Random News: June 1, 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- doh! Good afternoon.. It’s June 1, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. After a completely intense week of world news and work productivity and more, I’m truly enjoying chilling in my bathrobe and sipping coffee while I write this shit.

• Rabbit rabbit rabbit.
• Yes, it’s a new month. June has always been one of my favorites. It’s my birthday month, and it was the month when we got out of school as kids.
• And the weather is generally nice, except for here where I live at the beach, where we are now completely immersed in the coastal weather phenomenon called June Gloom.
• And me being me, I also enjoy overcast days as well, so no complaints.
• Let’s start with a little sad breaking news from yesterday…
• Marian Robinson, the mother of former first lady Michelle Obama, died yesterday at the age of 86.
• Michelle credits both of her parents for giving her a drive to succeed, which manifested itself by her going from a very poor family in a rough area of Chicago to being a Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate. 
• As you may recall from the Obama presidency, Mrs. Robinson — reluctantly — moved into the White House with the first family to help with the then-young kids.
• Rest in peace to her.
• Moving on.
• Today is the first day of Pride Month.
• Last year I dedicated the entire month to Pride with daily posts about various LGBTQIA+ topics. It was fun, but I’ve done that and don’t need to do that every year — or at least, I shouldn’t have to.
• This year, I thought it would be fun to have a Gay of the Day. No, not specifically gay people; it’s just a good rhyme.
• Each day we’ll salute some person within the LGBTQIA+ realm who has done cool, interesting, perhaps important things. Or whom I just enjoy for whatever reason.
• We’ll start there today. Gay of the Day for June 1 is writer Lauren Hough.
• I became aware of Hough a good number of years back via social media… Twitter at the time, though I’ve since abandoned that hell site. I still hang with her on Threads today.
• Her tweets included. among many other things, short-form stories about her experiences, and I thought she was funny, and sometimes poignant, and sometimes sad or insightful or angry, but mostly fucking hilarious.
• In 2018, one of her essays, titled “I Was a Cable Guy. I Saw the Worst of America,” took off in a viral sense. Then it got picked up by HuffPo. I think it was the first time she was published on a wide scale. 
• A few years later, she compiled 11 of her essays and put out a book called ‘Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing,’ with the horrifying primary story of Hough growing up in an apocalyptic cult.
• After making her escape, Hough — a very tall lesbian, as she generally describes herself — became an Air Force Airman, a barista, a bouncer, a bartender, and, yes, a cable guy. 
• Her book became a New York Times bestseller and the audio version was narrated by Cate Blanchett. It was pretty cool seeing someone I genuinely enjoyed as a human being get recognized for something she did so naturally well.
• You can get her book in places you get books.
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, the Texas Supreme Court ruled 9-0 against against women who sued the state due to their health being at risk under their draconian abortion ban.
• The court, made up entirely of Republicans, reversed a lower court’s order that broadened the ban’s exception to circumstances in which a pregnancy is “unsafe” for the pregnant person or when there is a fetal condition making it unlikely the fetus will survive.
• Now the Texas medical exemption applies only when a person is at risk of death or serious physical impairment.
• It is a terrible blow against women’s rights in that state. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by several Texas women who suffered serious health complications in their desired pregnancies.
• They were forced to wait until their health seriously deteriorated before receiving the procedure or were denied an abortion altogether until they traveled out of state.
• But the Texas court decided unanimously that women should remain at risk of death before relinquishing the state’s control over their reproductive freedom.
• Please vote this fall. Thank you.
• Moving on.
• Eddie Duran, the sheriff's deputy who fatally shot a Florida airman at his apartment in May, has been fired.
• An investigation determined that Duran's use of deadly force in the shooting death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, "was not objectively reasonable and therefore violated agency policy.”
• If you saw the body-worn camera footage from the incident, you’d understand why Duran was immediately dismissed. Like, no question.
• In other news…
• The NYPD arrested 34 people at a pro-Palestinian protest at a museum in Brooklyn this morning after reports of damaged artwork and staff harassment.
• I don’t think these protests are just going to fade away other own until the root cause is addressed.
• Protesters occupied the public plaza in front of the museum, as well as entered the building. They blocked entrances and displayed banners both inside and on the façade of the museum.
• Sigh. As always, I support peaceful protest and the overall right to assemble with free speech, and support the total end of hostilities between Israel and Palestine. And yes, protests obviously inconvenience people and lead to their own level of unrest.
• That’s the intention.
• Moving on.
• I told you quite clearly that Dump will not be going to prison, for this recent set of felonies or, most likely, anything else he’s convicted of.
• That being said, the Secret Service obviously has to prepare for any possible eventuality, including the remote chance he actually serves any amount of time incarcerated.
• So… yes, there’s a plan in place for how the Secret Service would continue to protect Dump behind bars, should it come to that. They aren’t discussing the details — duh — but have stated that their protective mission would remain unchanged.
• That means some poor fucking Secret Service people would literally be in jail with him. Can you imagine? As if it wasn’t bad enough being around him on the outside when he can do pretty much anything he wants?
• Fucking nightmare if you ask me.
• Regardless, one, he won’t go to jail, and two, he’ll be appealing this decision for years.
• Let's move on.
• Our Assholes of the Day are the cowardly weak-ass punks of Carlisle, Massachusetts. They stole over 200 pride flags from their town center overnight this week.
• But they don’t get to win. Community members came together to replace the flags within hours of their theft, and organizers of their local Pride event told the outlet that turnout was larger than expected.
• You lose, punk asses.
• And now, The Weather: “My hell” by Draag
• From the Sports Desk… the ten most popular sports in the world, ranked by the respective sizes of their purported fan base.
• 1. Futbol (soccer): 3.5 billion. 2. Cricket (2.5 billion). 3. Hockey (2 billion). 4. Tennis (1 billion). 5. Volleyball (900 million). 6. Table Tennis (850 million). 7. Basketball (800 million). 8, Baseball (500 million). 9. Rugby (475 million). 10. Golf (450 million).
• That’s right. American football is not on the list, which is why the NFL has been making costly efforts to try and expand the game overseas for the past 5-10 years.
• Today in history… Zhongdu — now called Beijing — is captured by the Mongols under Genghis Khan (1215). A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky (1495). The court-martial for malfeasance of Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, begins (1779). Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States (1792). Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States (1796). U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom (1812). James Clark Ross becomes the first European at the North Magnetic Pole (1831). Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey declared the Territory of Minnesota officially established (1849). The Treaty of Bosque Redondo is signed, allowing the Navajo to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico (1868). The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to count census returns (1890). Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court (1916). Kenya becomes a republic with Jomo Kenyatta as its first President (1964). The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine (1974). Cable News Network, aka CNN, begins broadcasting (1980). George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production (1990). Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols is sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole (2004). A fire on the back lot of Universal Studios breaks out, destroying the attraction King Kong Encounter and a large archive of master tapes for music and film, the full extent of which was not revealed until 2019 (2008). General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history (2009).
• June 1 is the birthday of painter Frans Post (1612), missionary/explorer Jacques Marquette (1637), religious leader Brigham Young (1801), Confederate general John Bell Hood (1831), chemist William Standish Knowles (1917), bandleader Nelson Riddle (1921), actor Andy Griffith (1926), actress Marilyn Monroe (1926), singer-songwriter Pat Boone (1934), illustrator/animator Gerald Scarfe (1936), actor Morgan Freeman (1937), actor Cleavon Little (1939), actor René Auberjonois (1940), guitarist Ronnie Wood (1947), politician Lucy McBath (1960), bass player Simon Gallup (1960), NHL player Paul Coffey (1961), model Heidi Klum (1973), singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette (1974), singer-songwriter/guitarist Brandi Carlile (1981), actress Amy Schumer (1981), comedian Nikki Glaser (1984), and actor Tom Holland (1996).

That’s plenty for now. Happy June. Happy Pride. Happy me, lounging about like an unmotivated sloth all day thus far. Enjoy your day.