Kate Daligga, known onsite as peregrine kate, has been a staff member in the Product Department at Daily Kos since 2015, a member of the Daily Kos Equity Council since 2021, and the vice-chair of the Daily Kos Guild since 2022.
I have a long association with Daily Kos. Like many of us here, I started as a lurker, initially too daunted by the prospect of taking part even to sign up for a user account. Despite the strong pull exerted by the second (and last) Yearly Kos, held in Chicago in 2007, I didn’t actually join the site until late in 2008. Nevertheless, I read posts and comments attentively throughout that whole campaign season, wishing I had the nerve to write about my experiences canvassing in Indiana for Sen. Barack Obama in May of 2008.
The exhilaration of victory that November, coupled with the realization that we had endless challenges ahead, finally pushed me over; my join date is Dec. 26, 2008, with a UID just above 200K. I still didn’t feel as though I had much to say until the spring of 2010, when I wrote my first two posts within the space of three days. I wrote the first to recount my experiences being a community usher for the spring, 2010 graduation ceremony for the University of Michigan, at which President Obama delivered the keynote address (and received an honorary doctorate). I wrote the second to reflect on the passing of Ernie Harwell, the long-time voice of the Detroit Tigers and an early and enduring hero for me.
And then I didn’t write another post until the following spring, almost a full year after my first pair. In that third story, I explained that I had recently been diagnosed with advanced endometrial cancer, and that I was in the middle of a fight for my life. In the spring of 2011, I could never have imagined that a decade later I would be thriving, let alone be a member of the Daily Kos staff.
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