vry

When I look at the way information technology topics predominate at social news sites, I wonder if that is really what their creators intended.
What about people who don’t have a major interest in that - do they participate? I don’t think many do.
What if 90% of social news site users are IT - people, I sometimes wonder.
When I think that I cannot help remember former South African president John Vorster’s words about sports sanctions: “Well, we’ll just play with ourselves”, he said!

When reading comments by South Africans on Moneyweb’s brain-dead forum I feel ashamed. Basically just about every participant uses his anonymity to make hate speech about his fellow South Africans. And it is not just at Moneyweb, but every other SA forum I’ve seen is the same - ‘diabolical’ as described by the creator of Muti
Considering how black and white, English and Afrikaner usually act towards each other (with courtesy, in my experience), I wonder whether Moneyweb should get away with this kind of sensationalism.

They might argue that an outlet of these bitter emotions is needed. But I suggest their anonymous pit is not the right place. A handful of poisonous people are given a forum, and we all end up thinking that this is how much THE OTHER really hate us.

No-one emerges from these mud-slinging matches informed or inspired. But then, it is much the same with Moneyweb’s poor but sensationalist opinion pieces too.

Below is a list of news sources I try to keep up with. No single human can hope to read all that is written about Africa (my interest is in Southern Africa in particular), but I try to have a good go at it. I read a lot of comment - political punditry can be tiresome at times, (see this proper dissing of some columnists), but it summarises things. Even if you have missed a lot of news, you understand more or less what happened from reading a single opinion piece. And it gives a feel of the "political weather" in a place.
I also engage in opinion writing, in the spirit of the idea that bloggers will replace newspaper columnists as writers of opinion pieces
Even the list below is too much for me, and therefore I appreciate this really clever site (Muti). Whenever I read something notable (whether I agree with it or not, notable is the only requirement), I post it there, and crucially, others do the same. This digs up many interesting things I would not otherwise have read, and also gives me a quick fix if I haven’t had time for my many other news sources.

Non RSS news sources:

Afrol
Vryeafrikaan
Beeld
Rapport
Sunday Ttimes
Mail & Guardian
Business Day
City Press
Christian Science Monitor - Africa

Email:

African without Borders mailing list forum
Balancing act weekly newsletter
Africa Confidential.com weekly newsletter

RSS feeds:

http://www.tectonic.co.za/tectonic.rss
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.xml
http://southafrica.blogspirit.com/index.rss
http://politics.za.net/xml/rss/feed.xml
http://www.fodder.co.za/rss.xml
http://jontyfisher.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://vry.blogsome.com”>
http://commentary.co.za/feed/
http://www.monbiot.com/feed/rss2/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/newsfeed/rss/opinion.xml
http://www.johnkay.com/rssfeed.xml
http://www.cato-unbound.org/feed/
http://www.opendemocracy.net/xml/rss/home/index.xml
http://africaunchained.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://naijablog.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://disasterafrica.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://www.kenyanpundit.com/?feed=rss2
http://africanarchitecture.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://sotho.blogsome.com/feed/
http://www.gfh.squarespace.com/journal/rss.xml
http://timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://www.voiceinthedesert.org.uk/weblog/index.xml
http://voiceinthedesert.netfirms.com/keith/index.xml
http://jpmozambique.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/rss.xml
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/feed/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/world/africa/rss091.xml
http://theconcoction.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://kdiga.blogspot.com/atom.xml

South Africa’s Sunday Times has a Mampara of the week - feature, where ‘Hogarth’ castigates the public fool of the week.
In one such piece (June 2005), Hogarth wrote:

“A LITTLE bird reminded Hogarth of an incident of that took place in 1994.

A certain gentleman by the name of Robert Gabriel Mugabe was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England and was thus accepted into the inner sanctum of the British aristocracy.

Mugabe accepted the honour with glee.

Now the next time you hear Sir Bob rant and rave about his foes being stooges of the British and agents of colonialism …”

This piece appeared at:
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A126105

I am repeating it here, because it disappeared from their web site - the same as many of their other articles. The Sunday Times online don’t seem to get the very first principle of the Web - hyperlinks. Yes, there are people out there who would have liked to keep a link to a story like this. For example, they might like to use it when they write something about how Sir Mugabe has the mindset of the colonised - first he accepts British honours like an obedient prefect, then later rants against Britain like a naughty child when his country’s economy collapses due to his own actions.