Roger O Green

Going offline, but only briefly (I hope)

reinstall

InformationTechnology As you may know, visitors to this site have received unexpected redirects. It’s frustrating because I can’t see them. I contacted the vendor on Saturday, who found a specific evil bug. That was fixed.

But shortly thereafter, my friend Catbird wrote: “This is where that latest link you sent goes; it’s a phishing page that spoofs Apple. There’s a blue banner across the top of the page saying ‘Safari Search Contest 2021’. This photo is a screenshot of the message, which is obviously some kind of phishing ploy.

“When I called Apple Support they immediately thought you were spamming me and it took a few tries to explain that you were a friend and not only wouldn’t spam me but probably didn’t know how to set up a computer scam.” This is very true, BTW.

So I contacted the host again.

Restoration

“After further review of the rogerogreen.com website, I am seeing that it’s been compromised since at least July 25th. I checked our oldest backup (dated from 7/30) but noticed the hacked files were present in the backups. Performing a restore via the DreamHost panel is no longer an option as we only keep backups for the preceding 7 to 10 days. Restoring the website from the oldest backup would restore a hacked file structure.”

Yes, that WOULD be unsatisfactory.

Earlier that day, my cousin Tom had looked at the workings of my blog via ZOOM – OK, ZOOM is not ALWAYS terrible. He was looking at my plugins, and somehow he was showing one more than I had installed, or had listed.

Dreamhost guy Matthew noted: “When I checked your /plugins directory within your /wp-content directory, I was able to find a directory named /zend-fonts-wp which looks to contain malware that would redirect the website. After further research, I was able to find it is NOT a valid WordPress plugin.

Like magic

Bottom line: “A full reinstall of WordPress will need to be done to return the site to a properly working, updated, and secure state. The following link has instructions on how to proceed with the installation in a way that will help ensure there is no data/content loss.”

This means this site will go offline for an hour or three, probably today or tomorrow. But as the former governor of California once said, “The more knowledge you have, the more you’re free to rely on your instincts.”

Many thanks to Catbird, fillyjonk, Alison, ADD, west coast Bill, Mary R, Tom the Mayor, Kevin, Darby, Jack, and especially cousin Tom.

1971 #1s: my first year in college

overly Osmond

The year 1971 was hugely significant in my musical listening development. For one thing, it was my first year in college, my initial time away from home, meeting new people my age and a little older.

There is a book entitled Never A Dull Moment about that year in music, and I wrote at least ten posts about that tome. Some of these songs are great! And then…

Joy To The World – Three Dog Night. #1 for six weeks, gold record. Was Jeremiah REALLY a bullfrog?

Maggie May Maggie May – Rod Stewart. #1 for five weeks., gold record. From the popular album, Every Picture Tells A Story.
It’s Too Late – Carole King. #1 for five weeks, gold record. From the absurdly popular Tapestry album. If you didn’t own this, then your roommate had to.
One Bad Apple – the Osmonds. #1 for five weeks, gold record. Trying to sound like the Jackson Five.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart – the BeeGees. #1 for four weeks, gold record. Part of that brief resurgence, along with Lonely Days, before falling on commercial hard times. They’d be back.

Knock Three Times – Dawn. #1 for three weeks. Not the dishwashing detergent but the trio fronted by Tony Orlando.
Brand New Key – Melanie. #1 for three weeks, gold record. “Don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far.”
Go Away, Little Girl – Donny Osmond. #1 for three weeks, gold record. Steve Lawrence went to #1 with this in 1963.
Family Affair – Sly and the Family Stone. #1 for three weeks, gold record. I feel stoned every time I hear this.

The #1s for two weeks

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves – Cher. Gold record. Would the first word now be Roma or the Romani?
Just My Imagination – the Temptations. The third #1 for the group, as Eddie Kendrick is going out the door.
Theme from Shaft – Isaac Hayes. Gold record. We can dig it.
Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin. The second posthumous #1 pop song.
Brown Sugar – the Rolling Stones. I bought Sticky Fingers and Tapestry on the same day in July 1971. The zipper really worked!

#1s for a single week

Indian Reservation – the Raiders. Platinum record. A very earnest record by the artists formerly known as Paul Revere and…
The Want Ads – the Honey Cone. Gold record. “Extra, extra!”
You’ve Got a Friend – James Taylor. Gold record. Of course, a Carole King song.
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Paul and Linda McCartney. Gold record. From the Ram album. With the Beatles gone, I was always happy to see the solo artist chart.

Parade magazine’s best songs of 1971.

My very first COVID-19 test

silent G

For several days last week, I felt like crap, to put it bluntly. My wife, who had been at her mother’s house, helping to get ready for my MIL’s move this week, called to ask that Thursday, “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve felt better. My sleep was interrupted a few times by coughing jags.”

“Any fever? Or other COVID symptoms?”

Now, THAT’S a tricky question. From the list I found:

Fever or chills – no fever, occasional chills
Cough – definitely
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing – yes
Fatigue – definitely, because of above
Muscle or body aches – ditto
Headache – a little
New loss of taste or smell – I don’t know, I’m so stuffed up
Sore throat – definitely
Congestion or runny nose – yes, a lot
Nausea or vomiting – no, though I was coughing so hard I thought I would
Diarrhea – no

Could it be…?

The thing about the COVID is that it mimics other ailments. My daughter currently has a post-nasal drip. And we tend to experience similar symptoms around allergies.

Maybe it’s bronchitis, which I’ve had before. Maybe it’s the flu, though I was vaxxed for that last fall. Heck, it could be the reaction to the fires in the western US, the smoke from which is reaching new York State.

The weird thing about being fully vaccinated for COVID-19 is that I don’t know how vulnerable I still may be. I feel the pain of Mile High Comics proprietor Chuck Rozanski/Bettie Pages: “I am still working to recover from a dreadful flu-like illness that hit me over the weekend. While initially assumed to be a dreaded Covid-19 ‘breakthrough’ infection (I am fully vaccinated), it turns out that it is an entirely different virus. I will spare you most of the gory details except to mention that at one point that I slept for 28 hours in a single stretch.”

One of the primary issues I have – if it’s not TMI – is a lot of phlegm in my nose and chest. I happen to think that phlegm is one of the ugliest words in the English language; it’s the damn silent G.

The drive-through

Early on in the pandemic, it seemed that getting a COVID-19 test around here was difficult, limited to people who were clearly showing signs of infection. Now I could go to the nearest CVS that has a drive-through. Thursday, I made an appointment for Friday. It was a rather frustrating experience.

Primarily, it was that neither my wife, driving nor I, in the back seat, could hear a damn thing the technician was saying. The air conditioner outside of the building was Very Loud. “Oh, break the stick that’s in the tube? Oh, I see the place…” Saturday, I got the results. Negative. Which is good.

The answer is…

But what DO I have? Sunday morning, we went to the urgent care place. Given the fact that they only take walk-ins and I was fourth in line, it was a rather efficient operation. Ultimately, it was determined that I have a sinus infection. The physician assistant prescribed an antibiotic and Albuterol.

Actually, I had occasionally used an unused puffer during the week, I told the P.A. They asked if the drug had hit its expiration date; I shrugged. (Later, I noticed it ran out in Sept 2019, so I switched it out for one that ran out in March 2021, which is MUCH better.) They also said that most of the OTC cough medicine was a waste of money in that the condition is masked but not treated.

It’s quite fortunate I did not have COVID beyond, you know, not being too ill. My daughter has a summer job she would have to quit. Worse, my wife is one of only two teachers teaching 70 kids for four weeks in August. If I DID have COVID, they would have to quarantine, and there’s no redundancy in either of their jobs.

What Is the word misogynoir?

a racialized nuance

Until 2019, I was unaware of the portmanteau “misogynoir.” Yet, once I saw it, even before hearing the formal characterization, I knew two things: the definition and how accurate it was.

From the Blackburn Center: “Coined by the queer Black feminist Moya Bailey in 2010, the term is a blending of concepts that combines ‘misogyny’ and the French word for black, ‘noir.’ According to Ms. Bailey, misogynoir is the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience.”

Way back in 2015, the Guardian noted the reaction to a black woman complaining about treatment at a London nightclub. “‘Misogynoir provides a racialised nuance that mainstream feminism wasn’t catching,’ says black feminist commentator, Feminista Jones. ‘We are talking about misogyny, yes, but there is a specific misogyny that is aimed at black women and is uniquely detrimental to black women.’”

Sometimes it’s for speaking up to stand up for oneself or others. Here’s a good example from 2020: “Trump… spoke at two separate press conferences and harshly singled out Yamiche Alcindor, a White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour who is black… Critics argued that his treatment of the journalist amounted to misogynoir. Trump called her questions ‘nasty’ and lectured her to, ‘Be nice. Don’t be threatening. Don’t be threatening.'”

“Hello”

Often, it has to do with physical attributes. To the Twitter trolls, Serena Williams and Michelle Obama, to name two, are “gorillas,” “more manly than any man.” Far-right radio show host Jesse Kelly snarked on Faux News that Kamala Harris “cackles like a dead hyena” with Tucker Carlson laughing in the background.

According to the Los Angeles Times’ Noah Bierman, “Research shows that Harris may be the most targeted American politician on the internet.” Why? She “checks every box for the haters of the fever swamps: She’s a woman, she’s a person of color, and she holds power.”

What reminded me of the word is, in the description of the late Gloria Richardson, An “Influential Yet Largely Unsung Civil Rights Pioneer.” She “was on the stage at the pivotal March on Washington in 1963 as one of six women listed as ‘fighters for freedom’ on the program. However, she was only allowed to say ‘hello’ before the microphone was taken.”

It isn’t necessary to agree with someone’s policy, position, or life situation to recognize misogynoir for the specific bigotry that it is.

Technical difficulties: Facebook v. my blog

One can go to the blog directly

Sometimes, it’s difficult to write a blog post. I’ve experienced that acutely this summer. Arthur noted his blogging weltschmerz recently.

But then there are those technical difficulties, particularly the ones I don’t understand, that are truly maddening. I’ve been getting reports that when people go to the link that I post on Facebook every day since July 31, some people are getting untoward messages. Some are denied access by something that tells them that they’re the nth customer and a prize winner.

A friend noted that the link started to go to my site then appeared to be redirected to somewhere else, then a message came up that the page was blocked as malware. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are on laptops or iPhones.

At times, the first time someone clicks on the link to the blog from Facebook, they get the warning from Norton. If they go back immediately and try again, no warning. Is it Norton being hypersensitive?

What ARE my passwords now?

As I’ve noted, the last time my Norton was renewed, every HTTP site I went to was “dangerous.” But that soon passed. In any case, I have an HTTPS site, which is presumably more secure. I’ve changed my password on Facebook and on my blog. It did not help.

One of my cousins ran the FB link through something called Virustotal. The direct link to that blog page came back clean. I’ve followed the FB link in a couple of browsers and saw no problems at all. I even used another scanning system; all clear.

So it seems that the problem is not with my blog. It’s with Facebook doing SOMETHING to my blog post links. I considered deleting my Facebook and starting all over. (I need to cull the list anyway.) But I’ve decided not to do this yet, in part because I’m not sure it would work.

Any suggestions are welcome, preferably something that won’t add to the hours I spent so far trying to fix it.

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