Sidebarring

Here is a bit of a 'housekeeping' update for this weblog. It occurred to me that my use of Internet tools has become somewhat more sophisticated since I added sidebar links here. I access frequently used websites in other ways. Besides, some of them I use far less frequently now. But what changes have I just made?

Weather and Transport go to public websites in my nation or state for such information. Trivia links to Wikipedia. I'm keeping those three even just as 'legacy features'. Choraldom linked to MonUCS but my musical involvement is far more ad-hoc now. News & Net took me to Yahoo but the truth is I pretty much never used it for news, and I know how to communicate online, so that's been replaced with The News provided by The Guardian Australia. I've also added Better News for the Fix The News positive news aggregator. It also acts as a funding platform for targetted philanthropy and so contributes to the very progress it draws attention to. That in effect replaced a Human Rights link to Amnesty International (AI).

AI still does a lot of worthwhile advocacy for political prisoners and even criminals facing death row. However in recent times it has made some rash and risky statements which demonstrate a vulnerability to manipulation. The temptation to instantly gratify online audiences risks diminishing it focus and therefore its effectiveness. I saw this in both world and national news (ask me for particulars) and then experienced a small instance of it personally.

I received an invitation to an AI picnic for supporters of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. This came in the closing weeks of that national referendum campaign and on a day that I was committed to volunteering for the Yes case at a local polling place. I wondered why they would divert potential helpers away from the frontline work of changing minds and asked them so in an email. That was several weeks back and I'm yet to receive a response. I can only guess at the same performative root cause as in those recent media incidents. It all seems strangely inward-looking.

But this was supposed to be just a housekeeping entry.