Random News: May 12, 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 May 12, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. I kinda slept in, which for me means I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 8am. Crazy, huh? Now I’m enjoying a cup of Peet’s Brazil and lounging in my bathrobe, waiting for my brain to become fully functional. Might be a long wait. 

• I should preface by saying that today is Mother’s Day. People say it’s a holiday that was started by Anna Jarvis, who organized the first Mother's Day service of worship and celebration at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia.
• That’s… wrong. Or at least it’s not the whole story.
• There have been celebrations and worship related to motherhood going back thousands of years… the Greek cult to Cybele, the mother deity Rhea, the Roman festival of Hilaria.
• In 17th century Britain, "Mothering Sunday" was celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent. On this day, servants and apprentices were encouraged to take the day off and visit their mothers back home.
• Jarvis’ version of the holiday was intended to honor her mother, who was a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War.
• She had been urging for the creation of a "Mother's Day For Peace" where mothers would ask that their husbands and sons were no longer killed in wars.
• Jarvis intended it as a spiritual day and hated its eventual (and inevitable) commercialization. She actually organized boycotts of Mother's Day, and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved in making it a financial boon, like Hallmark.
• Interestingly, Jarvis specifically noted that "Mother's" should "be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”
• Good to know.
• I am on my second year of not having a mom around anymore to honor on this day. Mine died in February 2023.
• Obviously, I’d advise you spend any time you can with your mom, should you be fortunate enough to have her around. It’s truly never enough.
• And, in fact, my significant other is doing just that right now. I took her to LAX on Friday to fly up to the Pacific Northwest, and she’s with her lovely mom (and other immediate family) today.
• I can think of no better way to honor our mothers than to continue the fight that involved many of them… for reproductive freedom, for equal pay and opportunity, for direct involvement in the world’s leadership and policy making, and more.
• Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers, and your mothers. Stepmothers. Grandmothers. Trans mothers. Dads who double as mothers. Basically all mothers.
• Moving on.
• One of these days, I’ll be able to start the news with a story about an end to the hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
• Today is not that day. 
• At least 300,000 people have moved away from Rafah as a result of what the Israeli military calls the “current temporary evacuation” from the southernmost Gazan city.
• The UN estimates that somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 million people were living in the Rafah area before the Israeli operation in the eastern part of the city began.
• Yesterday, at least 15 people were killed in an airstrike and artillery strike in Rafah. Many of those leaving the area are being told to move to places that are already crowded with displaced people and facing an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.
• They are scared for their lives and have nowhere safe to go. It’s an awful situation.
• This morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered some of the Biden administration’s strongest public criticism yet of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.
• Blinken said Israeli tactics have meant “a horrible loss of life of innocent civilians” but failed to neutralize Hamas leaders and fighters and could drive a lasting insurgency.
• He said the United States has worked with Arab countries and others for weeks on developing “credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding’’ in Gaza, but ”we haven’t seen that come from Israel. ... We need to see that, too.”
• Yup.
• Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian demonstrations continued and new encampments were erected at universities across the country as commencement ceremonies took place yesterday.
• About 3,000 arrests have been made relating to the demonstrations at US colleges.
• Dozens of students walked out of the Virginia Commonwealth University ceremony yesterday morning as Gov. Glenn Youngkin delivered the commencement address.
• Protests also disrupted commencement ceremonies on Friday and Saturday at the University of California, Berkeley. A group of people in the crowd began chanting and waved signs and Palestinian flags, quickly joined by about 300 other graduates.
• And so on. Similar stories happened at dozens of schools.
• Let’s move on.
• It’s time for my least favorite weekly column… Sunday Gunday, where we look at just some of the incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past two days.
• Three dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at party in Stockton, AL. Two dead and multiple more shot at a shopping center in Tallahassee, FL. Two dead and four more shot at a nightclub in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, GA. Two dead and another shot in Tampa, FL. One dead and two others seriously injured after a shooting in Middletown, OH. A teenager dead and several others injured in a shooting at a large party in Northboro, MA. A teenager dead and another critically injured in a shooting outside of a carnival in Wilmington, DE. A teenager dead in a shooting at the Ware Shoals Dragway in Laurens County, SC. A teenager dead in a shooting in the central valley of Las Vegas, NV. A woman shot dead off Highway 90 in Midway, FL. One dead after shooting at a club in Miami Beach, FL. Three shot in the South L.A. area of Los Angeles, CA. A 2-year-old girl critically injured in a shooting in Knoxville, TN. One shot in a drive-by in Fort Worth, TX.
• That’s like… half of them. I can’t do this all day.
• Maybe support common sense gun laws. Maybe vote for candidates who will help end this insanity.
• The most likely way your American child will die is via gun violence, and maybe on this Mother’s Day, it’s something to consider.
• Moving on.
• Three more 2024 primary elections for both Democrats and Republicans are coming this Tuesday, May 14.
• Maryland has their presidential primary as well as senate and house races. Same with Nebraska. West Virginia does as well, along with their governor on the ballot.
• Please vote in every single election where you have the opportunity to do so.
• Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — yes, the one who shoots puppies — is now banned from entering nearly 20% of her state after two more tribes banished her this week over comments she made earlier this year about tribal leaders benefitting from drug cartels.
• The Yankton Sioux Tribe voted Friday to ban Noem from their land in southeastern South Dakota just a few days after the Sisseton-Wahpeton Ovate tribe took the same action.
• The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock Sioux tribes had already taken action to keep her off their reservations. Three other tribes haven’t yet banned her.
• But they should.
• Moving on.
• Paul Manafort’s big comeback lasted about 24 hours.
• The longtime political power broker who served as the 2016 chairman for Dump’s presidential campaign is no longer planning to help manage this summer’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
• Why the quick change of mind? Because Friday, The Washington Post reported that he had re-engaged in international consulting, including lending support to a media venture in China, after being pardoned by Trump for crimes related to money laundering and obstruction of justice.
• Fucking prick.
• Let’s move on with a not-fun fact.
• The federal minimum wage has held steady at $7.25 since 2009.
• I don’t have to tell you that global economics, massive inflation, and an entire fucking pandemic happened in the 15 years since then.
• I will note that $7.25 the minimum pay per hour in 20 states. In the other 30 states and several territories, minimum wage is higher.
• A minimum wage employee earning $7.25 an hour who is working full-time earns about $15,080 — poverty level.
• Even before the 2009 pay bump, the federal minimum wage was failing to keep up with inflation. For example, it was set at $2 in 1974. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $8.86 in 2009 and $12.85 today.
• It’s still not enough for a person to survive — having housing, food, clothing, and basic living essentials — in most places. That needs to be fixed.
• Want to live somewhere with the highest-paying shitty job? Move to Tukwila, Washington, where large employers (with more than 500 workers) must pay at least $20.29. 
• And now, an inspirational quote.
• “The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man.” - Donald J. Trump at his rally yesterday in Wildwood, New Jersey, after asking the crowd if anyone had seen “Silence of the Lambs.”
• And now, The Weather: “Frog In Boiling Water” by DIIV
• From the Sports Desk… here’s where we’re at in the NBA playoffs.
• Celtics lead Cavs 2-1. Knicks lead Pacers 2-1. Mavericks lead Thunder 2-1. Timberwolves lead Nuggets 2-1.
• I could have just said every series is at 2-1 and let you guess who was up.
• Today in history… Zhu Zhifan kills all the officials invited to a banquet and declares his intent on ousting the powerful Ming dynasty eunuch Liu Jin (1510). London playwright Thomas Kyd is arrested and tortured by the Privy Council for libel (1593). In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces (1780). The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism (1846). The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada (1870). President Roosevelt signs legislation creating the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the predecessor of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (1933). The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey (1937). The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507 (1942). The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon (1965). Iranian Azeris interpret a cartoon published in an Iranian magazine as insulting, resulting in massive riots throughout the country (2006).
• May 12 is the birthday of poet Edward Lear (1812), nurse/social reformer Florence Nightingale (1820), pianist/composer Gabriel Fauré (1845), historian/politician Henry Cabot Lodge (1850), actress Katharine Hepburn (1907), businesswoman Mary Kay Ash (1918), MLB player Yogi Berra (1925), songwriter/producer Burt Bacharach (1928), MLB player Felipe Alou (1935), journalist/TV host Tom Snyder (1936), comedian/actor George Carlin (1937), singer-songwriter Ian Dury (1942), keyboardist Ian McLagan (1945), singer-songwriter Steve Winwood (1948), actor Gabriel Byrne (1950), singer-songwriter Billy Squier (1950), keyboardist Greg Phillinganes (1956), actor Ving Rhames (1959), actor Emilio Estevez (1962), guitarist/businessman Brett Gurewitz (1962), actor Stephen Baldwin (1966), skateboarder Tony Hawk (1968), actress Kim Fields (1969), NFL player Steve Smith Sr. (1979), UK prime minister Rishi Sunak (1980), and actor Rami Malek (1981).

Alrighty. That seems like enough. Again, Happy Mother’s Day to all. Enjoy your day.