You may have noticed that next Thursday, May 26, marks the 20th anniversary of Daily Kos. When founder Markos “Kos” Moulitsas wrote that first seven-sentence post, as he noted in an April installment of this series, he had no idea what he'd started. If he had, he says he “would’ve given it more thought.” But, he added, “It is what it is, and it launched this amazing place.”
And Daily Kos is an amazing place. It may have started with seven sentences, but over the last two decades, we’ve come together to fight for progress, for inclusion, for equality, and for a government that serves as many of its constituents the best it can.
For every Community member, there’s a different story of how they found their way here. Personally, I was referred by someone I met through my previous company, and even now, in my fifth year, my gratitude for that nudge in the direction of Team Orange persists. But once I was here—originally hired in December 2017 to shore up the site’s social media presence and write news stories—I was soon intently focused on one aspect of Daily Kos, and my work here took a turn that I, like our dear Kos, never could have predicted.
Less than a year after my first paycheck, I was obsessed with the Daily Kos Community.
This is absolutely another This is My Best (TIMB) roundup. But first, this is also my journey into the Daily Kos Community.
If I’m honest, I didn’t start reading the comments on my stories until I’d been here a few weeks; it would take a few months before I even felt comfortable replying to them. But soon enough, I saw the value in early commenters, who would dig deeper into a story and find new information, or even correct typos. Then I started engaging in real conversations, and it wasn’t long before I found myself reading your stories when I wasn’t writing my own, and hopping into the comments of your stories … for better or worse.
The Powers That Be noticed, and months before my first anniversary—just after my first Netroots Nation (NOLA 2018, y’all!)—I was tasked with editing the Featured Writers team.
I also took it upon myself to make time to read all of your stories. All. Of. Them. Every week. For more than two years, my Saturday Picks of the Week roundups—which um, literally nobody asked for—gave me a chance to engage in direct dialogue with y’all, as well as the great writing you do every single day.
Back to the writing side: About a year after I started here, it was suddenly clear that I was among friends, thanks to the compassionate comments on my own TIMB submission, where I confessed my decades-long battle to quit smoking (still fighting!).
I get to engage with Community writing full-time now, as the Managing Editor of Community Content, a super-long title I’ve held since just before my second anniversary (November 2019). In this role, I get to do all of my favorite things: I edit the Community Contributors Team’s stories, I find and push Community content to the front page, and I quietly (okay, not-so-quietly) offer writing advice, opinionated comments, and encouragement. I got to host a writing workshop, and I even got to create a writing fellowship!
All of this is to say that I’m pretty into you, Daily Kos Community, and I always have been. Thank you for reading my stories back when I wrote full-time, and especially once it became a rarity. Thanks for engaging me on the issues I care about most (student debt relief, anyone?), and cultivating my interest in new subjects. Thank you for impressing me every day.
Many of you know that I left behind the Hollywood career I’d long dreamt of—first for the nonprofit sector, and then for activist media. As a producer of entertainment, I just didn’t feel like I was making the world better than I’d met it, and I realized I deeply needed to.
And now, dammit, my work means so much to me. Don’t get me wrong—Daily Kos is a great place to work—but these meaningful days are thanks to you, dearest Community.
Sigh. Is someone cutting onions around here? sniff sniff
Without further delay, here’s our penultimate, super-duper, second-to-last pile of amazing TIMB stories. Thank you to all of y’all who joined the fun since March, to everyone who’s revisiting the TIMB stories, to Publisher Faith Gardner for her support of all the stuff I try to do here, and to the tireless Christopher Reeves—without his help, this project would have fallen apart AT LEAST twice.
Here’s a reminder of how it works:
Some years ago, I’m told, there was a wonderful series called This Is My Best (TIMB), which encouraged Community members to share their own writing that they were most proud of, rather than the writing of others. One part self-promotion, one part self-confidence, all parts awesome, TIMB encourages writers to press pause on their role as their own worst critics and take some time to toot their own horns.
Previous installments featured my beloved Community Contributors Team, my cherished Daily Kos colleagues (part one and part two), and Kos himself. And that was before we tackled the Community (part one, part two, part three, part four).
Now, we’re almost to the end. So let’s dive in. I hope you find some great reads. This week’s collection includes stories published as far back as 2005 and as recently as 2021. I actually edited one, and one in particular celebrates the “emotional support” that this Community so often provides.
Off we go.
DSNOTTELLIOTT
Dec. 24, 1968: We remember the broadcast, but not the most profound moment (2018)
Even if it’s long and winding as it mixes personal stuff with events, I like what I wrote. It came from the heart, and included a lot of actual information about Project Apollo, and of course thoughts on that incredible set of circumstances and sheer luck that put Bill Anders in exactly the right place at exactly the right second (literally) in time to be the very first human being (the very first living creature in fact) from Earth to see our beautiful blue and white ball appear rising above the horizon like a sunrise.
LAUREL IN CA
Lessons from the Dementia DIner (2013)
This diary, about the daily act of eating dinner with my mother and her fellow patients in a dementia care setting, struck a chord with so many readers. Still a lot for us all to learn from these four simple words: Gratitude, Respect, Courage, and Now. And I still have tears in reading it and remembering my mother, almost 8 years after her death at just shy of 98.
RONALD ENGLAND
Butina and Erickson pleas will mean treason on the table for NRA and GOP (2018)
I posted this story awhile back, but I think it is still relevant to today’s events.
2THANKS
We love you, Mark Sumner (2020)
I was pleased that many agreed with my quick and heartfelt essay about gratitude to Mark Sumner for his diaries warning of the pandemic.
SISTWO
Doonesbury Helmet Watch (2007)
That was back when I thought Bush Jr. was probably the worst president we’d had during my lifetime, except maybe for Nixon. Little did we know that we hadn’t reached the bottom of the scummy barrel yet!
SUSAN GRIGSBY
Freeping the Hugo Awards (2015)
I think my favorite essay was one I wrote back in 2015 about the attempted vote manipulation of the Hugo Awards by the Sad/Rabid Puppies. (It didn’t hurt that Connie Willis recommended it on her blog while she explained why she declined to be a presenter at that years WorldCon.)
BESAME
Community Spotlight: How much has DK evolved from the hate mail-a-palooza days? (2021)
One of the main reasons I kept coming back to read was the fun Markos had with his detractors and his amusement/wit combined with knowledge (ditto Hunter). I greatly enjoyed writing a story about the hate mail-a-palooza last year because of all the time I spent rereading kos’ regular editions in an attempt to winnow out the best insults. I had a poll in that story asking readers to choose their favorite from a list of actual insult epithets from the hate-mail-a-palooza series, more than half (329) chose “socialist fuckstick.”
The next most popular was “MARXos MoulitSTALIN” (101). I like the criterion angry marmot used (comment above) in selecting his best story: “his was the one I enjoyed writing most.” These days, it’s difficult to maintain a lightness of spirit and I appreciate those writers who include an appropriate amount of lightness and wit while still communicating sometimes grim news.
JUST ANOTHER VET
One man's perspective on abortion (2005)
I didn’t publish a lot of stories on DK over the years like I did on other blogs, so I didn’t [have] a lot to choose from. That said, this particular one is special to me because it’s personal. Not the best thing I ever wrote, but writing it was emotional, real. Is it flawed? Yes. But it was written from the heart, and for that it will always be special to me.
HEYITSMIKE
Bob Dylan, a ‘Gatsby’ who won, turns 80 today (2021)
The notion of the American Dream, reflected in Fitzgerald and in rock and rollers like Bob.
MOMMYOF3
Would you listen to a Kentuckian? (2020)
I am a Kentuckian … and we are not a monolith. I wanted to draw attention to the fact that we have primaries here, and that there were better Dems to support (in the more and better Dems spirit of Daily Kos). Charles Booker was described as coming out of nowhere in this race, but Kentuckians knew him.
BDTLAW
The individual mandate, or how I learned to stop loving health care reform and want to kill it (2009)
This is my best because it got both the economics of the individual mandate right (totally unnecessary) and the politics right (total disaster).
BIGJACBIGJACBIGJAC
Daily Bigjac: The other Mark has died (2009)
This was posted about three years after my first wife, Pam died. I started posting here at Daily Kos in 2006, when Pam was getting very sick, mostly as a way of getting emotional support from folks here. So, when a neighbor and new friend died, I decided to come to Daily Kos to get some more emotional support here. I started by stating that the other Mark was a royal fucking pain in the ass. But then I mentioned that he loved me. He truly loved me. My first wife Pam truly loved me, and the other Mark loved me.
At the very end of the diary, I stated that anytime anyone tells me that they truly do not like me, at all, I simply remember that certain people have truly loved me. By the way, that diary was written shortly before I married my second wife, Tonia. Tonia just died, on the 10th of March this year. So, nowadays, I check in, every day, at the Itzl Alert Network, for my emotional support.
ASTERKITTY
The Best Most Wonderful Cat: A true story of love and grief in these times (2021)
I have written comparatively few diaries for all the years I have been here. I’m proud of a few … But this heartbreaking one I wrote last summer will be my self-nomination, due to all the comments where just about everyone else shared their related stories. I’m still a little heartbroken, but now I have a Neptune.
CATTE NAPPE
We aren’t all like that! (Texas Baptist church affirms gays) (2010)
While I probably put more research and work into a few other diaries (like one about Paul Wolfowitz and his girlfriend, Shaha Riza), nobody today probably much cares about either of them. A lot of effort also went into a history of the times Texas legislators left the state (or otherwise went into hiding) to take a stand against legislation. Nobody was much interested in it then, although it might have enjoyed an update and repeat run in 2021 when Texas Dems decamped to DC to break a quorum.
On the other hand, for good or ill, how religious institutions are responding to LGBTQ+ issues is still unfortunately pertinent.
***
That’s it—until our FINAL TIMB on our big anniversary itself, Thursday, May 26. I hope everyone had fun at the Cheers and Jeers 20th Anniversary Virtual Party on Friday (I sure did!). And be sure to vote for the Koscars! Have you checked out the updated Daily Kos store yet? I helped design the 20th Anniversary shirt, and I can’t wait to rock mine!
Thanks, as always, for being here. I came here looking for meaningful work, and I found it ... but the Community is definitely why I’ve stayed here so long.