Last night, in Welshman's
diary, a couple of long-time posters began reminiscing about the most memorable diaries posted on this site since it was founded. One of the pieces I was familiar with, the others I wasn't, and I thought it would be a cool exercise to see if we could gather in one place (this diary) links to people's favorite diaries ever posted here. I'm planning on hotlisting this so I can go back and eventually read them at my leisure.
Besides being simply a repository of the best writing ever as suggested by readers here, once finished it could also be put up as a link in the dkospedia for newcomers who want to get a taste of just how varied and wonderful and wild and weird the writers on this site can be. I'm thinking that for this diary, community members who've been around for years and years can cull their memories for the early days of the site as well as fantastic posts from the past year. Then perhaps next year we can put a diary up at the end of the year to provide links to 2006 diaries that struck as all as terrific.
Note: This is not a contest, and we don't need categorization. I'd just like to begin to create a sort of cultural and written history of our best stuff, with perhaps a sentence explaining what the diary was about and why you thought it was so good. If we end up with a couple hundred suggestions, that would be marvelous.
On my part, I'd like to start off with three of the most memorable diaries I've read here (and I'm sure I'll come up with more as the day progresses).
1. Hunter's lament from June 2004 about how the "Strategic Snark Reserve" in the liberal blogosphere was dangerously low, entitled Science Friday: Liberal Blogs in Crisis.
2. Meteor Blades' incredible diary from Thanksgiving of 2004, in which he re-examines, in light of his Native American history, his efforts to come to terms with the meaning of the holiday in Breaking with Thanksgivings Past.
3. Els' epiphanic essay on the media, the depersonalization of tragedy and the toll it takes on all of us in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane, entitled When a Victim is Just a Dead Guy.
Please add to the list so we can celebrate the wonderful writers on this site together.