Random News: May 25, 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 May 25, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I have work to do and people to see and places to go. Wait, I don’t have places to go, but the other things were true. Anyway, let’s do this…

• I almost never lead with RIP notices, but we’re talking about Tina Turner here.
• The Queen of Rock and Roll was 83. I think her most important contribution to the world was not her tremendous ability to own the renditions of the songs she sang, nor her tremendous vocal and stage performance prowess.
• Instead, it was the inspiration she gave that empowered women around the world to not accept abuse and instead to carve their own independent path in life that allowed them to have choices.
• Tina Turner won 12 Grammys, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, and sold over 100 million records, making her one of the best-selling artists of all time.
• One little side note… when asked who her favorite singer was, Janis Joplin didn’t hesitate for a second to answer that it was Tina.
• One other little side note… I never met Tina, but I did meet Ike once. I was at an event and he was being honored for his musical achievements, and damn near every woman in that room got up and left when he came to the stage. I enjoyed that.
• And one final, final side note. Many years back, my dad, who was born in 1941, got in a disagreement with me when I told him that “Proud Mary” was a Creedence Clearwater Revival song written by John Fogerty. He insisted it was originally by Tina, and declared that the CCR vision was an anemic cover. That kind of shows how impactful Tina’s performance was.
• Side note to that side note: I was right, obviously. CCR’s version came out in March 1969 and  peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ike and Tina’s version came out in January 1971 and reached No. 4. But I let my dad believe his version of things, because you should be nice to your dad if you can, even when he doubles down in his wrongness.
• Moving on…
• I suppose Ron DeSantis’s launch of his presidential campaign could have gone worse, but I’m not sure how.
• For some ill-advised reason, he made the campaign launch via Twitter in an online conversation with Elon Musk. The plan backfired horrendously. The audio stream crashed repeatedly and there were glitches and echoes, making it impossible for most users to hear the new presidential candidate in real time.
• Seems about right. Failure from day one.
• Another news item…
• Richard “Bigo” Barnett, an Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the failed coup attempt on January 6, 2021, was sentenced yesterday to more than four years in prison.
• Barnett was convicted in January of eight charges, including obstructing an official proceeding and entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon. The most serious of the charges carried a maximum 20-year sentence. He was lucky to get just 54 months.
• The defense asked for 12 months… hahahahaha.
• In related news, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes faces up to 25 years in prison at sentencing today. This is the first punishment to be handed down for seditious conspiracy in regard to Jan. 6, 2021. I’ll let you know how that went tomorrow.
• Let’s see what else is up…
• Today is the three-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
• After everything that happened as a result — the BLM protests, the conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin and his accomplices, and so on — very little (if any) progress has been made to address racism in policing.
• We who have called for federal action like banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and changing the so-called qualified immunity protections for law enforcement have received no results.
• Until you address a problem directly and make those changes, the same situations will create the same results. 
• Moving on (for now… I have a feeling there will be some mighty rallies and protests on a. multitude of topics this coming summer)…
• The nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group issued a travel advisory against the state of Florida following newly passed laws and policies that may be harmful to people in those communities.
• The Human Rights Campaign issued an updated travel notice outlining potential impacts of six bills that were recently passed and signed by DeSantis.
• “While not a blanket recommendation against travel nor a call for boycott, the travel advisory outlines the devastating impacts of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community,” they said.
• A man with an AK-47, a pistol, and ammunition magazines in his vehicle who said he was headed to the CIA has been charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property.
• Florida man Eric Sandow, 32, was arrested Tuesday at Dolley Madison Preschool in McLean, VA after police said he trespassed on school grounds around 11am. The preschool is less than 1.5 miles from CIA headquarters.
• In more insane Florida-based news (which, let’s face it, could be an entire daily column), a Miami-Dade elementary school has removed Amanda Gorman’s presidential inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb”, from circulation after a parent complained that it contained indirect “hate messages.”
• The same parent complained about four other books: “The ABCs of Black History”, “Cuban Kids”, “Countries in the News: Cuba”, and “Love to Langston”, citing “indoctrination” and “CRT.” The complaint also misidentified Oprah Winfrey as the author of “The Hill We Climb”.
• Gorman herself noted on Twitter yesterday that “One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can't ban assault rifles from massacring them.” 
• Side note: that “one parent”, a woman named Daily Salinas, has ties to the Proud Boys, has shared anti-Semitic posts on Facebook, and worked as a volunteer on Ron DeSantis’s “Education Agenda Tour” in August 2022.
• Go read Gorman’s poem right now. Read it out loud. Read it to your kids. Post it everywhere. See if you feel indoctrinated.
• These pieces of shit. Moving on…
• Fetty Wap, the New Jersey rapper who shot to fame with his hit “Trap Queen”, was sentenced to six years in federal prison yesterday for trafficking narcotics across the country.
• On a FaceTime call, Fetty displayed a firearm and threatened to kill someone. He subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.
• You fucked up, Fetty.
• And now, The Weather: “Daydream” by Being Dead
• Guam got seriously fucked up by Typhoon Mawar in the past couple of days. As of Thursday evening local time, the storm was packing sustained winds of 165 mph and gusts up to 200 mph.
• No deaths recorded, but the island’s roadways and housing and other infrastructure got seriously battered, and between 50-70% of Guam’s vegetation could experience defoliation.
• President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the island on Tuesday. Guam is, of course, a US territory. People from Guam are American citizens (though they can’t vote, which is suspect to me).
• In today’s gun news, a Louisville man is facing criminal charges after shooting his roommate during a dispute over a Hot Pocket. Clifton Williams, 64, was arrested on assault charges Sunday after he accused his roommate of eating their last Hot Pocket and then shot him in the ass.
• Sigh.
• From the Sports Desk… the Florida Panthers swept the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL Eastern Conference Finals, winning game 4 by a score of 4-3. They will likely face the Vegas Golden Knights, who could complete their own sweep of the Dallas Stars tonight.
• Meanwhile in the NBA, the Miami Heat could eliminate the Boston Celtics tonight, which would see them heading to the finals against the Denver Nuggets.
• Today in history… The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw (1521). A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners (1738). Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ opens at the Opera Comique in London (1878). Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison (1895). John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution in Tennessee (1925). The Walt Disney Company cartoon Three Little Pigs premieres at Radio City Music Hall, featuring the hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” (1933). At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test (1953). The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston (1953). U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of the U.S. Congress, his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade (1961). The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, is dedicated (1968). Star Wars is released in theaters (1977). The Hands Across America event takes place (1986). Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her 25-year run of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ (2011). Ireland votes to repeal the Eighth Amendment of their constitution that prohibits abortion in all but a few cases (2018).
• May 26 is the birthday of US speaker of the house/SCOTUS justice Philip P. Barbour (1783), poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803), actress Marie Doro (1882), aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky (1889), Burma prime minister U Nu (1907), songwriter Hal David (1921), actor Claude Akins (1926), NBA player Bill Sharman (1926), soprano Beverly Sills (1929), NBA player K. C. Jones (1932), actor Ian McKellen (1939), puppeteer/actor/director Frank Oz (1944), singer-songwriter Klaus Meine (1948), singer-songwriter Paul Weller (1958), politician Amy Klobuchar (1960), actor Mike Myers (1963), actress Anne Heche (1969), and NFL player Brian Urlacher (1978).

I have nothing on tap today except normal work things, and that’s fine. I’ve had a rather productive week thus far. Maybe this is just me, but i’m generally in a better mood when cranking out work. It’s not that I like working itself per se; it’s that I like seeing things through to a conclusion. It’s a trait that’s been helpful to me in several ways. Enjoy your day.