Random News: May 17, 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 17, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’m sure we have plenty of current events to discuss, but first…

• Let’s start with something meta… some news about this news.
• Today is the two-year anniversary of these news bullets. I started them on May 17, 2022.
• Why did I start them? I did it for you. No, not in some ridiculous sense that you weren’t capable of getting news on your own.
• I did it because before then, I tended to post a bunch of news clips throughout the day as soon as I came aware of them.
• And really, many people probably didn’t want or need their social media feed filled with little burbs of news items. Some are fine with it; others aren’t.
• So on May 17, 2022, for some reason, I started consolidating all the previous day’s news (and early breaking info) into one post that someone can choose to read or not.
• It’s extremely rare that I break my rule and post news outside of my bullet list in the morning. It would have to be something very important for me not to just save it until the next day.
• How do I put together this column every day? I find it easy. Here’s how it works.
• During any given day, if I become aware of something notable, I send myself a little reminder. It’s often just a link to a news article.
• The following day, I wake up at 6am, shower and dress, make coffee, take care of some immediate work-related tasks, and then by 7:10am, I start to put together the bullets.
• I am finished no later than 8:00 on the nose, because that’s the time I slate to start my daily workout.
• Where do I get my news? Well, I do not watch TV at all (nothing against those of you who do), so not from there.
• And in fact, in most cases, you will see info here before you see it on your TV news of choice. The reason is that I get it from the same places as they do, which is from the web sites and news feeds of trusted sources like Reuters and the Associated Press.
• Where else? I often scroll through Google News, a reasonably good amalgamation of information from a variety of sources.
• I occasionally hear news on some topic via social media like Threads (since I abandoned Twitter due to Elon Musk last year), but I always check multiple sources before adding an item to this news.
• There are many, many things I don’t cover here. News that I find to be sensational, and not meant to give you information that you can do anything about. I don’t cover grisly murders, celebrity gossip, and anything so localized that you can’t have an impact on it.
• I do sometimes cover things that are silly and/or fun, because you need that too.
• Do I miss important stories? God, yes. Either I run out of time, or I’m not clear on how important something is when it first comes up, or I feel like the information is so slanted that it’s not a good idea to pass along.
• But it’s added up to a lot of news, and a lot of words to provide that news.
• Since I started two years ago today, Zak’s Random News is now up to 1,050,176 words.
• To put that in perspective, the entire ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy is 564,187 words. the most well-known long-ass book in history, ‘War and Peace’, is about half as long as my bullets at 587,287 words. My news bullets are now eight times as long as ‘The Odyssey’ at 132,694 words. I am almost tied with the word count of all seven books in the ‘Harry Potter' series at 1,084,625 words.
• And I’d like to think the quality is better than the quantity, but it’s still a lot.
• Anyway, enough on that. Thanks to all of you who read this shit. I hear from people every day, many of them in private who don’t like to comment publicly on sensitive topics, and they claim they are grateful for this column.
• I’ve always said that if even a tiny percentage of people who read this make some decision to make the world a better place in which to live via info they got here, it’s been way more than worthwhile.
• Alright. Let’s go.
• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is a piece of shit. I know this isn’t news, but I can be more specific here.
• After the 2020 presidential election, when Dump supporters bought into the Big Lie that President Biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed an emergency symbol outside their homes, on their cars and in online posts: an upside-down American flag.
• And one of those assholes was none other than Samuel A. Alito Jr., flying the upside-down flag in front of his house in Alexandria, VA.
• It was an overtly political and anti-American statement in the weeks and months following the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
• While Alito’s flag was up, the court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Alito on the losing end of that decision.
• And in coming weeks, the justices will rule on two massive cases involving the failed coup attempt at the Capitol on January 6, including whether Dump has immunity for his actions.
• Alito MUST recuse himself. But, in typical conservative fashion, e does have an excuse for his actions.
• He’s blaming his wife.
• “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs,” was his emailed response to the breaking story.
• Judicial experts have stated that Alito’s distress flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias. Alito clearly cannot be impartial in cases related to the election and the insurrection.
• A note: turning the American flag upside down is a symbol of emergency and distress, first used as a military S.O.S., and in recent decades has increasingly been used as a political protest symbol.
• U.S. flag code and military tradition require the paramount symbol of the United States to be treated with respect and never used for partisan purposes.
• Moving on.
• In the continual embarrassment that is the legislative ranch of our government, proceedings quickly devolved last night during a House Oversight Committee markup on holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt, with Rep. Marjorie “Sporky” Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) getting into a feral brawl.
• Fucking Marge started commenting on Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s (D-TX) appearance. I mean, of all people to talk shit about the way someone else looks, Taylor Greene is the wrong one. Someone show her a mirror, please.
• Honestly, the transcript reads like a battle between butt-hurt seventh grade girls. It’s astonishing.
• I did giggle at Jasmine Crockett’s retort.
• “I’m just curious. Just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde bad built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
• Hahahahahahahaha!
• Okay, I can’t deal with this Jerry Springer shit. Let’s move on.
• Actually, one cool thing from the upper chamber of Congress.
• The Senate confirmed three more lifetime judges this week, marking 197 confirmations under President Biden.
• So whether you like or dislike president Biden, his impact on America will reverberate for generations after he’s gone.
• Okay, now let’s move on.
• A big milestone in the US economy yesterday when, for the first time in history, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 40,000.
• The Dow is the index that tracks 30 of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the U.S., and it’s now up about 6% so far this year.
• This probably isn’t super meaningful to many working folks, but those of you with 401(k) and/or IRA accounts have probably noted the upward trend in their value.
• And it’s also a good sign, since the recent rally in the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq is driven by data showing inflation is cooling, which would allow the Federal Reserve to begin its long-awaited interest rate cuts.
• On to some expected shitty news.
• Daniel Perry, a former Army sergeant who killed a Black Lives Matter protester in downtown Austin in 2020, was freed from prison yesterday after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a pardon proclamation.
• In July 2020, Perry shot and killed Garrett Foster after driving his car into a racial justice protest. Perry claimed that he shot Foster in self-defense. He was tried by a jury and found guilty.
• Less than 24 hours after a jury in April 2023 found Perry guilty of murder, Abbott said on social media that he would approve a pardon.
• So they pardoned Perry… and restored his firearm rights. And will expunge his record. He got to kill a guy and face no repercussions because of his conservative supporters. They let murderers go scot free as long as they support Donnie Dump.
• And the friends and family of Garrett Foster have to feel like his life didn’t matter at all.
• Sigh. I’m sorry if this shocks you. It’s how things are in America.
• Moving on.
• This week, I got some horrifying information: I share a strong preference on an important topic with Donald J. Trump.
• During his trial, the bombshell news came out that, per his former personal assistant and ex-director of Oval Office operations Madeleine Westerhout, Dumpy prefers the Oxford comma.
• What it is? You see me use it here every single day. It’s the controversial punctuation that’s also known as the serial comma, used before the “and” in a list of three or more items.
• I will die upon the Oxford comma hill. My favorite example of why it just works is exemplified in the following sentence: “I dedicate this book to my parents, Hillary Clinton and Kendrick Lamar.”
• Interestingly, Dumpy and I are on the opposite side of the Associated Press and most other modern style guides who insist the additional comma isn’t necessary.
• Side note: the Chicago Manual of Style, used for most college-level writing, is pro-Oxford. This isn’t a situation where one is right and the other is wrong. It’s a choice.
• But the Zak Claxton style guide says the Oxford comma is informative, clear, and crucial to concise and understandable communications.
• Side note two: I write for a living and run a small marketing communications firm, so this is actually something that affects me all the time, every day, and is part of how I make a living.
• And now, The Weather: “Help Desk” by Wand
• Speaking of weather, thoughts to my friends in the Houston. TX area. They are getting their asses kicked by severe storms. Multiple people are dead and power was cut to nearly a million homes and businesses.
• Stay safe, my peoples.
• From the Sports Desk… a non-sports story, but topping my headlines when I awoke today was the world’’s No. 1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, having been arrested by Louisville Metro Police this morning after trying to drive into the entrance of Valhalla Golf Club, the site of this week's PGA Championship.
• He was there to play in Round 2 of the tournament. What in the actual fuck?
• What happened was that a guy had been struck and killed by a shuttle bus around 5am this morning.
• There are conflicting reports about what happened next. Witnesses say Scheffler was trying to drive around the crash scene on a median. Scheffler says he was going as directed by police.
• But cops told him to stop, he continued to drive toward the entrance, the cop jumped on his car, he wouldn’t roll down the window, and finally was pulled out, pushed against the car, and placed in handcuffs.
• Scheffler faces charges of second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic. The assault charge is a felony; the others are misdemeanors.
• Jesus. Scheffler, 27, has won four of his past five starts, including his second major championship at the Masters in April. And despite the arrest, he teed off on time for his round today.
• Shrug.
• Today in history… Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage is annulled (1536). The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement (1792). Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby with the jockey Oliver Lewis (1875). The children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, is first published in the United States (1900). Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer (1902). The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, outlawing racial segregation in public schools (1954). Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure (1969). Televised hearings in the Watergate scandal begin in the United States Senate (1973). Nolan Bushnell opened the first ShowBiz Pizza Place — later renamed Chuck E. Cheese — in San Jose, CA (1977). The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, TN in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request (1983). The General Assembly of the World Health Organization eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases (1990). The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts (2004).
• May 17 is the birthday of physician/microbiologist Edward Jenner (1749), mathematician/social activist Charlotte Barnum (1860), pianist/composer Erik Satie (1866), businessman Horace Elgin Dodge (1868), lawyer/politician Archibald Cox (1912), singer-songwriter Antonio Aguilar (1919), actor Dennis Hopper (1936), singer-songwriter Taj Mahal (1942), drummer Bill Bruford (1949), actor Bill Paxton (1955), boxer Sugar Ray Leonard (1956), comedian/actor Bob Saget (1956), singer-songwriter/producer Enya (1961), TV host Craig Ferguson (1962), keyboardist Page McConnell (1963), singer-songwriter/producer Trent Reznor (1965), drummer Dave Abbruzzese (1968), singer-songwriter/guitarist Josh Homme (1973), and NBA player Tony Parker (1983).

Again, thanks to all of you who make use of these daily news bullets. I’m happy to keep doing them as long as they’re useful to you. I’m hopefully having a normal day today, and I hope you do too. Enjoy your day.