Random News: May 5, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s May 5, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. Today is a more chill day than yesterday for me, so I’m enjoying the early hours in my bathrobe and with a cup of delicious freshly brewed coffee. Let’s see what’s happening in the world.

• The media seems pretty fixated on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, unless it’s Fox News, who refers to them as anti-Israel.
• Can you see the difference in language? Media outlets do this purposefully all the time. if you’re ever in the mood to learn something, pull up a news aggregator like Google News and look at the ways different media refer to the same story.
• Your news shouldn’t have to be positioned and spun for some agenda. But it nearly always is.
• Anyway…
• Protesters left a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Southern California early this morning after they were surrounded by police and told they could face arrest if they didn’t go.
• Livestream video from student journalists showed the encampment had emptied out as police formed a line to move remaining protesters away and stop people from re-entering the area.
• At the University of Virginia, 25 people were arrested yesterday for trespassing after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from campus, and demonstrators at the University of Michigan chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during commencement ceremonies.
• The next week or two would normally be filled with commencement ceremonies, but many of them have been canceled due to the threat of violence and other safety concerns in light of the protests.
• USC would typically expect some 65,000 people to gather to celebrate graduates. Now? Not.
• Congress is getting in on some of the media coverage, as they like to do.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the student protests are in support of “evil,” and threatened to haul college professors and even students in front of Congress as part of his supposed effort to stamp out antisemitism on campuses.
• It’s touching, this sudden focus on antisemitism. Let’s look back to August 2017, when the Unite the Right rally happened in Charlottesville, VA.
• Hundreds of people — almost all young white men — marched while holding symbols of Naziism and white supremacy, shouting slogans including, “Jews will not replace us!”
• One of them, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr., deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 people.
• The president at the time was Donald Trump, who spoke after the event and described the conflict as having “very fine people on both sides.”
• So if Congress is going after antisemitism, why the focus on some college kids who are upset about genocide? Why not haul up some genuine white supremacists who are open and active in their antisemitic behavior?
• Moving on.
• The 2024 general election is exactly six months from today on November 5, 2024.
• A lot is going to happen between now and then. Some will be predictable; some will not.
• All I can say for now is this: your vote, or lack thereof, will be the only real determining factor that dictates the future of the USA.
• It will be the difference between continuing a democracy that’s lasted for 248 years, versus falling into an autocratic dictatorship.
• It will be the only thing that prevents America from becoming a religious theocracy, or being a country where women’s sexuality is controlled by the government and are forced to give birth or be jailed.
• That’s how powerful and important your vote is in 2024. Even if you’ve never voted before in your life, now is the time to get registered and then use your power as a US citizen to protect yourself and the people you love from a nightmarish dystopian future.
• There’s something I have not yet mentioned in this column. It’s called Project 2025.
• It’s a plan to reshape the executive branch of the U.S. federal government at an unprecedented scale in the event of a victory by Donnie Dump this fall.
• It’s horrifying even on the surface. The plan proposes slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ), and dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security.
• It guts environmental and climate change regulations in favor of fossil fuel production, eliminates the departments of Education and Commerce, and ends the independence of various federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.
• Project 2025 proposes criminalizing pornography and ending anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Project calls for immediately invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and directing the DOJ to pursue Dump's adversaries.
• It’s the masturbatory dream of the far right, and they have been actively taking steps to be ready to enact it immediately should Dump win. If you’re not a straight, white, Christian male, you may no longer have actual citizenship in this country as you know it today after the election in November.
• When I tell you this stuff, it’s not to scare you, or to support my “team” like it’s a stupid fucking football game.
• It might be to save your life, and that of your family and closest friends.
• Vote, and help others register to vote. Hit me up, here or in private, and I promise I’ll help.
• Moving on.
• We should probably note that today is Cinco de Mayo, one of the silliest US holidays that exists.
• I won’t harp on this this. If you want to eat tacos and drink margaritas and Mexican beer, go ahead. Fuck, do that every day. I don’t give a shit.
• The holiday started in California by Mexican-American miners who heard the news that an ill-equipped, ill-armed, poor Mexican army was able to fight off a superior French army on the outskirts of the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
• The miners were stoked, and fired gun shots into the air and passed around a bottle of booze in celebration.
• Side note: they won that battle over Napoleon III’s troops in Puebla, but not the war. Mexico would ultimately live under French rule for years.
• That’s it. That’s the story. And to this day, the celebration of Cinco de Mayo occurs in a much more widespread fashion in the USA than in Mexico.
• Mexican Independence Day, when they celebrate their separation from rule by Spain in 1810, happens every year on September 16.
• Now, if you want to use Cinco de Mayo to show true appreciation for Mexican culture and the tremendous contributions that people of Mexican origin have made on America, that’s something I support.
• Also, since I stopped drinking some 20 years ago, holidays with a main goal of drinking enough to throw up and pass out seem less appealing to me for some reason.
• But growing up and spending almost my entire life in Southern California, I am well aware of the impact Mexico has had on American culture and society and our workforce. We are far better off from their inclusion in our melting pot.
• Let’s move on to Sunday Gunday, my weekly notes on acts of gun violence in the USA over the past 48 hours.
• Four dead among 23 people shot in a multitude in incidents spanning several areas of Chicago, IL. Two dead in a shooting at a shopping center parking lot in San Antonio, TX. One teenager dead, five others shot (all in ages from 14 to 16) in Buffalo, NY. One dead, three seriously injured in a shooting at a baby shower in Queens, NY. One dead, three more injured in a shooting in southwest Philadelphia, PA. One dead, another critically injured in a shooting near the Ohio State fairgrounds in Columbus, OH. One dead, one injured in a shooting at a parking lot in Minneapolis, MN. One dead, one injured in a shooting West Baltimore, MD. A 3-year-old shot and killed in an SUV by a stray bullet in Washington, D.C. A 14-year-old shot and killed in Lansing, MI. One dead in a shooting the Natomas area of Sacramento, CA. One dead in a shooting at an apartment complex in Lawrenceville, GA. One dead in a shooting in Denver, CO. One dead in a shooting in Fayetteville, NC. Seven people shot, four critically, in a shooting at a nightclub in Long Beach, CA. Three shot in Grand Rapids, MI. Two shot at a mall in Fort Wayne, IN. Two shot at a gas station in North Charleston, SC. One critically injured in a shooting at a seafood restaurant in Philadelphia, PA. One shot outside a high school in Omaha, NE. One shot in Colorado Springs, CO.
• That seems like enough to prove the point that there’s a continuing epidemic of gun violence in the USA.
• And, as per usual: these are not all of the incidents, even in just the past two days, and don’t include shootings by law enforcement or actions of self harm.
• We can fix this if we want.
• Moving on.
• I promise, we have little reason to keep talking about out Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. She’s heading down the path of irrelevancy, especially after her boss Donnie Dump said he was “disgusted” by her dog-killing story.
• There’s no way she’s still in contention for Dump’s VP choice.
• But the thing I wanted to mention has nothing to do with her shooting her puppy in the head. Instead, it’s another part of her upcoming book.
• Noem specifically states in the book that she met North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and stared him down.
• Noem as never met the North Korean leader. Her own team admitted this, with her chief of communications Ian Fury saying, “It was brought to our attention that the upcoming book No Going Back has two small errors. This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor. Kim Jong-un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been.”
• Yes, blame the ghostwriter and editor. Slow clap.
• Here’s a scary one, but not unexpected: AI-controlled fighter jets.
• Yep.
• AI is expected to be the biggest advance in military aviation since the introduction of stealth technology in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in.
• Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.
• And I’m sure that our own heavily-armed, robot-controlled fighters and bombers could never be hacked or have programming errors that caused them to attack our own citizens, right?
• Right?
• Fuck.
• Let’s move on to something more cheerful.
• Over 1,000 sea lions were counted hanging out on the docks at Pier 39 in San Francisco this week.
• This is a good sign. It means their population is strong, as is that of their food — a bounty of anchovies and herring in the bay waters.
• The pinnipeds are feasting ahead of their mating season, which starts next month. It’s said that California sea lions reflect the health of the ocean. So this is great news.
• And now, The Weather: “Slipping On Ice” by Maxband
• Seems to be getting into the Texas flood time of year. More storms were moving through the already saturated Houston area today, where flooding from heavy rains has led to the rescue of hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads.
• Stay safe, peoples.
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the start of May 1980, I’m in sixth grade and am spending a lot of time playing guitar, riding my BMX bike, and skateboarding, and this is the top of the Billboard 200 album chart.
• 1. Against The Wind (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band). 2. The Wall (Pink Floyd). 3. Glass Houses (Billy Joel). 4. Mad Love (Linda Ronstadt). 5. Light Up The Night (The Brothers Johnson). 6. Off The Wall (Michael Jackson). 7. American Gigolo (Soundtrack). 8. Departure (Journey). 9. Women And Children First (Van Halen). 10. Christopher Cross (Christopher Cross). 11. The Whispers (The Whispers). 12. Go All The Way (The Isley Brothers). 13. Pretenders (Pretenders). 14. Damn The Torpedoes (Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers). 15. The Long Run (Eagles). 16. Phoenix (Dan Fogelberg).  17. Middle Man (Boz Scaggs). 18. Gideon (Kenny Rogers). 19. Catching The Sun (Spyro Gyra). 20. Warm Thoughts (Smokey Robinson).
• From the Sports Desk… as I’m wrapping up these bullets, game 7 of the Magic/Cavs NBA playoff series in Cleveland has just begun.
• In other Sports Desk news, I guess, Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby yesterday in dramatic style, winning by far less than a nose in the closest three-horse photo finish since 1947.
• The horse was an 18-1 shot, so someone made some dough.
• Today in history… Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire (1260). On his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay and declares Jamaica the property of the Spanish crown (1494). Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread (1809). Emperor Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean (1821). The first edition of The Manchester Guardian, now The Guardian, is published (1821). Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico (1862). Workers marching for the eight-hour day in Milwaukee, WI were shot at by Wisconsin National Guardsmen in what became known as the Bay View Massacre (1886). The Music Hall in New York City — later known as Carnegie Hall — has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor (1891). Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball (1904). Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder (1920). A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army during WWII kills six people near Bly, OR (1945). The General Treaty, by which France, Britain and the United States recognize the sovereignty of West Germany, comes into effect (1955). Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight via Project Mercury (1961). Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59-2⁄5, an as-yet unbeaten record (1973). Start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States of America with the Iran-Contra affair (1987). The World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency (2023).
• May 5 is the birthday of philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813), philosopher/sociologist Karl Marx (1818), businessman/hatter John Batterson Stetson (1830), geneticist Helen Redfield (1900), actor Tyrone Power (1914), musician/composer Delia Derbyshire (1937), actor Lance Henriksen (1940), singer-songwriter Tammy Wynette (1942), actor Michael Palin (1943), actor John Rhys-Davies (1944), journalist Kurt Loder (1945), drummer Bill Ward (1948), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jon Butcher (1955), singer-songwriter Ian McCulloch (1959), philanthropist/model Vanessa Bryant (1982), actor Henry Cavill (1983), and singer-songwriter Adele (1988).

Well, that’s plenty of news and whatnot. Time for me to get out of this robe and into being a responsible adult. Enjoy your day.