Nothing like Internet interruption to get the priorities re-oriented. Nothing like the Mac announcing that it’s “looking for networks” and the persistent message from Vonage that things are not well in VOIP land. Friday brought high winds. First, phones out. An otherworldly, beeping, static laden dial tone. And then, when the phones mysteriously returned all on their own, no Internet. Red lights on the modem. Whirling beach ball email symbols.
According to the consoling voice at the so-called “Internet Help Center,” they are very sorry, very sorry indeed, but your bloguero might be disconnected until, wait for it, Monday or Tuesday. This news raises the specter of no Port Writers’ Alliance digest this week, or writing it on the crusty Blackberry, or scouting out a local Internet hotspot. It also raises the fear of no Netflix on demand. It only occurs to your bloguero after he realizes that no Internet might mean he has a legitimate excuse for no Digest this week and that maybe he will finish reading the first book of Eduardo Galeano’s masterful trilogy, that he first wonders how he will be able to do any work this weekend. Exactly how good an excuse, your bloguero wonders, is no Internet?
These fertile introspections, of course, can’t last. They can’t get played out. No. The phone rings on Saturday morning and the tech guy at the “Internet Help Center” says all is well and that your bloguero should now re-cycle the router. Of course, he’s right. It works. Your bloguero’s growing reveries about being Robinson Crusoe on an island without WiFi are shattered.
This week the Dream Antilles marked the passing of a lawyer hero, Leonard Weinglass. He was held in contempt 14 times by Judge Julius Hoffman during the Chicago 8 7 trial, inspiring me and dozens of other lawyers with his fearlessness in defense of his clients.
Haiku about clouds. These were inspired by a brief passage by Galeano.
Our Nominee For Understatement Of The Week is about the administration’s pathetic understanding of the US role in the centuries long oppression of Latin America. Your bloguero thinks he should make a reading list for US officials and take them on a tour of Central and South America so that they can understand how dreadful and anti-democratic US policy has been in the region.
Cops of the World is about Simultaneous War III in Libya. It was written on Wednesday. The questions remain unanswered. One might wonder why the US isn’t lobbing million dollar missiles at Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen this morning. Meanwhile, Phil Ochs’s song of more than 40 years ago fits the situation.
And an obituary for Pinetop Perkins, a helluva blues piano player.
Your bloguero notes that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is now posted early Saturday morning. See you next week if the creek don’t rise if there’s still Internet.
Have a wonderful weekend.
