Main stream media has been occupied with the disaster in Japan and most of my usual social media network has been focused on SxSW, so news about the Arab world has been slim and I’ve turned to Twitter to stay informed.

I’ve joked in the past about getting Superbowl or Academy Award highlights from Twitter, but in those cases there were other options. In this case, it seems to be the best option thanks @acarvin.

If it wasn’t for @acarvin carefully curating and retweeting a steady stream of links, videos and tweets into a well told almost first person story, I probably wouldn’t be aware of the ongoing developments in Egypt, the terror and mass chaos in Libya, or the continuing revolution in Tunisia.

@acarvin is Andy Carvin, a Senior Strategist at NPR. As far as I know, he’s not part of NPR’s news organization, he’s just a guy who plans and builds online communities and is probably doing more to help keep us informed of what’s happening in the Arab world than most American news organizations.

Carvin monitors events as they unfold, taking first person accounts from various sources and weaves them into a story through retweets. Somehow this collection of short comments paints a picture of life on the ground in the midst of the struggle for democracy.

If you aren’t following him, please do. http://twitter.com/acarvin