Troy

Fair enough.

I just sat down to look at some youtube videos before calling it a night. I generally watch Youtube video on a regular TV. I usually search for subjects that interest me. I started to watch an Inconvenient Truth but after a few minutes I grew bored... I decided to see what was trending on youtube (something I almost never do), the #9 video was the one shown below . This video was watched over 8 million since in the last two days. That is 8 times more than the number of view all of my videos have received in the last decade! I watched at least 1/2 of the video. I doubt anyone would confuse the music with being great, but after watching the video for 5 seconds it is obvious the music was secondary this video was all about Nicki's bangin' body! Her body is so off the chain it doesn't even look real. Imagine the views I would get on a video if I could get Nicky to shake her thang while an author was reading from their book. Shoot I might even sell a few books. Still I wonder who this video is for, really. Is it designed for the teenage white boys who buy most rap. Is it for Black women to give them something to aspire to. Is if for all men to give them something to, well.. use your imagination... Again I can't image it is to listen to the music..., but what I know I'm too old to appreciate this music. Where else does one watch music video nowadays anyway?

Pioneer first you simply can't look at people and derive where they came from--just get that notion out of your head. The most genetic diversity is in Africa all the people in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and throughout Africa originated in Africa. There are plenty of sources on the web, many I've previously shared here when we were debating the existence of just one race.

@Del, do you mean, "Most people can't [t]alk for ten minutes on any subject of substance? You you and I both know people can talk at length about sports, the stuff they've seen on social media, or gossip about celebrities. Funny thing about the solar eclipse coming up, no one I've spoken to about it (in the physical world) expressed any interest in it Ancient civilizations seemed to be much more interested in what went on in the heavens. Maybe it was because they could actually see the sky back then...

Cynique, I stand by the statement. But I'll concede the bit about Pioneer getting on his hands and knees was a bit much, but he should at least be very thankful. Actually I think he would admit that he is.

The operative word with Kaepernak is "was." But honestly I can't hate on the Brother. I think was was trying to make a point, though it was not clear to me what he wanted to happen as a result. Obama Care was a was a windfall for private insurers; things worked out exactly as planned.

Pioneer what you've described, perhaps in an attempt to be cute, are means of transmission and storage. Of course I know thoughts can be saved in a book or transmitted over fiber, but they are not sources of new thoughts nor the origination of thoughts of any human. The origin and migration patterns of humans that you are attributing to the NOI run counter to the to the commonly accepted understanding that humanity (including Black people) originated in and migrated from Africa. I know scientifically derived evidence and the resulting knowledgedge usually means very little to you, but you should probably be aware it nonetheless.

LOL I don't view debating as fighting. But you raise an interesting point @Mel Hopkins, many people, and I believe the majority of women, fall into the category of viewing debating as fighting. I view a fight as an activity with the deliberate intent to cause someone else harm. I few a debate as an opportunity to become enlightened or to enlighten someone else. Of course debates can devolve into fights, but again that is a debate devolving, not what it is. I tend to like people I can disagree with and debate without fighting about it. If the person you are debating is insecure they tend to take your disagreement as a personal affront. Similarly, if you don't respect the person you are debating you will view them as dumb and you definitely won't learn anything from them. Everyone has something to teach us. It can be tricky to walk the tightrope between debate and fight. For example, I know I can say something to that is hyperbolic, or make a personal jab, to @Pioneer1 in a debate and it will roll off his back, while someone else will take personally and want to fight about it. Sometimes who just have to know when to be quiet too. There is a time and place for every debate. I like think here on Cyniques Corner it is always time to debate

Here is a trend that I noticed regarding us of AALBC.com since the website's upgrade: engagement is much higher and page views for 2017 are on track to a record high. I plan to blog about this in the near future to provide more insight. But this is great news and bodes well for the future of this website and websites and indie websites in general. The graph below shows the detail behind AALBC.com last half million pages view. This snap shot is from this summer which is historically the slowest period for website traffic (winter the busiest season). The biggest change are the "Pages / Session" which tells you who many pages are viewed which someone visits the website. If you compare this number to the charts provided above yiu can see that the number of pages viewed per session is up by more than 100%-- people are looking at more than twice as many pages per visit. Also of note is the Bounce Rate, for the period shown it is 35.58%. This is the percentage of people who visit a page but leave without looking at any other pages. This number is much better than it has been historically. In fact, for the the month of July the pages per session is over 5 and the bounce rate is under 7%! This is, if I must say so myself, a remarkable achievement given the very hostile environment I have to operate in. Now I KNOW Google can snatch this away and anytime. In fact if you look carefully, and the graphs of the bounce rate and pages per session, you will see relative abrupt changes. This is usually reflective of a Google algorithm change. Now in this instance this change was in AALBC.com's favor, but it very easily could have gone the other way.

I just added all of the books that have won the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. The award has been present since 2011 and all of the writers like Derek Wallcott have enjoyed world wide acclaim and long careers, but other are relatively new writers whose work you'll enjoy as well. These titles are been factored into the calculus used to deriving the most critically acclaimed books of the past 40 years.

@Pioneer1 I have never once needed to touch a single thing Cynique has ever posted. She brings a great deal of value to the site, and in turn our lives, with her contributions here. You really should be on you hands and knees thanking whoever you worship that you occupy the same space-time continuum as Cynique.

Hey @Delano I'm not trying to start a debate, but I wondering it you have any plans to watch An Inconvenient Truth 2. I know you have an open mind and are willing to consider information that runs counter to your world view. If you do watch this film let me know what you think about it. I actually have not watched either film. This is a trailed from the first film (2006) It seems it was on point...

Oh the Obama booing was proded by 45. 45 really is truly a small, petty man huh?

LOL @Cynique your recoiling at Christians like Pence is the work of a demon in you. Heeel her! @Mel Hopkins, I don't recall if I had a debate or any one on thoughts being matter. But for what it is worth if you'd like to fire one up I'm game ;-) I don't think thoughts are matter being made up of atoms. But since man simply does not know what the vast majority of the material that makes up the universe is composed of, perhaps we can't know what thoughts are made up of. Is there any proof that thoughts can exist beyond our physical being or outside a suitably powerful computer?

I never met Lewis, but I've been to two of his homes. There are many reasons most of us will never be a Reggie Lewis. But working for, and being beholden to, others is our greatest weakness for building wealth. Sure one can have a very comfortable lifestyle working in a corporation, but that can be taken from you at anytime and we can't help anyone else. This is why Black wealth is so precarious.

Classic @Cynique! An excellent overview of the passing scene. Fortunately I've been able to remain unaware of most of this stuff, and am much happier consuming this overview so that I'm not completely clueless when making small talk with others. I was however very familiar with Game of Thrones; it is just brilliantly done and I enjoy watching it. So Jay named his "Sir" I heard Black folks gave their kids names like that so that white people had to respect them. I did know Colin was still playing football; I'm with Vick he is not talented enough for his distractions. He should just become a full time activist :-) Obama got booed by Boy Scouts--holy shit! He must have been in the deep south, huh? A 45 presidency impact is being felt far and wide.

I see the correct background now too. It looks like deleting the old template works. The portion of the website linking to other blogs still down due to the .php upgrade (the code came from the old Huria Search website and has been more challenging to upgrade--right now it has all my attention. Though I need to get @Cynique's access sorted.

Yeah the screen is supposed to look like this: Not like this but I've been working pretty much for the last 12 hours straight. I worked out side most of the day and that actually takes more out of you that working in an office. I'll probably go to the casio tomorrow Cynique I think I see why you can upload photos the system says you've exceeded your attachment quota (they new system has a new admin interface), but I don;t know how to enlarge it yet. The orange back group is a custom template I created I;m think if I delete it it will use the new one I created which is the default... hopefully I don't break everything

LOL! No but I did make a lot of changes today. One was upgrading the software of this discussion forum. I make incremental updates all the time, but the one I did very early this morning was major. There always was a problem with your particular account that I never sorted out you inability to post picture I never could figure out. Perhas this new issue is related. I'll look at your account now. I'm also trying to figure out why my account is seeing the orange background. I'm trying to use the white back ground but I can;t figure out how to fix it. I'm not sure if it is just may account or if all users see what I see. @Mel Hopkins, @Pioneer1 do you all see the discussion forum with a white background or the orange background? I also upgraded the version of php ued on the server from 5.x to 7.1 and I've been spending the last few hours going through various portion of site and correcting code that does not work on earlier versions.

The feedback on the list has been really great! The list of awards that I'm currently tracing may be found here: https://aalbc.com/awards/ I just learned about the The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature which is presented in conjunction with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago, which I was familiar with and is on my events calendar: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=Trinidad+%26+Tobago#The+Bocas+Lit+Fest I'm actually excited about getting these books and authors added to the site! The award has only been presented since 2011 I can get this information added to the site without too much heavy lifting. I started looking at the Lambda Literary Awarding books. They have 24 categories (see below) and I'm unfamiliar with most of the writers, so it will be pretty labor intensive for me to identify the Black winners. If anyone out there wants to help me parse the authors; I can use the help. Hopefully I'll have interns working with me in the fall.. Lesbian Mystery Lesbian Fiction Gay Fiction Bisexual Fiction Bisexual Nonfiction Bisexual Poetry Transgender Fiction LGBT Nonfiction Transgender Nonfiction Lesbian Poetry (TIE) Gay Poetry Transgender Poetry Gay Mystery Lesbian Memoir/Biography Gay Memoir/Biography Lesbian Romance Gay Romance LGBT Erotica LGBT Anthology LGBT Children’s/Young Adult LGBT Drama LGBT Graphic Novels LGBT SF/F/Horror LGBT Studies

Someone on Twitter suggested: Now this person actually has a point, because Nicole's books Here Comes the Sun is indeed critically acclaimed. But the acclaim is not from any of the entities that I currently track. My goal is to track all of the awards presented by Black entities, but compiling the data is virtually impossible. Try asking the NAACP for a list of their past Image Award winners--I maintain a better list than they do. At any rate, Nicole's book was named a Best Book of 2016 by: New York Times, NPR, Buzzfeed, San Francisco Chronicle, The Root, BookRiot, Kirkus, Amazon, WBUR's "On Point," and Barnes & Noble As you might image, I have ZERO interest in tracking what the NY Times and the others find noteworthy. They are largely echo chambers praising many of the same books (think Undeground Railroad or Between the World and Me). I will look into what The Root are doing but that is about it. I did notice however that Nicole won a Lambda Literary Award, if I add those books to the mix, she would make the cut "so to speak." I also need to add a Christian book awards. Does anyone know of such an award--particularly by Black entity? I already have plans to add the Black winners of Hugo Awards and others. The list will improve as I incorporate additional sources. The list recognize books traditionally overlooked by the likes of the New York Times, but are just as deserving of recognition and readership.

Today I emailed a newsletter. In it I included a link to a section of the site described as the The Most Critically Acclaimed Books of the Last 40 Years. Because the website is database driven and I have a lot of data it occurred to me that I could produce an interesting list of books like displaying all the book in the base that have meet two or more of te following criteria Won an Award that I currently track (Carter G. Woodson,Coretta Scott King,Ernest J. Gaines, Hurston/Wright Legacy, NAACP Image, National Book, Pulitzer Prize , Phillis Wheatley, All Awards, Power List Bestsellers) Made my bestseller's list Was selected for inclusion on a prominent Book Club's reading list like, Go On Girl Made our now defunct Power List Bestseller's list There were over 300 books out of my 9,000 book database which met this criteria. The list spanned 40 years hence the description. Now I thought the list was interesting but some guy sent me the following message: Where is E. LYNN HARRIS on this list? He outsold just about every black author in america. You seem to never give him any props. I found the message absolutely ludicrous, and immediately fired off the following response: Never? Proteus, you may not be very familiar with the website. Please visit this page: https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=E.+Lynn+Harris and look at the content. Then tell me who is currently covering and selling E. Lynn Harris’ work more prominently. E. Lynn is a 15 time bestselling author https://aalbc.com/books/bestselling-author.php?author_name=E.+Lynn+Harris. I’ve published reviews of at least of 6 of his books. Point to another entity that has reviewed that many? Finally, if you would have looked more carefully at the list of books you would have found Harris is on the list https://aalbc.com/books/critically_acclaimed.php?year=1997 I hope you take this information and spread it far and wide. Because AALBC.com is one of E. Lynn Harris biggest supporters. Peace, Troy I was so proud of myself I when I send the message and was looking forward to his response. But my response was rejected by his email server--darn it! I share it with you all, just in case anyone else out there wants to twist their mouth to suggest that AALBC.com does not support E. Lynn Harris or any of our authors who have made a mark as profound as Harris'.

Well Hickson, I have to to say that if every publisher did what you have done and stopped selling their books on Amazon, then Amazon would not control our books they why they do today. Amazon A wholesale boycott of Amazon would be impossible. Amazon would have their, I mean "our" federal govern go after the publishers and accuse them of collusion. Even though Amazon is effectively a monopoly! As far a bootlegging, it is well known that Amazon will produce knockoffs of popular products they learn are selling well on their website. Amazon also serves as the biggest platform for he bootlegging of movies--far better than even Youtube! Their marketplace is a virtual bazaar of fake products. Amazon has already opened up stores in NYC; selling books below the price I can buy them for wholesale from the distributor! Amazon can sell books at a loss until all of their competition is ground to dust. Amazon just opened a Wholefoods on the corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Blvds. (OK the Amazon purchase of Wholefoods has not closed yet, but again Amazon owns the feds the deal will go through). Social Media How are you selling books on social media @HICKSON? Are you actually transacting directly on the platform (Facebook allow this), or are you having visitor go to some other site to transact? If it is another site, send me the links I can update the Ghettoheat Books on AALBC.com to that they go to the site where people should buy the books. Black Booksellers Man running a book website is very hard. Running a physical bookstore--especially in today's environment--must be damn near impossible. So hard for me to be critical of any bookseller particularity one running a brick and mortar store. Speaking as bookseller, we all make mistakes, we all have our own biases, and honestly many of us are operating on fumes. As a result, we may make decisions or do things that might come across a slighting an author. This is not always be the case. That said, I do know some NYC booksellers were notorious from marginalizing indie authors, but they are no longer around. Now consider this: most authors, indie or otherwise, do nothing to support the bookseller. Now author they may feel this is unnecessary, but this stands in stark contrast to majority of authors who constantly and relentlessly say connect with them on social media and buy their books from Amazon! If I, or any bookseller, got that kind free promotion from authors it would be a much better environment for booksellers, authors, publishers, and readers. Now Hickson, you support booksellers and you ditched Amazon, but you are the exception, not the rule. How many Black authors do you see posting in the forum--even occasionally? AALBC.com is far and away the largest platform for Black books and I can't drag people away from Facebook! Just today an author I know was on Facebook lamenting the lack of Black business. She wrote an 763 word article to make her point. I see this all the time. The people who make these comments don't seem to understand that giving Facebook free articles just lines Mark's pockets and strengthens his ability to keep Black folks away from Black sites! Facebook will never serve as a tool empower Black people or businesses. Facebook is optimized, by the best brains available, to extract our wealth, time, and data.

I trust all goes well @Linda Chavis!

I've been going on about the problems Amazon, Google, and social media have created for Black booksellers and how much harder these entities have made it for me. I spend a lot of time talking about these issues because I spend much of my mental energy dealing with them and I've witnessed the impact they have on the entire Black book ecosystem. One could also almost assume from my rants that Black literature itself is struggling. This morning I stumbled across this Youtube video of Ta-Nehisi Coates responding to the question, "What is the state of African American Literature today?" He said "I don't have a good answer for that..." Now Coates was asked this question 5 years ago and he may respond differently to it. While I've met Coates and he has been to my home. I don't know him well enough to fire off a an email to get an updated answer. But what struck me was that this question would have been easy for me to answer today and 5 years. I just published a blog post to give my answer. What do you think the state of African American Literature is today?