Incendiary Advice

Even though we can't quite decide on a final name for its denizens, the 70,000 plus members of www.DailyKos.com are as tightknit as any group that size can be. We're also as diverse as any other organization numbering near 100,000. That said, most people who post at Kos share a love for America, the desire to see it change for the better, and committed passion to the political process.

I arrived there several months before the 2004 election. But Daily Kos isn't just about national elections. Or even local elections (though there's plenty to learn about these as well.)

It's about science, where individuals trained and working in various sciences share what they've learned about genetics, global warming, physics...

It's about economics - where people like Jerome and others help everyone better understand what's going wrong, how to fix it, and our chances of economic turnaround.

It's about law, where legal scholars get together and discuss the ramifications of judicial decisions.

It's also about ranting, commisserating, empowering, joyfully connecting and everything else any good online community is about.

Teachers, students, doctors, lawyers, Senators Kerry, Obama, Kennedy, Feingold, Boxer, Rep Slaughter, my hero John Conyers and everyday people like me from all over America and Europe joined forces at Kos. Our goals are as different as our names and locations, but at heart we all want the same thing: to create a better world for us, for our children and our children's children. To share comments with our leaders, to read their plans and words, brings an incredible sense of hope and synergy.

Kossacks helped John Aravosis (Americablog) break the "Jeff Gannon/James Guckert credentialess White House reporter and sex stud for hire" story. Today, they exposed Ben Domenench, new "Red America" Washington Post blogger, for the plagiarist he is. Hopefully he'll be fired by the Post. They don't need a Stephen Glass/Jayson Blair fake reporter scandal.

Also today, President Carter wrote his first blog. My jaw dropped seeing his name on the Kos site, and his words brought tears to several eyes.

DailyKos has made me smarter, prettier, and my hair, eyes and skin shinier.

Okay, really? Just smarter.

But it's also brought me a sense of shared purpose, community, and throughout one of the most desolate times in our country's history, a real hope from knowing there are still a lot of really good people out there trying to make a difference.