Friday, October 13, 2017

The electric grid's been hacked!


The electric grid has been hacked,
shouts the Washington Post headline
(in early January 2017)
by the Russians, no less, says
an outgoing Administration official,
unnamed, anonymous, in a sign
of things to come. The Russians
hacked their way in through Vermont,
past the maple syrup and Volvos
and old Bernie yard signs,
weathering in defiance.

Except they didn’t, actually,
the Russians, I mean. The alleged hack
was an employee laptop malwared but
never plugged to the grid, everyone
forgetting that utilities tend to pay
attention to these things these days.
The unnamed outgoing Administration
Official slips back into the shadows.
Later, the Post stuffs the rabbit back
into the hat, quietly corrects the story
without calling attention to it and
certainly makes no mention of the error.
It’s sufficient that the damage is done.
It’s the new journalism.


Photograph by Shane Rounce via Unsplash. Used with permission.

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