Norah Jones

The song of the day is Come Away with Me from the 2002 album Come Away with Me by singer-songwriter Norah Jones (born Geetali Norah Shankar). The album earned five Grammy awards.

Not Southern Cooking

I grew up on a diet of Southern cooking. Corn bread. Country ham. Biscuits. (For UK readers, our biscuits are your cookies.) String beans and butter beans cooked with ham hocks. Skillet fried corn-off-the-cob with bacon drippings. Black-eyed peas. Skillet fried chicken. Full-flavored home-grown tomatoes. Pan-fried mashed potato patties. Grits with red-eye gravy. All these things and many more. And on the counter beside the stovetop stood a large container of bacon drippings. Southerners believe that there’s not much you can cook in a skillet that won’t taste better if you add bacon drippings.

But my once mostly-vanilla city has acquired a small but significant Mexican population. New foods have invaded the grocery store. I see tables filled with what I can only describe as weird stuff. I don’t know what these things are, nor do I know what to do with many of them. So one day I pulled out my phone and took photos.

	This is a batata. Batata is the Spanish word for sweet potato. (Patata is the Spanish word for potato.) It’s a different color from the sweet potatoes I buy, but then, there are many varieties of sweet potato.
	These are aloe vera leaves. If a leaf is cut open there is a gel inside. The gel is not toxic but the green leaf material contains carcinogens. It also causes gastric distress when eaten.
	These are cactus leaves. An edible cactus known as nopales was the vegetable of the month (March 2016) on WebMD, which states that its popularity is increasing in the United States.
	This is a ñame negro, which is Spanish for black yam. It’s pronounced nyah-may nay-gro. (The ‘r’ is rolled.) The ñame negro looks like nothing so much as a little log for my fireplace. This plant comes from Jamaica.
	This is a ñame yellow, or yellow yam, from Jamaica. I might try eating one of these. Just kidding.
	This is a malanga coco from Mexico. According to the folks at Vega Produce, it has a “woodsy taste with a hint of black walnut.” It is also known as yautia, big taro root, cocoyam, Japanese potato, tannia, and eddo.
	Speaking of eddo, this is a malanga eddo. It’s actual name is eddoe or eddo, but it’s called a malanga in Spanish-speaking places. It was developed in China and Japan and introduced into the West Indies, where it is called a Chinese eddo.
	This is a water coconut. It’s just an immature coconut that contains mostly liquid and no coconut meat. Coconut water is low in calories, is fat-free and cholesterol-free, with more potassium than four bananas.  It has sugar and contains those tasty “electrolytes” we see on the labels of sports drinks.
	This is yautia white. It is taro root and looks similar to malanga, but malanga grows larger.

These foods are merely a sample; there are other mysterious produce items at the store. I’ve wondered if any of these foods are cooked with butter or ham hocks or bacon drippings. Maybe in southern Mexico.

Groundhog Trivia

Groundhog Day falls on February 2. We all know what that means so let’s not rehash it. And if there is someone who doesn’t know what happens on Groundhog Day, that person should rent the movie Groundhog Day.

Virginia used to have an official groundhog. It killed itself on Groundhog Day, 1954. It’s a fact! The rodent died while trying to escape its cage.

It’s also a fact that there are lots of tasty groundhog recipes. There are woodchuck recipes here, but a woodchuck is a groundhog, and vice versa. Groundhog – woodchuck – same critter. Sometimes the animal is called a chuck. And what are baby chucks called? Chucklings, of course. It makes sense; baby ducks are, after all, called ducklings.

In 1942 (during World War 2), reports of what the groundhog did or did not see were not allowed to be published because long-range weather forecasting was forbidden by military censors. But one wonders: couldn’t the enemy just get their own groundhog and observe it? Can all groundhogs predict weather, or do we have to use a particular groundhog?

In 2009, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin signed a bill making February 2 Marmot Day in that state. All groundhogs are marmots, but not all marmots are groundhogs.

In case you were wondering – and even if you weren’t – the name woodchuck has nothing to do with wood or chucking. The name stems from an Algonquin name for the animal: wuchak.

“Hey, what do you call that animal?”

“Wuchak.”

“What did he say?”

“Sounded like woodchuck.”

“Got it. Woodchuck it is.”

And speaking of woodchucks, how could I end this post without mentioning the children’s famous groundhog/woodchuck tongue-twister?

“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

“A woodchuck would chuck as much as a woodchuck could chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

The question cannot be answered because it is a tautology. But if it could be answered – which it can’t – the answer would be 700 pounds.

Cheat Codes & Demi Lovato

The song of the day is 2017's No Promises by DJ trio Cheat Codes (Trevor Dahl, Kevin Ford, and Matthew Russell) featuring vocals by singer-songwriter Demi Lovato.

Click Bait

At the bottom of many web pages are small advertisements. They are commonly called “click bait” – ads that are designed to make you want to touch/click them. Advertisers think they know all about me. What they know is wrong.

For example, I’m constantly bombarded with click-bait ads that say things like:

Petersburg, Virginia Residents Are Stunned By This New Rule

and

New Rule in Petersburg, Virginia

and

Petersburg: This Meal Service is Cheaper Than Your Local Store

Petersburg, Virginia, is a city located in central Virginia, about 20 miles south of the state capital, Richmond. However, I don’t live in Petersburg, so I don’t need to know things that apply to its residents.

When the advertisers aren’t telling me what’s happening in Petersburg, they target me thusly:

Fort Lee, Virginia Residents Are Shocked By This New Law

Fort Lee, Virginia, is a U.S. Army post located near Petersburg. I don’t reside in Fort Lee, either, so telling me about its shocked residents is pointless.

I’ve never lied about where I live. When I’ve been required to enter my zip code on a web page, I always enter my real zip code. I don’t even know any Petersburg, Virginia, zip codes. Why can’t the Internet get this right? It’s bad enough I have to wade through click-bait ads, but having to wade through ads that don’t apply to me even if were in the market for what they are advertising is just annoying. I have a “Song of the Day” topic on this blog. Now I’m thinking of starting a “Gripe of the Day” topic. I would never run out of things to blog about.

Kygo & Selena Gomez

The song of the day is It Ain't Me from the 2017 album Stargazing by Norwegian DJ Kygo (Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll) featuring Selena Gomez.

Healthcare, One More Time

The world is looking at America with bemusement. We’re still tangled up in the vexing problem of how to provide access to healthcare to all our citizens. Meanwhile Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy – in fact, every first world country not named America – provides universal healthcare for its citizens. I have a friend in Costa Rica that I talk to regularly, which is how I know that Costa Rica has universal healthcare. And Costa Rica is a third world country. My friend doesn’t pay directly for health care. Universal healthcare in that country is provided through payroll taxes.

Now you could argue that America provides excellent healthcare to those who can afford access to it, while Costa Rica provides inferior healthcare to everyone. The truth is that the WHO (World Health Organization) ranks America’s healthcare 37th in the world, whereas Costa Rica’s healthcare ranks 36th, putting Costa Rica a notch above the USA. And what country ranks 38th? That would be Slovenia.

Among high income nations, America’s healthcare system – the most expensive in the world – is the worst. Though it ranks 37th, healthcare in America costs two and a half times that of the country with the second most expensive healthcare. One of every six dollars spent in America is spent for healthcare. Yet compared to citizens of other high-income countries, Americans have poorer health including shorter life expectancy and more chronic conditions.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) is an international economic organization with 35 member nations including the USA. Most member nations are high-income.

The US has 2.4 physicians per 1000 people. Other OECD countries have an average of 3.1.

The US has 2.6 hospital beds per 1000 people. Other OECD countries have an average of 3.4.

The infant mortality rate in America is higher than in every other country in the OECD. A baby born in America is almost three times as likely to die during her first year of life as one born in Finland or Japan and twice as likely to die in her first year as a Spanish or Korean one. If Alabama and Mississippi were countries, their infant mortality rate would put them between Sri Lanka and Bahrain.

The solution to our healthcare problems is known. It’s not a mystery. Universal access to healthcare means people stay healthier because problems are nipped in the bud, leading to longer life and increased productivity. The answer to this never-ending healthcare issue is single-payer healthcare. Having a healthcare system in America as good as the developed European nations and Japan will be a moonshot that I doubt America will ever achieve. But with proper planning and perseverance, there is a chance that one day America’s healthcare system will be as good as Costa Rica’s.

Zayn

The song of the day is Pillowtalk from the 2016 album Mind of Mine by British singer-songwriter Zayn (Zain Javadd Malik).

Unmasked

A pro-Confederate rally was held in Richmond, Virginia, last Saturday. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy and has its share of Confederate monuments. A group from Tennessee calling themselves the New Confederate States of America gathered in Richmond to protest proposals to remove some statues from Monument Avenue. Counter-protesters showed up in even greater numbers. You may not have heard of this rally because there was no violence. Four people – three VCU students and a former student – were arrested for wearing masks. Two of those arrested are from northern Virginia and two are from other states.

Wearing a mask in public (over age 16) is a felony in Virginia. Wearing a mask can get you a 5 year prison sentence. The mask law was passed in 1952 as a means of “unmasking” members of the KKK when they assembled in public. Other Southern states passed similar laws. Before the rally, the police warned that they would be strictly enforcing the mask law.

Those arrested were arraigned yesterday and today. One woman said, “I was wearing the mask to protect myself from people who I was told were filming and photographing us with the intent of doxing us.” Doxing is the revealing of someone’s personal information with the intent to instigate harassment.

A court hearing has been scheduled for October 31 – Halloween.

Yanina Chiesa

The song of the day is Lady Gaga’s Million Reasons performed by Argentine singer Yanina Chiesa. She has many videos on YouTube, including several that display her vocal prowess for emulating the voices of famous female singers. She is also on Facebook and Instagram.

Lazy Programming

This is only a petty annoyance – like when I hear people say kil-LOM-muh-ter instead of KILL-uh-me-ter. Petty. Still, I have a platform that allows me to gripe about stuff, so I’m griping. And yes, I already griped about the kilometer thing, and you can read it here. Or, you could go out and get a life while there’s still time. It’s too late for me.

I was on a local government website and at one point it wanted me to enter a one to five digit number. The instructions stated that if the number had less than five digits, I had to enter leading zeros to make it a five digit number. So “12345” would be acceptable, but “123” would not and must therefore be entered as “00123”.

This is a minor example of a larger problem I call lazy programming. The web page designer is requiring everyone who uses that page to format the number to five digits, whereas he (she? they?) could easily have written code to automatically format the number. How hard would that be? In the C# language (pronounced C-sharp) the code for server-side formatting would look like this:

s == s.PadLeft(5, '0');

On the other hand, if the formatting is done by the web browser instead of by the server, then Javascript, the coding language of web pages and web browsers, would be used and the code would look like this:

s = ("00000" + s).slice(-5);

Anyone programming a server should know how to do something this simple. Anyone designing a web page should know how to format a number before sending it to the server. The only reason not to do it is an attitude of “why bother, let everyone who uses the page format the number.”

That’s my gripe, and it’s not about programming per se. It’s about apathetic workers in general who would rather burden others (co-workers, customers, users) instead of doing their best on the job. I hear this over and over from business owners: “You can’t find employees today who want to work.” There’s an increasingly prevalent attitude of “it’s good enough” or “somebody will do it if I don’t.” A person can be taught how to do a good job, but they can’t be taught to care about doing a good job. Wanting to do things the right way is part of a person’s character. You have it or you don’t, and it seems that more people these days don’t have it.

The Rocketboys

The song of the day is On the Other Side from the 2010 EP Wellwisher by indie / pop/ ambient/ alternative rock band The Rocketboys.

Equifax

The Equifax data breach was made possible because no one at Equifax patched a weakness in a software module for more than two months after a patch became available. Was it laziness? Was it incompetence? Was it both?

Meanwhile, Equifax Argentina just discovered another security vulnerability  unrelated to the recent major breach. They discovered it was possible to log into a restricted section of their website using “admin” for the login. A child would know better than to use “admin” for any login exposed to the internet. Again, laziness and/or incompetence?

IT professionals who have the responsibility to guard our personal data often seem to ignore basic rules of data security. How do I know? Go to this page and look at the list of data breaches. And remember, these are the major breaches. Then come back and tell me we don’t have a serious problem.

It’s possible for a hacker to break security using a weakness that only the hacker knows about. The IT staff can be forgiven for not preventing that happening. After all, it’s not their job to find security flaws in a vendor’s product. But to allow a hacker to break security by using a known security flaw for which a patch is available is inexcusable. IT professionals who don’t do their job to protect millions of us should lose the right to work in that profession. It’s the only way we, the public, can protect ourselves from “professionals” who refuse to, or don’t know how to, do their job properly.

Dua Lipa

The song of the day is New Rules from the 2017 album #DL1 by English singer-songwriter and model Dua Lipa.

Future Computers

In the 1960s, a computer was a big machine that commanded its own air-conditioned room, along with peripherals like tape drives as tall as an adult human, and, of course, numerous technicians to operate all the equipment. Today, your smartphone has far more computing power, and far more memory, than a 1960s computer.

Today, IBM has a computer called Watson that is capable of learning and answering questions posed in natural language. Watson employs a cluster of ninety servers, each of which uses a 3.5 GHz eight-core processor, with four threads per core. In total, the system has 2,880 processor threads and 16 terabytes of RAM. That’s a powerful machine. How long will it take engineers to package all of it into a device you can carry in your pocket? Twenty years? Maybe less.

And on that future day, the future Watson might consist of 1000 computers with each computer being equivalent to today’s Watson. How smart will that computer be? The growth of electronic technology is not linear; it is exponential. Computing power doesn’t grow in a 1-2-3-4-5-6 fashion; it grows in a 1-2-4-8-16-32 fashion.

It isn’t possible for us to conceive of where computer technology will take us in 50 years. I think it’s safe to say that tomorrow’s world will be as unrecognizable to us as a modern airport would be to a citizen of the Roman Empire. It’s very possible that computers of that future day will be self-aware. Autonomous robots, endowed with similar computing power, will also be self-aware. Computers and robots will be smarter and more capable than humans. Let’s hope they’re friendly.

Camila Cabello & Young Thug

The song of the day is 2017's Havana by Cuban-born singer-songwriter Camila Cabello (Karla Camila Cabello Estrabao) featuring hip hop artist Young Thug.

Pre-Selected

Remember when a credit card application would arrive in the mail in an envelope that stated, "You are pre-approved" for their card?

I received one today that said I was "pre-selected to apply" for their card! 

If I’m on a mailing list, then obviously I've been selected for something. But how can a person be "pre-selected”? You’ve either been selected or you haven’t been selected. What does “pre-selected” even mean? This is a marketing gimmick for gullible Americans. We live in a country where people think you can add a headphone jack by drilling a hole into your electronic device. Because, isn't that how they do it at the factory?

On second thought, as a marketing gimmick, “pre-selected to apply” will probably work just fine.

Free Will

The human brain has been called a biological computer. By using the EEG (brain wave monitor) and rigorous tests, we now know that our behaviors begin in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind makes a decision and presents that decision to our conscious mind in a way that gives us the illusion that we, through our conscious thought processes, arrived at that decision. This is an astonishing fact because it seems so real to us that we, using our conscious minds, are the originator of our behaviors and decisions. Nevertheless, repeated rigorous experiments have shown that is not the case.

Electronic computers (and machines that use them) don’t have free will. Computers are just machines that follow a series of instructions. If a worker instructs a computerized cutting machine to cut a square hole, and the machine “decides” to cut a round hole instead, then perhaps the cutting machine has awareness. But that never happens. The machine always does exactly what it is instructed to do; nothing more, nothing less.

The human brain is incredibly complex compared to human-designed computers. At any point in the operation of a computer, the CPU can be stopped and its internal registers examined. Knowing the contents of the registers, we can say with one hundred percent certainty what the CPU will do next. In other words, the computer’s operation is deterministic. The same cannot be said of the brain.

The brain is programmed in several ways. DNA determines the structure of the brain, epigenetics allows inheritable changes to gene expression, and experiences play a part. The brain is influenced by factors as simple as diet and activity. The brain is so complex and affected by so many different things that even if it were, in essence, deterministic, in practice there are too many unknown variables to allow a prediction of the brain’s response to any given set of stimuli with certainty.

For those who may say that if we don’t have free will then lawbreakers shouldn’t be punished – sorry but it’s not that simple. The possibility of punishment is one of many variables that the subconscious brain considers when deciding on an action.

Perhaps we do have free will, but repeated, careful experiments tell us that what we have is the illusion of free will. If we have only the illusion of free will, how does that change our perception of others? How does it change our perception of ourselves?

Icehouse

I saw this headline: One Electric Day Puts Jimmy Barnes and Icehouse On The Same Bill For The First Time and my first thought was Icehouse – are they still around? 

Because: the first Icehouse tune I ever heard was Hey Little Girl, released in October, 1982 – almost 35 years ago.  (Note: Jimmy Barnes is the lead vocalist of Cold Chisel and one of the best-selling Australian musicians of all time.)

The song of the day is Hey Little Girl from the 1982 album Primitive Man by Australian synthpop band Icehouse.

Phone Scammers

There’s a new scam going around. It goes like this: your phone rings and you answer it. And then, the scam begins. I could tell you more, but why? After this scam there will be another, then another, and then another. Some scams aim to get your personal information which can be used to steal your identity and then your money. Some scams aim to steal your money directly. Either way, all these scams have one thing in common: your phone rings. I have a solution that works for me.

I have two phones: a primary phone and a mobile phone. When I have to give out my phone number, I give out the primary number. I never give out the mobile number. Why?

Scammers call me every day, sometimes multiple times a day. (I’m on the “Do Not Call” registry but criminals don’t care about that.) Because I get so many scam calls, I no longer answer the phone unless I know the caller. If the call is to my primary phone and the caller is unknown, I let the call go to an answering machine. Not “voicemail” – a  real answering machine. I hear the caller’s message as it is spoken and I can choose to answer the phone then and there. Scammers never leave a message. 

Obviously, I can’t use an answering machine on my mobile phone, so I solved that by not setting up its voicemail. If I answer the phone, the caller can talk to me. If I don’t answer the phone because I don’t recognize the caller ID – well, they should have called the other phone.

(You may be thinking, “What about text messages?” How do I send and receive them on my mobile phone without giving out my mobile number? Answer: my primary phone goes through a VoIP service called magicJack. The service offers a free phone app that allows my mobile phone to use my magicJack account. So long as I use the app, mobile minutes and text messages are free and appear to come from my primary number.)

I keep hoping that one day, phone customers will have the tools necessary to protect themselves from scammers, but that hope is dying. I now believe that such technology already exists, or could exist in short order, but the phone companies don’t want to deploy it because if they do, it will hurt their bottom line. They profit from the scammers. It’s all about the Benjamins.

Hailee Steinfeld

The song of the day is 2017's Most Girls by singer and actress Hailee Steinfeld.

Paranoia

Chicago Tribune headline:

“Rush Limbaugh indicates he's evacuating Palm Beach days after suggesting Hurricane Irma is fake news”

Limbaugh says Irma is not as bad as the news media says. He says the media portray the storm as catastrophic only to pump up viewership so they can raise their advertising rates. He advised his listeners to not give too much credence to reports that the storm is very dangerous. Then he high-tailed it out of Dodge for parts unknown.

Meanwhile, Alex Jones of Infowars declared that the US government (specifically, the so-called “deep state”) is artificially increasing the strength of hurricanes and then steering them toward population centers in order to support the global warming “hoax” and the “liberal agenda.” That puts Jones squarely in the Fidel Castro nut-job camp. After Cuba was hit with several strong hurricanes in the 1960s, Castro said the US was directing hurricanes toward his island.

This is what right-wing paranoia looks like when it runs amok. It’s not only stupid, it’s dangerous. But it’s not dangerous for Limbaugh. He knows what’s at stake and he’s doing the sensible thing. But such talk is dangerous for his listeners, some of whom may decide to stay in harm’s way instead of seeking shelter, solely because their favorite talk show host says it will be okay. If there were a national gullibility rating for every country, I really believe the USA would hold first place.

Macklemore & Skylar Grey

The song of the day is Glorious from the 2017 album GEMINI by rapper Macklemore (Benjamin Hammond Hagerty) featuring singer-songwriter Skylar Grey (Holly Brook Hafermann).

Politics

I have friends who are very interested in politics. I'm not. There was a time when I was, but as I’ve grown older I prefer to devote more time to activities that are important to me. So I blog, and I write software, and I do other things that I enjoy. The world our politics is making for today's younger citizens will be, and should be, a world they help shape – not necessarily the world that older citizens want. It is the younger crowd, after all, who will have to live in it.

Many of my friends are conservative and sometimes I receive political emails from them. Some contain videos and some contain images such as political cartoons. Usually, I don't view them. I have only so many hours on this earth and I prefer to attend to matters that are important to me. Political discussions are not on that list. I enjoy communicating with my conservative friends but I often don't share their politics. So I try to let the political stuff slide by without comment.

When I was young, I was conservative. My father was conservative, and doubtless my political views derived from his. But I've lived a different life than he lived. I've been exposed to different people and different circumstances, and I feel I've grown. Or evolved. Or taken a different path. So I can understand the conservative viewpoint. But understanding it does not mean agreeing with it.

DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – is a case in point. Trump announced that he planned to get rid of it. Conservatives applauded canceling it, and there was a time when I might have, too. But now I feel that compassion is more important than exclusion and that being a "nation of nations" has made us stronger.

Too many politicians and media personalities demonize the opposite party. They’re playing to their base. There is a reason that Congress has “gridlock.” Building bridges between various parts of our society is not a popular endeavor. Appealing to the more extreme aspects of human nature is how politicians and media personalities build devoted followings. But such behavior is not helpful and only serves to further polarize politics and the electorate.

I'm glad that so many young people are politically active. It makes for a healthier democracy and who knows, maybe they really will change the world. My feeling is that the world is on its own path and nothing I can do will change it. But that is probably as it should be.

Yebba

The song of the day is 2016's My Mind by Yebba (Abbey Smith - Yebba is Abbey spelled backward). This secret performance, put on by Sofar, took place in New York.

Irma

Yesterday I wrote about hurricanes, and I mentioned Irma. At that time it was a category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic. This morning it was a category 4 storm. By midday it was a category 5 storm with 180 mph winds. Are you kidding me? 180 mph! According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin outside of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. There is little doubt that the hurricane will inflict catastrophic damage when it comes ashore. According to the hurricane center:

"A high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months."

If Irma hits the Gulf coast and turns north and comes through Virginia, it probably won’t be a category 5 storm by the time it gets here. Still, it’s a good bet that it will be strong enough to uproot trees and break limbs. If that happens, electric power will likely be off for days, perhaps weeks.

Sometimes I blog about hurricanes that come close to my small city. The last storm I blogged about was Joaquin in 2015. Before that was Sandy in 2012, which grazed central Virginia. Before that was Irene in 2011. Here’s the first paragraph from Irene’s blog post:

“This is Sunday, the day after Irene came though town. I am incommunicado, having neither electricity nor cell phone service. Many tree limbs are down, as are more than a few trees. A neighbor’s privacy fence lies on the ground. A two story house a few doors away has half its metal roof peeled back, and everything in the upper floor is wet, drenched by torrential rain. An electrical transformer on a utility pole a hundred feet from my house is damaged and its oil leaks out in a steady drizzle. Traffic lights are dark and police direct traffic at major intersections. Trucks carting tree limbs are a frequent sight, as are front-end loaders picking up loads of debris.”

I hope my city will dodge this latest bullet. But just in case we have to hunker down, I’ll buy batteries for my flashlights and food that comes in cans and boxes. I’ll fill jugs with water. I’ll make sure my Jeep is gassed up in case I have to leave the area. I’ll make sure my mobile phone is fully charged. I’ll do all those just-in-case things, and more. Then I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Harvey Help

It’s Labor Day, and another hurricane is on the way. The weather wizards have prophesied that this new hurricane might hit the East Coast and it might miss the East Coast. That seems to cover all possibilities.

This new storm is called Irma. That sounds ominous. Whenever central Virginia gets hit with a strong hurricane, it seems the storm’s name always has two syllables. Since I moved into my current abode, we’ve been hit by Gaston, Ivan, Cindy, Hanna, Irene, and Sandy. Other hurricanes and tropical storms have hit Virginia during the same time period, but the storms I just mentioned are the ones that stand out in my memory. When electricity goes off for days, when you can’t cook and the refrigerator gets warm, when the TV doesn’t work and the internet is down, when you see homes on your street with their roofs ripped off and big trees blown over, when there’s no food in the stores because the refrigerators and freezers stopped working, when all the gas stations are closed because the pumps won’t work – you tend to remember the names of those storms.

I’ve been through a few Virginia hurricanes. They are not super-powerful. They can be damn inconvenient, and they can be moderately expensive, but not on a scale like Sandy or Harvey. That’s why I sympathize with what the victims of Harvey are going through. For me, hurricanes have meant a few days of inconvenience. For victims of Sandy and Harvey, it can mean losing everything you have – for some, even their lives.

In 2012, states from North Carolina to New England suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy. Worst hit were parts of New York and New Jersey which were devastated by Sandy. At that time, Texas lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against federal aid to states impacted by Sandy. In fact, more than 20 representatives and senators voted against Sandy aid. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn voted against Sandy aid. Only one Texas Republican, Rep. John Culberson, supported Sandy aid. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the same lawmakers who opposed aid for Sandy victims are asking Congress for aid for Harvey victims. File this contradiction in the oh-but-this-is-different folder. I don’t want to call those lawmakers hypocrites but – no, actually I do want to call them hypocrites. It’s worth noting that representatives from New York and New Jersey have already said they will support aid for Harvey victims.

But Texans are hearty, self-reliant folk who prefer to take care of themselves rather than rely on help from outsiders. That is why they like to quote something Ronald Reagan once said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” That’s why you won’t hear Texans complain if financial aid is slow to arrive.

I’m not opposed to aid for Texas. Americans should help one another in times of need. I’m opposed to people saying one thing and doing the opposite when it’s for their own convenience. I suppose that’s the way human nature works. Or at least, that’s the way it works in Texas. But if Irma turns out to be as bad as Sandy, we’ll see if Texas lawmakers will have the chutzpah to vote “no” on aid again.

Play-N-Skillz & kirstin

The song of the day is 2017's Hey Guapo by Hip-Hop, Pop, and Electronic Dance Music / songwriting / performing / DJ duo Play-N-Skillz (brothers Juan "Play" Salinas and Oscar "Skillz" Salinas) featuring vocals by kirstin (singer-songwriter Kirstin Maldonado). In Latino culture, guapo can be a first name or a nickname. As an adjective, guapo (female: guapa) means good-looking.

The KMBD

I read that there are so many unexploded WW2 bombs in Germany that the country has its own bomb disposal unit. It’s called the Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst (KMBD). I swear I did not make up that name, but somebody did and what is wrong with their brain?

According to Google Translate, Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst means Explosive Ordinance Disposal Service. It takes four English words to translate that one German word. I frankly believe nouns should have no more than three syllables. If a word needs more than three syllables, just make it two words. Or three, or four. I can’t even count the syllables in Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst. I also have no idea how to pronounce Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst. I just think it’s fun to use the word. Some things just pique my sense of whimsy.

The article said that about 2000 tons of unexploded ordinance are found in Germany every year. The technicians of the (I’ll give you a break here) KMDB dispose of a bomb about every two weeks, and they estimate their work will continue for decades. And it’s dangerous work. In the decades after the war, dozens of bomb-disposal technicians and hundreds of civilians were killed in encounters with unexploded ordinance. And it’s not getting easier. As the years pass, the explosives become more unstable. Despite precautions, better tools, and better training, 11 technicians have been killed in Germany since 2000.

Sounds like an excellent job for a robot. Somebody should look into that.

Changes

I made a strategic decision last night. I plopped a basket of clean laundry onto my bed and I turned to the dresser, and I considered doing what I always do. I always fold my underwear, both my shorts and my t-shirts, and I even pair up my socks. But why? So they don’t get wrinkly? So they look neat? No one will know if they have wrinkles – they’re under my clothes. No one will care if they look neat inside my dresser. So I grabbed handfuls of underwear and stuffed them inside the dresser drawers. I felt liberated. Well, a tiny bit liberated.

This morning I decided to eat a healthy breakfast. No bacon. No pork sausage. Not even eggs. I ate a bowl of strawberries and blueberries. I followed that with a banana. And I followed the banana with an apple pie. Notice I didn’t say slice of apple pie. I want to be healthy, but there are limits. I’ll make up for breakfast with a super-healthy lunch: pork BBQ and slaw on a burger bun with a side of potato chips. “What’s healthy about BBQ and potato chips?” you ask. I’ll tell you: no pie. It so happens that I’m out of pie. Somebody in the house ate the whole thing. What makes that bad is, I’m pretty sure I live alone.