Every day, a team of Daily Kos members reviews all stories published by the community. When awesome work doesn’t receive the attention it deserves, we rescue that story to the Community Spotlight group blog. Today, I am turning the spotlight on the collection of stories we rescued in the past week and telling you how to find them.
From newly joined members to a 14-year veteran member, these stories show off the talents and interests of the Daily Kos community. To keep these selections visible and continue with our mission to spotlight your excellent stories, a rotating team of Rangers will publish a roundup of rescued stories each Saturday at 1 PM ET and perhaps each Wednesday at 4 PM ET (let us know what you prefer in the poll below). This first edition covers the past week—Saturday, Sept. 12 through 7 PM Friday, Sept. 18. Anything we rescued after 7 PM last night will be found on the Community Spotlight blog, our group diary list, and included in the next edition.
Community Spotlight is a group that grew out of former Editor-in-Chief Susan Gardner’s solo effort way back in Daily Kos’ early blog era. She read everything and chose worthy stories by Community members that weren’t getting enough attention. When she asked for help, members volunteered, and two of them are still rescuing stories today. The current team of 16 Rescue Rangers works on a schedule that ensures each story published by the community is considered. Everything added to our blog is read by two Rangers. If you write and publish an original story, it will be reviewed for rescue.
I was startled and pleased when one of my stories first was rescued in October 2015. Startled because I hadn’t grasped the function and purpose of rescue and didn’t realize I might be eligible. Pleased because I’d put effort into crafting that story, plus most of the photos were my own. You can read “When picking forbidden fruit choose a laughing one,” although my images are now blank spaces due to the pre-2016 image purge; if I were to rewrite it now, I’d make changes that would, I hope, improve the story. Being rescued brought my story more readers and comment interaction that rewarded my work and was an encouragement to write more. It also brought me visibility, helped me grow a presence here and connect with readers who were interested in my work. This is why all 16 Rangers keep on reading and rescuing: to reward your work and encourage you to keep writing, to share your awareness and knowledge, and to boost your visibility.
I can’t tell you the secret code that ensures your story is rescued because there is no secret code, although there are subtleties. Our rescue selections must be worthy stories that are not garnering the attention and visibility the work deserves. We don’t rescue topics or people, we rescue the story, and it must meet the same criteria taught in high school.
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Original work. We check for plagiarism, although you may quote sources as long as you properly cite them. Quoted text must meet Fair Use standards, about three paragraphs of a much longer source story. Original also refers to the thesis, the ideas you write about, your point of view. Why did you write this?
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Facts used in the story need to be cited. Tell us your sources by adding hyperlinks, except for well-known common facts. For example, you don’t need to cite the legality of same-sex marriage in the U.S., but if you are going into the weeds of Obergefell v. Hodges, add links to sources that back up your points.
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Well-written text that carries out the thesis. The basic criteria of structure (story and paragraph) and grammar apply. Some stories may lack the backbone of a thesis (fiction, personal experience) but they should have a purpose. Why write about this particular event or idea? “Well-written” means more than following a recipe; it means you have a voice and an interesting way of expressing your thesis—that’s part of the subtleties.
Daily Kos members are amazing people who bring varied experiences and expertise to the Community. I am often astounded by the talent and knowledge you share. Through engaging with comments on stories I’ve written, my own awareness has expanded. This is the “community” part of Community Spotlight and also is important, so engage amicably with readers in the comment section.
Today’s roundup displays our diverse community. Recent rescues include pieces on a Broadway musical, COVID-19 vaccination logistics, a review of a new novel, an important event in Black history, and the status of coronavirus-related schools in Kentucky. Each week is different depending on what Community writers publish. Each shift, we look forward to reading stories we can rescue, but we are dependent on you. So please, write something that comes from your interests and share your expertise.
rescued stories from 7 PM friday Sept. 12, 2020 through 7 PM friday Sept. 18, 2020.
Gossip by Ojibwa, a 12-year member, is what the title says: an overview of gossip that begins with the social grooming of chimpanzees and expanding to humans and how gossip contributes to social cohesion and social control. Ojibwa writes: “Maintaining group harmony and reinforcing social alliances are essential to humans, but we don’t engage in a lot of physical grooming.”
A Horrifying Musical Moment , A Song About Today by the one who knows takes us to Broadway and the writer’s experience with Urinetown: The Musical. One song in the show was used to give the audience a taste of living in a police state, of being victims of police violence. “These are enforcers, claiming their psychic reward for enforcing. (It doesn’t hurt that the character names are Officers Lockstock and Barrel. There’s something wrong with the whole barrel!)”
2021 will be the year of COVID Vaccine Logistics by grapes explores the many components that must be in place in appropriate scale to provide vaccines to enough humans in a reasonable span of time. A daunting topic covered thoroughly enough to provide an overview of this immense endeavor.
Contemporary Fiction Views: Searching for knowledge and understanding in crowded halls alone by bookgirl is a spoiler-free review of the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. “Indeed, one of the lovely aspects of reading this novel is seeing how Piranesi is fascinated by and in awe of his world. As the story progresses, this is something that does not fade and does not disappoint.”
The 2 Killings of Sam Cooke by senorjoel is grounded in events covered in the Netflix remastered video with the same title. The “second killing” relates to a hidden part of Cooke’s life, an essential part of him that was covered up because he had hopes that weren’t generally marketable then and even now, 60 years later, are still a work in progress: “(H)e wanted African American artists to be able to bypass the white-owned record companies and to have ownership of their music.”
Kentucky: Back-to-School Means a Mishmash of Decisions by wesmorgan1 presents the different types of schooling decisions made in one state and how the Democratic governor’s ability to set policy for schools is hamstrung by the Republican attorney general. “COVID-19 is showing us the weaknesses of local control, specifically local control of public schools.”
Republicans Don’t Do Policy by GrafZeppelin127 is best summarized by a sentence from the story, but getting to that sentence is an interesting journey. “... Republicans are only genuinely interested in maximizing the profits of their Party’s owners and seeing to it that they are never held accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers and the environment, the Party has long since given up on legislating and [small-a] administration, which they don’t need to do in order to keep their donors happy.”
I was just push polled by the Pennsylvania GOP by CuriosityRover, a brand new member who joined and published a personal story about a phone poll. The framing of questions revealed the poll was designed to impart false information as propaganda rather than to solicit public opinion. “If you had to choose between two candidates, A and B, where A was a nice guy who means well but was an ineffective lifetime politician, leader of a corrupt family and in bed with a liberal agenda and B was not the nicest person but always had the best interests of the American people at heart and could project strength while keeping the economy strong, which would you pick?”
D’var Torah: Midrash for Rosh Hashanah by ramara relates a story for the High Holidays that parallels our present pandemic with religious services adapting to special public health standards. “In 1848 all of Europe was in the grip of a cholera pandemic. The Jews of Vilna were particularly hard hit with many deaths, much suffering, hunger, poverty, etc. On Yom Kippur a rabbi named Yisroel Lipkin in the synagogue in full view of the congregation intentionally ate bread and drank wine as a means of emphasizing that at a time of such dire conditions, traditional observances could and should be suspended.”
How Did This Happen? by Gerlew connects programs announced at CPAC by Steve Bannon in January 2017 with what Trump has done since taking office, and who are the beneficiaries. The writer speculates that these beneficiaries succeeded in achieving their goals “...by ‘Letting Trump be Trump’ – using his ability to dominate the airwaves with one sensation after another as a constant distraction while they steadily implemented their policies under the radar.”
donald resign already! 196,277 and counting… by kaliman, the first story by a member who joined two weeks ago, describes some of the many ways Trump has failed the U.S. There are not 196,277 reasons in this piece, but the list is daunting and serves as a condemnation.
Street Prophets Friday: Home Away From Home by Marko the Werelynx who joined Daily Kos 14 years ago; he gives an intriguing look at coronavirus isolation put to good use in the Czech Republic. The writer is part of a multi-generational project to restore a “200-ish year old, German style farmstead. It’s what Czechs call a chalupa.”
Documentary about presidential photographer among movies coming out today by Alonso Del Arte considers the difficulties a president might have watching a movie in a theatre. The movie theme exends with a round-up of new movies coming out, including a documentary of presidential photographers (yes, this means Pete Souza), and where they can be viewed.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT is dedicated to finding great writing by community members that isn’t getting the visibility it deserves.
- To add our rescued stories to your Stream, click on the word FOLLOW in the left panel at our main page or click on Reblogs and read them directly on the group page.
- You can also find a list of our rescued stories by clicking HERE.
An edition of our rescue roundup publishes every Saturday at 10 AM ET (7 AM PT) and perhaps Wednesday at 4P PM ET (1 PM PT).
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