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 17, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those who celebrate. While I’m relaxing here in my bathrobe with my cup of Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend, let’s find out what the Irish-inspired holiday is all about.
- Remember when you were a kid and were told that St. Patrick’s Day was to celebrate when some guy “drove the snakes out of Ireland?”
- If you were at all like me as a child, you probably thought that Ireland didn’t seem like a place that would have been overrun with venomous reptiles.
- And you’d have been right. Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary, and the “snakes” were an allegory for pagans and their practices. There were no actual fucking snakes. Just people who didn’t want to be Christians and got driven from their homes as a result.
- Sounds about right. Anyway, he was an evangelist, and converted the pagan Irish to Christianity. He died on March 17, 461.
- Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Lutheran Church.
- Why do people drink on this somber and religious holiday? Historically, the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol were lifted for the day, and let’s face it, a lot of people will use any excuse to get drunk.
- Fun Fact: Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival. I get that. It’s fun. I like fun.
- Since I enjoy bringing up the unjust and controversial aspects of, well everything, note that LGBT groups in the US were long banned from marching in Saint Patrick's Day parades in New York City and Boston, resulting in the landmark Supreme Court decision of Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston.
- Anyway, my only real childhood connection to the day was remembering to wear green when you went to school, or you’d get pinched.
- Enough on that. Got some important shit to cover.
- The racist piece of shit who once called himself President of the United States did a rally yesterday in Dayton, OH, where his crowd cheered when he said that immigrants are “not people.”
- “I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
- Immigrants are people. This same dehumanizing language has been used many times throughout history.
- Black people who were brought to the the USA by force and were required to be slaves were considered equal to three-fifths of a free individual. That’s in article one, section two of the Constitution of the United States.
- Irish and Italian immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries were not considered as people in the same way that white Anglo-Saxon citizens were. Jews and gays were not people according to the Nazi regime of Germany in the 1930s.
- So Donnie Dump isn’t making up anything new. It’s a page from a playbook that’s been around for literally thousands of years, where any person who didn’t look like, speak like, dress like, or act like the predominant population of an area was considered less than human.
- Dumpy wasn’t done being a piece of shit. He made a very Trumpian threat after that statement.
- “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
- I shouldn’t have to tell you that this kind of rhetoric is exactly what inspired January 6, and it will indeed lead to needless suffering and death…. especially for the MAGA folks who try and enact Dump’s apocalyptic vision of violence.
- I will say, though, it does inspire the rest of us to be fully ready for when a small minority takes it upon themselves to negate free and fair elections.
- We’ll be ready, and thanks to lessons learned on January 6, 2021, so will our law enforcement and national defense forces. If MAGA wants to take on the USA after Dump loses in November, I say to bring it the fuck on.
- The Biden administration was quick to respond.
- “This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience doubles down on his threats of political violence. He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge.”
- Agreed.
- Moving on to Sunday Gunday, where we take a quick scroll through the incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past two days.
- Three dead including a 13-year-old girl in a shooting in Falls Township, PA. Three dead in a murder-suicide at an apartment in SW Miami-Dade, FL. Two dead, five wounded in a shooting in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. Two dead in a shooting in Vidalia, GA. One dead, five wounded in a shooting in a bar in Indianapolis, IN. One dead, two injured in a shooting at a bar and grill in Romulus, MI. One dead, two injured in a shooting at a live music venue in east El Paso, TX. One dead, one injured in a shooting in the Grand Crossing neighborhood of Chicago, IL. One dead, one wounded in a shooting in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. One shot dead on Beale Street in Downtown Memphis, TN. One shot dead in Fishers, IN. One shot dead near a shopping center and apartment complex in northwest Charlotte, NC. One shot dead inside a car in East Liberty, PA. A woman shot dead in Ballwin, MO. A woman shot dead in Orlando, FL. Three juveniles shot at Newport on the Levee mall in Newport, KY. Two people shot in the East Village of New York City, NY. One shot and in critical condition in Bunnell, FL. A juvenile shot inside a home in Toledo, OH. A man shot on a hiking trail in San Marcos, CA.
- That’s not even close to all of them. I just can’t do this all day.
- Not-Fun Fact: your kids are statistically more likely to be killed via gun violence than any other cause of death.
- Please vote for candidates who support common sense firearm regulation. Thank you.
- And now, The Weather: “Underdressed at the Symphony” by Faye Webster
- From the Sports Desk… my mind is still boggled at the amount of movement in the NFL free agency season this past week. I mean, look at the quarterbacks alone.
- Raiders’ Jimmy Garoppolo to the Rams. Vikings’ Kirk Cousins to the Falcons. Patriots’ Mac Jones to Jaguars. Steelers’ Kenny Pickett to the Eagles. 49ers’ Sam Darnold to the Vikings. Colts’ Gardner Minshew to the Raiders. Browns' Joe Flacco to the Colts. Giants’ Tyrod Taylor to the Jets. Commanders’ Sam Howell to the Seahawks. Saints’ Jameis Winston to the Browns. Seahawks’ Drew Lock to the Giants.
- It’s gonna be fun seeing new jerseys on these dudes in (checks calendar) five more fucking months before the NFL season gets rolling.
- Today in history… Commodus becomes sole emperor of the Roman Empire at the age of eighteen, following the death of his father, Marcus Aurelius (180). The British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city (1776). The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed (1861). Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO (1948). The United States launches the first solar-powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long-term orbit (1958). Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel (1969). A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2% (1992).
- March 16 is the birthday of Scotland king James IV (1473), SCOTUS chief justice Roger B. Taney (1777), engineer/businessman Gottlieb Daimler (1834), social reformer Martha P. Falconer (1862), composer Alfred Newman (1900), NFL player Sammy Baugh (1914), singer Nat King Cole (1919), singer-songwriter/guitarist Paul Kantner (1941), serial killer John Wayne Gacy (1942), singer-songwriter John Sebastian (1944), author William Gibson (1948), actor Kurt Russell (1951), actor Gary Sinise (1955), NBA/MLB player Danny Ainge (1959), actor Rob Lowe (1964), singer-songwriter Billy Corgan (1967), fashion designer Alexander McQueen (1969), bass player Melissa Auf der Maur (1972), soccer player Mia Hamm (1972), singer-songwriter Justin Hawkins (1975), porn actress Stormy Daniels (1979), singer-songwriter Grimes (1988), singer-songwriter Hozier (1990), and actor John Boyega (1992).
Time to do various things that aren’t this. Enjoy your day.
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