extremely online
insulted as efficiently
as is possible

Extremely Online.

A condition where social media compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.

So writes New York Times Opinion Columnist, Tressie McMillan Cottom, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, in her piece, The Enduring, Invisible Power of Blond.

The line in question reads, “I knew a lot of the anger had to do with my critics being Extremely Online, a condition where social media compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.“

The ability, no, the desire of some folks to read thinly and strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.

I come back to that old saying, why going looking for trouble.

Besides, if you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you.

Which in a way I think is really funny when I try to put that into context with news and social media and trouble.

Back in the news business we had endless discussions that folks no longer had to seek out news, they did not have watch TV news, listen to radio news or buy a newspaper.

With social media, the news someone wanted to hear, the paradigm went, now found them.

News, like trouble, finds you.

And the part of the news that interest us the most is the part that we are insulted.

And being extremely online compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible

OH the wonderful power of social media,

how did dare expect
so much of life and how could
act so stupidly

I was in the library the other day and as I do in libraries, I walked down the H aisle of fiction to see how many Jim Harrison books were on the shelf.

I was pleased to see 8.

I looked them over and the book titled, “The Summer He Didn’t Die“, caught my eye.

I knew it was on the shelf at home among the remaining titles in my hard cover library and I also knew I hadn’t opened it in years.

To sidestep into the discussion of EBooks, EReaders and printed books, I am 100% in agreement with those who say there is something to the printed page and holding a book in your lap.

But I also say, move several times and your thoughts on a personal multi volume library will change.

I still say I love print, but am very THANKFUL for electronic versions of any and all books.

But I digress.

When I got home, I took The Summer He Didn’t Die off the shelf and sat in my rocking chair and opened it.

There are, as usual with Mr. Harrison, three long short stories in the book.

The first one was the title short story, The Summer He Didn’t Die, and it is part of the Brown Dog oeuvre.

If you never read anything else going forward, I ask you to find a copy of Brown Dog (what you don’t a free archive.org account?) which has all 6 of the Brown Dog stories anthologized in one volume, and enjoy the trip to world you never considered.

It’s the same world we live in, but it’s not the same world we live in at the same.

You won’t be in Kansas anymore.

The 2nd long short story is titled, “Republican Wives.”

I am sure I read the story when I got the book but I did not have any memory of it.

This was fabulous.

It was new ground or, at least, forgotten old ground, one of the few benefits of getting older.

Reading the long short story, on the 2nd page I hit this line:

How did I dare expect so much of life. And by contrast, how could I have acted so stupidly?

And I stopped reading.

30 minutes later I was still looking at that page.

In the book, The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk wrote about the hero, young Willie Keith, after a near death experience, sat back with a cigar and thought.

Wouk writes:

With the smoke of the dead sailor’s cigar wreathing around him, Willie passed to thinking about death and life and luck and God.

Philosophers are at home with such thoughts, perhaps, but for other people it is actual torture when these concepts – not the words, the realities – break through the crust of daily occurrences and grip the soul.

A half hour of such racking meditation can change the ways of a lifetime …

How did I dare expect so much of life.

And by contrast, how could I have acted so stupidly?

More than saying, But for the Grace of God, go I.

Thank God, and I mean THANK GOD, for grace.

But daring to expect so much of life?

Deep in my soul I think of Prospero in the Tempest.

We are such stuff, as dreams are made on.

Dreams?

Expectations?

Dare to dream.

Dare to expect much.

But, don’t act so stupidly, can’tcha?

Gee Whiz.

old cowgirl, she seemed
like someone who had earned the
right to give advice

Seems like there is a story where young Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr. went to see Ralph Waldo Emerson to seek advice.

As I remember the account stated that Emerson respected individuals too much to ever give advice.

The story in my mind also recorded that Holmes gave Emerson an article he had written to review and while Mr. Emerson did not make any specific comments he did say that he sensed Holmes direction and that if he, Young Holmes, fired off enough buckshot, something was bound to come close to the target.

To me, this explained the writing of most Harvard academics and graduates.

There is a lot of good in there, somewhere, in all that chaff.

Maybe.

And I always liked Mr. Justice Holmes.

Any Justice who sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States with 5 gunshot wounds in their body from fighting in the American Civil War was for me, someone who had earned the right to sit on that bench.

Holmes, according to the legend, is the Union Officer who figured out that by standing with a bunch of short Union Officers in blue uniforms, Abraham Lincoln, dressed in black and a tall stove pipe hat, kind of stood out as an attractive target for rebel sharpshooters.

Once he figured it out, as men started dropping left and right, Holmes grabbed the President and pulled him down behind a wall with a shout of “Get down you damn fool!“

I often muse how many people would love to have the opportunity to yell that at any President.

Lincoln later spoke of finding himself under enemy fire and said that it was a disagreeable experience.

According to history this was the only time an American President came under enemy fire while in office.

Justice Holmes would go on to be on a member of the Supreme Court for 30 years until he was 92.

AND SO what if at the end of his years of service he fell asleep on the bench from time to time.

A little nudge brought him back to the court.

Often with a waking shout of “Jesus Christ, where the Hell am I?“

Just give the guy a break.

But I digress.

But who else can give advice?

Who else should give advice?

And who ever listens to advice anyway.

Still this line, “He got the advice from a 100-year-old cowgirl interviewed in the pages of a newspaper and soon adopted it as his own. She seemed like someone who had earned the right to give advice.” from the article, I’ve never forgotten the advice of a 100-year-old cowgirl: ‘Always check your own girth strap’ by Gabrielle Chan caught me eye.

Ms. Chan wrote:

… I was slightly relieved when I moved to a farm that my husband didn’t have much advice for me. He is a sink or swim type of person.

One of the only scraps he offered was “always check your own girth strap”.

The Farmer, as he is known, underlined early on in my unspectacular horse riding career that I should always check my own girth strap.

A girth strap, for non-horsey people, is the belt that holds the saddle to the horse.

In people, it might hold your trousers up, or separate the bottom and the top half of you, depending on what you need it for.

The Farmer, as he is known, underlined early on in my unspectacular horse riding career that I should always check my own girth strap.

He got the advice from a 100-year-old cowgirl interviewed in the pages of a newspaper and soon adopted it as his own.

She seemed like someone who had earned the right to give advice.

It is a great piece of sound advice that even sounds great to say out loud.

When I get tomorrow I am going to say to myself, “always check your own girth strap!”

I’ll remember to say as I have painted it on my bedroom wall.

Right under, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

Another piece of sound advice.