Random News: February 18, 2024

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 18, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. I’m your news guy in a blue bathrobe, sipping coffee and finding out what the hell is happening so you don’t have to do it yourself. You’re welcome. Let’s see what strikes me as interesting today.

• First, a little note on voting.
• It actually wasn’t that long ago that I realized that not every state in the country has the amazing ease and transparency offered to voters in my home state of California. I just assumed it was this good for everyone and was sad to find out that wasn’t the case.
• As a registered voter here, I receive my ballot in the mail. I can then choose to fill it out and mail it back, drop it off at a designated ballot drop box (one just happens to be a half block away), or vote in person on election day at a convenient nearby polling location.
• Since this is 2024 and I don’t know why I’d inconvenience myself to vote, I leave my ballot at the drop box. A few days later, I receive a message via email and/or text (you can choose your options at the registrar’s website)…
• Hello (My Real Name Which Is Absolutely Not Zak Claxton), This is a message from the California Secretary of State on behalf of Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters. Your ballot for the March 5, 2024, Presidential Primary Election was received and counted. Thank you for voting!
• It could be no easier here. I genuinely wish it was like that across the country, and it could be if people wanted it that way.
• Today is Sunday Gunday at Zak’s Random News, where we look at just some of the incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past two days.
• I started Sunday Gunday when a reader of this column was unconvinced that we have a terrible epidemic of gun violence and asked for proof, so I decided to show him what a typical weekend of shootings looked like on a specific basis.
• I will say, he was shocked when I listed the specifics, and it should be shocking to everyone, every time I do it.
• Four shot dead at neighborhood car wash in Birmingham, AL. Two dead, four injured injured after multiple shootings on the west and northwest sides of Indianapolis, IN. Two shot dead at the University of Colorado campus in Colorado Springs, CO. One dead, two others injured in a shooting in Mobile, AL. One dead, one in critical condition after a shooting at a private club in Richmond, VA. One dead, one in critical condition after a shooting outside a bar in the McCook suburb of Chicago, IL. One dead, one injured in a shooting in University City, CA. One dead, one injured in a shooting in Little Rock, AR. A teenager dead, another wounded after they were shot in Palmetto, FL. One shot dead in the University Village area of Chicago, IL. One shot dead in Oakland, CA. One shot dead in Houston, TX. One shot dead in Sacramento, CA. Three people shot near a bar in Harlem, NY. Two shot at a hookah lounge in Memphis, TN. One shot and in critical condition in Baltimore, MD. One shot and in critical condition in Northridge, CA. One shot and in critical condition in Glendale, AZ. One shot and in critical condition near a Dollar Tree in Norfolk, VA. A father of five shot in front of his kids in Fort Worth, TX. One shot in Quincy, MA. One shot in Harrisburg, PA.
• Is this all of the shootings? No, definitely not. Only the ones I noted in a quick scroll of news for the past two days.
• This does not happen in countries with common sense gun laws. The very idea that gun violence is the NUMBER ONE killer of children in the USA and that our leaders are still supposedly powerless to do anything about it should sicken all of you.
• And you should be demanding that they resign immediately.
• I actually have one positive story about gun violence.
• Every one of the children who were wounded in last week’s mass shooting at the victory parade for the Kansas City Chiefs has now been discharged from the hospital.
• I’m sure their mental recovery will take a lot longer than the physical side, but at least they’re all going to live.
• Let’s do some “Adventures of Dumpy” news.
• The former president is in desperate need of some cash after being found liable for about a half a billion dollars in legal judgements against him.
• So yesterday, he unveiled new Dump-branded sneakers at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia, PA.  
• The shoes, which are reportedly made in China, are spectacularly hideous. They’re gold hightops with an American flag on the back, and cost $399 a pair.
• The crowd at the convention booed the fuck out of Don the Con, which seemed to take him aback. “There’s a lot of emotion in this room,” Dumpy whined to the jeers of attendees.
• I’ll just stick with my Nike Air Force 1’s, thanks. Ironically, Air Force One is something that Don will never be on again.
• In other fundraising efforts, some idiot launched a GoFundMe to help Dumpy’s massive legal bills. The fundraiser has a goal of $355 million — the amount that Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly in penalties in his New York civil fraud case.
• By last night, the GoFundMe had raised about $185,000 with more than 4,000 donors. Can you imagine being so incredibly gullible and stupid that you send money you actually need to a purported billionaire?
• Side note: most people aren’t very good with larger numbers. They’ll need to raise about 2000 times the amount they gathered thus far to pay off that debt.
• I actually saw a very good suggestion for El Dumpo to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars he need in these civil judgements. If Dumpy asks you to help pay the $642,000,000 he currently owes to his victims and to the state, let him know that thoughts and prayers are a perfectly acceptable form of legal tender.
• Moving on.
• It’s a holiday weekend of sorts here in the USA, with Monday February 19 being Presidents Day.
• Interestingly, George Washington was uneasy about the idea of publicly celebrating his life. Washington was firmly against turning our nation’s leaders into tyrannical celebrities. Above all, he didn’t want to be honored like a king.
• That doesn’t stop us from acknowledging the first U.S. president on Monday, 292 years after he was born.
• Like many holidays, Presidents Day has become mostly about consumerism, and for the most part has lost all discernible meaning.
• It wasn’t until 1832, the centennial of his birth, that Congress established a committee to arrange national “parades, orations and festivals” on the date. His birthday was formally made into a legal holiday for federal employees in the District of Columbia in 1879.
• The Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect in 1971, moving Presidents Day to the third Monday in February, thereby allowing businesses to turn it into a marketing extravaganza.
• There are no recognizable traditions for Presidents Day. Quick: what foods do people serve on this holiday? What family traditions exist around it? What clothing is worn? What dances are danced? What songs are sung? What the fuck do people actually do on Presidents Day other than, in some cases, not go to work?
• I rest my case.
• And now, The Weather: “Teleharmonic” by The Smile
• For those of you who do the Second Life, you may have noted that in the midst of my dental surgery hell, I had to miss my monthly live music show at Hotel Chelsea. Or maybe you didn’t.
• Anyway, I got booked for a special show at the always-amazing Lutz City of Templemore for tomorrow evening at 6PM SLT, so if you want to pop into world, I’ll be happy to see you there. I’ll post some more info later today.
• It’ll be good to be back.
• From the Sports Desk… as part of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, a first-of-its-kind shooting contest was held between Steph Curry — a man who might be considered the greatest shooter in basketball history — and Sabrina Ionescu, an outstanding long-distance sniper from the WNBA.
• The Golden State Warriors guard edged the New York Liberty guard 29-26 in a 3-point contest. Both athletes performed incredibly well, and Ionescu is already calling out Curry for a rematch.
• In the slam dunk contest, Mac McClung became the fifth player in NBA history to win it back-to-back with a clinching 50-point slam over Shaquille O'Neal.
• I mean this literally. The 6’2” McClung jumped over the 7’1” O’Neal and then slammed the ball. I often trip when stepping over my 1’6” cat.
• Today in history… Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy (1229). Congress passes a law admitting the state of Vermont to the Union, effective March 4 (1791). Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America (1861). ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain is published in the United States (1885). While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto (1930). The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore (1942). The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles (1954). The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom (1965). The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention (1970). The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment (1972). FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union (2001). WikiLeaks publishes the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the soldier now known as Chelsea Manning (2010). Perseverance, a Mars rover designed to explore Jezero crater on Mars, lands successfully (2021).
• February 18 is the birthday of English queen Mary I (1516), physicist Alessandro Volta (1745), physicist Ernst Mach (1838), stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848), businessman Charles M. Schwab (1862), pediatrician Hans Asperger (1906), actor Jack Palance (1919), journalist/publisher Helen Gurley Brown (1922), actor George Kennedy (1925), novelist Toni Morrison (1931), film director Miloš Forman (1932), artist/musician Yoko Ono (1933), singer-songwriter/musician Dennis DeYoung (1947), film director/producer John Hughes (1950), model/actress Cybill Shepherd (1950), singer-songwriter/guitarist Juice Newton (1952), actor John Travolta (1954), game show hostess Vanna White (1957), rapper/producer/entrepreneur Dr. Dre (1965), actress Molly Ringwald (1968), singer-songwriter/pianist Regina Spektor (1980), and NFL player Le'Veon Bell (1992).

Okay then. I think I’ll take a shower and get dressed and do various things. Enjoy your day.