Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 8-27-19

Editorial/Column
FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN
(USPS 202-140)
2207 21st Avenue, Tampa Florida 33605 • (813) 248-1921 Published Every Tuesday and Friday By
FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHING Co., Member of National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)
S. KAY ANDREWS, PUBLISHER
C. BLYTHE ANDREWS III, PRESIDENT/CONTROLLER ALLISON WELLS-CLEBERT, CFO
GWEN HAYES, EDITOR
IRIS HOLTON, CITY EDITOR
BETTY DAWKINS, ADVERTISING DIRECTOR HAROLD ADAMS, CIRCULATION MANAGER TOYNETTA COBB, PRODUCTION MANAGER LAVORA EDWARDS, CLASSIFIED MANAGER
Subscriptions-$44.00-6 Months Both Editions: $87.00-Per Year Both Editions.
Opinions expressed on editorial pages of this newspaper by Columnists or Guest Writers, do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Florida Sentinel Bulletin or the Publisher.
How Computers Changed The World For The Better
n every facet of our lives
we use a computer or electronic device in some shape or form. As a daily rou- tine, we must access the ATM machine to withdraw money or order food on a tablet in public place space.
The power of a computer is in part the ability to store an incredible amount of data in a small vacuum, incre- ments of this data can be found within seconds when needed. Sophisticated math problems can be solved in a matter of minutes compared to manual calculation. More and more people have found long lost relatives through Facebook and other social media sites.
Communication with other parties worldwide use to be a complicated and an expensive venture. Now, we
can see or hear our co-work- ers through a smart phone or a video conferencing device. Skype can be accessed and used for free. More and more people than ever are now working from home on their computers or from a mobile office in a park somewhere.
The thought of people working from home 20 years ago seemed almost like a joke. Computers have grown where employers can even keep track of your time while you work from home.
Smart programmers thought ahead and wrote al- gorithms for virtual online games. Virtual and aug- mented reality is the next step in computer games and will be a part of a billion-dol- lar industry. The next Apple iPhone already promises to take advantage of augmented
reality through a special 3D camera for the iPhone. Ex- pect the price of the iPhone to continue to go up. Not im- pressed with augmented real- ity, just imagine one day experiencing the effect of a live fish jumping from your phone into your lap.
Computers have made it easier for us to shop. There are cool websites which allow us to try on certain clothes before we purchase them, that’s in a virtual world, of course. Now, we enjoy win- dow shopping from the com- fort of your own home.
Computers have changed the way we work by automat- ing many parts of our jobs. The national workforce is steadily being replaced by small robots with tiny com- puter chips which installs and tests electronic equip- ment and even run heavy ma- chinery in a safe way so less humans won’t get injured.
Eric Hall holds a Mas- ter’s Degree from the Univer- sity of South Florida in Instructional Technology and Cybersecurity Digital Forensics. He has been a computer technician for over 20 years. He is formerly the manager and owner of Comptech PC, Inc., in Fort Pierce Florida. Follow him on Facebook.
POSTMASTER: Send Address Change To: Florida Sentinel Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3363 Tampa, FL 33601 Periodical Postage Paid At Tampa, FL
C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
New Fire From An Old Flame
merica is on fire. Churches in the South are
burning by twos and threes. Does that mean our nation is on the brink of falling?
Let’s think about it.
Truth is America has always been racist. Even dur- ing those late nights when the so-called founding fa- thers were piecing together the concepts of the Constitution, few of those men had the freedom of African slavery on their minds.
Furthermore, when tens of thousands of Ameri- cans gave their lives for a war that tore our nation apart, the Civil War, the end of that war was a cessa- tion of slavery, but not a cessation of inequality.
Such would not come for another century when a civil rights bill was passed that narrowly defined what the founding fathers had meant when they said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” Still to be added was the word “women.”
So, where does America stand, a decade after hav- ing selected a lunatic who seems to flout everything that his predecessors – including a Black president – stood for? Is it fair of us to point fingers at our present chief executive and blame him for dragging our nation back into the doldrums of outright racism? Or is the blatant truth the fact that, no matter how vehemently we deny it, our nation has never really outlived its racist mirror-image.
Meanwhile, Black churches and synagogues smol- der while angry young white men chant Nazi slogans, and America looks more like Nazi Germany than America itself. The field is on fire. What shall we do? Impeach or embrace?
We suggest that for the first time in its history, America must admit its racist reality. Then, having ad- mitted who and what it has become, we (all of us) can then sit down at a common table and discuss where it is we intend to take this magnificent land of ours. Un- derstanding that there is no such thing as respect, we must accept the fact that our future is not a perfect one, but a perfecting one . . . a future represented by the Statue of Liberty, who long ago lifted her lamp to men, women and children of all races, colors and creeds, recognizing that in truth, there is only one race: the human race.
Yes, America is burning. But it has always burned. What we must do is stand with shovel and water to make certain that the fire does not get out of hand.
I
A
PAGE 4 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019