If I was stuck on a deserted island, and could only have one person’s writing to keep me company, Richard Russo would get serious consideration.
Russo introduces his beautiful essay, “My Father, The Fool” by writing, “I’d run out of sympathy for COVID skeptics. Then I remembered my father’s stiff neck.”
Highly recommended.
In this day and age of unregulated social media algorithms that inflame our most negative instincts, how cool is it that one online community is making a concerted effort to do a hell of a lot better.
It doesn’t even matter that LinkedIn couldn’t detect the self-deprecating nature of my recent “Liberals Are Hypocrites” post. Their algorithm probably stopped at the offensive title and didn’t proceed to the body of the post that read, “Like me.” Or maybe it did scan those two words, but wasn’t able to detect my intended meaning.
It’s all good LinkedIn, I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts even if I was wrongly caught up in your decency dragnet.
LinkedIn’s Learning Center does a great job explaining their ground rules. Here’s a taste:
Hey Zuckerberg, Dorsey, et al., here’s a fourth “Be”. Be like LinkedIn.
Pressing Pause 