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Shouldn’t no Internet mean NO Internet?

I could access Google itself, though none of the links worked.

It was the Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend when I realized that our home Internet was not working. Well, mostly.

The laptop computer would not connect to the Internet, even though the WiFi was clearly working, verified both by the computer itself and the guy on the phone from Time Warner Cable. Later, I saw that my wife’s Apple device had no Internet connection either.

So the problem is probably in the router, though I rebooted it at least thrice. Plugging it directly into the computer did not help.

But wait: this is weird. Operating the laptop, in Google Chrome (but NOT in Internet Explorer), I COULD get to an array of Google products. I could access Google itself, though none of the links worked. I could visit Google+, Google maps. My old blog, and others I write, are powered by Blogger, and I could compose blogs in Blogger, but I couldn’t preview them; I could even publish them, but I couldn’t read them to check for errors.

I commiserated with a bunch of my Internet buddies. Sunday afternoon, I took the laptop and iPad to the library, which was still closed, but I thought sitting outside, maybe I could access the signal; no go. Went to a local Internet cafe, and neither worked; ditto the closed bagel shop.

Back at home, the Google miracle no longer worked, and I had no Internet at all.

The guy from TWC arrived on time at 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning. It wasn’t theft of services or some other nefarious ploy. The short explanation is that he thinks that my router just wore out, and he replaced it. He also gave us a new cable remote that actually worked; previously we needed to use the TV’s remote to turn it on and off, and the cable remote to change channels and watch the DVR.

This explains why I was slow in answering emails, and visiting blogs, including for ABC Wednesday, last week. It also made my inclination to write ahead in my blog a good one, because I burned through six posts catching up with other things before I could write a new post, that being this one.

And the Google miracle STILL defies explanation.

Oh, THAT Dennis Hastert

Why is it a crime to evade government scrutiny?

This is how much I had forgotten about Dennis Hastert: when I heard that the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House (1999- 2007) had been indicted, I couldn’t even visualize what he looked like.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth about the “victimization” of Hastert, that perhaps the former student he paid nearly $1 million, out of $3.7 million promised, was extorting the former Congressman.

And if Hastert had actually had sex with one of his male high school students, when he was a teacher and wrestling coach between 1965 and 1981, why is he charged with, essentially money laundering, specifically, withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments to the former student?

As many have correctly pointed out, this is selective prosecution. As I’ve noticed over the years, though, a LOT of prosecution is selective.

Since he cannot be charged with a sex crime – the statute of limitation has run out, and proving a case 35 or more years old would have been nearly impossible anyway – the feds went in this direction. Moreover, a second alleged victim is deceased. It’s like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.

But I DO have some questions:

Why would Hastert take out $50,000 at a time early on? Did he not know this would trigger an investigation? Or was he of the belief that he was too important to be bothered with?

Why did he even talk to the FBI about this? He was under no obligation. Lying to the FBI, telling them that he was taking out money because he didn’t trust the banks, is the second part of the indictment.

More significantly, why is it a crime to evade government scrutiny? Yeah, yeah – we’re fighting terrorism and organized crime; I know the narrative.

From the Atlantic:

To see why that is unjust, it helps to set aside Hastert’s case and consider a more sympathetic figure. Imagine that a documentary filmmaker like Laura Poitras, whose films are critical of government surveillance, is buying a used video camera for $12,000. Vaguely knowing that a report to the federal government is generated for withdrawals of $10,000 or more, she thinks to herself, “What with my films criticizing NSA surveillance, I don’t want to invite any extra scrutiny — out of an abundance of caution, or maybe even paranoia, I’m gonna take out $9,000 today and $3,000 tomorrow. The last thing I need is to give someone a pretext to hassle me.”

That would be illegal, even though in this hypothetical she has committed no crime and is motivated, like many people, by a simple aversion to being monitored.

I’m feeling conflicted. On one hand, I’m happy to see Hastert’s apparent bad behavior being brought to light. The irony that he became Speaker because he was “clean”, especially in comparison with the previous House Speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and his presumed successor, Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, who were known to be involved in extramarital affairs.

Former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) blasted the Republican hypocrisy of going after President Bill Clinton for his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, even having him impeached when the leadership has these activities on their resumes.

On the other hand, the underlying monitoring policy, like many of the provisions of the recently modified USA PATRIOT Act, feels like government overreach. Of course, the irony is that it was the very Patriot Act that Hastert got passed that led to his indictment.

William Rivers Pitt- The Loved and the Lost: A Note to the Biden Family. And bad karma to those mocking Joe Biden at this painful time.

Two music greats died this week. Read about Jean Ritchie and Ronnie Gilbert.
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Like many people, I wish Caitlyn Jenner well, but desperately wish I didn’t have to hear about the Kardashians yet again.

Music Throwback Saturday: Oh Happy Day

George Harrison said “Oh Happy Day” was a primary inspiration in the writing of his 1970 hit single “My Sweet Lord.”

The 8 April 1966 cover of TIME magazine asked the question, “Is God Dead?” John Lennon made a controversial statement about Beatles’ popularity in relationship to Jesus that same year.

So it was interesting to me that, in a period of songs of protest about war and the human condition, “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, a gospel group out of northern California, became an international hit in 1969, reaching No. 4 in the US, No. 2 in both the UK singles chart and Irish Singles Chart, and No. 1 on the German Singles Charts. The Grammy-winning song has since become a gospel music standard. The lead singer was Dorothy Combs Morrison.

I did not know this:

It began as a hymn written in the mid-18th century (“O happy day, that fixed my choice”) by English clergyman Philip Doddridge (based on Acts 8:35) set to an earlier melody (1704) by J. A. Freylinghausen. By the mid-19th century it had been given a new melody by Edward F. Rimbault, who also added a chorus, and was commonly used for baptismal or confirmation ceremonies in the UK and USA. The 20th century saw its adaptation from 3/4 to 4/4 time and this new arrangement by Hawkins, which contains only the repeated Rimbault refrain, with all of the original verses being omitted.

I did know that George Harrison had “stated the song was a primary inspiration in the writing of his 1970 international hit single My Sweet Lord.” [LISTEN] In fact, some musicologists believe the Harrison tune is more inspired structurally by the Hawkins tune than by the Chiffons’ song, “He’s So Fine” [LISTEN], over which Harrison had legal issues.

Dustbury’s write-up of the song.

LISTEN to Oh Happy Day – The Edwin Hawkins Singers
Oh Happy Day from Sister Act 2
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A music great died this week, Jean Ritchie. Read about her HERE.

Red Chuck Taylors (Five Photos, Five Stories #5)

When I was at the game show JEOPARDY! in 1998, I was wearing my red Chucks through the entire warmup.

I swore I told this story before, but I cannot find it.

For reasons that defy logical explanation, I have long had a grand affection for red Converse sneaker, the Chuck Taylor variety, preferably high tops. I have other colors, but I tend to favor the red ones.

Moreover, it’s the color that gets the most unsolicited, and usually positive, comments, usually along the lines of, “I wish I had the guts to wear them.”

Someone gave us a Christmas ornament some years back that looked like red Chucks.

When I was at the game show JEOPARDY! in 1998, I was wearing my red Chucks through the entire warm-up, then, got all tradition in changing into uncomfortable, relatively new shoes for the actual games. I was convinced that was a fatal error on my part. I might have fared better with the Chucks.

We bought our current house in May 2000, a week before our first wedding anniversary. I was in the backyard, removing some branches. Unfortunately, someone had thrown some used lumber in the pile, not immediately visible. I stepped on a nail, which went through my red Chucks.

I pulled the nail out, and hobbled what felt like an interminable distance to the front of the house, hopped up to the front porch, opened the front door, and yelled to my wife. She replied, “I’m upstairs!” I replied, “Come DOWN!”

She drove me to the urgent care place, 20 minutes before it closed. They numbed my foot, before removing little bits of my red Chuck Taylor sneakers from the hole in my foot.

I may have thrown them away after we got home.
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Note: I have been nominated by my buddy Lisa over at Peripheral Perceptions to participate in the Five Photos, Five Stories meme, which simply says I should post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.

The problem is that almost all my posts are stories and have pictures. So I’m cheating and writing only one new post. And I’m nominating YOU!

Roger, not Roggie (Five Photos, Five Stories #4)

Roger is #558 on the Social Security list of boys’ name in 2013.

When Arthur explained why he’s Arthur, not Art, it reminded me about my aversion to the diminution of my own name, something I clearly inherited from my father.

As I’ve noted, when I was born, my father told his cousins that he was figured out my name, Roger Owen Green, making sure the initials, ROG – pronounced raj – could serve as my nickname. As far as I know, I was not named for anyone.

The name Roger doesn’t lend itself to the common nicknames. William can be Bill, Robert is Bob. Jacob, Michael, Daniel, Benjamin, Matthew, David, and Joseph, to note some boys’ names most popular in 2013, have common shortened forms, though I’m not aware of the same for Noah, Mason, Ethan, or Aiden, for instance.

Roger, BTW, is #584 on the Social Security list of boys’ names in 2014, down from #558 in 2013, and the new lowest ranking, below the #565 in 2012. It’s far from its best showing, #22 in 1945. On the other hand, Owen was up to #38 in both 2012 and 2013, and in 2014, it is up to #36, its highest ranking since the list began in 1880.

Dad was inclined to call me “sport,” which is also what he called his favorite cousin, Sheldon Walker, so that was OK. But that came only from him. Everyone else needed to call me Roger, or Rog. But DEFINITELY NOT Roggie. When some people tried it, especially one of my sisters, it used to make me very angry.

When I was in junior high school, a bunch of us would go by our middle names. I was Owen, Ray Lia was Albert. This guy Walter Sidorenko – not sure of the spelling – who we called Sid, tended to call me Owen Baby. It was oddly OK coming from him.

I was a janitor in Binghamton (NY) City Hall in the spring of 1975, when I dropped out of college, as I’ve mentioned. One of the other janitors -his name escapes me, so I’ll call him Jack – started calling me Flash. It was because I had an eight-hour day, and I got through my routine in about six and a half hours, whereas he and his co-worker Henry would milk their jobs to take the full eight hours by working more slowly. I’d spend the rest of the time, when there was no emergency, reading, or cleaning again the glass doors at the front entrance, which always had fingerprint marks.

Jack, I did not like. In part, it may have been, I must admit because he had two children by two women, neither of which he was married to, and was quite boastful about it. So when he, or Henry, following Jack’s lead, would call me Flash, I would act as though I did not hear them at all.

I DID have a library coworker, Anne, who called me Raji, in which the first syllable sounded like the first syllable in rajah, and somehow, she pulled that off.

But most can’t. So Roger or Rog are my preferences, thank you very much.

Why do people say Roger when they’re talking on their CBs — even though the person they’re talking to isn’t named Roger?

Note: I have been nominated by my buddy Lisa over at Peripheral Perceptions to participate in the Five Photos, Five Stories meme, which simply says I should post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.

The problem is that almost all my posts are stories and have pictures. So I’m cheating and writing only one new post. And I’m nominating YOU!