Management leaned on our Writer’s Section to concentrate on timely, topical, amusing SHORT topics the other day, since everything is so emotional and intense in this hyper-sonic season. Accuracy was the first casualty in the speed, so we are doing what we can.
Earlier, we had tried to explore some of the war in the judicial system. Then, the crisis in currency and inflation. Late yesterday featured the dramatic announcement by SECSTATE Blinken that that the Iranians are now only a week or two away from having the material for an operational atomic bomb.
We could spend a morning talking about that, but that matter edges into the other continuing crisis of what is “The Truth.” The nature of that struggle, subsumed in the major partisan news, is one of the things left in the wake of other more sensational issues like positive Covid tests and golf handicaps.
So, what our Section Leader DeMille told us to do was to try to grasp the other issues not being talked about, or at least submerged into the more sensational.
Splash is our sensationalist, noted for his brief plunge in chilly north Pacific from a speeding jet. The experience changed his view about how rapidly things can change with something simple, like the decision to pull the upper or lower handle of a Martin-Baker ejection seat, the rocket device than propel you to safety even at exceptionally high speed.
There are immediate consequences to the decision, or at least almost as immediate as a simple turn of the head can be to a Presidential candidate.
He claimed to have seen an electrifying image the other day- mid-week, he thought, that could affect the trajectory of global events. He claimed it was a picture of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi.
He was seated at a dais in front of a crowd, and was convulsed in what appeared to be a paroxysm of sudden pain. The caption to the brief story said he might have experienced a massive stroke. He had been recently returned to his position of great power after being in charge since 2012, and the tumult here has sparked speculation of what he might do about the question of Taiwan.
The idea of his incapacitation- momentary or of longer duration- is of nearly the same import as a similar argument being played out here at home. A look to at least capture whether the image was one of the ‘deep fakes’ we hear so much about revealed something more interesting. Google’s top hundred search results on the “images” tab had nothing. A quick change to a different search engine produced exactly the same results. Nothing. Zip. Nada.
In our experience, that would normally have meant Splash may have been in the grip of one of his minor hallucinations, but the complete absence of reference to something he recalled with vivid imagery was as curious as some of the other events in progress.
The Legal Section told us to stay away from that stuff while it was current, interesting and scandalous. Since that is what sells, we are at a conundrum. So, DeMille told us to stick to the other big but relatively innocuous stuff to demonstrate what the information streams are up to, and what they want us to think about, and more importantly, what they don’t want us to think about.
This was an example of news: “The President completed his fourth dose of the vaccine PAXLOVID. His loose, non-productive cough and hoarseness continue but have improved meaningfully from yesterday. The Presidential lungs remain clear.”
That was good news, of course, but not sensational in impact. Our favorite yesterday was the big cyber thing. Don’t know about it? We didn’t, at least not when it was going on. That was a massive internet outage that caused IT issues for major global institutions, grounding flights, disrupting banks’ apps, knocking media outlets off the air, and even affecting supermarkets’ computer systems.
That is big, emotional, and personal, right? We were quickly assured it was purely routine and caused by a defect in a Windows software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. We had heard of them, vaguely, like some of the other Big Tech companies. They are used, by report, by over half the Fortune 500 companies to do something we don’t quite understand. We assume it is some sort of “IT stuff.”
In addition to all of our bank accounts, it included travelers, airports and jets across the US, Japan and the European Union.
Many businesses unrelated to travel reported they were unable to take digital payments. Microsoft has confirmed it was aware of the issue(s) and is “fixing them,” since it left the most popular services inaccessible to millions of people and businesses.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the incident was “not a security incident or cyberattack,” so we were relieved until we read on our local Neighbor Watch that in order to protect our credit information and access to our bank accounts, we should utilize something called a “Faraday Cage” to protect our phones, wallets, purses and electronic key fobs.
Apparently, it is a metal shield of some sort that blocks emissions, we presume electronic. You can get them for less than twenty bucks, some places, assuming deliveries are not impacted by disruptions. We assume they could be mailed, except Rocket was waving around a pad of those little square things emblazoned with the adage “Forever Stamps.”
“These things just went up a nickel apiece, to .72 cents to send a First Class envelope across the street. It’s only a 5% increase.” That caused a bit of mystification at the table, since we only vaguely recalled the last time we actually thought about what a stamp cost. That was when it went up past a quarter. The Postal Service released an announcement that it will fix everything by 2031, which is the year after everything is going to run on wind and sun-rays.
Legal told us to stay away from that topic, and we agreed. We do wish we knew what handle, upper or lower, would be best to pull in case we have to yank one in a hurry.
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
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