OK here are the things I haven't done. 1. Managed to get anyone to help me with this. 2. Develop the resource page, even a little bit. 3. Make the advertisements in the template a little cleaner, make the template cleaner in general. 4. Attract any real audience. 5. Make enough time in my life to develop this better. 6. Integrate it into various other parts of my life, i.e., poetry, novel-writing, music, etc.
So what have I done? 1. Hang on tenaciously to about 10-15 minutes/day of updating the news aggregation.
I miss a few entire days; sometimes, like now, during break, I am able to go a little further afield to find interesting editorials. Thus stretching 10-15 minutes into 15-20; I still don't actually read most of the articles, nor do I scratch the surface in sources I could plunder for interesting news. In short, it's still pretty shallow. How close am I to narrowing it down (to a region? to a country? to a topic, like hunger, or Chinese colonialism?) Not close. Nowhere near, really.
It has changed me a little, though. Many years ago, I was appalled at an American student who didn't know that Africa was a continent, not a country. Recently both Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin admitted the same; both apparently have called it a country. Santorum's goof came early in the campaign and has been forgotten by most. I, however, have been stuck on it. To me, getting to be an adult, and still referring to Africa as a country, betrays profound and disturbing ignorance. This guy wants to be president? Excuse me?
I find myself using my information at odd times. After all this time (I've been doing it only since Sept. 2011) - I know better the differences among Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, etc. So how do I use this? I'm not sure exactly. But I definitely know more. I think the recent Kony2012 viral video was instructive in many ways, but one was that many Americans aren't willingly ignorant. Santorum is, maybe. But think how many people now know that Uganda is in Africa. How many know that US troops are in Uganda? More than knew that, say, in January.
This sleepy portal may not change a whole lot, but Africa is changing, quickly. I'll try to run alongside this fast-moving bus, careening down a hill. You say there are chickens on top?
