Monday, October 18, 2010

Topics StumbleUpon Should Include

I've just started virtual "stumbling," although in real life I've been stumbling (and bumbling!) for quite some time.

StumbleUpon is another "social medium," in case you don't know. You can get a "blog" there, but usually the "blogs" consist of posted links to videos or sites. You can follow other "stumblers" and also make "friends." All of these words are in quotation marks because their meaning changes in Cyberspace.

To stumble in this context is to let whatever computer/server is in charge take you in any direction. So let's say you visit a site on gardening and then hit "stumble": it could take you to an interview with Charles Manson.

When you post or re-post something--let's say from Youtube--you will get either the prompt "Like It," and then the item becomes one of your "favorites, or a prompt that invites you to provide more information. When the latter prompt comes up, you are invited to choose topics related to the post; you choose from a pre-existing list, one that I think needs some crucial additions. To be fair, you may also add "tags," in which case you may provide your own terms and not use just StumbleUpon's.

At any rate, here are some topics that are missing from StumbleUpon's pre-set list of topics and that I think deserve to be there (no particular order):

Love
Media [and their problems/issues, including ownership--implicitly; and how odd that StumbleUpon wouldn't include this topic]
Racism
Poverty
Hunger
Fact-Check
Philanthropy [other related topics are charity and non-profit or not-for-profit--that sector of the economy]
Fascism [it includes anarchism, socialism, and capitalism already]
Nuclear Proliferation [it includes "Nuclear Science" already)
Class-Status [or Social Class]
Peace
War
Civil Rights [it includes Disabilities already--but nothing, for example, about Disability Rights]
Asian Americans [it includes already, as it should, African Americans]
Latino or Hispanic Americans (or another--perhaps more appropriate--term; see above regarding Asian Americans)

Interestingly, it includes "Latin Music" already but not one on Latino-Americans or Hispanic Americans

Okay, that's all for now.

Put a Little Love in Your Heart - Annie Lennox & Al Green

"Service," by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Sunday, October 17, 2010

"Dunbar," by Anne Spencer

George Orwell rolls in his grave.

"Motet XXVIII," by Eugenio Montale

"Double-Consciousness," by W.E.B. DuBois

Top Rated Video So Far

In case anyone asks, my top-rated poetry-video on Youtube is...

"Morphine"

I've been making "videos," really slide-shows, that accompany my reading of poems, mostly poems by famous writers, a few by be. "Morphine" happens to be one of mine. The most viewed video by far is "Giantess," by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Fowlie. Reality forces me to admit, however, that the gold-standard Youtube recording is by "Tom O'Bedlam" at the Spoken Verse channel--link at right.

I've been recording for about three months, and I am just now getting the hang of it. A new microphone and lots of practice helped. I'm using an AT2020 USB.