Logged in and no ads. Checked my profile, and there was the subscription icon. I have a TON of grading to do, but it can wait for a few minutes, or hours, because this is more important. Especially after my most recent engagement with the Kos community had to do with a seriously misplaced hate rating (I removed it but it took some scolding to get me to do it).
Seriously, this is the first online community I've belonged to that feels like a real community, and I'll take my responsibilities to all of you even more seriously. This has taken years, and since it's traditional (tradition: when three people do something and get on the rec list for it), I guess I'll tell my story below the squiggle.
I'm 62. I'm well (9 years) into my second career teaching history. I've been a member for about 5 1/2 years now. I lurked, I must have commented on a few things, but this was just one of the sites I went to on occasion. My first diary was a pro-Hilary posting early in 2008,which almost nobody commented on, and my second, a year later, after making maybe 17 comments in a three year period, was a cry of despair about Netanyahu's deportation of Palestinian children called "Uncoupling Judaism and Israel." It was a diary I needed to write, and this was the only site where I could, because, well, as Digby says, it's what it is. 319 comments and 16 tips, and no, I didn't hang around to see how it developed.
It has all been learning by doing for me here. My posts really picked up during the first spouse/partnerProp 8 trial -- I've presented papers at conferences about Prop 8, the initiative process, and the equal protection guarantee in the 14th Amendment -- where I was patrolling the comments for soft bigotry, and I made a comment about the history of the death penalty at some point and found myself a member of the Abolish the Death Penalty group. About groups. I really don't know how they work. Is it cricket to ask a group if I can join it?
The thing is, there are a few people who have to be right here, or to make points at other people's expense (I suppose my latest diary on Tim Tebow and Christianism was one of those, but whatever, I'm an old crotchety guy), but they're VERY rare. Rarer, in fact than at any other site I've spent time with. I love that there are people we can feel proud of here: Kos, of course, but watching Occupy was even more special when Jesse LaGreca started appearing and made all those terrific posts. I wouldn't follow Wisconsin anyplace else either.
Why didn't I subscribe? Well, the only comments I make that seem to get any traction are the ones that speak to the several months I spent living on the streets and negotiating a county's social service organization. I work part time -- state college and community college -- and when in 2009 the state college cut all its part-timers with less than 6 years' service (I was entering my 5th year), my salary was cut by 60%, and since my spouse/partner (no, I don't like "husband") is receiving Social Security benefits, money is scarce. It's possible one or two Kossacks will know exactly who I am from this, but as I've said before, I need a voice, and I don't need to show up on one of David Horowitz's websites as a lefty professor.
Thanks again, folks. I promise I'll behave better from now on.