Wooooooooo-eee! This was a week, dearest Daily Kos Community. In the not-quite-two years I’ve been on staff here, this, by far, has been the most intense few days I’ve experienced on the job. It’s also intense, as an American, to see the continued corruption and ineptitude of the current president. It hurts.
That intense hurt informs this week’s conversation topic; that intense news certainly informed this week’s content, and thus this week’s picks. It was a hard week for choosing Community content. This collection of your great writing is more than a Saturday afternoon diary—it’s also a Saturday morning Daily Kos email. As such, the diaries—which are written between Friday-Thursday of the preceding week and chosen on Fridays—have to be what I call “shelf-stable.” Using this week’s constantly-changing news cycle, that means that, say, a splendidly-written demand for Speaker Pelosi to launch an impeachment inquiry, written last Saturday, had an extremely short shelf-life.
All of this is to say that the impeachment inquiry, and the Community’s remarkable efforts to cover, analyze, and discuss it, made it oh-so-hard to choose this week’s picks. It’s a problem we’re lucky to have, of course, and despite this embarrassment of riches, there’s a whopping 13 picks this week, covering just about anything but whistleblowers and impeachment. Arguably, this list is an informative baker’s dozen of palate cleansers—some that got attention, and some that fell through the cracks.
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Before I get to this week’s conversation, I want to kick off a new feature of this weekly diary: I haven’t got a clever name for it just yet, but after last week’s discussion, I heard one thing resoundly: Community writers want insight on how to make their diaries better. “Better” might be the right word, but all the same, there is no one single bit of advice that will completely serve that demand. That doesn’t mean I can’t offer a Tip of the Week (ugh, not a clever name, see?) to help our writers grow. This week’s tip comes after the jump.
See what I did there? That’s called a PAGE BREAK. With exceptions for the very shortest of diaries, EVERY DIARY SHOULD HAVE A PAGE BREAK. Why? The most simple answer? It improves the experience for site scrollers. You’ll notice that when you scroll the Front Page, no single diary takes up too much space. Even the longest diaries only have a few paragraphs shown before the option to “Read More” is proffered. This makes it much easier for you, dear reader, to scan the headlines. If a story doesn’t interest you, for whatever reason, you don’t have to move past it in its entirety to find the next diary—just a little teaser.
Contrast this against the Recent feed, for example, where lengthy diaries abound; those without page breaks must be consumed, some level, in their entirety, before the next headline is visible. The first step towards making your diary look better in the context of others is to start using the PAGE BREAK. The right place for it isn’t cut and dry, but aim for no later than after the fifth paragraph. I usually go for a cliffhanger, so my audience literally WANTS to “Read More” when they click those orange words.
Choosing where to interrupt your diary is more of a challenge than inserting the page break itself. Here’s how you do it, for those who may not know.
It’s that easy! Now, some of you use the Page Break deep within your diary, more as a chapter divider of sorts, to signal a significant change of topic. That’s a crucial writing tool, but not actually what a Page Break is for! I humbly suggest typing three asterisks, highlighting them, and toggling center-justification.
Here’s how you do that, again, for those who don’t know.
Those are this week’s tips! I’ll be sure to offer little tips like this in the coming weeks. Be sure to leave any questions you think might work as Tips of the Week in the comments. And please don’t hesitate to offer suggestions for a better name.
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With that out of the way, let’s get to this week’s discussion, so I can end my longest-ever Picks intro and get right to your content. I mentioned above that watching the downfall of this president unfold is actually painful. Anyone who’s ever known me at even the most surface level knows how much I love this country, and as glad as I am to see glimmers of promise that this orange menace may finally face something like consequences, it hurts to see just how willing he is to destroy the nation we all share. I giggled like a teenaged girl through the Clinton impeachment, because I was a teenaged girl, and the adults around me insisted that it was a ridiculous Republican endeavor and not a “real” concern—like Watergate.
As comparisons to Clinton and Nixon abound, and Trump continues to cause pain, here’s this week’s question:
For those who were alive in 1974, what was it like watching Watergate unfold in the media? What was it like when Richard Nixon resigned?
I welcome hearing how y’all remember it as individuals, but also how you recall the reactions of people around you.
And now, at last, here are this week’s picks!
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The most segregated city
By 6412093
An intricately woven journey through a Nebraska city’s past, blending history and first-person experiences.
What Trump losing in a landslide looks like
By Sulla
A fascinating journey through past elections in order to see what the future just might hold.
To understand Trump's impeachment, we need to focus on what should have happened
By StevenJoseph
The Mueller Report was a squandered opportunity—but have we learned anything from it that is useful now?
The enemy within--the dream redacted
By vjr7121
An evaluation of the current national crisis through the eyes of the Founding Fathers, warts and all.
Indonesia is on the verge of criminalizing sex outside of marriage
By TheCriticalMind
Less about Indonesia, and more about the global obsession with sexuality, this diary is a journey throughout the planet, history, and religion.
Is there hope left?
By Richard Fedder
This new series aims to highlight efforts to combat climate change that don’t get as much attention as they should. This first protest is amazing.
You can help fight voter ID laws, one ID at the time
By Samurai6
Inside a small little group determined to make sure Voter ID laws don't succeed in suppressing actual votes.
Human origins: Scientific racism in the nineteenth century
By Ojibwa
The bigotry that shaped historical pseudoscience is, in a word, appalling.
Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day: Steve King
By republicinsanity
Get to know the Iowa Republican who’s so blatantly racist, the GOP is on the verge of kicking him to the curb.
Linking arms: Farmers, consumers, and climate activists launch farmer coalition
By Katherine Paul
We will not succeed in this climate battle unless we unite.
Dementia and the mother of us all
By WarrenS
A heartbreaking extended analogy that parallels the loss of a parent with the destruction of a planet.
A pregnant target
By Tom Conway
A look at a crucial fight for worker protections, through the eyes of someone who deserved protection.
We must pay our debts to these splendid young people and their children
By Lib Dem FoP
An accessible and thoughtful exploration of the changes we must make to save the planet, alongside adoration for the young people demanding that we do so.
That’s it, folks! As always, let me know if I missed any great writing this week, and don’t hesitate to submit your favorite content through my Kosmail.
Remember, I’m looking forward to hearing about your experiences of Watergate, and if you have any questions for next week’s Tip!
Great work this week. Keep it up—we’ve only just begun this latest ride, and for our nation’s sake, we need to use our platform to keep the truth coming. We are so lucky you’re here to help us do that.