To xfinity and hell

Monday’s for gratitude, so today I’m going to gripe about having to fight with Comcast. Again. Still.

Why is it that invariably whatever their agents on the phone tell you turns out to be at odds with what their billing department does? Since they charge you for your service in advance, and I ended service (for want of a better term) two weeks ago, imagine my surprise when my bill came for an entire month’s amount.

Or, roughly, ten times what their phone rep told me it would be (after trying to persuade me not to end service, just transfer it, no matter where I was moving).

Honestly, I could do without the tsuris.

Yahrzeit

We’re a year on from the barbaric terror attack on Charlie Hebdo, and it doesn’t look to me like we’ve progressed in any respect during that time.

On 7 January 2015, masked gunmen (why the hell are they always masked, if they think they’re doing holy work?) broke into the offices of the Paris-based satirical weekly magazine. Shouting “Allahu Akbar!” they methodically went through the building, killing 11 and wounding another 11. On their way out, they murdered a policeman (a Muslim, as it happens)—a crime captured on video.

Later on, their comrades attacked a kosher grocery store, killing four more people. Eventually the two alleged perps, French-born brothers of Algerian parents, were hunted down and died in a gunfight with massive numbers of police.

There was a global response of revulsion and outcry against the attacks, but not much else, really. Not that I can see.

Except, of course, the scaled-up killing spree of November across Paris, using both bombs and automatic assault rifles to murder 130 people who were watching a football match, having a drink or a meal, listening to a rock concert, or just walking down the streets (And plenty of other attacks in various places.)

In the wake of those events, most of the civilized world backed off of end-of-year holiday celebrations and laid on heavy paramilitary actions because they were so unprepared for something on the scale of Paris. We’re talking the kinds of armed troops patrolling Paris and Brussels that you used to see in Ulster or Beirut.

There was a lot of high-level blah-blah in January and February of last year about doing something, but clearly those who push jihad didn’t get copied on the memo. Yeah, I get it—Overtaken By Events; the West is preoccupied by the whole ISIL thing, and the masses alternatively referred to as migrants, refugees and I don’t know what-all. And those are not trivial issues.

But I’m deeply disappointed that in the 21^st Century, with all our investment in intelligence technology and military systems, we still seem to lack the cojones to deal with this brand of thuggery that wants to drag us all back to the 7^th Century. And I’m disgusted that we’re marking the Charlie Hebdo anniversary with nothing perceptible to show for the 365 days that have passed.

  

Apparently nous ne sommes pas Charlie.

Cold snap

My, my, my; weather here in the District They Call Columbia has turned nippy. Quite the shock for someone who’s been living in the paradise of the Bay Area. The instant you walk out the door you know you’re not going to be able to scrump oranges and lemons off trees along your walking route.

In fact, it’s so cold your eyes tear up and you start worrying about your mascara running.

Back when I first lived in this area (back in the last century), it took me years to take precautions against the cold. I’d hare out of the house and be halfway down the block before I’d realize how bleedin’ cold it was, especially for ungloved hands. But by that, time, of course, I was half a block away and shivering.

Repeated frozen digits didn’t seem to make any kind of dent in my SoCal sensibilities, however, so I solved the problem by stuffing gloves in the pockets of every coat and jacket I owned. And although I only have two coats with me at the moment, fortunately they both have gloves in the pockets.

Yes, I did walk out of a coffee shop yesterday leaving one of the gloves on the counter, but I assure you that I almost immediately realized the error and fetched it back.

Turns out that, because I almost never needed a coat in the Valley They Call Silicon, I’ve never thought to pull the gloves out of the pockets. Thank God.

Through the academic looking glass

You will no doubt have noticed that the world of academia has pretty much gone down the rabbit hole and is currently producing wonder after wonder of weirdness. But something I find interesting is basically a tale of two famed institutions right here in California, and I can’t believe that I appear to be the first person to notice this particular disconnect.

In November, the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona (Cal Poly) revoked an honorary Doctor of Letters degree it had conferred on Bill Cosby back in 1992. The reason given was that the multiple allegations of sexual harassment brought against him are “contrary to the values” of the state university system.

The Cal State University system comprises 23 campuses up and down the state and has always been the working-class cousin to the University of California system. Cal State used to be where you’d go if you couldn’t afford UC, but that delta has blurred in recent times. The two Polytechnic schools (at Pomona and San Luís Obispo) are kind of the aggie-engineering arms of the system; my mom used to take us to the horse shows at Pomona, which were student-run.

Well, hard luck for Cosby that the university discovers it has values, and you can actually run afoul of them. Turns out that other academic institutions have snatched back honorary degrees from him, too.

But then, only the month before, famed UC Berkeley astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy found his career blowing up in his face over not dissimilar charges of decades of sexually harassing students and colleagues. Marcy was outed by BuzzFeed, more than a year after complaints filed against him to the university’s Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination were buried by officials. At first, he looked like he was going to get away with nothing more than a reprimand in his dossier, but eventually the storm rose to the point where he had to resign, still insisting that he hadn’t meant any harm by all those years of fondling and suggestive remarks.

Here’s the thing: before Marcy moved to Cal in 1999, he spent 15 years at San Francisco State—part of the system that yanked Cosby’s honorary degree—where he was also accused of inappropriate behavior.

So the Board of Trustees of the California State University system revokes Cosby’s imaginary doctorate for, basically, conduct unbecoming, but makes Marcy a Distinguished University Professor despite very similar behavior. Honestly—can they just show a little consistency?

Gratitude Monday: A year of New

The past month has been pretty stressful for me, what with starting a new job, closing out my life in the Valley They Call Silicon and moving across country. I confess that by the time I got on the plane to Washington last Wednesday, I was as sharp as a meatball, and it hasn’t got any better since then.

I can remember only once in my life where I felt as attenuated and completely stupid, and being unable to process what was happening around me whether it was a waitress wanting my breakfast order or dealing with a contractor who screws up. And that was not at all a good time.

So today, the first Gratitude Monday of the year, I am thankful that I somehow managed to get to my hotel those first couple of nights—and that it was a very good experience (as opposed to Dollar Rent A Car at Dulles, a company I’m never going to use again, even though the branch at National Airport was fine).

And that friends shared their New Year’s Eve with me, Chinese food and board games—exactly what I needed.

(I hope they’ll let me try Scrabble again, despite my abysmal performance.)

And that my first breakfast of the year was shared with one of my oldest friends, echoing a couple of hundred breakfasts we’ve had over the years. I have that tradition to look forward to again, thank God.

And that I found my new digs on Capitol Hill, and—even better (well, you know what I mean)—I found a parking spot, so I could unload my kit. And that I remembered the instructions on how to use the keypad to get into the place.

And that it’s exactly what I need for right now—cozy, comfortable and close to work.

And that, before I turned in my rental, I made a run to Wegmans and Trader Joe’s to stock up on provisions, since I’ll be without a car for probably two weeks. It’s a bit strange doing the grocery shopping for all the basics, when you haven’t had to do that in more than five years. I forgot the plain yoghurt and French onion soup at TJs, but I expect I’ll manage.

And that yesterday when I used my Metro card to visit Arlington National Cemetery, I realized (as I did once when sitting in Shakespeare’s garden in Stratford-upon-Avon), I’m not a tourist; I live here. And that, dear readers, was huge.

So here I am, a (temporary) resident of the District They Call Columbia, starting out the new year with a new job and a lot of new possibilities. I may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, and I do have to find a physical therapist/chiropractor pretty damned quick. But I am truly grateful for having made it across the abyss to all the new-and-possibles.