Information Please or Why Af-Am Online
One day you wake up and realize that you are living in that science fiction world you dreamed of as a kid. Â Yeah I know we don’t have the Jetsons’ flying cars and robot maids or Star Trek’s transporters or phasers. We do have “roombas”, tablets, smartphones and that thing they call the internet. The internet for example, is the greatest accumulator and disperser of information that humans have ever created. Â In fact it is so good at its job that we humans have made it difficult to use. Â Among the videos of pets and stupid human tricks, there is so much misinformation, lies, damned lies, and statistics that it is hard to find the dependable, factual information that we crave. In some of the science fiction stories I began reading as a kid one could check a device usually wearable or small to get reliable information about any topic. Smartphones and tablets offer that possibility today, but real information is usually drowned out by the constant blare of the useless, irrelevant and misinformed stuff that is out there on the web. In addition there is no sanity test one has to pass before posting something on the web and the crazies are out in full force. Anyone with an ax to grind can find someplace on the web to grind it. The mainstream media has been captured by the corporate world and has adapted to use social media to spread the narratives it wants to spread whenever it is not telling us about celebrities. In this way the “free ” press can put the important things on page twelve (if they cover them at all) while beguiling us with nonsense, providing a distortion of reality and indoctrinating us on page one. Having trained the public in what it wants them to crave the mainstream press can then fall back on the “we are just giving the public what it wants” argument to justify itself.
I have therefore in my hubris started my own web site that posts what I think is important. It cherry picks the mainstream media notably the New York Times op ed section, some of the leftish blogs like democracy now.com , African American mainstream blogs like Ebony and the Root.com, and things that my Facebook friends alert me to. I also occasionally link to Digital Professor to provide commentary. Indeed I have an open invitation to anyone who wants to write commentary to send it to me for Afamonline.com as it is called. I try to post things that are not receiving enough attention in the mainstream, offer new interesting insights on the news, history that is relevant to today, and music that is noteworthy. Â In the future I also hope to add articles about art and more things written specifically for the site. I try to write little intros or outros that explain why an entry is important and I always link to the whole article to complement my abridged version.
I always tell you where an entry is from, use accredited academics or respected journalists, and offer information that I believe to be true. Â I also understand the weaknesses of these sources. Â I have learned long ago that academic studies can be skewed to prove whatever it is you want to prove, that there is no knowable objective reality, and even respected or accredited people can be wrong. Â However I try to use the best information we have and things that make sense or are at least insightful. Â I also realize I can be wrong (as rare an occurrence as that may be.) I am quite willing to be corrected or persuaded otherwise.
So check out my version of the world at http://www.afamonline.com
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