Enough is Enough - Fix How We Elect Leaders

Yesterday I started writing my Memorial Day post and included this front page from the October 1992 Chicago SunTimes.  Before I finished posting I saw the tragic news of another mass murder, this time in a Texas elementary school.

What's the connection? Our elected leaders have done almost nothing to reduce gun violence in America over the past 30 years, even though there are on-going tragedies reminding us that something is very, very wrong.

It's not the huge number of guns, or easy access, though that is one problem.  

It's really how we elect people for Congress and state legislatures.  Until we elect people who are not paid for by wealthy donors or corporate lobbies, like the NRA, we'll never have enough people who provide the type of governance needed to make difficult decisions that help solve the complex problems facing America. 

I've been building a web library since the mid 1990s but only in the past six years have I been aggregating links to websites and articles that focus on fixing our broken Democracy.  

Click here to go to that page. Below are a few websites I'd like to highlight:

Final-Five Voting - Get rid of the party primary - click here
Here's how it's described on the website: "In a Final-Five Voting primary, all candidates running for Congress will appear on a single ballot, and all voters can participate in the primary regardless of whether they are registered with a party." The Final-Five Voting site includes a description of how this differs from Ranked Choice Voting.

Yes, our political system is badly broken. But it doesn't have to be this way.   In this article, Katherine Gehl makes a case for Final-Five Voting

11 Ways to Fix our Broken Democracy - click here
This Sept. 2020 article starts saying,  "The United States has a president who received nearly 3 million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent. Currently, over half the country lives in just nine states, which means that less than half of the population controls 82 percent of the Senate. It also means that Republicans hold a majority in the Senate despite the fact that Democratic senators represent more than half of the American people."

Reclaim the American Dream - click here
From the website's issues page: "Knowledge is power. Change doesn’t happen on its own. It takes ideas. It takes know-how. It takes the confidence you gain from tapping into a network of experience and learning from models of success forged by others. This is what our civic action tool box gives you."

What I value about this website is that it not only clearly shows issues, but it also shows progress being made in different states to pass needed legislation.  Thus, if you're interested in any of the issues they focus on, such as "tools for expanding voter rights" you can find models of legislation that you can bring to your own local representatives. 

These are just a few of the 80+ websites that I point to from this section of the library.  You need to take time to visit these sites, learn about the issues and recommendations, then work to elect people who will make the needed change. 

I've been pushing this boulder uphill for three decades. Not much has changed. Too few are making time for deeper learning that support solving complex problems.

Yet, if we want to stop mass murder in schools, churches, grocery stores, or on the streets of Chicago and other cities, or protect women's rights, minorities, LGBTQ rights, unions, and healthcare, we must have elected leaders willing to stand up to the gun lobby and to wealthy special interests donors.

I'm just a small voice, not heard by many. Here's a Twitter post showing NBA basketball star/coach Steve Kerr, demanding action.

Steve Kerr on today's tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. pic.twitter.com/lsJ8RzPcmC

— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 24, 2022

He needs to finish his rant by saying "go here for more information".  

Too few people are voting, especially in primaries.  This needs to change. There are people smarter than I am who are posting ideas. Visit their sties. Give them your support.  

I dream of a day when we don't wake up to headlines talking about some of these issues. 

Memorial Day - Remember by Your Service to Others

I spent three years in the US Army from 1968 to 1971, following my graduation from college. I was no hero. I was lucky not to be in a combat zone. I was fortunate to spend time in Baltimore, Washington, DC and in Seoul, South Korea, where I expanded my understanding of the world.

When I returned from South Korea, with my tour of active duty completed, I spent six months working at the Woolco department store in the DeKalb, Illinois area, then came into Chicago and joined the Montgomery Ward company as a retail advertising copywriter.  Over the following 17 years I rose through the ranks and held various management roles in the advertising department between 1980 and 1990.

Leo & Dan - circa 1974

Shortly after joining Wards I was recruited to be part of the company sponsored, volunteer-led, tutoring program that connected employee volunteers with 2nd to 6th grade kids living in the Cabrini Green housing complex, which was located near the Wards headquarters complex where I worked.

I was assigned to work with a 4th grade boy named Leo, and at the end of the first year his mother said to me "He talks about you all the time. You've got to tutor him again next year." I did, and we've stayed connected for the past 45 years.

I've given this 'get involved"
message every year since 1975

At the end of my first year I was also recruited to be part of the committee of volunteers who led the program, then the next year, I was tapped to be the leader. I held that role until 1992 when I and a few others left the original program and formed a new program  (Cabrini Connections) to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have a support system that helped them from 7th grade through high school and beyond.  I led that until 2011.

As we were launching the new kids program a 2nd grade boy named Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in Cabrini Green and the media headlines were demanding that "everyone take responsibility". 

I had been building a list of Chicago non-school tutor/mentor programs since becoming a leader in 1975, using it to invite peers to connect and share ideas on a regular basis, so I knew that no one had a master database of existing programs, thus, no one could lead an on-going communications effort intended to help great tutor/mentor programs reach k-12  youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

So, as we created the new kids program we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  The graphic below visualizes our local commitment to youth in one program and our global commitment to help youth connect with volunteers in other programs throughout Chicago.

I started trying to find ways of using maps in 1993

Over the past 28 years I've continued to lead that effort, with various degrees of success in different years, and also with an on-going series of set-backs and struggles, that ultimately led to the creation of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011, and a decline in what I've been able to accomplish in the years since then. 

Yet, I still maintain a web library and use my blog and newsletters weekly to draw attention to this information and try to motivate others to take meaningful, on-going roles, in helping youth tutor/mentor programs grow in multiple locations.

I created this concept map to show milestones from 1992 through 2019.  In the upper left corner you can find this link, showing milestones from 1965 to 1992.

1990-present time line - open map

The goal of this work has been to help well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school youth programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities around the country. The strategy applies to rural areas and reservations, too, but with different challenges driven by the size of the geography and the low density of the population and pool of potential volunteer mentors.

I'm writing this the week before Memorial Day, which celebrates the  ultimate sacrifices service men and women have made in all wars.  I've posted Veteran's Day and Memorial Day themed articles often since 2005. They all focus on what we can do to honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in foreign wars, from many countries, not just the USA.

I have received various awards and recognition for my years of service, ranging from the Army Commendation Medal in 1975 to an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan in 2001. 

However, the best reward is the "thank you" messages I've received, such as this, and this, from kids and volunteers.

I don't find many people who have been in leadership roles at youth tutor/mentor programs for as long as I have been. I find even fewer who have spent as much time every week for 25 years or longer to help youth tutor/mentor and learning programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago or any other place in the country, or the world using the four part strategy I have piloted since 1993.

I keep looking for such people. I also keep looking for a benefactor who will recognize my efforts and provide more than a "thank you" to help me upgrade everything I've been doing, while embedding the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute in one or more  universities and/or think tanks.

Thus, this is my Memorial Day 2022 message:

Remembering the sacrifices of those who have given their lives, bodies, spirits and loved ones to this country can be best done by making daily commitments to actions that reduce poverty, strife, inequality, conflict and destruction of Mother Earth and other forms of life.

I hope you've read this and will share it with others as you do your own remembrance.

Here's my FUNDME page. I hope you will help me continue doing this work. 

Combatting extremism in USA - social capital thinking

On Monday I included this graphic in an article titled "Kids not living in poverty need mentors, too."

This was in response to the most recent mass murder of 10 people in Buffalo, NY by a teen who had adopted White Supremist beliefs, was able to purchase an automatic rifle, then acted upon his beliefs. 

What caused this? What might prevent it? 

I'm going to point to a lot of information in this article, so I hope you'll bookmark it, then refer to it often.

At the right is a graphic that I've used for more than 25 years to show the role of mentors and extra adults in "pushing" kids through school and into jobs and careers and the role of businesses,  universities, hospitals, philanthropy and government in "pulling" kids through school, using mentoring as one important strategy.   Providing part-time jobs and internships is another. View the graphic in this article. 

Over the past 30 years I've used maps to focus attention and resources on high poverty areas of Chicago, where tutor/mentor programs are a place where kids can connect with volunteers from many different backgrounds and help kids on their journey through school, while also opening doors to jobs and college opportunities for many.  

I've come to understand this as a form of "bridging" social capital, and have been influenced by writers such as Robert D. Putnam.  In this article I point to several articles where I've written about Putnam's "Our Kids" book and "bridging" social capital.  

In all of these efforts, I've focused on expanding "who you know" for kids who's family and personal network has too few people modeling the many types of careers they might aspire to if they had a college degree, or advanced vocational training after high school.  

Here are three more articles that show this strategy:

Mentor Role in Larger Strategy - click here

Transforming Adults Involved in Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs - click here

Understanding and Creating Bridging Social Capital - click here

Much of my motivation has come from seeing stories like this 1992 Chicago Sun-Times article in Chicago media, over-and-over, since the late 1970s.  Too many inner city kids are losing their lives.  Street killings are just the  most visible sign of this. Poverty leads to more stress, more severe illnesses, poor performance in school, involvement with juvenile justice, and other things, all which reduce future opportunities. 

Yet, most of the mass shootings have not been black and brown kids killing people of other races. Those have mostly been done by White kids.  (see data)

So far I've written about strategies that reach and benefit kids living in high poverty areas, who might be less prone to acts of violence against each other if they had more hope and opportunity.  Providing these opportunities continues to be my focus.

However, we have a problem in America.   In the graphic at the top of this article I ask "What about kids who don't live in high poverty?"

In the third extra reading articles above is a link to a paper titled "Social Capital: The Bonds that Connect", written by Michael Woolcock.   He provides clear definitions of "bridging" and "bonding" social capital.  So far, I've focused on "bridging".

Now let's focus on "bonding".

Woolcock writes "Bonding social capital refers to connections to people like you. For example, classmates, work colleagues, and neighbors.

The lives of the poor are largely characterized by a rich set of bonding relationships, but little by way of bridging and, especially, linking ties."

If you are poor you might not be able to place names of people you know in some of the categories on this chart, but you do have many close ties among family, high school, faith group and neighborhood.

What if these close ties are people who model anti-social, racist, anti-democratic, and/or religion-based extremist views?  In this article I quote Bob Pearlman, who wrote an article about social capital in the early 2000s.

He wrote "But the most significant finding in the study was that a student's social network can have a significant impact on his/her career choice. Students whose parents are both in high-tech careers are more likely to be interested in technology careers themselves. In addition, 83 percent of students rely on personal connections for career-related information and guidance." 

Youth emulate the beliefs of their parents.  Strong bonding ties, without bridging ties that expose kids to a wider range of thinking, can be a negative.

I'm now getting into areas where I don't have enough expertise.  In the article I wrote Monday, I asked "What should I do?"  I answered, "Collect information about this topic". 

I don't have a section in the Tutor/Mentor library that focuses on extremism so started aggregating a few links using Wakelet. Click here to see what I've collected so far.

I've been building a web library for 20+ years. It's organized by category. Here are a few examples:

Poverty & Crime Mapping - click here

Race, Poverty & Inequality - click here

Saving our Democracy - Political Resources - click here 

I'd like to find a web library with a similar set of links, focused on extremism and solutions. 

Now let's look at a some maps:

This is a Washington Post map showing segregation in Chicago and throughout the USA. Click here to view. 

This is a map showing faith groups in the Chicago region.  Open this link, then zoom into the Chicago region. 

Below is a map created using the same platform, but I've clicked on an area, then hit the "profile" button. I then get maps showing different demographics, income levels, etc.  The faith groups in the area are still shown. If I zoom in, I can identify individual groups.

Using the two data platforms, and others with similar information, we can see where more affluent people live and where poorer people live. We can also see the faith groups within these areas.  You can do this for any city in the USA.

Further research (by someone else) would need to determine which of these groups might be more fundamentalist in their teaching and beliefs, or might be among the groups that strongly support the former President.  What can be assumed is that children growing up in these faith groups are being "groomed" to the same beliefs as their parents and the rest of the congregation.

That could be a problem.

There are plenty of stories showing far right religious beliefs affecting state legislation and restricting voting rights.

Across the country certain groups are now beginning to ban teaching of certain topics in school and are banning certain books from school libraries. Over the weekend I saw that someone is suing a Barnes & Noble bookstore for carrying a specific book.   Will burning books in the streets be next? 

Now, please go back and read more of the articles, like this one, that I wrote following the release of the "Our Kids" book by Robert D. Putnam. 

Poverty reinforces poverty and affluence reinforces affluence.  Kids in affluent areas are not building much empathy for kids in poverty areas because they don't have close ties, or "bridging ties" to kids who are economically different from them, or who have different religious beliefs.  That influences how they see the world and what they will do as adults to solve problems in the world.

Kids who are part of faith groups that support radical right-wing conspiracy theories and White Supremist world views are being "groomed" to carry those beliefs into their adult lives, and to force their beliefs to others.  

Without some strategies to expose these kids to a wider range of ideas and beliefs, starting as early as pre-school (because that's when religious indoctrination is beginning), the tragedies like Buffalo are likely to grow even more frequent.

The challenges to our democracy are likely to become more dire. 

Are these things you're thinking about?  Have you found good, extensive, online resources that I can point to, or people with solutions that I can point to?

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I'll look forward to connecting with you. 

Kids not living in high poverty need mentors, too

If you've followed my work for any length of time you see how my focus has been on helping kids living in high poverty areas connect with adult volunteers in organized non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs.  Open the graphic at the left and you can see a 10-point strategy developed in 1993 that I have followed for over 20 years.

For the past few years as I've watched horrendous tragedy of youth using AR-15 rifles to murder groups of people, as in Buffalo this past weekend, I've begun think that there is another category of young people who need a lot of extra mentoring and adult support.

Since launching the first tutor/mentor survey in January 1994 I've tried to build a segmented understanding of existing tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, sorting by age-group served, type of program and location. 

At the right is a graphic showing a vision that I've had for many years, of creating a much more detailed understanding of what types of programs are available within a geographic area.  You can see this graphic in this blog article. 

Below is an updated version of the graphic.  

I've added another sub-category focusing on youth growing up surrounded by adults who have adopted anti democratic conspiracy theories, religious extremism, White Supremacy thinking, etc.  

At the left is a graphic that I include in a presentation titled "Defining Terms".  The graphic shows five categories of youth who could benefit from help provided by volunteers in organized, on-going, tutor, mentor and learning programs. The large light blue area in the middle, showing youth living in high poverty areas, has been where I've focused my efforts for more than 40 years.... helping kids in high poverty areas get extra support that aids them in the journey from birth-to-work.

I updated this graphic yesterday.  

I added a circle to show "all youth" need support of mentors and extra adults. This is similar to the graphic at the top of this article.  I included elements from the original graphic, showing youth with special needs and youth living in high poverty areas.

However, I added two more shaded areas. One focuses on children of the super-rich, who grow up living in a far different reality and level of experiences than do most other kids.  Can they empathize with the challenges other kids face, and use their wealth,  power and influence to help society overcome these challenges?

The second shaded area is more troubling. This includes all youth who are growing up surrounded by adults who have adopted anti democratic conspiracy theories, religious extremism, White Supremacy thinking, disinformation from FOX News and other sources, etc.   The terrorist who murdered 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket was clearly influenced by such an environment.

In an organized, non-school tutor, mentor and learning program youth can connect with a wide range of adults and experiences.  Not all programs have this design, and few offer all of the possible learning opportunities that might attract kids and keep them coming back every week for many years.

But that's the goal I've shared for 20+ years.

Now I think we need to be finding ways to reach kids who don't live in poverty (without reducing our on-going efforts to provide more and better programs and support to kids who DO live in poverty areas).  

I don't even know where to start.  

Well, I do, really,  I need to find a place where someone is collecting articles and research about this and also aggregating links to organizations working to combat the formal and informal grooming that is turning so many young people into disenchanted, destructive human beings. 

The graphic below shows categories in the Tutor/Mentor web library at https://tutormentorexchange.net/resource-links.  I can add another category but I'm not sure what to name it yet.  

I'll share this article on my social media posts and look for suggestions and recommended links from my network.  I don't intend to make this the primary focus of the library, but hope to be able to point to others who do make this the primary focus of their work.  

This page shows links to my social media pages, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  I look forward to connecting with you there. 

View the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC Video Library

Over the past 35 years many videos were created showing the work done at tutor/mentor programs I led in Chicago and sharing the ideas and strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I launched in 1993.

While you can find these on YouTube I've created an archive of these on my main website. 

There are two pages with videos I created, interviews that I was part of, and videos from the conferences I organized in Chicago between 1994 and 2015.  

There is also one page with projects done by Interns. 

I had been hosting these on a different site, which I'm no longer able to edit. Thus, by building new pages on my main site I can add new videos as more are created.

Most of the videos that I'm pointing to focus on the Tutor/Mentor Connection part of the two-part Cabrini Connections - Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy that I led from 1993 to 2011.  In this panel I point to a Vimeo site with 49 videos focusing on Cabrini Connections.  There's also a YouTube channel for Cabrini Connections/TMC.

While I've piloted my strategies in Chicago I feel that any major city in the world, where there are pockets of concentrated poverty, could apply the ideas in these videos to their own community.

That means students from middle school, high school and/or colleges could be creating their own versions of these presentations, using maps of their own city and pointing to youth programs that already operate in those places.  They could also use any of the blog articles I've posted since 2005 as content for their own blogs and videos. 

By doing so students build creative communications skills and learn roles leaders need to take over, and over, for many years in order to help kids born  in poverty move from birth-to-work, or to solve any of the other complex problems facing our world.

If you create new versions, just point to where you got your ideas, and send me a link so I can help you draw attention to them.

Thank you to those who make small contributions to help fund my work and keep these sites alive on the Internet. If you'd like to help, visit this page. 

Data visualization - public health resources

I have been using maps since 1993 to focus attention and resources on neighborhoods with high poverty, where kids and families need extra support. In the photo at the left I'm pointing to a 1994 Chicago Tribune article talking about "240,000 City kids at risk." 

I started collecting research articles and "how to" information in the 1970s and accelerated that work when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  In 1998 we started putting the library and our ideas on the Internet and the library has grown much larger since then.  

It's intended to be information anyone can use to reach those "city kids at risk" with programs and services that help them move through school and into adult lives with jobs that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty.  

While I started using maps in 1993 the use of maps and data visualizations really did not gain much traction until the mid 2000s when newer technologies were made available.  Since then there are many on-line resources where  you can find uses of maps.  I point to many from this section and this section of the tutor/mentor library. 

I add new links regularly.  

One way that I highlight what's in the library is through the use of concept maps created using cMapTools. This week I learned about some new public health data visualization platforms, so I added them to the library, and to two of my concept maps.

This first map can be found at http://tinyurl.com/TMI-MappingData

This concept map shows a variety of data visualization platforms, related to poverty, inequality, education and public health.  At the bottom of each node is a small box. If you put your mouse over it you will see one or more links that will open to the website once you click on them.  

This second concept map focuses more specifically on public health and the Social Determinants of Health.  Find it at https://tinyurl.com/TMI-PublicHealth-Hope

You'll notice that this concept map focuses on "HOPE" as a powerful medicine.  Much of the research that I've read points to the truth of this.  In areas where people live without hope, there are high incidences of poor health, violence, crime, depression, etc.  Just providing "hope" and "opportunity" changes those conditions.

In both of the concept maps there is a node titled "Public Health Data Resources".  I added it this week after reviewing work done by a company called RS21, which is a "data science company that uses artificial intelligence, data engineering, user experience design, and modern software developments to empower organizations to make data-driven decisions that positively impact the world."  

That's pretty much the purpose of the web library I've built since 1993. 

Below is a map created using the Urban Health Vulnerability Index, created by the RS21 Health Lab. 

This version shows Chicago. You can search for many other cities on the platform.  I'm showing hospitals as an overlay. You can zoom in and look closely at any part of the city or surrounding suburbs.

The next platform is called "Zoom in by Humana", which was also created by the RS21 Health Lab. 

This also has data for multiple cities. I'm showing San Antonio here, which was the example used in this video. The description starts at the 28.49 minute segment (if you don't want to watch the entire video). I also wrote about it in this blog article. 

I'm highlighting the video because of how well the speaker describes ways to use the data visualization. 

My goal with articles like this is to not only show you some useful data visualization platforms, but to motivate thousands of people to use them to create map stories that build public awareness, motivation and draw needed resources directly to specific parts of Chicago or other cities.  

At the left is one example from the 1990s. When we saw the headline about a youth being killed, we plotted the address on a map. We added information about non-school tutor/mentor programs in the area, and then added a list of programs along with assets in the same area (businesses, hospitals, universities, etc.) who should be helping tutor/mentor programs grow.

Below is another map-story from the 1990s.

Since 2005 I've included maps in several hundred articles.  In this article you can find newer examples. In this article I show more. 

In this article I show more uses of maps in stories.   

These are examples that I encourage others to duplicate in their own stories. 

In the Urban Health Vulnerability Index map hospitals in Chicago are shown, distributed in different locations throughout the region.  In the graphic at the right I show a few of the colleges and universities in the region.  

Each hospital and/or university could have on-going strategies that help pull kids from the neighborhood to college and into jobs and careers.

In this and other articles I have been encouraging high schools and colleges to create student led Tutor/Mentor Connection-type programs where students are collecting this information and sharing it via their own blog articles, videos, PhD projects, and social media.  

If such programs had been in place since 2000 there would be hundreds of blogs like mine, calling on more people to give time, talent, dollars and votes, to build programs in areas where the data visualizations show great need.

Unfortunately, I don't know any who are doing this.  When I talk to leaders of companies like RS21 I encourage them to take a role in teaching people to tell stories using their data visualizations.  Hopefully some will take this role. There might be a lot more HOPE in some of the areas which continue to be areas of high poverty and high violence. 

I keep looking for others who are using maps in stories, with the same goal of helping mentor-rich youth programs grow in high poverty areas. If you're doing this, share the link in the comments, or on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.  If I see it I'll add it to my list of blog articles.

Thanks for reading.  Please share. I'll look forward to connecting with you.  

12-14-2022 update - here's an article on RS21 blog titled "We Don't Need MORE Data, But We Do Need More FROM our Data - click here

Using Internet Archive to Find Broken Links

One of the most frustrating elements of the Internet is that links to sites I pointed to in past years (from 2005 on) are now broken. Thus, if you look at articles I posted in the 2000s on this blog, you will be frustrated to find not-working links in many places.

Here's what I do to overcome that problem.  

First, when I find a broken link, I look at the root of the links. That's the first part, which I've underlined in the example below.  

www.tutormentorexchange.net is the root.  I remove the rest of the link and see if the original root site is still working.

If the site still works, and has a search field, I enter the name of the website or article and see if it's on the site, but in another place.  If it is I update my blog article or web library with the new link, so it is there for the next person who looks at the article.

If I can't find the article on the original website, I put the article name in a Google search, and see if it is available in another place.  If I can find it then I replace the old link with a new one.

However, I'm often not able to find the article.  That's when I visit the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/web/ 

At the top of the home page you'll see the image below:

Enter the ULR of the broken link then click on the "browse history" button.  Below you can see the result of my search for https://tutormentorexchange.net/mapping-the-programs

Your search will reveal any history available in the Internet archive, or, tell you that no history exists. For the web address I input, you can see along the middle bar that there are many results, dating back to 2009.  In the calendar below the middle timeline, archive dates are shown.

If you put your mouse over a highlighted date on the calendar, then click the link provided, the archived page will open.  You can see my archived page for March 23, 2022.

In the circled area at the top of the page, in your browser address line, you'll find the location of this page in the web archive.  For this page it is: https://web.archive.org/web/20220323074928/https://tutormentorexchange.net/mapping-the-programs

That is the address you put in your blog article and/or library as the archived location of the page with the broken link.

What's interesting is that you can look at this page at different points in time.  This page has been saved 79 times since 2009.  Click on any of the black bars and the page saved for that date will appear.  

I clicked on a 2009 page and was able to look at the version of the site from that date.

Let's look at another website.  I used http://www.tutormentorconnection.org as my primary website address since the late 1990s when my first site was launched.  That site was taken off line in January 2022, so is now only available in the Internet Archive.  Below you can see the result when I entered that URL in the search bar.

The site has been saved 450 times since 2000.  Thus, if I open November 4, 2021 you'll see the site as it was just before shutting down. 

However, if you open the site from October 2007, this is what you'll find.

Below is the home page from August 2004, the year before the tech team at IUPUI rebuilt the website. 

I'm only showing the home pages. For most of these sites you can open interior pages and see most of what was on the site at that time.

Here's one more valuable feature of the Internet Archive.  You can add new links to it.  Here's an example.  

At https://www.vialogues.com/vialogues/play/34104 you can find one of several videos that I put on the Vialogues site in past years.  Earlier this year I learned that the site will stop working in the near future.

To preserve these video conversations I went back to the Wayback Machine.  In the image below you can see a "save page now" box.  I entered the Vialogues address for the video above.

Below is the search result.  I've circled the date of the archive, which was March 18, 2022, and the new URL for finding the page. 

This is the saved page.  The new URL is in the browser line at the top of the page. 

I put five of my videos in the Internet Archive so now they will remain available as long at the Archive is available.  This blog and other websites that hold information that I've collected over the past 25 years are all available on the Internet Archive.  That means future social engineers, historians and community builders will be able to find this information well beyond my lifetime and the active life of the sites I still maintain.  I hope they use it to build Tutor/Mentor Connection type strategies in every major city in the world that support a wide range of Birth-to-Work volunteer-based youth learning programs. 

The Internet Archive is a non-profit and needs donations to remain available. It's one of the sites I make a small annual contribution to. 

It's pretty interesting, and a valuable resource for finding and replacing broken links on a website or blog.  I hope you find this introduction useful.