My Very Own Asarum

Day 209: The internet. I refer to it as "the world's largest source of misinformation." Let's use Mr. Vogel and Asarum caudatum as our example. In 1978, Vogel published a paper stating that his "observations covering a period of several years have shown that Asarum caudatum is regularly pollinated by fungus gnats." A few short years later, this was roundly debunked by another botanist, K. Lu, and it might have ended there but for the subsequent development of personal computers and the true villain, the world-wide web. Scores of other scientists have provided abundant evidence that Vogel was talking through his hat, but excerpts from his paper began cropping up on the 'net as soon as it was birthed and spread quite rapidly as harmful invasive species are wont to do. Vogel's kudzu of erroneous information propagated at a phenomenal rate, crowding out the native truths. Sound familiar? I promise you, this is not a political post. We now have a wealth of research to support the hypothesis that Wild Ginger (Asarum caudatum) is autogamous/allogamous (self-pollinating/cross-pollinating), and that while coincidentally, fungus gnats may lay their eggs in the blossoms, they do not play a significant role in the plant's reproductive processes. And them's the facts. (And thank you, Arnie, for a wealth of reading matter on the subject.)

Mood Knitting

Day 142: Let's put it this way: I'm already in a vile mood. I might as well get some more of that damn pink yarn out of the way. I am an Angry Bird, and there is a pending Crow-'splosion just waiting for an opportunity to afford itself. I'm sure I don't need to point to the major factor in my discontent (mild word, that), but there are a myriad of other smaller thorns festering in my side, most of which have some connection to the internet. The social media scene is not my cup of tea, and reading daily about things I am powerless to change is depressing in the extreme. That said, the internet is like an addictive drug. It pulls you back, no matter how hard you try to struggle out of its grip. I use the excuse "I have to do my blog post," and the next thing I know, I'm swearing at Facebook, not just for splashing my screen with the Fat Bastard's ugly face on every page, but for salting my feed with material in which I have no interest at all. My patience and tolerance are suffering even outside the world of my computer, and my temper is on a three-star short fuse. At the very least, I need a Facebook vacation, but somebody please alert me when the impeachment proceedings begin.

Strategy

Day 14: Sometimes the opportunity to say "I told you so" isn't as gratifying as it should be. When my husband purchased his first internet-capable computer, I said, "Um...this is Not A Good Idea. Humanity isn't sociologically evolved to the point where they can handle this. This is going to cause a lot more problems than it's going to solve." Bruce has been gone for many years now, so I don't get to say "I told you so," but I was right. As many ways as the compass of our troubles could possibly point, the needle stays steadily on North: internet.

The internet has made possible a new form of warfare, one which undermines the fabric of society and throws it into chaos. There is no need for a nuclear device to destroy thousands of lives, no need for bloodshed to effect conquest of a nation. We have become a weapon in the enemy's hands, a weapon which is being employed against ourselves. We have been engaged by masters in a game which we barely know how to play, and while we falter and fumble and try to make the immediate best of a bad situation, our opponent has each possible move and counter-move strategized decades beyond our power to see, given our limited skills. We have three choices: resign, continue playing in the hopes that our expert opponent will make a mistake leading at best to stalemate or, failing all else, we could just kick over the board.

Snow Walk With Friends

Day 102: I went to work yesterday expecting to participate in a four-hour "webinar" to evaluate and learn to use the new Volunteer(dot)gov website soon to be rolled out. An hour in, they still hadn't eliminated the clicks, screeches, pings, dings, clacks, clatters on the line, and when an electronic flock of seagulls made their appearance simultaneously with more pressing office business on our end, we gave it up as a lost cause. I went back to my regular duties and just as I was finishing up, two friends dropped by and invited me out for a walk with them in the snow. I leapt at the chance. We made the rounds of Longmire Campground and although I didn't find any canopy lichens deposited by our recent winds, it was quite enjoyable.

Kevin and I left a little early, with me thinking that I'd get home in time for a quick dinner before heading up to Seattle for Morris dance practice. There was a catch, though. I needed to check my email first to see if the practice was still on, the other team members still rather tired from the Women's March on Saturday. I fired up the computer and...no internet.

"No internet" is a common complaint in my area. "Crappy internet" is even more common. Slow at the best of times, nonexistent at the worst, our internet would be rejected out of hand by occupants of most third-world countries. It had been out just a few days earlier, and when it was restored, we were told that a farmer had run a backhoe through the line. However, when another friend asked what had caused the outage, she was told that a tree had fallen on the substation. "Alternate facts" seem to rule in our ISP as well as in higher government. As for this outage, we were advised that, "We do not have a projected date for when your service will be restored." Are we charged for down-time? You bet! But it is my understanding that a group of locals are consulting with an attorney to initiate a class-action suit against the company whose other business practices are as dodgy as their service.

For now, I'm back, but that's subject to change without notice. Unfortunately, that one ISP is the only game in town.

When The Walls Come Tumbling Down

Day 241: In the light of several recent events, I have been pondering the instability and impermanence of the internet. This monster was released upon the world untimely; unmuzzled, unleashed and relatively uncontrolled, it brought into the peace of our lives a whole new wealth of woes. With it came viruses and hackers, and it made identity theft a fear in the hearts of us all. It gobbled our time; it disenfranchised our families; yet we embraced it and confided in it, dumping our deepest secrets into the electronic ether where they might be retrieved by anyone with a mind to prowl. We trusted it. We gave it our family photos, our driver's license and credit card numbers, our service records. We allowed it to follow us into department stores and forests, into our doctors' offices, into our best friend's wife's bedroom, and we invited it to document the event which transpired there.

Once we awakened to the error of our ways, once we had discovered to our embarrasment and shame that our secrets were available for public perusal at a click, we tried to stem the tide. Alas, it was too late. Fools that we are, instead of withdrawing from its maw, we fed it more of our personal data, blindly believing that the odds would fall on our side, and that the inevitable would somehow pass us by. We did not understand just how insidious the Monster is, nor how pervasive; nor, indeed, how fragile. Websites change. Our most carefully crafted security measures can be circumvented. The internet houses hundreds of thousands of parasitic organisms, each waiting for a victim, and still there is no check, no collar put on this maleficent and virulent beast.

The internet is an unstable edifice. It is not a vault. It is not impermeable. It is not unbreachable. It is a house of cards, ready to tumble at the slightest breeze.