RonK, Seattle was the fourth guest blogger on Daily Kos, following Billmon and Steve Soto, who had first started on January 3, 2003, and Steve Gilliard on April 3, 2003. RonK joined the guest-blogging team a few days after Billmon's departure in early April; Steve Gilliard had an eight day head start on RonK, and had been posting daily.
Markos announced RonK's advent in Open Thread: 4/11:
I'll be out another few days ('till next Tuesday), as I have trips to LA and Vegas in the cards, as well as a visit from the inlaws to boot. Steve G. will keep up his excellent posting in my absence, joined by the sagacious RonK from Seattle. They should form quite the potent team.
RonK's would continue contributing to the front page while Daily Kos remained on Movable Type software, another six months. Join me on the flip with links to all 60 of his front-page posts here on Daily Kos, and to more of his writing.
This is the second part of a Top Comments diary on the Daily Kos writings of RonK, Seattle, one of the original group of guest posters on this blog. Part 1 was published last Thursday, and featured Ron's comments from 2002.
Last time, as the diary with RonK's 2002 comments was ending, I mentioned that the extent of his commenting continued to grow in early 2003. He wrote on all but three days in January, writing 198 comments in 90 front-page posts. In February, he slowed down a bit in the first half of the month, but in the final six days he wrote 76 comments on 20 posts. (Unfortunately, I don't have data for RonK's final month of commenting, but I imagine it was extensive, given the impending and then actual invasion of Iraq.) It was this frequent, interesting, and cogent commenting that would lead to his selection for the Daily Kos front page.
When RonK was selected for the front page, he had been writing on his own blog, Cogent Provocateur, for over thirteen months. Oddly, his blog didn't long survive his guest blogging on Daily Kos: his final post on Cogent Provocateur was on April 23, 2003, twelve days after his first solo outing on Daily Kos.
He started his first post, Quagmire? Yes, Quagmire, by taking the word that everyone was wondering should be applied to a 24-day war, and examining it:
RonK, Seattle, here with my opening guest shot across the coffee table.
Itinerant hawks have been flapping by, cackling "QUAGMIRE? HA!", as if the question answers itself. Not so fast! [Hawks don't cackle, you say? One subspecies does ... but I digress.]
How do you know you've walked into a quagmire? And when? The first few steps give you no clue. Later, if your boot seams are poorly sealed, you'll notice a wet sock or two. You pick up the pace, eager to get to the other side, but the going gets heavier.
At some point your left boot is stuck in the muck ... you plant your right boot on the firmest spot you can find and push as hard as possible extract the left ... and now the right one is stuck deeper. You twist around looking for a way out, and every direction looks the same. Desolate ground. Quagmire.
RonK didn't get stuck; he wrote 59 more front-page posts for Daily Kos over the next six months.
Finding RonK's work on Daily Kos has been difficult in that all the articles reference today are at the archived, Movable Type (pre-Scoop) site...and that site has no way of distinguishing between authors of front-page posts. No searching, no nothing. The same is true of comments from that period: the comments are displayed in a separate window, and there isn't a way to externally link to a particular comment in the thread, only to the entire thread itself. This diary is, in part, a way to make his writing more easily accessible, as has been done for the guest bloggers preceding him to the Daily Kos front page.
RonK, Seattle's front-page stories, April 11 through October 8, 2003:
Friday, April 11, 2003
• Quagmire? Yes, Quagmire also has 5 of 205 comments by RonK
• On the Lighter Side of Armageddon has no comments by RonK in the 41 posted.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
• Bust a Deal, Face the Wheel also has 3 of 49 comments by RonK
Sunday, April 13, 2003
• Juxtapositions, and Perspectives has no comments by RonK in the 80 posted.
• We Must Learn from History, and Forget also has 2 of 30 comments by RonK
Monday, April 14, 2003
• The Peculiar Logic of Peace Through Strength also has 2 of 59 comments by RonK
RonK's final post on his own blog, Cogent Provocateur, was made on April 23, 2003. Entitled Operation Desert Snipe, it was greatly condensed and run as a single Daily Kos post the following day:
Thursday, April 24, 2003
• Operation Desert Snipe also has 2 of 50 comments from RonK
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
• Intermission Time at the Job-Demolition Derby has no comments by RonK in the 15 posted.
Friday, May 2, 2003
• We won! What's our prize? (RonK, Seattle) also has 4 of 52 comments by RonK
Sunday, May 11, 2003
• Senate Race Outlook 2004 (RonK) also has 13 of 89 comments by RonK
Monday, May 12, 2003
• Bad Week for UK in Iraq also has 6 of 52 comments by RonK
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
• All Politics is Loco also has 3 of 69 comments by RonK
Thursday, May 15, 2003
• Crime and Punkishness also has 1 of 53 comments by RonK
• DLC Detonates Dirty Bomb also has 8 of 162 comments by RonK
• Big Splashes Across the Pond also has 3 of 169 comments by RonK
Friday, May 16, 2003
• "Bud" ... "Get" ... "Bud" ... "Get" ... "Bud" ... "Get" ... "Wiser" also has 4 of 41 comments by RonK
• A Good Day in the Redistricting Wars also has 3 of 26 comments by RonK
Saturday, May 17, 2003
• Tears of Joy, Tears of Rage also has 1 of 59 comments by RonK
Monday, May 19, 2003
• 28 Words You Can Never Say on Television also has 16 of 86 comments by RonK
Friday, May 23, 2003
• How Much is Ten Trillion Dollars, Really? also has 10 of 123 comments by RonK
Sunday, May 25, 2003
• Is \href="0 Trillion a Big Deal? also has 8 of 36 comments by RonK
Monday, May 26, 2003
• In Memoriam: Let's We Forget also has 3 of 62 comments by RonK
Thursday, June 5, 2003
• "... things that can't be defended" also has 10 of 164 comments by RonK
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
• WMDs: Who will tell the people? also has 6 of 107 comments by RonK
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
• That makes 50 also has 2 of 60 comments by RonK
Thursday, June 19, 2003
• Help Mallard Fillmore find the T.P. also has 15 of 139 comments by RonK
Saturday, June 21, 2003
• Straws in the Wind also has 6 of 85 comments by RonK
Sunday, June 22, 2003
• An unsigned Operation Desert Spork appears to be by RonK; he has 1 of 29 comments, and that comment says, among other things, "This post was intended as lighter fare"
• WMD -- the Mosaic Speaks also has 5 of 69 comments by RonK
Monday, June 23, 2003
• T.P. Update also has 6 of 36 comments by RonK
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
• Empire for Slackers also has 1 of 53 comments by RonK
From July 1 through August 16, Movable Type comments were shut down on Daily Kos. HaloScan comments were made available as a substitute shortly before noon on July 2, but all these comments were lost when Movable Type comments were re-enabled. This was supposed to be a stopgap of no more than a week; instead, it lasted a month and a half. It is odd seeing an archive with comment-less open threads appearing daily. Unfortunately, all comments that RonK, Seattle wrote in this period are lost, so the next 10 diary links do not reference comment threads or links to same.
Friday, July 11, 2003
• McCain shouts 'FIRE' ...
Saturday, July 12, 2003
• Tenet Takes One for the Team
Monday, July 21, 2003
• Ignorance reigns
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
• Energy 'Reform': Timing is Everything
Thursday, July 31, 2003
• The field is wide open
• A little help over here?
Thursday, August 7, 2003
• "The hand of war ..."
Friday, August 8, 2003
• Straw seen in wind; Camels reported skittish
Monday, August 11, 2003
• 'Mr. Wolfoblitz, I presume?'
Friday, August 15, 2003
• Lightning strikes! Davis reanimated?
The site switched back from HaloScan comments to Movable Type comments during the morning of August 16; comments RonK made to his posts under Movable Type will be noted as before.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
• Lights! Camera! Fingerpointing! also has 4 of 40 comments by RonK
Thursday, August 21, 2003
• Inslee Iraq Intel Inquiry: Incendiary! also has 2 of 57 comments by RonK in a thread that had to be closed to new comments due to "incessant deliberate trolling".
Monday, August 25, 2003
• I've been workin' on the Cheney gang ... also has 2 of 48 comments by RonK
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
• Summer fun: Operation Snark Hunt also has 3 of 60 comments by RonK
Steve Gilliard had been inactive after August 6 when he opened his own blog with the exception of a single post on August 15; on August 28 he made a quartet of posts while Markos was unavailable and sans luggage. These were his final contributions to the Daily Kos front page, and RonK was now the sole active guest blogger.
Friday, August 29, 2003
• Hakim Dead; Hell to pay also has 3 of 181 comments by RonK
Sunday, September 7, 2003
• Terror Warning Warning: Qaeda, Dubya & Bushwa has no comments by RonK in the 40 posted.
Monday, September 8, 2003
• Put a Price Tag on that Price Tag! also has 2 of 190 comments by RonK
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
• Strange Bedfellows? CBC debate on FOX also has 8 of 536 comments by RonK
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
• In the Loot ... er, Loop also has 1 of 57 comments by RonK
• Rumsfeld spins; Lehrer not sucked in also has 4 of 107 comments by RonK
Thursday, September 11, 2003
• Dean/Clark, Clark/Dean, ???/??? also has 5 of 300 comments by RonK
• Poll meat! Getcha red hot poll meat! also has 13 of 265 comments by RonK
Friday, September 12, 2003
• Cheney energy security strategy swinery secrecy legality fantasy jeopardy irony: a cursory history also has 1 of 86 comments by RonK
Sunday, September 14, 2003
• When you bargain for that pound of flesh, start here also has 5 of 45 comments by RonK
On Friday, September 19, Markos announced the addition of Meteor Blades and DHinMI to the front page in New guest posters. RonK continued his posting tenure alongside them.
Saturday, September 20, 2003
• Herd the gnus? Buffaloed hawks otter carp as 'Cheetah with a Porpoise' flounders; Lion croc lynx hound albatross, elephants' No. 2 also has 10 of 89 comments by RonK
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
• Hack Tracks Back also has 12 of 324 comments by RonK
Monday, September 29, 2003
• Memory Fault at Location 001600 also has 3 of 298 comments by RonK
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
• CA Recall: A lesser-of-evils election? also has 1 of 48 comments by RonK
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
• 'Hey, I didn't order this!' has no comments by RonK in the 95 posted.
After the Movable Type site was closed down and archived on October 15, 2003, RonK took a complete break from contributing to Daily Kos. Although the new Scoop site had opened on October 13, 2003, for a side-by-side transition, he didn't register for an account (as RonK Seattle without the comma; commas can't be included in usernames under Scoop) until late January 2004.
Once he signed up for his account, he wrote diaries and commented extensively: 100 diaries and 13200 comments in a little over four years. In 2004, he wrote 67 of those diaries; this year, only 5. His most recent diaries were in February; his most recent comments in early April. Here's the search for the diaries; and here's the comment search. (Note: the comment search was not working today: certain search functions are being moved to a new server, and this is one of them. If it tells you "problem with that query", try again later.)
In early 2005, a group of Daily Kos guest bloggers created a new political blog, The Next Hurrah . Founded by DHinMI, Meteor Blades, and Trapper John—all of whom had finished their formal stints as front-pagers at the end of the previous November—the new blog was launched on February 23, 2005. Other former and future DKos front-pagers were added, including Plutonium Page, DemFromCT, RonK, and Kagro X; RonK wrote his first post on May 15, 2005. He would write 26 posts, including some Open Threads, before leaving on February 24, 2006. Six of his posts on TNH were crossposted as diaries on Daily Kos. (DHinMI provided some founding details in the comments to part 1.)
After leaving The Next Hurrah, he published another 22 diaries on Daily Kos over the next two years, and continued to comment on the site during that period. His most recent diary was on February 24, 2008; his most recent comments were on April 5.
As always, corrections and pointers to missing information are most welcome. The contents of this diary will find its way into the dKosopedia in the near future, after it returns to active service. I'll be creating RonK Seattle pages there; the Billmon, Steve Soto, and Steve Gilliard information is already there (if temporarily unavailable), and has been expanded since original Top Comments publication, though there's still much more to be added.
~~~~~
We regularly highlight top comments from the past 24 hours, both emailed by you to the TopComments mailbox and also found by your diarist du jour. My thanks as always to those Kossacks who took the time to mail in comments. If you saw any great comments that are not mentioned here—and there are always tens of thousands of comments to choose from—please link to them in your own comments below. The address of that mailbox:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can submit deserving comments to our address—the direct link to a comment is available from that comment's date/time—as long as they arrive by 9:30pm Eastern Time. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. Both link and username are important.
ScottyUrb submitted the following nomination:
Here's an idea from DH from MD.
From psilocynic:
Shhs, in a snark diary titled Can't stand the Evil Gays, My Opinion, gave us this gem!
The diary was funny too.
bijoudesigncom and Land of Enchantment both nominated the same comment:
bijoudesigncom: This was a great comment from a very worthy applicant for the Netroots Nation Scholarships program. I'm hoping to see KingOneEye as well as refinish69 in Austin!
Land of Enchantment: KingOneEye maybe needs some kinda special patron? Anyhow, he's not conceding on the Netroots Nation Scholarship awards. It sucks that there was only enough donations for 30; a real shame that more couldn't be funded.
From trashablanca:
SallyCat delivers a righteous smackdown of a "concerned" homophobe here.
Alfonso Nevarez nominated this comment (writeup by sardonyx):
Dave the pro explains why he is a Democrat.
From your diarist sardonyx, who remembered he was supposed to look for these, too, about twenty minutes before publication:
In JeffLieber's infamous diary, Larry Bailey expresses disdain for Jeff's sample size. What happens down thread isn't pretty, and should teach Jeff that he ought to do his own top comment nominations...after he's done eating that raw data of his.
drbloodaxe anticipates many a future frolic...though, surprisingly, this comment is not from the previously referenced diary.
droogie6655321 gives us an important reminder.
Today's top mojo—those comments which have received the highest number of recommendations from Daily Kos users like you—as supplied by sardonyx, using his own revision of the amazing cskendrick's mojo-to-Excel magic.
First, Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars, first diary comments, and Cheers and Jeers:
1) Wexler for Majority Leader! by dave1042 — 181
2) Obama Talks to Everyone! by JekyllnHyde — 170
3) "this was the action of SOME soldiers?" by marabout40 — 161
4) He does not know shame. by noweasels — 127
5) Many times by PBen — 103
6) I'm glad you wrote this diary by Muzikal203 — 97
7) Well done. by Pager — 92
8) yup by MTinMD — 92
9) OMG.. by gnwmann — 87
10) I bet these little girls also feel like they will by Muzikal203 — 86
11) Good She can start by voting Against FISA by Denversk — 86
12) We're a community by kamarvt — 85
13) It was the right thing to do. by the new — 82
14) I'm in for $100 by Feeling Blue — 79
15) I've lived in China by yesivotedforbush — 79
16) WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!! by Mr Magu — 78
17) I'm goign to ask by Phil N DeBlanc — 75
18) Bush is a lying war criminal by FishOutofWater — 72
19) Have you been refused an interview? by bumblebums — 72
20) I agree 10000000% by LostInTexas — 71
21) The Pentagon called that "packaging" by Lefty Coaster — 70
22) Media LIES About This.... by serrano — 68
23) two words by DelicateMonster — 67
24) Amazing. by LithiumCola — 66
25) Hmmm ... we'll have to look out for any Globe by beachmom — 66
26) Phil, I think the first place to look by victoria2dc — 66
27) LOL! by RNinNC — 66
28) Dumya didn't issue a signing statement with this? by radarlady — 64
29) 18 states... by Dingodude — 64
30) I saw that by noweasels — 61
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) I'm much better now. by Phil N DeBlanc — 611
2) tips by thereisnospoon — 557
3) tip jar here by slinkerwink — 399
4) Drop a bit of mojo, if you please ... by leftilicious — 398
5) Excellent work, Senators! by beachmom — 383
6) Tipping (not) over by GregMitch — 357
7) Tips/Recs for finally launching ads! by dansac — 349
8) Tips for Anger Management (NOT!!!) by LostInTexas — 297
9) THANK YOU! by lineatus — 285
10) So it's come to this, Mr. President... by Troutfishing — 268
11) A late tip jar by Fools on the Hill — 265
12) loose nuke parts are bad tips jar by Johnny Venom — 219
13) Tips for Justice. by TheWesternSun — 195
14) Wexler for Majority Leader! by dave1042 — 181
15) Obama Talks to Everyone! by JekyllnHyde — 170
16) "this was the action of SOME soldiers?" by marabout40 — 161
17) and your rights slip away... by dday — 141
18) He does not know shame. by noweasels — 127
19) May we never forget by a girl in MI — 117
20) Tips by Land of Enchantment — 116
21) Tips for Dads no longer with us by Vita Brevis — 111
22) Many times by PBen — 103
23) Don't you get bored posting here? by BoiseBlue — 102
24) For many years now, so many have by nyceve — 101
25) it's alive! alive! by Adam B — 101
26) unfuckingbelievable by clammyc — 100
27) I'm glad you wrote this diary by Muzikal203 — 97
28) yup by MTinMD — 92
29) Well done. by Pager — 92
30) MSM was two-faced again today by DemDachshund — 90
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