Influencers

"Limit your exposure to social media" -- That's one of the wiser pieces of advice I've read repeatedly in this past month of pandemic response, and it's usually offered by psychologists whose media bookings might suffer if they spoke as plainly as a Nigerian-American priest whom I admire does.

Better to take social media in small doses than to admit that a) too much screen time is bad for your eyes, and b) Twitter and Facebook are dumpster fires from which you can occasionally pull bon mots.

That said, I have favorite websites, just like everyone else does. And I'm not immune to "influencers."

• Friend Jeff has been reading weekly wisdom from St. Francis de Sales (1567 to 1622) for awhile now, and those insightful paragraphs from the erstwhile Catholic bishop of Geneva still ring true.
• Lisa the Wonderful and Emma her Apprentice have taught me how to season chicken properly.
• Mollie Hemingway vouching for Carrie Severino was enough to get me to read their important 2019 book, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court.
• Friend Sean got me over an impasse between Jameson and Bushmills by suggesting that the go-to Irish whiskey might in fact be Tullamore Dew. He's a bartender with more sense than the one from New York now leading a "squad" through Congress, so that gave his opinion tie-breaking weight.
• When First Lady Melania Trump had herself videotaped reading what she said was one of her favorite children's books, I decided to find Nicola Killen's The Little Rabbit as soon as local libraries reopen (are you listening, Governor Cooper?). The book seems like a well-chosen substitute for the "Easter Egg Roll" on the White House lawn that couldn't happen this year.
• On the evidence of multiple YouTube videos, any guitarist with chops enough to play live with Tommy Emmanuel is worth hearing in his or her own right.
• At least two people in my circle (Anna Marie and Chris) easily persuade me that map-reading is not a lost art.