africaisdonesuffering:

Blind Optimism

What does Africa is done suffering mean to you?

When I was first asked what Africa is done suffering meant to me, my response was “the statement signifies us taking a stand to educate the world. Letting them know that we have been misrepresented, and that we won’t take anymore undue pity that our beloved continent continuously receives.

Reading over it as I sat to write this, I realised that I had said nothing about we as Africans taking charge and working to ensure that we actually put an end to suffering. When it comes to Africa and the issue of suffering, are we one sided in our optimism? Are we blind to the realities? Are we just interested in calling out the perpetrators of the negative images of Africa?

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A proper depiction of the Last Supper.

crooks-n-books:

Yomi casual 2

Miss Lira.

robertreich:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 13,338 Tuesday, its highest since December, 2007. The S&P 500 added 16 points. Wall Street will remember May 1 as a great day.

But most of these gains are going to the richest 10 percent of Americans who own 90 percent of the shares traded on Wall Street. And…

theatlantic:

Primetime Mystery: Where Did All the TV Viewers Go?

Here’s the wow-quote of the day, from Jeff Gaspin, the head of entertainment at NBC, explaining to The New York Times, with remarkable clarity and certainty, that watching TV shows on-demand is more satisfying than watching them live. 

“The commercials broke the tension … I hate to say this to the AMC executives and everybody else in the business, but I will never watch ‘Walking Dead’ live again.”

Is that a gaffe? A truism? Either way, it’s right. Fewer people are watching the networks live because viewers have found better television and/or better ways to watch it. Live ratings have declined for 14 straight quarters across the networks. Meanwhile, NBC is getting regularly smacked around by ABC, CBS, and Fox. It’s barely outperformed Univision when you take out sports, according to TV by the Numbers.

But the latest news — that the networks are facing the mother of all spring swoons — is a short-term acceleration of a long-term trend. The networks’ share of primetime TV audience (dark blue in the graph below) has declined from 45% in 1985 to 25% in 2009. Basic cable ate the networks’ lunchpost-dinner audience, and now it’s technology’s turn gobble up what’s left.

Even with this long trend line (and despite the fact that viewers often unplug in the spring), there is a sense that we’ve reached a tipping point thanks to what Gaspin calls “built-up libraries.” There is more good stuff to watch not-on-live-TV than on live-TV, and even the head of entertainment at NBC knows it.

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