“I read the news today, oh boy.” – A Day in the Life, by the Beatles.
Some stories don’t require any comment. For instance:
• Brighton Police Chief Brent Pirochta said that anywhere from 30 to 50 people, some with children, brought lawn chairs and sat of the roofs of their cars to watch a standoff between police and a man holed up in a U-Haul parked in the Meijer parking lot. He said he would discourage people from doing that in the future.
• A segment of conservative Americans continue to vent their outrage at Target stores for selling theme-clothing in recognition of Gay Pride Week. This follows outrage at the makers of Bud Light for sending a specially made beer can to a trans-gender entertainer. That followed outrage over the appearance of M&M “spokes candies.”
• U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green banged her gavel and demanded decorum on the House floor last week. This is the same Marjorie Taylor Green who heckled President Joe Biden and called him a liar during his State of the Union speech. This is the same Marjorie Taylor Green who said California forest fires were started by Jewish space lasers.
• The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet but has a child poverty rate that, according to one report, is higher than any wealthy country in the world, beating out only Romania. Meanwhile, funding and services to poor children are being used as a bargaining chip to solve the federal debt ceiling crisis.
• Joel Embiid is a professional basketball player who just signed a four-year contract that will pay him nearly $200 million. He says his goal is to go from “rich” to “wealthy.”
• It’s been more than a week since any horse had to be put to death on the day of a Triple Crown race.
• A Maryland man has been strolling near a bus stop for school children, purposely displaying a long gun. Police say he has broken no laws.
• An 11-year-old boy in Mississippi dialed 911 to report a domestic disturbance at his home. When he arrived at the home, a police officer shot the boy.
• The signature work for a well-known Italian artist is a banana that is duct-taped to a wall. Recently that piece or art reminded a college student that he had skipped breakfast, so he removed the masterpiece from the wall and ate it.
• The Associated Press reports that a southern Illinois man has been charged with theft for stealing a backhoe to drive about 10 miles to an airport to catch a flight.
• The Oakland A’s lost 40 of their first 50 games, the worst record in professional baseball in more than 90 years. The A’s then lost their next two games.
• Kandiss Taylor is a former Republican candidate for governor in Georgia and is currently the party’s chair for a congressional district. She also believes the earth is flat and that globes are part of a conspiracy. “Everywhere there’s a globe,” she said. “You see them all the time, it’s constant. My children will be like ‘Mama, globe, globe, globe, globe – they’re everywhere.”
• A school in Florida has restricted student access to Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” a poem that was read aloud by the young author at the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden. When published in a bound volume, it had the highest first-week sales of any poetry book ever published.
• When at Yale, Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis pledged Delta Kappa Epsilon, the same fraternity that was the home to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and both President Bushes.
• A pod of killer whales has severely damaged a sailing boat off the coast of southern Spain, adding to dozens of orca attacks on vessels recorded this year on Spanish and Portuguese coasts.
So, all right, maybe I did make a few comments. But, as the song said, “Although the news was rather sad, well I just had to laugh.”
