On a sloping hillside, Jack Kennedy cultivates 60 varieties of daylilies. He calls himself the “daylily man,” an interloper from the North who moved to his mountain perch in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to retire to his dream home and sink his hands into the earth.

It’s easy to get mired in hopelessness and despair as thousands of fired journalists close their reporters’ notebooks, shelve their AP Stylebooks, and leave their posts, their beats often left unfilled.

It’s easy to feel a sense of righteousness as newspapers across the country crumble under a greedy business model that puts profit before quality journalism and protecting the public’s interest. And it’s easy to simply hope that the Internet provides a new vehicle for a robust press.

We know it was frustrating yesterday when our links went haywire and you couldn’t post your comments to the FCC. But look at it this way – so many people were trying to contact the FCC, our servers were having trouble keeping up with the rush.

If Massachusetts is leading the nation in broadband expansion, we should be worried.

Last year, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill to extend affordable high-speed Internet to thousands of Massachusetts residents. He has authorized $40 million in state bonds to develop public-private partnerships to connect the dozens of towns that still don’t have broadband access.