Douglas MacArthur of the command of American forces in Korea and Japan (1951). The Stone of Scone, the stone upon which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned, is found on the site of the altar of Arbroath Abbey (1951). United Kingdom agrees to Singaporean self-rule (1957). President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing (1968). Apollo 13 is launched (1970). The Apple I computer is created (1976). Over two hundred thousand people march in Caracas towards the presidential palace to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chávez (2002). Twenty year old Daunte Wright is shot and killed in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota by officer Kimberly Potter, sparking protests in the city, when the officer allegedly mistakes her own gun for her taser (2021).
• April 11 is the birthday of surgeon James Parkinson (1755), UK prime minister George Canning (1770), lawyer/judge Jane Bolin (1908), occultist Anton LaVey (1930), actor/dancer Joel Grey (1932), actress Louise Lasser (1939), director/screenwriter John Milius (1944), singer-songwriter Stuart Adamson (1958), TV host Jeremy Clarkson (1960), MLB player Bret Saberhagen (1964), singer-songwriter Lisa Stansfield (1966), MLB player Mark Teixeira (1980), and singer-songwriter Joss Stone (1987).

I’m still relatively calm regarding my trade show this week. I think I’m too burned out from weeks of non-stop work to have any energy left to use for pointless anxiety. Also, I should probably admit that after doing this same show literally for 30 years — my first one was in 1993 — I’m aware that it’s just not that big a deal. Here’s to the benefits of being old and the accompanying wisdom that occasionally works to your benefit. Enjoy your day.