I didn’t expect this to happen to me!
I haven’t written a diary in a very long time, years actually. I’ve been OK with reading the outstanding diaries that our DK family is so prolific at generating, then commenting on them when I thought I had something useful to say; often when I didn’t really have anything useful to add, but just wanted to vent in some manner.
Many of the diaries keep me informed, others keep me laughing (pooties anyone?), some make me want to cry when individuals blog the pain they are enduring, and others make me angry about what is being done to them. Some diaries cause me to take action, at least the actions I can take at my age, and result in me reminiscing about the late 60s and early 70s when I was in the streets of the University of Oklahoma during the Vietnam War fighting what were apparently initial skirmishes against an oligarchy that has only grown stronger. The best diaries have some combination or all of these attributes. So I comment quite a bit, rec a lot, but never write diaries anymore.
Below the ornate, orange, mark of Zorro, I quit reminiscing about bygone lore and get to the point.
So you can imagine my surprise when I refreshed my DK page and saw the notification that an anonymous donor had purchased a lifetime membership for me. At first I thought it was a DK script misfiring, because there are certainly diarists with greater need and better DK contributions than mine; besides no coding is perfect. Then I checked my email and found a supporting notification of the donation. Sure enough, I also now have DK’s golden orb of the Sun God RA next to my screen name. I’m trying to write, to thank everyone, particularly my anonymous donor, but I’m nearly speechless.
This kindness from an anonymous donor was the first thing I saw after completing the DailyKos Action
“Stop Internet Censorship: Tell your member of Congress not to destroy the Internet with the dangerous "Stop Online Piracy Act,”submission form that was linked to by Joan McCarter in her diary “House Judiciary Committe to Pass SOPA This Week (http://www.dailykos.com/...). Being notified of this donation immediately after submitting my comments to my congressperson was an almost supernatural experience for this jaded non-believer scientist. The timing was phenomenal and my joy at the generosity beyond these meager words.
My representative here in Oakland Co., MI (I live in Pontiac) is Democratic Congressman Gary Peters; it was he to whom the Action letter was sent. I had a recent interaction with him, so I reminded him of that in a paragraph before the boilerplate of the letter. Michele and I went to the Pontiac Christmas parade Saturday before last and called out to him as he was walking by in the early part of the parade. He actually walked over to the curb and talked with us for a minute or so, then had to jog catch up to his parade position.
During our brief tete-a-tete, I told him to keep fighting for Democratic progressive principles and for those of us who aren’t wealthy. He responded that he was doing his best (paraphrasing; he sort of put his arms out to the side and shrugged), but that it is an unbelievable struggle to get anything accomplished that is worthwhile. His body language and expressions seemed very sincere, real. Perhaps I’m easily impressed, but he went out of his way to come speak with us instead of just waving and walking on. This caused me think kindly of this person who is on a razor’s edge, representing a district that is as red as it is blue, as wealthy as it is poor, where the 1% live in mansions along the better hidden lakes, while the rest of us hope to keep having a place to live that has firefighters, honest police, a good job, and dream of no emergency managers that can sell off our cities. Hopefully he remembered the meeting and will be able to put our faces with the content of the DKos letter submission, assuming he ever sees it (OK, that’s jaded me speaking again…of course he’ll see the comments…right?).
Again, thank you whomever you are for the lifetime subscription to the community that is my online home.