Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

Rudy Rummel is someone I see posting at Dean's World fairly often. He does a lot of work on global politics, and I first became acquainted with him in the context of the democratic peace, the notion that democracies don't go to war with each other. Lately, he's been writing about what he calls mortacracies, governments that kill their own citizens, often as a direct policy of the government. Just yesterday, I read Rummel's piece about tribal culture in Africa, and how that culture is reflected among blacks in America today. It was an eye-opening piece, and I felt like I really learned something new. Thanks for that, Rudy.

Some of his articles at Dean's World are printed in full, while others begin with a paragraph or two, followed by a link to his own blog. Please read the full African culture post here.

My second reason for writing is to note that Aziz P, another poster at Dean's World, has proposed starting a new regular feature there called Africa Watch . . .

the purpose of which is to highlight events in Africa that have a direct bearing on African liberty and the war on Terror. Rather than a links roundup, the focus will be a single post or group of related posts at other blogs with substantive analysis.

Unlike many of my other posts, I will post AfricaWatch only at Dean's World and not cross-post them at any other blog so that we can try and attract and focus attention and discussion here, and I ask your all's help in publicizing it on other blogs.

Well, writing about it here might fairly be called anti-publicity, but I guess every little bit helps, even this extremely little bit. If I understand correctly, Africa Watch will locate/identify/suggest posts from wherever, and bring the discussion to the comments at Dean's World. If you've never been there, you really should check it out, and if I haven't said it before, the commenters there are civilized, sharp, intelligent, diverse in views, and generally some of the best commenters you'll find anywhere. Which is why I don't comment there, obviously. There's nothing stopping you, though. If you've got something to say, and you can communicate in a respectful manner even when you strongly disagree with someone, go ahead and register to comment. Perhaps you, too, are worthy of this latter-day Algonquin Round Table.