On high, for 30 seconds

Monday: On Friday night, I tried to use the microwave, which is no more than six months old, and nothing happened. No little beep, no lights, no whirring sound as the plate revolves around to ensure even irradiation of your food.

Hmm, I thought. This microwave is no more than six months old. Why isn't it working? Is it a power failure? Obviously not, what with the lights blazing and the air conditioner humming happily along. Maybe a circuit breaker was tripped? No, they were all fine. ("Do you know what you're doing?" my 12-year-old son asked skeptically as I scanned the breaker box.)

I suppose I started with zebras and then proceeded to horses, because the last thing I checked was the plug, which was inserted firmly into the outlet. So there was no reason why it didn't work, but it didn't work. Until, of course, my husband came home, and I told him that it didn't work. He scoffed. "What are you talking about?" he said. "That microwave is no more than six months old. Of course it works." And he pushed a button, and it worked.

I can't tell you how much I hate when that happens. So imagine my glee when I came home from work today, and found the microwave in the box that it came in, on the kitchen floor. I called my husband. He didn't answer, because he's not an idiot. So I texted.

What happened to the microwave?

He texted back:

It's broken. No idea what's wrong with it.

I replied:

Hmmm. That's weird. Did you check to see if it was plugged in?

There's no point to this story whatsoever, except that it's 100% worth whatever it costs to replace that microwave. VINDICATION.

*****
Wednesday: My older son, when he was six or so, really loved everything Star Wars (at 16, he's still a fan). He used to talk about "Star Wars: The Complete Songa." I still like to pronounce "saga" as "songa." I have no idea why I'm thinking about that.

I'm reading Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production. It's the true story of how Kim Jong-Il kidnapped South Korea's most famous movie director and his actress wife, and forced them to make movies in North Korea. It was recommended by a friend; and of course, the irresistible combination of movies and totalitarian Communism makes it that much more compelling. It's gripping, so far.

This morning, I was listening to NPR, and heard a story about efforts to subvert state censors in North Korea. Watching Western movies is punishable by death in North Korea, but people do it anyway, using tiny removable drives that can be swallowed or flushed when the secret police come knocking (why do they even knock, I've always wondered). The point of the story was that North Korea is not quite the hermetically sealed information black hole that we think it is, and that enterprising North Koreans are finding ways to undermine their totalitarian government, even at risk of death.

So it seems that Orwell was only half right. The same technology that makes it possible for the state to monitor every aspect of our lives, 1984-style; also allows people to subvert the state, with social-media-convened flash mobs, and revolutionary hashtags.

Maybe that's the end game. Maybe the Internet has ended the possibility of real, permanent, 100% totalitarianism, and it's only a matter of time before North Korea collapses under the weight of thousands of miniature flash drives.

Or maybe the Internet ends instead, when governments good and bad agree that they can't control their people as long as those people have unfettered access to information, and the means by which to share it. In the "good" countries, the end will come as the result of a massive security breach that empties millions of bank accounts; or maybe when the Russian hackers finally figure out a way to take down the whole power grid. Then the government will cut off access to the Internet for our own good. In the "bad" countries, of course, they'll just shut the whole thing down, because they can.

Without the Internet, they'll have to spy on us the old-fashioned way, with hidden cameras and microphones, recording our every move and conversation. Maybe they'll hide them in microwave ovens.