Over the weekend, as the infamous state budget cuts were making their way from being a shameful and destructive idea, to being a shameful and destructive bill, a moment of levity appeared out of the blue.
With ASU’s photocopying costs being questioned in the budget talks as the University’s funding was on the chopping block, House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, chimed in with a comedic gem: “Since our cuts are going to send ASU back to the Middle Ages, the question is, how many monks will they need?”
Trust us when we say that the hilarity was not lost on us. Making light of jobs lost, programs cut and thousands of citizens being thrown into miserable situations for the unforeseeable future is classy. Besides, it is a basic tenet of comedy that any time the partial destruction of a whole state’s future is on the docket, it is always a prime moment for laughter.
But in all seriousness, while it is indeed scary to see a lawmaker cracking jokes about financially crippling our school, what is possibly the scariest part of Kavanagh’s joke is that it appears to be coming true — we’re well on our way to living in medieval times.
Over the past three days, ASU’s Internet connectivity has been an enigma. The network has been inaccessible for hours at a time, effectively grinding parts of the University to a halt.
For on-campus students, there were times when it was impossible to reach non-ASU sites. For off-campus students, University sites were seemingly wiped off the map.
For everyone, a hard-to-swallow reminder about the importance of the Internet in our modern lives was served, as online classes were wiped out, e-mails were lost in cyberspace, and our taken-for-granted flow of nonstop information was cut off.
We’re not exactly versed in firewalls and servers. To us, “Firewall” is a poor 2006 action flick starring Harrison Ford, and a server is a person we customarily tip 15 to 20 percent in exchange for attending to our table at any non-fast-food dining establishment.
However, no matter how weak our technical knowledge may be, it seems like this connectivity problem is an issue that should not be taking place at a major university in the 21st century.
Was this far-too-long, three-day window of technological snafus a residual effect of the financial hardships that have caused more jobs to be done by fewer people? Was it just the burden of nearly 67,000 students and 12,000 employees leading our network to crack?
Or, did we just need to wait three days for Al Gore, inventor of the World Wide Web, to ride into town — presumably in a hemp-powered Prius — and solve the problem?
Whatever it was, we are relieved to have the issues resolved — for now.
As we keep watch on the ASU System Health Web site, and are continually riveted by its on-again, off-again drama, we will hope for the best network connectivity our tuition dollars can buy.
And at the same time, we’ll remind ourselves how good we have it to be living in a digital age. That is, assuming the Middle Ages isn’t really upon us.
