Cicada Summer
I think I've posted this on DK before, ran into it recently as I realized to my regret that the Cicada Brood II tide had not reached my shores. I'm always grateful for the comments and support from DK...
View ArticleMeeting the swarm
I work with an afterschool eco-club, creating and maintaining a school courtyard, among other projects. We have vegetable gardens, a variety of representative native ecosystems, and several...
View ArticleUrban schools and Sustainable meals
Today I helped with a Sustainable Food presentation to 8th-grade classes in a DC Public School. This was part of an educational program where we created and planted raised-bed gardens with the...
View ArticleLast Most Beautiful - Flower-eating edition
For those new to this, the Last Most Beautiful is a very erratic diary series, wherein we share moments of beauty, in celebration and recognition of Beauty, and That Which Keeps Us Going, and Why We...
View ArticleTrekking Bhutan during the Dot-Boom - Part 1
Back in another life, during the Dot-Boom, I put a poster of Bhutan up on the window in front of my computer, at the start-up ISP I was working at. We had racks of modems attached to phone lines,...
View ArticleTrekking Bhutan - Part 2 - Day Hike to Phajoding Monastary
Part 1Dogs and dishes wake me at 6am. After breakfast, I watch the Thimphu street life start up. An old man seated in the middle of a field of sand slowly pulls off his pants and starts filling paper...
View ArticleOn conflict: Water is another option.
I'm generally pretty good about staying away from the DK conflicts, mostly because that's not why I come to DK. I come for information, and different perspectives, really interesting stories and...
View ArticleOn behalf of an anonymous organ donor
My dad donated a kidney anonymously, a year ago today. We celebrated with a nice dinner, a bottle of wine, and a bonfire. We didn't talk too much about the experience, but he did mention something that...
View ArticleWhy is an unsubstantiated diary alleging police brutality against teachers on...
There is a diary currently on the rec list that claims that police beat and arrested teachers at an ALEC protest in Chicago today. The comment thread is full of outrage, naturally.However, there is a...
View ArticleWasp Encounters - the last most beautiful hymenoptera experience
I spent part of yesterday engaged in locating a yellow-jacket nest, in an overgrown courtyard. I'd been weeding it with a group of middle-school students, and two of them had gotten stung. After they...
View ArticleWhat was your last most beautiful moment on DailyKos?
I've been thinking recently about what I appreciate and value about DK. This is pretty much the only place where I write and participate in an online community. And there's plenty that I find...
View ArticleThis isn't about sockpuppets. It's about civility and respect.
I feel that there's a simple solution to the recent pie fight about "sock puppets" (not the correct term, imho), which is for DK community members to practice civility and respect. That's definitely...
View ArticleBreaking - "CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup"
I couldn't come up with a better title. The Guardian is on fire. Here's the link: http://www.theguardian.com/... I used their title because I couldn't come up with anything better...I only ran into...
View ArticleAny military action in Syria will be limited
to air and missile strikes, possibly with training and resources being provided to rebels in Syria. That's certainly not a good thing, but it's not cataclysmic. There's also a strong possibility that...
View ArticleThere is no vast corporate propaganda conspiracy
Let me start off by saying that I'm a big fan of John Carpenter's "They Live" - it's a great commentary on corporate manipulation of the public, and there's a fantastic 3 minutes of 2 guys hitting each...
View ArticleThe Daily Kos Rec Community
This is basically a response to Ray Pensador's recent diary, The Daily Kos "Rec" Police which triggered lots of discussion. The diary addresses the perceived problem ofa very small group of users here...
View ArticleWhy I believe that the Assad regime used chemical weapons
Allow me to preface this diary by saying that I knew that the Bush administration's pretext for invading Iraq, the claimed existence of WMD's, was bullshit at the time. It didn't take much research to...
View ArticleHolding the line on the debt limit increase
I'll start by conceding that I don't have a fully clear understanding of the underlying machinations associated with the debt limit increase, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence against Obama...
View Article(Corrected) There may be a government shutdown on Monday.
Update - various commenters who are federal employees have informed me that the federal agencies are making preparations for a shutdown. This undermines my core thesis, but I figured I'd leave the...
View ArticleThe Wisdom of Youth - When did you lose faith in Republicans?
Turns out to my surprise that I'm getting old and grizzled, and while the current government shutdown threat is an interesting development, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Which is why I'm not...
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