Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Sport and commercial salmon fishing to open on California ocean waters this year, subject to quotas

 

at 4/14/26 12:29am

San Francisco – California ocean waters will open to recreational and commercial salmon fishing this year, but are subject to a new quota season that halts fishing once the number of Chinook Salmon reaches a predetermined number to ensure that enough salmon return to the Sacramento, Klamath and coastal watersheds this coming fall. The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) at its April 7 to 12 meeting ending Sunday in Portland, Oregon, finalized the sport and commercial fishing seasons in the ocean off the West Coast. Recreational salmon fishing already opened on Saturday, April 11, from Pigeon Point south to the Mexican border, but the seasons in the rest of California were made official over the weekend. The few anglers in boats that went out Saturday reported tough fishing conditions in Monterey Bay on the ocean opening weekend, due to windy weather. The summer quota is 21,800. “I have heard of some anglers with 1-2 fish near Moss Landing,” said Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine in Santa Cruz on April 11. “However, the majority of the salmon were caught around Mulligan Hill. There were a few salmon caught at the tip of the Soquel Hole. “ “The water was not bad in the morning but it blew out by 10:00 am The south wind and the currents did not help the catch ratio,” Fraser noted. The weather was worse on Sunday, with the few boats going out reporting no salmon catches. Recreational fishing for salmon will begin north of Pigeon Point on June 27. This will include waters off Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, Bodega Bay, and up to Point Arena. The summer quota is 34,900 fish. The waters in the Fort Bragg region, including Shelter Cove and Fort Bragg, will open on June 13. The summer quota is 5,100 Chinook salmon. Waters in the Klamath Management Zone from the Oregon border south to the “40/10” line offshore of southern Humboldt County will open June 13. The summer quota is 3,900 fish. There are closures near the mouths of the Smith, Klamath and Eel Rivers. “To implement the new quota system, each ocean regulatory ‘cell’ will be assigned a number of catchable salmon,” the Golden State Salmon Association explained in a statement. “Salmon that are caught will be counted in as near to real time as possible. When the number of fish caught in a cell equals the quota for that cell, fishing will be shut down.” Commercial salmon fishing, for the first time in four years, will begin May 16. The summer season, which runs until August 27, will include five openings above Pigeon Point and ten below Pigeon Point. The openings last three to seven days. Commercial boats will be limited to 160 salmon per opening and an overall quota of 83,000 salmon. Additional commercial fishing will be allowed in the fall season, starting September 4, until a quota of 20,000 salmon is caught, the GSSA noted. “This year’s restrictions on the ocean fishery are aimed at protecting what is believed to be a low number of Chinook salmon born in coastal California rivers and streams between the Russian River in Sonoma County and Redwood Creek in Humboldt County,” GSSA stated. “These fish are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. Because of these protective measures, salmon fishermen in the Sacramento River and its tributaries could see an improved in-river fishery this year.” This year’s fishing comes after three years of a total fishery shutdown to commercial fishermen and the same to sport anglers, with the exception of six days of fishing allowed in 2025, GSSA said.     According to official estimates, the current adult salmon population in California is 392,349, an improvement over recent years, but still nowhere near historical numbers. “We’re cautiously optimistic about what this year’s improved salmon seasons will bring,” said GSSA executive director Vance Staplin. “Businesses up and down the coast and inland are desperate for the economic boost this season will bring, especially after so many recent bad years of no business caused by the shutdown of salmon fishing.” “Coastal communities that have grown to rely on the annual salmon fishery are excited at the prospect of hopefully becoming profitable again. When you calculate the economic multipliers, the salmon fishery can bring over a billion dollars, spread across not only California, but also in Oregon, where many Central Valley salmon migrate to rear in the ocean,” concluded Staplin. “We’re excited to have a fishing season, even though it will be greatly restricted this year,” echoed GSSA board chairman Mike Aughney. “At the same time, we’re also concerned about the juvenile salmon currently trying to get out of the Central Valley and to the sea. After the extremely warm March, we can use all the rain we can get as baby salmon transit from fresh to saltwater between now and June.” CDFW expresses optimism about salmon seasons In an announcement on Sunday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) confirmed this year’s more liberal but still restricted salmon seasons. “Significant improvements in key California salmon populations -- specifically Sacramento River fall-run Chinook and Klamath River fall-run Chinook  -- will allow for more ocean salmon fishing opportunities this year,” the agency wrote. “The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is pleased to announce that commercial ocean salmon fishing is back after being closed three straight years and that recreational ocean salmon anglers will have more opportunities in 2026.” “Seeing our salmon populations recover is incredibly heartening and demonstrates what’s possible when we all work together – state and federal partners, tribes, sport anglers and commercial fishing interests, NGOs and others – to do what’s best for salmon,” said CDFW Director Meghan Hertel. “Salmon are part of the cultural fabric of California, and I’m delighted more Californians will have the opportunity to enjoy these magnificent fish whether that’s in the water, on the end of their fishing lines or on their dinner plates.”   The PFMC will forward its recommendations to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which will implement them into federal regulations. A summary of the recreational season dates, locations and harvest guidelines will soon be available on CDFW’s Ocean Salmon Fishery Information web page. “The health of our salmon populations fluctuates with environmental conditions, and we’ve seen just how vulnerable these fish are to recent droughts, changing river conditions and a warming climate,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “This year’s return of ocean salmon fishing is an encouraging sign as we advance California’s long-term, science-based Salmon Strategy.”   In 2026, CDFW said it will implement in-season management in both commercial and recreational fisheries to “ensure catch of rebounding salmon stocks does not exceed seasonal harvest guidelines.” “This is the first year of vessel-based trip limits and seasonal harvest guidelines for California’s commercial salmon fishery following the first use of an in-season management framework during California’s limited recreational ocean season in 2025. In-season management allows fishery managers to close salmon seasons early should harvest guidelines be reached,” the agency stated. In-season monitoring to actively manage commercial and recreational ocean salmon fisheries to align with harvest guidelines is identified as a priority action item in the California Salmon Strategy for a Hotter, Drier Future. Sport anglers are advised to check for updated information when planning a salmon fishing trip. Season dates, harvest guidelines/catch limits, bag/possession, vessel limit information and gear restrictions can be found on CDFW’s Ocean Salmon Fishery Information web page as soon as it is available or by calling the CDFW Ocean Salmon Regulations Hotline at (707) 576-342 Public notification of any in-season change to conform state regulations to federal regulations is made through the NMFS ocean salmon hotline at (800) 662-9825. Newsom opines on salmon seasons - as he moves forward with the salmon-killing Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir and Voluntary Agreements Governor Gavin Newsom weighed on the salmon fishing seasons in a statement headlined, “Let’s go fishing! Salmon fishing is back in California after more than 3-year closure.” “Salmon aren’t just an important part of our ecosystem; they're part of who we are as Californians,” said Newsom. “They’re tied to our culture, our economy, and to generations of memories, including my own growing up, seeing these fish up close with my dad. That’s something every Californian should have the chance to experience.” He concluded: “We’re seeing progress because of the work we’re doing together. We’re doubling down on our strategies to protect this iconic species and ensure it thrives, not just for today, but for generations to come.” Unfortunately, any progress that has been made on the salmon restoration front is  overshadowed by Newsom’s relentless promotion of the Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir and the Big-Ag backed Voluntary Agreements, environmentally destructive fiascos that will lead to the extinction of Sacramento River winter, spring and fall-run Chinook salmon and Delta fish populations. And if Newsom really wants to see progress in the restoration of native salmon populations, why has the California Department of Fish and Wildlife refused to keep funding the Winnemem Wintu Tribe’s unique program, in cooperation with state and federal authorities, that has brought the endangered winter-run Chinook back to their ancestral habitat on the McCloud River above Shasta Dam for the first time in 80 years? “State officials say the one-time funds were tied to the state’s drought response and have now been used up,” according to Rachel Becker in CalMatters: calmatters.org/...  “The pilot was designed to take urgent action during severe drought conditions while testing key tools and approaches needed for potential long-term reintroduction,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Stephen Gonzalez told Becker in an email. In response, Gary Mulcahy, government affairs representative for the Tribe, told Becker: “It makes me feel betrayed. It makes the tribe feel betrayed. It’s like they just gave up.”  

[Author: Dan Bacher] [Category: BigAg, California, ChinookSalmon, KlamathRiver, Oregon, SacramentoRiver, fallChinooksalmon, PacificFisheryManagementCouncilPFMC, winterChinook, sitesreservoir, springChinook, CDFW, PFMC, Resnicks, GovernorGavinNewsom, DeltaTunnel, voluntaryagreements, WinnemenWintuTribe] [Link to media]

— Ancient America: A very brief overview of stone quarries

 

at 4/13/26 8:15am

It is not uncommon for a primate to pick up a stone and use it as a tool. What makes humans different from other primates, however, is that humans began shaping the stone to make specific tools such as choppers, knives, scrappers, axes, spear points, and so on. By the time modern humans began their migration into the Americas, they had been making and using a variety of stone tools for millions of years. With regard to the terminology that archaeologists use in describing stone tools, Julia Stein, in her book Exploring Coast Salish Prehistory: The Archaeology of San Juan Island, writes: “Archaeologists refer to any stone modified by people as a lithic. There are two ways to sharpen lithics. One is by grinding a rock into a sharp edge on an abrading stone, much as we grind a metal knife blade on a whetstone. These are called ground stone tools. The other method is hitting a rock with a hammer stone (or antler) to detach flakes and create a sharp edge. These are called chipped stone tools.” Stone tools are neither crude nor inefficient. A blade knapped from obsidian, for example, is sharper than a surgical scalpel and some surgeons use obsidian blades in doing surgery. However, stone blades tend to dull quickly. On the other hand, the sharpness of the blade can be quickly renewed. One important thing to understand about stone tools is that not all stone can be used in toolmaking. In flintknapping, Indian people needed stones that would break in a predictable fashion and would provide a sharp edge. Albert Goodyear, in his monograph A Hypothesis for the Use of Cryptochrystalline Raw Materials Among Paleo-Indian Groups of North America, reports: “It is a general geological fact in most places of North America and probably throughout the world that lithic raw materials of even minimal suitability for flaking do not occur evenly over the earth’s surface. In fact, some environments such as coastal plains and alluvial valleys have no lithic raw materials whatsoever.” This illustration of a stone point made from chert was on display in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, Washington. This illustration of a stone point made from agate was on display in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, Washington. Writing in 1897, archaeologist Thomas Wilson, in his book Arrowpoints, Spearheads, and Knives of Prehistoric Times, puts it this way: “As all arrowpoints, spearpoints, and knives, except a few of siate, were chipped or flaked into shape and used in that condition, the prehistoric man would naturally seek a material which had the requisites for such working.” In their book Across Atlantic Ice: The Origins of America’s Clovis Culture, archaeologists Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley report: “The stones best suited to flaking technology have fracturing characteristics that most closely resemble those of glass.” Such material includes obsidian, flint, chert, chalcedony, jasper, quartz, and quartzite. Thus, for thousands of years Native Americans operated quarries to obtain the stone needed for toolmaking. In her article “Tools from the Earth,” in American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook, Catherine Cameron writes: “Their quarries were most often simply gravel terraces or rocky streambeds, where they could easily collect pebbles or cobbles, test them for quality, and then fashion them into tools. But they also constructed complex mines with holes, pits, shafts, and tunnels; the debris included tons of broken rock and large stone hammers and hammerstones for rough shaping.” Trade networks distributed both stones and stone artifacts over long distances. Writing about the Northwest Coast in Stone, Bone, Antler and Shell: Artifacts of the Northwest Coast, Hilary Stewart reports: “Craftsmen might go far afield to obtain a particular type of stone or trade with another village or nation for the raw material or even the finished implement.” Obsidian, a natural glass produced by volcanic action, was a valued natural resource for many tribes. In some places it is found in massive flows but is difficult to extract. An active trade in obsidian was going on for several millennia prior to the European invasion. Archaeologist John Whittaker, in his book Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools, reports: “The Hopewell mounds in Ohio contained several hundred pounds of obsidian from the Yellowstone area, and obsidian from the various sources in California was carried across the Sierra Nevada mountains and spread far and wide across the region.” On the Northwest Coast, obsidian was fairly rare and therefore was a highly valued trade item. Stone quarries and the trading networks for distributing the stones remained important features of American Indian cultures and economic systems until the fur and hide trade made metal goods from Europe more plentiful. A few of the larger quarry areas in North America are described below. Obsidian Cliff, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming The area that is now encompassed by Yellowstone National Park is an area of ancient volcanic activity and was the source for obsidian which was widely traded. An important ancient obsidian quarry is Obsidian Cliff (48YE433). In their book Extracting Stone: The Archaeology of Quarry Landscapes, Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “The entire landform of Obsidian Cliff is a giant bedrock outcrop, and evidence of quarrying activity by Native societies is abundant.” Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “The obsidian itself is glossy jet black, sometimes streaked with brown, red or reddish-brown, even purplish-brown, mottled black and brown, and olive green.” While the obsidian is a much sought after stone for making tools with sharp blades and ceremonial objects, the Obsidian Cliffs quarries are difficult to reach. Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “The quarries are on a high, wooded promontory above the cliff that may be approached by climbing a very steep talus escarpment with a vertical rise of nearly 300 m (1000 ft).” Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt also write: “While quarrying the material from the ground was one challenge, carrying it up and down the steep hillside was even more labor intensive.” Obsidian from Yellowstone can be found in sites as far away as Cahokia in Illinois and Hopewell in Ohio. In an article in American Antiquity, Laura Scheiber and Judson Finley report: “Artifacts made of Yellowstone obsidian have been found up to 2,400 km [1,490 miles] east of the Rocky Mountains in mid-continental Hopewell sites. The social context of this exchange remains enigmatic but likely occurred via interactions between hunter-gatherers in the Central Rocky Mountains and northern High Plains and neighboring Plains farmers to the east.” The Obsidian Cliff quarries were used by American Indians for thousands of years. Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “The earliest documented occurrences of the use of Obsidian Cliff material are a 10,900-10,200 year old Folsom point discovered in the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Pinedale, Wyoming, and an Agate Basin point from the Obsidian Cliff dated to about 10,000 years ago.” Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Texas Alibates flint holds a sharp edge and was widely traded on the Great Plains. The raw material was traded to toolmakers up to 1,000 miles away. In a report in Archaeology, Marley Brown writes: “For some 13,000 years, Native people in the southern Great Plains obtained flint from an outcrop of dolomite chert that straddles the Texas Panhandle’s Canadian River.” Today the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument includes more than 730 large quarry pits. The pits range from 5-20 feet across and up to 2 feet deep. Marley Brown also reports: “Alibates flint is known for its distinctive strong coloring, and archaeologists have identified the site as the source of stone tools dating back to the Clovis culture, between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago.” In Ancient Ruins of the Southwest: An Archaeological Guide, David Noble writes: “Besides its fine flaking qualities and hardness, Alibates flint had another characteristic that made it a popular tool-making material: its rainbow colors.” Alibates flint was used by both Clovis and Folsom hunters. Schmitt Chert Mine, Montana Located near present-day Three Forks, Montana, the Schmitt Chert Mine (24BW559) was being used by Indians in obtaining stone for toolmaking by 3,000 years ago. In his book Six Hundred Generations: An Archaeological History of Montana, Carl Davis reports: “The quarry covers the top of a bare knoll overlooking the Missouri River and the Horseshoe Hills.” With regard to the process of mining, Carl Davis reports: “Digging with split rib, bone splinter, and antler-tine prying tools, wedges, and picks (such tools are found throughout the rock and soil fill in the Schmitt Chert Mine), these miners found quality chert nodules in manganese-stained limestone fissures and cavities.” With regard to the Indian people who mined chert at the Schmitt Chert Mine, the projectile point styles suggest that the Pelican Lake people—an archaeological designation, not a tribal name—appear to have controlled the mine. Carl Davis writes: “These people moved between winter camps in sheltered river valleys and summer camps on the hot, windy plains. They were skilled bison hunters. Pelican Lake bands maintained widespread travel networks and trade contracts, as indicated by the presence of distant raw materials, including Knife River Flint from North Dakota, porcellanite or baked shale from southeastern Montana, obsidian from the Yellowstone Plateau, and Pacific coast Olivella seashells.” Near the quarry was a campsite where people worked the stone into tools. They were also hunting bison, antelope, elk, deer, jackrabbit, skunk, beaver, and turtle. Knife River, North Dakota In their book Extracting Stone: The Archaeology of Quarry Landscapes, Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “Knife River Flint is a distinctive translucent brown chert found in the form of cobbles or modules in gravels.”  To access the flint modules, American Indians would dig into the river gravels. The flint quarries in the Knife River area were being used as early as 11,000 years ago. In an article in North Dakota History, Stanley Ahler reports: “The flint was widely traded, especially during the Paleo-Indian period (9,500-5500 B.C.) and during the Late Plains Archaic period (1200 B.C.-A.D. 1).” Stanley Ahler also reports: “Craftspersons fabricated blades, flake blanks, and preforms at locations such as this. Some of these items were traded to locations as far distant as Ohio and New York state.” Grand Meadow Chert Quarry, Southeastern Minnesota This quarry site covered 170 acres and contained an estimated 2,000 quarry pits. The quarry pits, located in a rolling prairie, yielded fine grained gray chert. Flint Ridge, Ohio This quarry site, located in Licking County, has a flint bed some 10 to 20 feet beneath the surface. Indian miners would dig pits to get at the flint. Thomas Wilson reports: “This is probably the most extensive and best known of all prehistoric flint quarries in the United States.” Michael Durham, in his book Guide to Ancient Native American Sites, writes: “The translucent flint of various colors is of a quality unmatched in the east. In prehistoric times it was a valuable trade item and samples have been found as far away as Louisiana, the Atlantic Coast, and Kansas City.” The Flint Ridge Quarry was being used by the Adena people by 1100 BCE. Big Obsidian Flow, Oregon Located in the present-day Newberry Volcanic National Monument, the Big Obsidian Flow was an important source of obsidian, a volcanic glass from which very sharp tools could be made. Large chunks of obsidian could be easily broken off from this ancient volcanic flow. Trade routes carried the obsidian from this site into the Northwest Coast and into California. Wyoming In central-eastern Wyoming there were numerous small quarries. One of the larger ones was located about 50 miles east of present-day Badger and was worked to a depth of about 20 feet. Indians working at this quarry did some tunneling. Glass Mountain, California Located in northern California, Glass Mountain supplied obsidian to many different tribes. In Ancient Tribes of the Klamath Country Carrol Howe reports: “Evidence indicates that the arrow makers and traders sat around the base of the cliff to chip large flakes or spalls from the glassy stone. These they shaped into large, crude blades called ‘blanks.’” The blanks were easier to transport and could be then fashioned into the stylized points of the different tribes.  Coso Volcanic Field, California Located in eastern California, the Coso Volcanic Field was a major site for stone, particularly obsidian, for tool making. In Prehistoric Use of the Coso Volcanic Field Amy Gilreath and William Hildebrandt report: “The sheer quantity of chipping debris and discarded items found at the major obsidian quarries in eastern California has led many to conclude that production far exceeded the needs of resident populations.” Tools made from Coso obsidian are found throughout the southern half of California, from Monterey Bay in the north, to the Colorado River in the east, to the Pacific Ocean in the west. Windy Ridge, Colorado Indian people quarried quartzite from Windy Ridge near the Continental Divide. In an article in World Archaeology, Douglas Bamforth reports: “It is clear that aboriginal miners removed great quantities of stone from the ground, although the huge volume of material left on the surface suggests that they were rather selective in transporting stone from the site.” Flint Mine Hill, New York The largest, and oldest, chert quarry site in New York is the Flint Mine Hill Archaeological District (A039-05-0003). Located on top of a large hill near present-day Coxsackie, New York, this quarry has about 200 quarry pits and 3 main depressions. One of these depressions is 150 feet long and 40 feet wide. Close to the quarry are sites where ancient American Indians camped and fashioned the chert into tools. Anne Dowd and Mary Beth Trubitt write: “The hunter-fisher-gatherers who lived in the region created standardize bifaces for special purposes, likely for rituals surrounding communal cremation burials. Emerging craft specialists worked at least part time and seasonally to refine their techniques during parts of the year when larger extended kinship communities formed.” In the period just prior to the European invasion of North America, this site was controlled by the Mohican Indians. Trouble Creek, Florida Indian people in Florida quarried blue flint from the Trouble Creek area which they used in making arrow points and spear points. Wyandotte Cave, Indiana Wyandotte Cave served as both a flint mine and  tool-making workshop,   Hatch Quarry, Pennsylvania By 3350 BCE, Indian people were using the Hatch Quarry (36CE238) as a source for jasper which was used for making stone tools. The quarry was a prospect site as the material is on the surface and the people did not have to dig pits to obtain it. Benchmark Site, Georgia By 1800 BCE, Indian people were quarrying steatite from the Benchmark site on Soapstone Ridge near present-day Atlanta. The soft stone was carved into a variety of tools and implements, including bowls, which were traded as far as the Poverty Point site in Louisiana. In a report in American Archaeology, Alan Gruber writes: “Archaeologists believe that the bowls were mostly complete when they were transported, but that the decorative incising work on the bowls was finished once they arrived at their final destination.”

[Author: Ojibwa] [Category: AmericanIndians, Archaeology, NativeAmericanNetroots, AncientAmerica] [Link to media]

— Preparing for Site Migration: Notifications

 

at 4/10/26 11:40pm

The new Daily Kos will have two systems of notifications that are not integrated right now. Hopefully over time we can unify them, but in the meantime, it’s good to know what you can find, where. Viafoura is our commenting system.  The most prominent system of notifications is the Viafoura bell, the Viafoura bell which should show up in the top right of your screen on desktop and mobile if you are logged in. If you don’t see the bell when you’re logged in, you are probably running into an issue with your ad blocker blocking Viafoura altogether. Contact help@dailykos.com for support. The Viafoura bell has 3 tabs within it. The first tab is the Feed. It contains notifications about people who have “liked” your comments, people replying to your comments, new content in topics you have followed, new content from users you have followed, and notifications that someone has followed your comments. Examples: A reply to a comment Someone followed my comments — with a button to follow them back Someone liked my comment There was new content posted by a topic I follow My sockpuppet, which follows me, got a notification that I posted a diary The garbage can on the far right of the notification will delete it.  The second tab is the “Profile” tab, which contains all the comments YOU post.    Clicking on the Settings button in the Profile tab is where you can change your avatar for comments, and turn on/off email notifications.   The Community tab is where you can see the authors and topics you follow, who follows you, and who you have muted:   The envelope notification when you are signed in will take you to any new DMs/Kosmail messages, which shows up on your WordPress profile page, not in your Viafoura tray.   clicking here takes you to your Kosmail inbox All of your notifications about group activity for groups you administer (requests to join, new members, changes to group roles), and private messages, are in the Notifications tab on your WordPress profile.   There are no notifications about stories posted to groups that you are a member of, or notifications for messages posted to your group’s Activity Wall.

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, Announcements] [Link to media]

— Preparing for Site Migration: Managing Group Members As A Group Administrator

 

at 4/10/26 11:28pm

You, as a group administrator, will need to manage your group on the new WordPress site. As minos previously noted, not all group functionality will carry over in exactly the same form. We hope that we have workarounds for most scenarios, but there may be cases where we need to do some custom work. If you notice something that you can’t do (or of course anything missing or broken), let us know. Everything about your group (name, image, members) should migrate from DK5 to WordPress.   Group admins can change the permissions of users (promote them to admins or editors). Admins can also ban a user or remove them from a group (banning means they can’t be added again). In order to modify a user’s role, if you are an administrator of the group, go to Manage → Members from the Group page.   from there, click on “Edit”. The Member role will then show a downward facing triangle and the text “Edit” will change to “stop editing”.    from there, you can choose the role you would like that member to have.    Users will get an email to their registered Daily Kos email when their role in the group changes. Users who would like to join your group can request membership from the list of groups on the Groups page, or on the page for the group itself.   Once they have requested membership, it’s indicated when they visit that group’s page, or the list of all groups, that they have made the request.   You, as the administrator, should see that they have made the request on the group’s page under Manage → Requests   And also on the Notifications on your profile   Once you have accepted the membership request, you should see confirmation.  

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, Announcements] [Link to media]

— Preparing for site migration: the basics of writing a story on the new site

 

at 4/10/26 11:09pm

The transition to DK6 is nearly upon us! Maybe you have been over to the beta site to check it out already, but if you have not, why not go there now? My purpose here is just to give you a very basic overview of the new editor so that you can find your way around in this strange new land of DK6 we are journeying to together. With screenshots! You click on the “Write Story” button on the navbar at the top of the front page. The lights dim. The curtains go up. The editor opens.   Figure 1. The title, or headline, as you prefer Let’s add a title. You could probably have figured this one out by yourself. And then, right below the title, you can click on “Add content”  and add some text. Just start typing! Hit “enter” and you’ll get another line that says “Add content” where you can add the next paragraph. After you’ve done a couple of these, your page might look like this:   Figure 2. My great and amazing story If you look at the right side of the page after you add a paragraph, on the line where it says “Add content,” all the way on the right, you might see a mysterious plus sign just lurking there. This is called, in fancy computer terminology, “the inserter.” You can probably guess what it does. Figure 3. Who is this shady character (heh), hanging around the right margins of the content area? If you click on the inserter, you’ll see a menu of different types of content that you can, well, insert. But you’ll only see six kinds of things to insert, kind of all shortcut-like. But let’s say we don’t want to mess around with the shortcut inserter. Instead, we want to see all the things we could insert. Let’s instead click on the XXL inserter. That’s at the top left of the page. (Technically, I think both plus signs are just called “the inserter”).   Figure 4. Why were we even bothering with that little guy on the right. Let’s go straight to the source. Click the big plus sign up top. After we click on the big daddy inserter (not its real name), a sidebar will open on the left side of the page. The sidebar has a long list of all the different kinds of content. Figure 5. The left sidebar open with the inserter. So many things we could insert! But let’s just focus on a couple that I know you are going to need.  But OMG WE HAVEN’T EVEN SAVED YET, WHAT ARE WE THINKING LET’S DO THAT NOW (The “save draft” button is in the top right of the page.) Figure 6. The save button is kind of mellow and understated, but it gets the job done Whew, now that we remembered to save our progress, let’s get back to inserting some different kinds of content. With the left inserter bar open (see figure 5), click on the “heading” icon under the “text” subheading. That will insert a heading or subhead into your story, which is great if you are writing a longer story and need some sign posts for the reader. Figure 7. Adding a heading (and a literal signpost?) You may be saying to yourself, I wanted a heading, but not like the opening credits to Star Wars. Can you tone it down there buddy? Could we make the heading maybe a little smaller? If you click into where the “Burma Shave” heading is, so your cursor is blinking in that row, and then look up at the top of the page, you’ll see a control that says H2 (or H3, or H4, etc). Click on that and you’ll see a menu with all the different H’s you can get.   Figure 8. All of the available H’s Did you manage to tone down that H2 into something manageable? The heating bill on even an H3 is outrageous these days. I’d go for something more affordable, like an H4 or an H5, myself.  I’m not going to go over all of those controls at the top of the page, but they all work kind of the same— you highlight or select some text, and then you can modify it with those buttons. If you go back to a paragraph, click into that, and highlight some text, you can use those button at the top of the page for text alignment, bolding, italics, and adding a link. There’s a little pulldown at the end too with some extra, more esoteric options.   Figure 9. Controls for text alignment, bold, italics, and adding a link are at the top of the page. That last control is a pull down with lots of other stuff like highlighting, superscript, and subscript. Sounds kind of nerdy if you ask me. You should try to play around with some of the other text content types in the inserter and see what you think. But let’s skip down for a minute and look at images. Click on the “image” content type in the inserter and you should see something that looks like this:   Figure 10. Clicking on images in the inserter sidebar gives you this cute little popup where your image is going to go. After you get that image popup, you have three choices, but I suggest that, for now, you always choose the second option, “Media Library,” which is the most similar to the flow for inserting an image in DK5. Let’s click that now, opening the media library.   Figure 11. Click on the tab that says “Upload Files” in the top left of the media library Next, let’s click on the tab in the top left that says “Upload Files” so we can (unsurprisingly) upload some files. After clicking there, you’ll see what is likely a familiar interface where you can either drag & drop an image or you can click on the big button in the middle that says “Select Files.” After you get an image uploaded, you should see something like this:   Figure 12. We uploaded a picture of one of my mom’s cats, Bridget. Bridget is a sullen teenager in a cat’s body. To the right of Bridget is Tilly, one of our two dogs. The picture we uploaded is on the very left with a checkmark, and it has a heavy border to show that it’s selected. Before we do anything else, we should edit some of the metadata for the image, which is over on the right side of the media library. Figure 13. The right panel holds the image metadata. The media library holds so many pooties and woozles! I suggest you add at least an alt text and a caption right away. You can change a caption if an image has one, but it’s hard to add one once it’s been inserted, so I advise you to always add a caption just in case. After you fill in those highlighted fields, click the select button to insert the image into the story. Figure 14. A giant cat. As you can see, Bridget wound up sized like a leopard or maybe even a tiger. I sense a theme here— the DK6 editor wants us to dream big, to go big. But this is too big! We can get Bridget back to house cat size by dragging those little handles (or anywhere on the edges of the image) to resize her. Once we get Bridget at a size we like, we’ll want to align the image. This can be done using the toolbar at the top of the page, just like we did when we were aligning text before. For the time being, I suggest center aligning all of your images. Figure 15. Image alignment button is highlighted at the top of the page. I won’t talk about embeds much but I will briefly mention them— there are a whole bunch of them listed in the left insert sidebar if you scroll down a bit. You can still paste URLs (for example, a YouTube url) to add an embed just like you can in DK5, but you can also use the insert tools in the sidebar. Try clicking on the YouTube embed icon and embedding a video if you’d like to practice.   Figure 16. All the many embed types, with a Canadian folksinger for scale. Embeds can be aligned, and like the images, I suggest using center alignment for now. Next let’s make sure the right sidebar is open. If the right sidebar is collapsed, you can click on the little icon that looks like a page with a sidebar to show it. If sidebar is showing, make sure that the “Community Post” tab is active, not the one that says “Element” (click on the “Community Post” tab if it is not active to make it active). Figure 17. The right sidebar toggle (next to publish button) and the “Community Post” tab just below. Once the sidebar is open and on the “Community Post” tab, we can add a featured image. If you click on “Set featured image” in the right sidebar, you can set the featured image in a way very similar to how we added an image before earlier in this tutorial. One big difference though— you won’t see the whole image displayed in the editor though, just a thumbnail. There’s also a spot below the featured image thumbnail to add a caption for it. It’s hard to get an idea just from that lil’ thumbnail how the story will look, so that’s where the preview button comes in. It’s that little computer looking icon just to the right of the “Save draft” button. Click on that and choose “Preview in new tab.”   Figure 18. The preview button, let’s see how it looks Figure 19. I don’t care how good a photographer you are, it’s hard to give a sense of how big redwoods are. Now we can just go back to the other tab and hit publish if we like what we see! Let me know in the comments what your experiences are with the new editor— if you got stuck somewhere, or if you found something I didn’t mention you think everyone should know. See you around at DK6!

[Author: iterology] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— Preparing for Site Migration: Publishing a Story to a Group

 

at 4/10/26 10:56pm

One of the most important functions that Groups at Daily Kos serve is to highlight content for their members.  If I, as a moderator or administrator of a group, want to publish a diary to a group, either immediately or in the future:  I go to the blue Write Story button on the top right of my screen, which opens the post editor. I type my draft as normal.  If I want to publish it to a group, I scroll down to the Publish Group area on the lower right part of the sidebar in the story editor and select the group I would like to publish to:    If I would like to publish it immediately, on the middle of the sidebar, I would leave it as “Immediately”.   or, I can click on where it says “Immediately”, which opens up the calendar scheduler: and choose the date and time in the future when I would like the story to publish to the group. Note that this time is currently rendered in Pacific Daylight Time regardless of where in the world the user is. This is something we are ticketing to change. Now, if I go to my profile, I can see that the story is scheduled for the future, and I can edit it from here if needed:   Stories that are scheduled to publish but have not yet published do not show up in the Group screen anywhere, however, so you will need to tell other moderators/admins that you have scheduled something for publication.   If I have changed my mind about publishing it, I can click on “edit this story”, which opens the story up in the story editor, and then click on the date/time the story is scheduled to publish. This opens up the scheduler:  If I click on “Draft”, that reverts the story to a draft state and it will not publish in the future. Once the story has published — either if you have scheduled it, or clicked “Publish” -- it will be visible on the Groups page.​​​​​​​ It is important to note that once a story has been published to a group, it cannot currently be removed from that group (this is ticketed work), and the group it was published to can’t be changed. The only way it can be removed is by deleting the story altogether. In order to publish an existing story to a group, at the bottom of a published story there is a “Publish To Group” button:   which will then cause the story to show up in the “Stories Collected by X Group” stream. There is no other notification (on your profile or in the bell) when a story is published to a group you’ve joined, however.  Then, as now, when you go back to the story you should see that a group republished it:

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, Announcements] [Link to media]

— Preparing for Site Migration: Accepting Group Invitations

 

at 4/10/26 9:08pm

You have just created your first group on the new Daily Kos. If you look at your group, under the Invite tab, you can see that someone has a Pending Invite. What should they do?   They should have received the invite in three places:  1) in the email they used to sign up with on Daily Kos    2) in the Invitations tab under Groups on their profile on the site   and 3) under the Notifications tab on their profile. They do NOT receive a DM/Kosmail with group invitations.  They should click “Accept” if they would like to join the group, or “reject” if not. If they accept the invitation, the invite disappears, and the group then shows up in their Memberships.  

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, Announcements] [Link to media]

— Preparing for site migration: the basics of commenting on the new site

 

at 4/10/26 9:03pm

Hello again, friends! The beta site is open to all, and we’ll continue to post thematic stories and updates here with information you need to know to ready yourselves for as seamless a move as possible to the new site on April 15, 2026. All of these stories will be collected in the Daily Kos Announcements Group. And you can help by spreading the word: mentioning these stories to friends among our community of site users, linking to these stories in your community Groups as a heads-up, republishing these stories to your active Groups for visibility among your membership, and encouraging community members to participate in the beta testing. Thus far we have discussed the need to know your login credentials (all users will have to log in at the new site when we launch), the need for you to act now to preserve what can not be migrated, changes to community moderation, (Tip Jars, Mojo, Trusted User Status, reporting), and changes to community Groups features and functionality. iterology has also provided an important timeline of the migration process and updated the site banner on the Front Page to alert users that the site will be down starting on April 14. Today we’re providing a look at the basic aspects of commenting on the new site, both to assist users experimenting on the beta site and to give non-beta testers a sense of what commenting will look like and how it will work on the new site starting next Wednesday, April 15. THIS STORY COVERS JUST THE BASICS OF COMMENTING AT THE BETA SITE AND AT THE NEW SITE: HOW TO COMMENT; HOW TO ADD AN IMAGE TO A COMMENT; HOW TO EDIT A COMMENT; SHARING OPTIONS FOR COMMENTS; HOW TO REPLY TO A COMMENT The comment section is located below the story, and the Comment Editor in which you compose a comment is located at the top of the comment section. If you are logged into your Daily Kos account, you will see the prompt "Join the conversation, [your username]". [Note: if you are not logged in, you will see the prompt "Join the conversation" and after entering text and clicking POST you will be prompted to log in] (direct link to full-sized version of image below) Clicking in the Comment Editor box will activate the Comment Editor, which will expand to show the Add Image icon (lower left) and an active CANCEL button (lower right). (direct link to full-sized version of image below) ADD COMMENT (with text only) Compose your text (no text formatting is available) and click the POST button. Your comment will appear at the top of the comment section if the section is sorted by Newest (a user-defined preference, with Newest being the default). (direct link to full-sized version of image below) ADD COMMENT (with image) Compose your text if you wish, then click the Add Image icon (lower left). That will open the Finder on your local device. Navigate in the Finder to the image file stored on your local device, and click the Open button to add it into the Comment Editor. You are required to enter Alt Text in the clickable field below the image (shown below). There is a limit of one image per comment, and that image will be located at the bottom of the comment. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) Once Alt Text is entered, click the now activated POST button and your comment will appear at the top of the comment section if the section is sorted by Newest (a user-defined preference, with Newest being the default). (direct link to full-sized version of image below) EDIT COMMENT Commenters have a five-minute period from publishing a comment in which to edit the comment for typos or errors. Clicking the three-dot menu icon at the far upper right of a published comment will display the edit button, with countdown clock. The three-dot menu icon is not displayed if the comment is more than five minutes old. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) Clicking the edit button will allow you to edit and POST the comment, which will then be displayed with the EDITED notation at the end of the comment. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) SHARE COMMENT The SHARE button is located at the far lower right of a published comment. Clicking the SHARE button opens a menu to select sharing to Facebook, to X, to email, or by copying the comment URL. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) REPLY TO A COMMENT To reply to an existing comment, click the REPLY button at the lower left of the comment to open a Comment Editor window with an "Add your reply" prompt. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) Proceed as above, composing your comment with text and/or image, and clicking the POST button to publish your reply. (direct link to full-sized version of image below) The thin gray line on the left indicates a reply thread. Clicking the orange "Reply to [username] - view message" hyperlink will open a pop-up highlighting the replied comment and the reply within the thread. A version of this information is also available at the Knowledge Base. Next up: your notification bell and tray, where you’ll find replies to your comments and other goodies. P.S.: for those of you may yet participate in beta testing between now and next Monday, April 13, please note that use of the beta site involves creating a new account for use ONLY at the beta site, and that account (and associated content and Groups) will exist ONLY for the duration of the beta testing. The username, email address of record, and password for an account on the beta site are independent from your existing account here, and beta accounts will not be migrated to the new version of the site.

[Author: minos] [Category: Community, DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— Preparing for site migration: community guidelines (Rules of the Road) and moderation update

 

at 4/10/26 8:51pm

Hello again, friends! Beta Week is coming to a close, and we thank sincerely all of you who have been playing in the beta sandbox. Your feedback regarding the experience of the beta site is important to us. Over the next few days we’ll continue to post thematic stories here with information you need to know to ready yourselves for as seamless a move as possible to the new site on April 15, 2026. All of these stories will be collected in the Daily Kos Announcements Group. And you can help by spreading the word: mentioning these stories to friends among our community of site users, linking to these stories in your community Groups as a heads-up, republishing these stories to your active Groups for visibility among your membership, and encouraging community members to participate in the beta testing. Thus far we have discussed the need to know your login credentials (all users will have to log in at the new site when we launch), the need for you to act now to preserve what can not be migrated, changes to community moderation, (Tip Jars, Mojo, Trusted User Status, reporting), and changes to community Groups features and functionality. iterology has also provided an important timeline of the migration process and updated the site banner on the Front Page to alert users that the site will be down starting on April 14. We have also published basic guides covering how commenting will work and how to write a story on the new site. Additional preparatory basic guides will appear over the next few days, prior to the site going dark on the morning of Tuesday April 14. Today we’re providing an update to the first story regarding changes to community moderation, and providing the revised community guidelines (Rules of the Road). UPDATE  We previously noted that the categories for reporting a comment for administrative review included a category (“I Disagree with This User”) that we didn’t want as an option and that you didn’t want as an option. Entertainment value as a honeypot? Absolutely. But any real value given that mere disagreement has never previously been and will never be a legitimate reason to flag or report a comment? Nope, none at all. Turns out we had a moment of Delphic oracular ambiguity similar to The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) Clouseau: Does your dog bite? Clerk: No. Clouseau: [bowing down to pet the dog] Nice doggie. [Dog barks and bites Clouseau in the hand] Clouseau: I thought you said your dog did not bite! Clerk: That is not my dog. Once we asked the right question in the right way, it became possible—to our collective relief, I’m sure—to eliminate the “I Disagree with This User” category. Now we won’t have to filter those reports into the circular file. Here then are the eight reporting categories for comments. The eight, not nine, reporting categories for comments Revised Community Guidelines (Rules of the Road) The revised community guidelines (Rules of the Road) are now published at the beta site (linked in the site footer), and will appear in that form and be operative at the new site on April 15, 2026. In outline: The guidelines (the former DOs and DON’Ts) have been significantly reduced and simplified. A “Note to authors of posts” (stories, diaries) has been added for clarity, combing information from several previous DOs and DON’Ts. A “Note on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)” has been introduced. The previous sections on community moderation via Flags has been replaced with information on community moderation via Reports and the Mute button. A new section on the purpose of administrative moderation concludes the revised guidelines.  For ease, we are duplicating the revised community guidelines here as well: Founded in 2002, Daily Kos is independent, reader-funded progressive media rooted in a partisan community. We focus on building power through the Democratic Party by explaining American politics clearly and honestly, sparking effective, collective action. This is a site and community for progressives. That premise underlies all expectations about posting, commenting, and interacting at Daily Kos. As progressives, we believe that the best way to build our coalition is through the Democratic Party—and we are committed to making it stronger, more effective, more just, and more forward-thinking. We are here to connect, find community, share and refine ideas, discuss and debate strategy, and work toward a common goal of electing more and better Democrats. That commitment does not preclude constructive criticism of Democrats; insisting on accountability is a core democratic principle. Advocacy and criticism alike must aim to strengthen the Democratic coalition, not weaken it. Given our mission, then, these are our only ideological prohibitions: Do not advocate for voting against Democrats or not voting at all Do not deploy misleading, deceptive, or malicious attacks against Democrats Do not promote the right-wing agenda But of course, participating in our community requires more than ideological alignment. Social media being what it is, we must have and enforce norms for participation here, which comprise our Rules of the Road. These are not the Terms and Conditions required to create a user account. The expectations outlined here are enforced by our system of community moderation (replies, ratings, reports) backstopped by administrative moderation (warnings, suspensions, bans). A more detailed description of this system appears at the bottom of this page. We expect you to be a good citizen of our community. That means treating other community members with respect, valuing our community’s diversity, committing to factual accuracy, and being generous in both encouragement and disagreement. Participation is expected to be in good faith and with an intent to contribute constructively to discussion. Debate is central to the site’s identity, yet bear in mind our dictum “fight hard, but fight fair.” Learn from those with whom you disagree, argue issues rather than impugn character, and accept that reasonable people may in the end still disagree, and that’s okay! Taking all this together, site participation comes down to this simple edict: Strengthen the Democratic coalition, and don’t be an asshole doing it. EXAMPLES: Don’t be an asshole in general: Advocating violence or fantasizing harm Using dehumanizing rhetoric Advocating illegal acts Using racist, bigoted, or prejudiced speech Posting or linking to spam Embedding or linking to pornographic content Embedding or linking to images graphically depicting violence or death Plagiarizing content or violating copyright (text or image) Posting or linking to debunked or unverifiable conspiracy theories Posting or linking to misinformation or disinformation Engaging in coordinated or manipulative behavior intended to distort discussion, ratings, or community norms, whether organized on-site or off-site Don’t be an asshole to others: Attacking, threatening, harassing, or threadstalking any site user “Calling out” a site user in a post (naming or targeting a specific user in a way that invites pile-ons, shaming, or retaliation); the single exception to the rule is the site’s founder, Kos. Revealing the real-life identity (outing, doxxing) of a site user posting anonymously Posting private communications between site users Threadjacking Ignoring the specific guidelines for participation in thematic non-political community series Abusing the mute button Publicly accusing a site user of being a dishonest participant (a troll, or sockpuppet, or zombie, or shill, et cetera); the proper forum for all such accusations and evidence is a private message to the Help Desk Dismissing, denying, or trivializing the lived experience or identity of other community members, including through bad-faith skepticism, tone-policing, or repeated “just asking questions” framing Don’t be an asshole to us: Creating more than one active account (“sockpuppet”) or creating a new account if banned or suspended (“zombie”) Pretending to be someone you’re not, most especially pretending to be an ordinary person if you are in a paid campaign or organizational position Using profanity in the title of a post, which can trigger internet filtering software on networks and search engine suppression or delisting, resulting in our site being blocked (this is a technical constraint, not a moral judgment) Repeatedly publishing, unpublishing, and republishing a post to game the recommendation system Recommending posts or comments violating any of the above Abusing the Report buttons for posts or comments Abusing the Help Desk Posting a dramatic Goodbye Cruel World story proclaiming your aggrieved exit from the site The above lists are not exhaustive. Site administrators know deleterious behavior when they see it, so fair warning: Do not test the limits. Also, context and pattern matter. These rules are not a checklist to be gamed. Repeated behavior that undermines productive discussion may be moderated administratively even if no single action, viewed in isolation, violates a specific rule. Note to authors of posts: Contributing a post (also known as a story, article, or diary) is a responsibility, not a right. Support factual claims with links to original, credible, and verifiable sources and documentation. Avoid clickbait and deceptive headlines. If commenters raise reasonable questions about your facts or sources, take their concerns seriously. If you find that you made a mistake, edit and correct the post and add a note at the top explaining the correction. If the original source material changes substantially, it is your responsibility to update your post accordingly. If we are obliged to edit or retract your post ourselves, your site permissions may be suspended or revoked. Note on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI tools may be used to assist with outlining, editing, formatting, or refining text. Not everyone has access to professional editing support, and tools that help people better express their own writing are consistent with Daily Kos’ commitment to broad participation. However, content posted to Daily Kos must be meaningfully authored by the user and not generated solely and uncritically by AI. AI systems are prone to a range of well-documented issues, including factual errors, fabricated information, bias, and unreliable sourcing. Any use of AI to assist in drafting content requires careful human review and independent verification of all factual claims before publication. Users remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of everything they post. The use of AI does not absolve a user’s accountability for errors, misrepresentations, or violations of site rules. Disclosure of AI use is not required for minor assistance such as editing or proofreading. However, if AI plays a substantive role in generating content, that use should be clearly acknowledged. AI-generated imagery is not a substitute for photojournalism and may not be used to depict real-world events in news or journalistic contexts. In all other uses—such as illustration, satire, or commentary—AI-generated images can be used but must be clearly labeled. Community Moderation: Reporting a Post (Story, Diary) Logged-in community users have the ability to report a community-authored post for violations of these Rules of the Road, submitting the post for administrative review. When viewing the post, the Report button is located below and to the right of the title of the post. Clicking the Report button will initiate a pop-up window of reporting reasons. The reporting user must select from one of the four listed categories for reporting a post in order to activate the Submit Report button: Spam (commercial spam content) Pornography (inappropriate pornographic content) Hateful or violent content (racism, bigotry, graphic depictions of violence or death in the featured title image, advocacy or fantasies of violence or self-harm) Community Guidelines Violation (a violation of the Rules of the Road not covered by the first three reporting categories) Be cautious when selecting the Community Guidelines Violation category and be certain that the violation is substantive and unmistakable. If necessary, ambiguous edge cases can be reported to the Help Desk with a detailed explanation. Please note that administrative review does not necessarily result in administrative action. Any action taken is a matter between site administrators and the reported user, and outcomes may not be visible to third parties. Reports are reviewed by real people, and each one takes time and attention. Misusing the reporting system or repeatedly submitting non-substantive complaints pulls resources away from exigent work. Serial abuse of the Report function or Help Desk may result in administrative sanctions. Community Moderation: Reporting a Comment Logged-in community users also have the ability to report a comment for violations of these Rules of the Road, submitting the comment for administrative review. When viewing the comment, the Report button is located at the far right of the comment box, next to the Share button. Clicking on the Report button will initiate a confirmation pop-up window. This confirmation pop-up is designed as a brake, to reinforce the seriousness with which a user should approach the notion and process of reporting a comment. If on second consideration you are certain that the content of the comment requires reporting, then click the Start Report button. Clicking the Start Report button in the confirmation window initiates a pop-up window of reporting reasons. The reporting user must select from one of the eight listed categories before clicking the Submit button to send the comment for administrative review. Targeted Harassment (Degrading someone, repeated unwanted contact, attacking someone based on their identity such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation) Spam (Soliciting currency, encouraging interaction with content under false pretences, leading users off the site by misleading links) Inappropriate Username or Avatar (User’s name or avatar goes against Community Guidelines) Threatening Content (Threats of violence directed at one or more individuals) Impersonation (Representing themselves as another individual under false pretences) Private Information (Sharing personally-identifying information) Mis/Disinformation (False, inaccurate, misleading, or deceptive content) Partisan Misalignment (Promotion of an anti-Democratic or right-wing agenda) When submitting a report, select the category that most closely matches a clear and substantive violation. As noted above, reports should be reserved for unmistakable rule-breaking. If necessary, ambiguous edge cases can be reported to the Help Desk with a more detailed explanation. Administrative review does not necessarily result in action. Any action taken is a matter between site administrators and the reported user, and outcomes may not be visible to others. Reports are reviewed by real people, and each one requires time and attention. Misuse of the reporting system, including reporting content that does not violate site rules, takes resources away from exigent work. Serial abuse of the Report function or Help Desk may result in administrative sanctions. Community Moderation: Muting a User It is possible to mute a user so that you do not see their comments in comment threads and so that you are not notified of any of their activity in your notification feed. The muting action does not alter other users’ displays of the muted user’s comments in threads or feeds. To mute a user, click their username in a comment thread to open their commenting Profile. Clicking the MUTE button in the user’s commenting Profile will remove the muted user’s comments from the muter's view of comment threads and remove any notification of the muted user’s activity from the muter’s notification feed. Muting is intended for situations where interactions between users have become consistently unproductive or disruptive on a personal level, but do not rise to the level of a reportable violation. If behavior crosses into harassment or other rule violations, it should be reported rather than muted. Muting should not be used to avoid normal discussion, disagreement, or debate, nor should it be used in a coordinated way to isolate or target another user. Abuse of the mute function may result in administrative sanctions. Administrative Moderation at Daily Kos Administrative moderation at Daily Kos exists to make this community effective over the long term. It is designed to protect space for disagreement, not eliminate it; to keep debates focused on ideas and strategy, not personalities; and to ensure the site remains aligned with its mission. We ask members to engage in good faith, assume the same of others, and remember that moderation is about sustaining a shared space—not resolving every conflict to everyone’s satisfaction. When that balance holds, Daily Kos remains a place where challenging conversations can happen without driving good-faith participants away. Disagreements are inevitable, and many conflicts involve more than one person contributing to a breakdown in discussion. Moderation does not exist to declare one participant right and the other wrong, or to settle personal grudges or dead-end arguments, or to reward persistence in unproductive exchanges. When discussions become circular, hostile, or personal, moderation may focus on preventing escalation by all participants rather than assigning fault. Being frustrated does not mean the other person violated the rules. Being warned does not mean the other person won. Administrative moderation interventions are seldom based on a single, isolated comment. Interventions may take into account repeated behavior over time, prior warnings or interventions, and the context of patterns across multiple threads or posts. This is why administrative actions may sometimes appear delayed—or why an action may seem sudden based on narrow visible context. Bans are never applied heedlessly, and they require team consensus. We are transparent about the purpose of administrative moderation, not about individual moderation interventions. We do not publicly explain why another user was warned, timed out, or banned. This is intentional and serves the community in several ways: Privacy: Communications between moderators and a user are private. We do not share them with third parties. Safety and effectiveness: Publicly detailing how moderation decisions are made in specific cases could enable bad actors to evade detection. Community protection: Sophisticated bad-faith actors often attempt to use third parties as wedges to advocate and exaggerate their claims to victimhood and thereby fracture the community. We will not engage those attempts at manipulation.

[Author: minos] [Category: Community, CommunityModeration, DailyKos, Meta, Moderation, Recommended, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— Indians 101: Plateau Indian gifts (museum exhibit)

 

at 4/9/26 8:15am

The Fort Walla Walla Museum in Walla Walla, Washington, is located on the grounds of a nineteenth-century fort. The Museum’s exhibits, located in five museum buildings and in the 17 buildings in the Museum’s Pioneer Village, display the region’s history. One of the Museum’s exhibits shows gifts by Indians to American settler’s children. Beadwork on the gauntlets Beadwork on the gauntlets Beadwork on the moccasins Note: these photographs were taken on September 15, 2025.

[Author: Ojibwa] [Category: AmericanIndians, Indians101, Museums, NativeAmericanNetroots, Photography, Washington, PlateauIndians, FortWallaWallaMuseum] [Link to media]

— Daily Kos Beta Day 3! Comment here with feedback!

 

at 4/9/26 2:36am

Hello everyone, we are entering our third day of beta for the new Daily Kos. See the list of work we are aware of (as of yesterday) here. I did want to address the general feedback of, there's a lot of things we used to be able to do and can't, or can't do as well, with the new site. Markos has addressed this previously, but I'm sharing my perspective now because I hear your frustration. DK5 is a complex piece of custom-built software that was created specifically for this community and evolved over a very long time (ten years? fifteen?). That's years of your requests -- and years of you, the community, becoming familiar with the software's quirks and assumptions. The tech team that created DK5 loved this community and did a great job. As someone who has only been here for two years, I'm still learning about how the site is used by the people who know it best. The problem with software -- not just DK5, all software -- is entropy. Each new feature, each customization, each decision adds complexity to the code that keeps the site up. And then the people who wrote that piece of code, or who made that decision, find new jobs, and someone new has to come onboard and learn how it all works. Meanwhile, the language the code was written in might become less popular and harder to hire for, or the version it was written in might be deprecated; there might be security holes or performance issues. It degrades over time. Then, adding new features becomes increasingly difficult; you need more (expensive) engineers to keep the whole thing going -- and the complexity problem that you started with becomes more acute with every new feature that's added. This is the situation Daily Kos was in when I started two years ago. Doing a full site migration is not a minor undertaking. It's incredibly risky and expensive. We tried to find off-the-shelf software products that could basically do what DK5 could do, but Daily Kos is not a standard media site -- it's a community. There's no other site on the internet that's exactly like it that I know of. So the solutions that were commercially available were a Venn diagram of features -- there was some overlap, but the overlap was not perfect. We had to look at them all in context and ask: which software solution is the closest? Which can we modify? Which are written in languages we can hire for? Which can we afford? Which will allow us to grow in the future? My hope is that, if we can't deliver every feature that you care about on Day One of the new site, we can deliver the most important ones, and that over the next few months we can build out most of the rest. And that, meanwhile, the members of the community that stick around will learn how the new software works, and its assumptions and workflows, and together we can get to a new, more sustainable community state. I so appreciate the 300+ of you who have signed up for the beta site and given your feedback. I hope you continue to share what does and doesn't work for you, so that together we can create a new community experience that you love the way you loved DK5 -- or maybe something even better. Thank you so much for your help and your trust.

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, Announcements] [Link to media]

— Preparing for site migration: changes to community Group features and functionality

 

at 4/8/26 2:12am

Hello again, friends! The beta site is open to all, and we’ll continue to post thematic stories and updates here with information you need to know to ready yourselves for as seamless a move as possible to the new site on April 15, 2026. All of these stories will be collected in the Daily Kos Announcements Group. And you can help by spreading the word: mentioning these stories to friends among our community of site users, linking to these stories in your community Groups as a heads-up, republishing these stories to your active Groups for visibility among your membership, and encouraging community members to participate in the beta testing. Thus far we have discussed the need to know your login credentials (all users will have to log in at the new site when we launch), the need for you to act now to preserve what can not be migrated, and changes to community moderation (Tip Jars, Mojo, Trusted User Status, reporting). Yesterday afternoon iterology provided an important timeline of the migration process and also updated the site banner on the Front Page to alert users that the site will be down starting on April 14. Today we’ll note the changes to community Groups features and functionality. ON THE NEW SITE THE NOMENCLATURE OF GROUP ROLES WILL BE DIFFERENT; THE SYSTEM FOR GROUP MESSAGING HAS BEEN REPLACED; INDIVIDUAL PUBLICATION TO A GROUP IS UNCHANGED (ADMINS AND EDITORS, IMMEDIATE OR SCHEDULED); INDIVIDUAL REPUBLICATION TO A GROUP IS UNCHANGED (ADMINS AND EDITORS); THE CURRENT APPROVAL QUEUE WILL NO LONGER EXIST  First, and please, don’t panic. We recognize how critically important community Groups are and we recognize that any changes to the features, functionality, and processes for Group publication, republication, and messaging are going to create anxiety. There was only one serious option for a plug-in available for the WordPress version of the site with which to duplicate much of the current Groups functionality. There are technical constraints: customizing that plug-in has proven more challenging and more time-consuming than anticipated. Much of the current functionality of community Groups will be available at launch on the new version of the site. Some functionality will not be available. To guide this discussion of changes to Groups functionality, we are including a chart for comparison and we’ll then outline changes for “typical” users and roles within Groups, noting the special use-cases for which there will not be a direct equivalent and proposing workarounds. First up, however, the change in nomenclature for roles within Groups. In place of the current three roles (Administrators, Editors, Contributors), the migrated equivalents in BuddyPress will be Administrators, Moderators, and Members. That should help make sense of the comparison chart below (open image in a new Tab to enlarge, if necessary, or view the full-size image here): Chart comparing group features These are the permissions by Group role in the new version of community Groups.  Group Administrators — can manage the Group’s profile page; can manage Group membership (promote, demote, delete, ban); can invite users to join the Group and process invitations and requests to join; can send and read messages on the Group’s private Activity Tab, and can delete any/all Group messages on the Group’s Activity Tab; can immediately publish a self-authored story to the Group; can schedule a self-authored story to publish to the Group at a later time; can immediately republish (reblog) a story authored by any other user to the Group’s Stories Tab  Group Moderators (formerly Editors) — at the discretion of a Group Administrator, there is a setting to enable Group Moderators to invite users the join the Group and process invitations and requests to join; can send and read messages on the Group’s private Activity Tab, and can delete any/all Group messages on the Group’s Activity Tab; can immediately publish a self-authored story to the Group; can schedule a self-authored story to publish to the Group at a later time; can immediately republish (reblog) a story authored by any other user to the Group’s Stories Tab Group Members (formerly Contributors) — can send and read Group messages on the Group’s Activity Tab, can delete only their own messages on the Group’s Activity Tab We realize that there are some significant changes to the functionality of Community Groups by Group role, and most of those changes are the result of the absence of an equivalent approval queue. These changes may have little impact on some Groups, depending on the membership composition of the Group and its typical workflow, but we absolutely recognize that they may have serious impact on other Groups’ workflows, most especially for Groups that have relied on the approval queue for shared editing of queued draft stories. We also have the implementation of an equivalent “Remove from Group Feed” tool backlogged with medium priority. Here then are the changes in outline, by Group role and publication/republication task. We ask you to think of the Groups you are in, with what current role, how you are accustomed to publishing/republishing (reblogging) within your Groups, and identify what will change for you.  Group Administrator (migrated Group Administrators) YES — publish immediately a self-authored story directly to the Group, acquiring the “by [username] for [Group name]” byline YES — schedule and publish a self-authored story directly to the Group, acquiring the “by [username] for [Group name]” byline NO — queue a self-authored story draft to the Group approval queue for shared editing (currently by Admins and Editors) and delayed publication from the queue, acquiring the “by [username] for Group name]” byline YES — republish (reblog) immediately a story authored by another user to the Group’s Stories Tab, and the story is assigned the “[Group name] Republished” notation NO — republish (reblog) to the Group approval queue a story authored by another user, for deliberation (currently by Admins and Editors) whether to republish the story later and assign the “[Group name] Republished” notation Group Moderator (migrated Group Editors) YES — publish immediately a self-authored story directly to the Group, acquiring the “by [username] for [Group name]” byline YES — schedule and publish a self-authored story directly to the Group, acquiring the “by [username] for [Group name]” byline NO — queue a self-authored story draft to the Group approval queue for shared editing (currently by Admins and Editors) and delayed publication from the queue, acquiring the “by [username] for Group name]” byline YES — republish (reblog) immediately a story authored by another user to the Group’s Stories Tab, and the story is assigned the “[Group name] Republished” notation NO — republish (reblog) to the Group approval queue a story authored by another user, for deliberation (currently by Admins and Editors) whether to republish the story later and assign the “[Group name] Republished” notation Group Member (migrated Group Contributors) NO — queue a self-authored story draft to the Group approval queue for approval, shared editing (currently by Admins and Editors), and delayed publication from the queue, acquiring the “by [username] for Group name]” byline NO — republish (reblog) to the Group approval queue a story authored by another user, for deliberation (currently by Admins and Editors) whether to republish the story later and assign the “[Group name] Republished” notation The absence of an approval queue will have little impact on Groups in which direct or scheduled publication by Admins and Editors are the norm. It will have an impact on Groups who rely on the approval queue for shared editing of queued drafts or who have a significant number of Contributors who regularly queue content for possible publication or republication. One method to address the latter circumstance is for Group Administrators to consider promoting reliably judicious users from Member to Moderator, giving them access to the direct publication and republication options. Alternatively, Members will have access to the Group’s private Activity Tab and can suggest stories for republication in messages there. To the current Administrators and Editors of Groups with a regular workflow relying heavily on the approval queue for shared editing and scheduling of draft stories: we recognize that these changes willl hit you hardest. Here’s what we ask. Think about the form of shared editing you need. If it is primarily “final touches” of formatting (inserting a Group image, or boilerplate text in a header or footer, etc.), can those formatting elements be shared in a way that the author could access them, format on their own, and shift to scheduling publication of their own draft story directly to the Group? If an author has already published their story, and the Group is considering republication, can text editing notes be shared in direct messages so that the author can make suggested edits in their own story and then the Group can republish it? Honestly, what we ask and hope most of all is that all current Group Administrators and Editors will create a user account on the beta site, use that account to create and join Groups there in different roles, apply your creativity in problem-solving, and post stories (here and on beta) sharing workable strategies with Administrators and Editors of other Groups. It is amazing to see how many of you are already playing in the beta sandbox, raising issues, proposing workarounds, and assisting each other. One other option also exists, which is for a Group Administrator to create a single new user account with shared login credentials so that multiple Administrators and Moderators would have access to a single user account, able to log into that account separately to edit and schedule the story within the shared user account’s drafts. We’re willing to overlook the prohibition on multiple simultaneous accounts for this specific purpose, since it’s obvious that no skulduggery is intended (unlike malevolent sockpuppets). We do recognize however that this option may place an uncomfortable burden on Group leadership since they will have to consider how widely to draw that “circle of trust” for shared access to that user account. All of that said, it’s worth noting as an example of this option that the user account Black Kos has been shared successfully to create co-edited content for the Black Kos Community Group for some time. At least one other Community Advisory Panelist has also been experimenting with implementing this option on beta already, and may be willing to share their thoughts in comments here. If necessary, once the Administrators and other leaders of significantly impaced Groups have created accounts and Groups on the beta site and have tested functionality to attain a better hands-on understanding of what is available, we are also quite willing to host a virtual “summit” or two to share thoughts, ideas, and solutions. P.S.: for those of you who will participate in beta testing, please note that use of the beta site involves creating a new account for use ONLY at the beta site, and that account (and associated content and Groups) will exist ONLY for the duration of the beta testing. The username, email address of record, and password for an account on the beta site are independent from your existing account here, and beta accounts will not be migrated to the new version of the site.

[Author: minos] [Category: Community, DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— Indians 101: The fur trade 200 years ago, 1826

 

at 4/7/26 8:15am

The North American fur trade, based primarily on the exchange of European manufactured goods in return for furs prepared by Indians, began with the early European explorers and by the nineteenth century was dominated by formal trading companies. With the fur trade, American Indians were incorporated into the world-wide market economy. During the first part of the nineteenth century, the fur trade was driven largely by European fashion which used beaver pelts in the manufacture of hats and other items. Shown above is a fur trade exhibit in the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada. One of the major trading companies was the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) which had been established in 1670. Shown above is the HBC exhibit in the Cashmere Museum in Cashmere, Washington. Briefly described below are some of the events relating to the American Indian fur and hide trade in 1826. Oregon: Roderick McLeod In Oregon, a Hudson’s Bay Company party under the leadership of Roderick McLeod made contact with Indians along the Pacific Coast between the Umpqua and Rogue Rivers. The HBC party was made up of “ten men and an Indian” and also included Indian women and children. The party was later joined by two Iroquois Indians. The party initially set up camp about 36 miles from the coast near present-day Elkton. Here they made contact with the Umpquas who agreed to provide them with canoes and take them to the ocean. Reaching the coast, they were taken to a village of two houses where they were fed. They then proceeded south down the beach towards Coos Bay. At Ten Mile Creek, they encountered Indians who were fishing for salmon. At Coos Bay they the party bought salmon from the Coos Indians and hired a large canoe to take them to South Slough. From here they traveled overland to the mouth of the Coquille River. They acquired a few skins—beaver and otter—and they traveled south to the Rogue River. Here they found no evidence of beaver skins among the Indians, but they were told that beaver are plentiful farther upstream. Oregon: Pete Skene Ogden Hudson’s Bay Company fur trappers led by Pete Skene Ogden traveled into the Northern Paiute territory in Oregon. He noted that while the Paiute people were unmounted, they did have a few horses. The HBC trappers also traveled into the upper Klamath River area of Northern California. They spent almost two months among the Klamath Indians. In an article in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Nathan Douthit reports: “They visited Klamath villages and were well received by the Indians; the Indians, in turn, visited the camps of the white men, traded with them, and acted as guides.” North Dakota In North Dakota, the Columbia Fur Company sent James Kipp to establish a trading post for the Assiniboines. The new trading post, known as Kipp’s Post, was erected at the mouth of the White Earth River. Utah In Utah, trader Jedediah Smith began trading with the Ute Indians at Utah Lake. He noted that they had many horses and more guns than the Shoshones. Smith felt that they must be obtaining guns from the Spanish. He also noted that they were dressed in mountain sheep and antelope skins and buffalo robes. In an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, John Alley reports: “Despite greater mobility, the largest concentration of Utes still lived near the lake much of the year and depended on it for their principal food supply of fish.” Smith negotiated an agreement with the Utes that allowed the Americans to hunt, trap, and pass through their territory unmolested. The principal Ute chief at this time was Quinanuapa. Fort Okanagan In Washington, the trader at the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post at Fort Okanagan noted that he had purchased 1,200 to 1,300 salmon from the Indians, but very few beaver. Kettle Falls In Washington, Hudson’s Bay Company established a new trading post at Kettle Falls. The buildings at the old Spokane House were dismantled and the site abandoned. More histories Indians 101: American Indian fur trade 200 years ago, 1825 Indians 101: American Indians and the fur trade 200 years ago, 1823 Indians 101: The Canadian fur trade 200 years ago, 1821 Indians 101: The fur trade in 1821 Indians 101: The Fur Trade in 1816 Indians 101: The Fur Trade in 1818 Indians 101: The fur trade in 1822 Indians 101: The Pacific Fur Company

[Author: Ojibwa] [Category: AmericanIndians, FurTrade, History, Indians101, NativeAmericanNetroots, NorthDakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington, HudsonsBayCompany, UteIndians, ShoshoneIndians, assiniboineindians, IroquoisIndians, KlamathIndians, FortOkanagan, ColumbiaFurCompany, UmpquaIndians] [Link to media]

— A drying Colorado River threatens Imperial Valley’s future

 

at 4/7/26 3:45am

Declining flows and the warming climate imperil farms, green energy projects and the economy of one of California’s poorest counties. By Jeremy Lindenfeld for Capital & Main In the southeast corner of California, 300-foot-tall sand dunes rise from a sunbaked landscape dotted with ocotillo and creosote bushes. Summer temperatures here regularly exceed 110 degrees, and annual rainfall is comparable to that of the Sahara Desert. Despite its unforgiving terrain, more than 180,000 residents live in Imperial County, one of the country’s most productive agricultural regions and more recently a magnet for data center development and lithium extraction proposals. This has all been made possible by turn-of-the-20th century canals that carve up the region, supplying it with more than a million gallons of Colorado River water every minute. “We’ve often called it the lifeblood of Imperial Valley,” said Robert Schettler, a spokesperson for Imperial Irrigation District, the area’s public utility, which manages the region’s over 3,000 miles of drains and canals. “If something were to happen to that river, we would all have to pack up and leave.” Something is happening to the Colorado River. Over the past century, its average water supply has fallen by nearly a third due to prolonged drought and climate change. Experts predict that decline will continue, threatening cities, tribes and farms that depend on the river’s flow, from Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico to Arizona, Nevada and Northern Mexico. Most of the Colorado River’s water starts as snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, but after the American West experienced the warmest winter ever recorded, snow levels are now at historic lows, prompting experts to warn that 2026 may be one of the river’s driest years yet. That could spell disaster for Imperial County, whose harsh desert landscape of windblown sand and rugged burnt-orange mountains was transformed more than a century ago into productive, gridded farmland dotted with small cities such as Brawley, El Centro and Calexico. Left: Powerlines cross over sand dunes. Right: Farmland extends across Imperial Valley. Communities across Imperial Valley are now contemplating what dwindling water resources might mean for their region, which is already struggling economically, and for the rest of the country, which relies heavily on the region’s water-intensive farms for winter vegetables. Any hit to its agricultural industry will reverberate through its majority-Latino population, which includes thousands who rely on farm jobs for their livelihood. The success of emerging industries — including lithium extraction projects that promise to unearth minerals that are critical for renewable energy and data centers to satisfy the growing demand for artificial intelligence — also depends on their ability to tap water, Earth’s most precious resource. At the same time, residents fear what cuts could mean for daily tasks such as showering and watering their gardens. Farther to the east, members of an indigenous tribe on the border with Arizona grow increasingly concerned about what a dying river means for their own farm-based economy and the fate of riverside plant life used in centuries-old cultural traditions. The dilemma came into sharp focus after California and other Western states reliant on Colorado River water failed to meet a Feb. 14 deadline set by the federal government to agree on how to divide the river’s dwindling water supply. With the rules that govern the allocation of the river’s water expiring this year, JB Hamby, vice chairman of the Imperial Irrigation District board of directors and California’s Colorado River negotiator, said the region’s water future is “totally unclear.” Any sustainable path will require states to “[leave] water in the river that they otherwise would like to use,” he added. Sowing and Reaping Brian Strahm picks carrots out of his field south of Holtville. Imperial Valley’s agricultural industry consumes by far the largest share of water in the region, about 97% of the 3.1 million acre-feet managed by the Imperial Irrigation District every year. That’s more than six times the water used by Los Angeles, a city with more than 20 times the population of Imperial County. That water supply has allowed the county to become an agricultural powerhouse, producing two-thirds of the vegetables Americans eat in the winter. As the Colorado River’s annual flow has declined by millions of acre-feet over recent decades, the Imperial Irrigation District has showered incentives on Imperial County farmers, encouraging them to limit their water use. Many have adopted efficiency measures such as drip irrigation and systems that capture and reuse runoff. Those ambitious and largely successful conservation efforts have come at a cost. Much of the water used by farmers historically flowed into the nearby Salton Sea, but as farmers have reduced their water use, less runoff has reached the man-made lake, accelerating an existing environmental crisis. Over the last three decades, the Salton Sea has shrunk by more than 60 square miles, exposing a dry lakebed laden with pesticides, particulate matter and heavy metals. Those contaminants are carried as dust through the air into nearby communities, contributing to a childhood asthma rate triple that of the national average. Now, farmers such as Brian Strahm, whose family has been growing crops in the area for four generations, are concerned they may have to decrease their water use further. That may prove difficult since farmers have already put in place many efficiency measures, Strahm said. Left: Strahm in a wheat field. Right: Strahm stands on an irrigation pipe. “Our irrigation system is almost a wonder of the world,” Strahm said. “We’ve done a good job, but we’ve pretty much exhausted anything that was cost effective or easier to do. As we go forward, conservation gets more difficult.” Strahm said farmers can cut water use only so much before crop production in Imperial County begins to suffer. He fears farmers will be asked to leave some of their fields completely unproductive — much as they did during Imperial Irrigation District’s fallowing program, which ended a decade ago. Imperial Irrigation District’s Schettler voiced similar concerns about further reducing farmers’ water use. “If we have a crisis on the river, we have to ask ourselves, do we also want a food crisis?” Schettler said. Farmers say cuts could seriously harm the area’s already struggling economy. In addition to being the county with the highest percentage of Latinos in California, Imperial has among the highest unemployment rates of any county in the country, at nearly 19%. For those who do find work, the agricultural industry offers a lifeline, accounting for one out of every six jobs in the region. Despite the potential economic effects, water-use experts say that in the long term, cutting farmers’ supply of water may be necessary to keep the Colorado River system from collapsing. Because municipal, industrial and commercial users account for just 3% of Imperial County’s use of Colorado River water, “the bulk of the reduction will have to come out of agriculture,” said Kurt A. Schwabe, professor of environmental economics and policy at the University of California, Riverside. But water scarcity isn’t the only threat to the region’s farmland. A new kind of gold rush is drawing industrial prospectors to Imperial Valley in search of a mineral that promises to usher in the technology of the future but that also sits beneath thousands of acres of crops. An Underground Reservoir More than a mile below the valley floor lies an enormous natural reservoir of geothermal brine — a scalding-hot saline fluid — long touted for its potential as a sustainable energy source. That soup is also rich with valuable minerals, chief among them lithium, a substance critical to the manufacture of rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles and renewable energy projects. Left: A Hell’s Kitchen geothermal well near the Salton Sea. Right: Pipes lead to a geothermal facility. After years of research and development — and defending against an ongoing lawsuit brought by local community groups — Australia-based Controlled Thermal Resources Holdings Inc. is now developing geothermal power plants in the area and is set to begin extracting lithium near the Salton Sea by 2028, according to Lauren Rose, the company’s chief communications officer. (Capital & Main has reported that the changing political landscape, bearish lithium markets and technological challenges are likely to delay the company’s timeline.) Those projects, and the others that are likely to follow, are expected to require a lot of Colorado River water. A plan released by Imperial County in December said that proposed geothermal and mineral recovery industry projects near the Salton Sea would require nearly quadruple the 25,000 acre-feet of water the Imperial Irrigation District sets aside for all nonagriculture projects every year. The plan said that such water “will be secured through negotiations” with the Imperial Irrigation District. Rose said Controlled Thermal Resources has not yet secured a water supply contract with the utility. Ryan E. Kelley, vice chair of the California Energy Commission’s Lithium Valley Commission, a group created by the state to review and develop the region’s mineral extraction strategy, said talks between the county and the Imperial Irrigation District are already underway. The district’s Schettler declined to comment on the status of negotiations. Various bird species make use of water near a power station. The footprint of the projects outlined in the county’s plan will be more than triple the size of Manhattan, and its development will require changing the zoning of some land designated for agricultural use to commercial and industrial use. The area’s farm owners would need to agree to curtail their farming operations in order to satisfy the project’s needs, Kelley said. Lithium extraction isn’t the only emerging industry looking to tap into the region’s water supply. On the horizon are AI data centers, which in addition to consuming large amounts of power will require their own supplies of water to operate. Data Drain On the border of the City of Imperial, beyond a wooden fence he built when his children were young, Francisco Leal looked out onto a barren lot of dirt and salt. The site has been empty for decades but is now the proposed location for what would be the largest AI data center in California. That’s according to Sebastian Rucci, the founder and chief executive officer of Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC, which is developing the project. Francisco Leal leans on his backyard fence overlooking the site of a proposed AI data center near Imperial, California. Rucci said the facility would consume 750,000 gallons each day — about as much as is used by 2,500 nearby homes. Though its expected water use is significantly less than what the area’s sprawling farms or emerging lithium and geothermal industries require, it has nevertheless become a flashpoint in the region’s larger resource struggle. “Every year, we’re reminded to conserve, conserve, conserve water … that we’re in a drought,” Leal said. “All of a sudden it’s not a problem for an AI data center?” Leal has become an outspoken critic of the data center, helping found the anti-development group NIMBY Imperial and joining neighbors at a recent meeting of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors in chanting “no data centers” while Rucci presented plans for his project. In response to the kind of resource concerns leveled by Leal, Rucci said in an interview that his project would likely obtain its needed gallons from wastewater produced by the nearby cities of Imperial and El Centro instead of directly from the Colorado River. Sebastian Rucci drinks water outside his home near Palm Springs. But securing that wastewater has proved to be more difficult than Rucci expected. In December, the city of El Centro released a statement saying officials had not yet agreed to provide any data center developer with water. The City of Imperial went further: In December, it sued the county, challenging its decision to exempt Rucci’s development from environmental review. The following month, Rucci sued the City of Imperial, alleging it improperly worked to block the project. Rucci told Capital & Main that if securing wastewater from nearby cities becomes too burdensome, he may request water from Imperial Irrigation District’s industrial supply, the same water allotment being eyed by lithium extractors. Schettler declined to comment on whether the Imperial Irrigation District would supply the data center project with water. As emerging industries demand a growing share of Imperial County’s water supply to build batteries and to power AI, Leal has become increasingly alarmed. “We should be using that water for our homes or growing crops, but not for machines,” Leal said. In spite of the region’s water woes, Rucci is confident he will be able to secure the resources he needs. In fact, he told Capital & Main that he’s in the early stages of developing other data centers in the area. The Quechans’ Living River For centuries, the Quechan Indians have lived by the flood plains of the Colorado River between California and Arizona — what is today the site of the Fort Yuma Quechan Reservation. Frank Venegas, the tribe’s water technician, is in charge of managing its nearly 78,000 acre-feet allotment of Colorado River water. He grew up fishing on the Colorado River with his uncles. Now, with stakeholders negotiating its future, Venegas worries what cuts could mean for his community and whether the next generation of Quechans will be able to enjoy the river as he did. Frank Venegas stands by the main canal of the Fort Yuma Quechan Reservation. “Agriculture is a big part of our everyday life,” Venegas said. “If we get cut in any way, there’s going to be damage; it could alter lives. That’s a major impact that this department is trying to avoid.” As river levels have declined, the Quechan tribe has already instituted measures to cut back on water use, including a fallowing program that encourages farmers to leave fields unirrigated during the hottest months of the year. In an effort to further improve its water efficiency, the Quechan tribe has lined some canals on its land with concrete to reduce water loss into the soil, a project estimated to conserve 800 acre-feet of water annually. But that’s less than half of the tribe’s original goal, Venegas said. Work on the project stalled after President Donald Trump froze $4 billion that was set aside by the Inflation Reduction Act to conserve the Colorado River. The still-unfinished lining project depended on those now-frozen funds. Nevertheless, Venegas said he is still working to improve the reservation’s water efficiency, not just to maintain the viability of local farmland but also to safeguard the very identity of his tribe. The Quechan people use plants that grow along the Colorado — including mesquite and cottonwood trees — in tribal practices that include making baskets and baby-carrying cradleboards, as well as cremation of the dead. “If we don’t have a living river, it takes away our cultural identity, literally who we are as Quechans,” Venegas said.   Venegas, like other water experts, warned that without drastic cuts, the Colorado River system that feeds Imperial County and much of the West will collapse. That would decimate downstream agriculture, paralyze industrial development and lead to mass migrations out of the region for everyone, except tribes like the Quechan who have long since learned how to live with what nature provides, Venegas said.   “Basic human needs, that’s all it’s going to come down to,” Venegas said. If the river isn’t saved, “nobody wins. That’s just the end of it.

[Author: Capital and Main] [Category: California, ClimateChange, ColoradoRiver, Environment, Water, WaterSupply, InterstateFailure] [Link to media]

— Public Beta starts today! COMMENT WITH YOUR FEEDBACK!

 

at 4/6/26 4:17pm

Today is the day we open the public beta for you!      beta.dailykos.com In order to use the beta site, you will create a new account that will ONLY be used on the beta site. Everything you do — any diaries you write, any images or media you upload, all the comments you leave, any groups you create, any DMs you send — will not “count” — that is, they will not be migrated over to the main site when we flip the switch on April 15. It will ALL be deleted after a week.  What we want to know is: what works? What’s broken? What can you live with? What don’t you like? Comment on this post, or the announcement post on the beta site, and let us know! Have fun!

[Author: Allison McHenry] [Category: Community, DailyKos, Meta, wordpress] [Link to media]

— What You Need to Know about the Site Migration

 

at 4/6/26 4:01pm

After months of preparation, the time for migrating to a new platform is almost upon us!  We’ve tried to make this transition as seamless as possible, but a few things are changing and some of them are important for you to know. If you’ve been following the recent articles about this from Kos and from Minos, you might already know most of this, but here’s the most important information: The site will be down for all of Tuesday, April 14, and will return by Wednesday, April 15  Everyone will be logged out after the transition— make sure that you know or can access your password to log in to the site. There are more details here, including detailed instructions on resetting your password Save all story drafts and Kosmail messages you’d like to keep elsewhere by Monday, April 13. All drafts and Kosmail messages will be deleted in the migration process— learn more here Daily Kos will look and feel largely familiar— we have tried to preserve the current look and feel as much as possible Why not try out the new site for yourself? The beta site is now open to everyone!  Thanks for your patience as we modernize our core infrastructure. Let me know in the comments if you have questions or concerns! 

[Author: iterology] [Category: DailyKos, Meta, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— If you have ten minutes, You have time to Help Chaco Canyon!

 

at 4/4/26 9:58pm

Hello folks!  Short diary with an action item, we are asking you if you can Give a public comment! The interior department is continuing the process of undoing protections for Chaco Canyon. In June of 2023, a ten-mile buffer zone was created around Chaco Culture National Historical Park, intended to protect cultural artifacts and the sacred landscape from new oil and gas development.  This week The Bureau of Land Management is trying to rescind that buffer.  The comment period opened on April 1st and then ENDS April 7th. Does that feel rushed, and also weird that its over the Easter and Passover holiday, glad you noticed. We are asking that you take a moment to read the linked article below and leave a public comment opposing resource extraction adjacent to the National Park.  first up is an article by High Country News that tells you the what and why, Indigenous leaders, New Mexico political leaders accuse feds of rushing a decision about the sacred site. [image or embed]— High Country News (@highcountrynews.org) April 3, 2026 at 8:43 AM Next up is Will C. De Man, a history teacher and Substacker under the name National Park History.  nationalparkhistory.substack.com/… Mr. De Man does a great job explaining even more on his substack, (and is a great follow) so if you want some pointers from an actual history Teacher, he is the guy.  Let me teach you how to defend Chaco's archeological resources from drilling by Will C. De Man I teach my students about the Ancestral Puebloan culture at Chaco — now I'm gonna teach you how to help protect it Read on Substack I highly recommend the whole article, but below i will paste the call to action from Will!  quote. but first, the link to the comment page eplanning.blm.gov/... Your assignment: Put it all together Now that we understand the process we are in and the issues at hand, it’s time to write your comment. Here’s my rubric for getting an A+ on this. Part 1 - Introduce yourself Who are you? Include any credentials you might have or your identity as a stakeholder. If you have a personal story about the significance of Chaco, share it. Remember the human element of this. The people reading these comments are probably just doing their jobs. Don’t take this as a chance to unleash all your frustrations with Doug Burgum or outrage over Project 2025. Be cordial. Part 2 - Why Chaco needs to be protected What issues do you think are most important for the Bureau of Land Management to consider in this process? You can pick from the list above or add your own. From my perspective, the concept of provenience is one of the most persuasive reasons for placing a buffer around Chaco Culture NHP. Part 3 - Remind them to follow the rules Again, pick from the list above. Request an Environmental Impact Statement. Point out the Congressional requirement for a cultural resources investigation to take place. Complain about the extreme brevity of the comment period and demand a longer one in the future. Put all that together in 5000 characters or fewer and submit by April 7. If there is a study or data you would like them to consider, you can submit an attachment again this is the link to the BLM to leave a comment eplanning.blm.gov/… Signal Boost if you can, Share Will C. De Man’s Substack, or NationalParkHistory (www.instagram.com/...) on Instagram

[Author: Tigerupjp] [Category: NewMexico, PublicLands, Recommended, ChacoCanyon, nofrackingway] [Link to media]

— Public beta is imminent! April 6

 

at 4/2/26 5:52pm

Hi all, We’ve been heads down on the internal beta, getting ready to open this up to everyone on Monday, April 6. We’re feeling very good about where things stand and are excited to let you kick the tires. As of now, the schedule remains: Public beta: April 6 Full launch: April 14-15 So yes, this thing is actually happening! The full launch could slip if major issues surface during the public beta, but at this point we’re confident we’ve already caught any real showstoppers. What remains is edge-case work: bugs that affect a small number of users or show up in situations we didn’t anticipate. That’s exactly why the public beta matters.  Your Community Advisory Panel has already been putting the site through its paces, and their feedback has been invaluable. Staff and I simply don’t use the site the same way many of you do. More eyes means better outcomes, and thanks to their work, you’re getting a more polished product for the public beta than you otherwise would have. A few notes:  I’ll be out of the office April 15–21, right at launch. Not ideal, but this trip was planned over a year ago and the timing just landed this way. It’s a silent retreat—my first real digital detox in two decades. I’m aware this will invite jokes about me hiding from reactions to the new site, but I have full confidence in our product and community teams to manage the transition. I’ll be back rested and ready to engage.   In the meantime, you’ll be hearing a lot from Iterology, Allison, and Minos. They are far more fluent in the details of this transition than I am. Allison and Iterology are leading on the technical side, and Minos is heading up community. Please treat them with respect—they’re doing the work to make this successful. If you’re frustrated, direct that at me. I can take it, especially zen’d out after my silent retreat!    Don’t miss Minos’ recent postings on site credentials, and what content will be migrated, and what won’t. All important site updates will be republished to the Announcements group.   On transition day, the site may be down for up to 24 hours. That time is needed to migrate final content, verify stability, and complete the DNS switch—essentially pointing dailykos.com to the new infrastructure. Not fun, but necessary.   This is a complex transition. Some rough edges are inevitable. But what’s on the other side is a modern, secure, and stable platform—and over the next year, we’ll be building on it with features we simply couldn’t support before.  I’m excited for what comes next. Previous updates: Here’s when you can test the new Daily Kos website (March 25, 2026) Check out these screenshots of the new Daily Kos (Feb. 20, 2026) Daily Kos new site update: We have our first build! (Feb. 17, 2026) Site migration update: Comments and more! (Feb. 2, 2026) Here's an update on the 'new' Daily Kos (Jan. 30, 2026) Your new Daily Kos is coming along (Dec. 12, 2025) Why Daily Kos is moving to WordPress (Sep. 12, 2025) Meet the voices guiding our platform rebuild—and bringing yours along (July 20, 2025 Open link in new tab Open link in new tab

[Author: kos] [Category: Community, DailyKos, Meta, wordpress] [Link to media]

— Indians 201: A very brief overview of the Osage Indians

 

at 4/2/26 8:15am

The Great Plains is the huge area in the central portion of the North American continent. It stretches from the Canadian provinces in the north, almost to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, and from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River in the east. With regard to American Indian culture areas, the Great Plains is generally divided into three sub-areas: Northern Plains, Central Plains, and Southern Plains.  At the time of the European invasion, the Osages were living along the Osage River (a tributary of the Missouri River) in what is now the state of Missouri. In his book Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes , Carl Waldman reports: “They also claimed territory as far south as the Arkansas River in what is now northern Arkansas, southwestern Kansas, and northeastern Oklahoma.” As with many American Indian tribes, the name Osage is not what they called themselves. They called themselves Ni-U-Ko’n-ska meaning “children of the middle waters.” The name Osage was given to them by the French, and it came from Wazhazhe, the name of one of the largest Osage bands. The Osage language is a Siouan language, and within this language family belongs to the Mississippi Valley Group. The Osage language is most closely related to Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, and Quapaw. At one time, these tribes were probably one people. In their book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, David Graeber and David Wengrow write: “…the Osage are directly descended from Mississippianized Fort Ancient people, and much of their ritual and mythology can be traced back directly to their Midwestern origins.” Subsistence The Osages were both farmers and hunter-gatherers. They lived in farming villages along wooded river valleys most of the year. In addition to farming, they conducted several hunts every year. There were three primary hunts during the year: (1) a hunt in February or March for bear; (2) a summer hunt for buffalo and deer; and (3) a fall hunt, also for buffalo and deer. Before they acquired horses, the Osages hunted the buffalo on foot. By using fire, the buffalo would be driven into a confined area where they could be easily killed. Another buffalo-hunting strategy was to use a buffalo jump – a cliff over which the buffalo were stampeded. In using a buffalo jump, the hunters would line piles of stones about 15 feet apart in a V-formation for about two miles. A medicine man would then approach the herd, annoy the bulls, and lead them into the entrance of the V. The hunters, standing near the piles of stones, would shout and wave blankets at the buffalo to stampede them. The panicked buffalo would then topple over the edge of the cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, the buffalo would be butchered, with the meat cut into thin strips for drying and smoking. Describing the Osage hunt, John Joseph Matthews, in his book The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters, reports: “When they were through with the butchering, the men would carry the ribs up to the camp, and they immediately set about cooking them. They were busy cooking the ribs as the long line of old men, women, and boys, and dogs, formed an antlike procession, carrying the meat to the camp out of the canyon.” Prior to the acquisition of the horse, the meat and hides from the buffalo hunt were transported on the backs of the people and on dog travois. The summer and fall buffalo hunts were planned at a tribal council meeting in which the hunting areas for each of the villages would be agreed upon so that the villages would not compete or interfere with one another. It was not uncommon for two or more villages to join together for a hunt. When going out on a village hunt, the houses in the permanent village would be stripped of their bark coverings. The coverings, as well as valuables such as extra kettles and axes, would be buried by their owners in secret caches. The hunt itself was under the control of the village chief. On the hunt, security was a major concern as the hunting parties often encountered hostile groups from other tribes. In addition to hunting, the Osage women grew corn, squash, pumpkins, and beans on plots that averaged about one-half acre per family.  The fields, located along river and creek bottoms near their permanent villages, would be tended only until the plants were large enough that they would not be choked out by the weeds. The Osages began their harvest in august. Crops were dried and then stored in family caches which were some distance from the village. Among the Osages, the most important gathered foods were pomme blanche. This phrase refers to several fruits or types of apples possessing pale skin or white flesh. Prairie turnips, (Psoralea esculenta), persimmons, and water chingquapins could also be included. All of these were dried for winter use. According to historians Gilbert Din and Abraham Nasatir, in their book The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley: “Horticulture and gathering served primarily to supplement and vary the Osage diet, which was largely dependent on game.” The Osages often used a stone-boiling method for cooking meat. A small, bowl-shaped hole would be dug in the ground and lined with skins. This bowl would then be filled with water, meat, and edible plants. Stones heated red-hot by the fire were then picked up with sticks and placed in the water, bringing it to a boil. Villages  David Graeber and David Wengrow write: “Osage communities typically moved between three seasonal locations: permanent villages of multi-family lodge houses made up of perhaps 2,000 people; summer camps; and camps for the annual midwinter bison hunt.” The multifamily lodges in the permanent villages were rectangular and measured 31-41 feet long and 15-22 feet wide. They were made from posts stuck in the ground. Long poles were then fastened to the posts and bent over to form the frame of the roof. The lodge was then covered with reed mats, bark, and skins. For hunting trips, the Osages made wigwams from flexible green poles which were stuck in the ground and then bent over. The wigwams, like the village lodges, were covered with reed mats, bark, and skins. After the acquisition of the horse, the Osages began using the tipi. Since the horse is considerably larger than the dog, this meant that longer tipi poles could be carried. The Osage tipi was constructed on a framework of 13 poles which were about 18 feet long. This allowed for a lodge about 15 feet in diameter. The frame was covered with buffalo hides which had been sewn to fit the frame. Two women could set up a tipi in about 15 minutes. The sides of the Osage tipis were often covered with designs reflecting the clan totem or which showed important events in the history of the tribe. When traveling, the Osages carried water in buffalo paunches. They also carried with them fire in a buffalo horn. An ember, together with a piece of fungus punk, was placed in this horn which was lined with rotten wood. The horn was then sealed with a wooden plug. At the end of the journey, the punk was then used to start the fire. In this way there was a continuity of fire from one camp to the next. Government There were five Osage bands: Little Osage, Big Hill, Hearts Stay, Thorny Thicket, and Upland Forest. Each of these bands occupied its own village and had its own chiefs. The bands were ceremonially independent and had their own hunting territories. There were two chiefs—one from each moiety—for each band and each of these two chiefs had identical authority. The office of the chief was hereditary in that the chiefs were selected from specific clans within the moiety. Each of the chiefs would select five warriors to assist them. On the death of a chief, the new chief would be selected by the five warriors. The primary function of the Osage chiefs was to maintain harmonious relations among the families in their band and to lead the hunting parties. The Osage chiefs had limited powers. The chiefs had the power to spare the life of a captive, to execute a murderer, and to expel a person who was seeking revenge. The lodges of the chiefs were larger than other lodges, and were located in the center of the village. Doors faced both east and west. The Osage council of elders had greater power than the chiefs and the chiefs generally followed the consensus of the council. The Osage council of elders was composed of 24 men known as the Little Old Men. They had more power than the chiefs as the chiefs followed the consensus of the council. In an article in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, Douglas Hurt reports: “Collectively, the little Old men held ultimate Osage authority.” Douglas Hurt goes on to say: “The Little Old Men controlled Osage relations with other tribes and the supernatural, as their rituals sanctioned all major and many minor decisions.” War Among the Osage, war was not under the control of the village chiefs and their soldiers. Rather, it was controlled by the Little Old Men, the tribal ceremonial leaders. There were two kinds of war: raids carried out by a clan and tribal raids. Clan raids could be carried out without consulting the other clans. With regard to the Osage tribal war parties, anthropologist Garrick Bailey, in his chapter on the Osage in the Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13, Part 1: Plains, writes: “An Osage war party was as much a religious ceremony as it was a military operation, and it was associated with the sacred power of the red hawk and its bundle.” A ritual leader for the war party would be selected by the Little Old Men and given a sacred pipe. This pipe, with a human face representing all the Osage men carved into its black bowl and shell beads representing each of the clans, would be offered to Wakanda after a purifying sweat. For seven days, the ritual leader would fast and pray for a vision.  This would then be followed by another seven days of rituals and dances. Clothing and Adornment Among the Osages, both men and women decorated their bodies with tattoos. In her book Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume, Josephine Paterek reports: “Common designs were horizontal lines on the chest, concentric circles on the shoulders, and vertical lines on the face.” Osage warriors who had achieved 13 war honors were tattooed by one of the tribal bundle custodians with the design of a pipe, a knife, and 13 sun rays. Some Osage warriors had tattoos that covered most of their bodies. Their wives could also be tattooed with designs on the forehead, upper body, and limbs which represented earth and sky powers. Moieties and Clans Among the Osages there were 24 patrilineal clans (extended family units in which membership is inherited through the male; that is, a person belongs to the father’s clan). Each of the clans was associated with a set of zho-i-ga-the or life symbols which included animals, plants, natural phenomenon, and heavenly bodies. According to anthropologist Garrick Bailey: “…each clan had a unique relationship to particular sacred powers and could influence or control only that part of the supernatural world.” The clans were the basis of social and ceremonial organization. The clans were grouped into two distinct and named groups known as moieties. Terry Wilson, in his entry on the Osage in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, reports: “The tribespeople were divided between the Tzi-sho, Sky People, who descended to earth from above, and the Hunkah, Earth People.” The Tsizhu Moiety, symbolic of the sky and peace, was composed of nine clans and the Honga Moiety, symbolic of the earth and war, was composed of 15 clans. Osage oral tradition says that the tribe was formed when two peoples joined together. The Tsizhu came to earth from the sky and the Honga were already on earth. According to Garrick Baily: “The unity of the sky and earth peoples was symbolized in the form of a perfect man who faced east in times of peace and west in times of war.” The Osage clans in the Honga Moiety were divided into two phratries—water people and land people—and each had seven clans. One of the Honga clans did not belong to either phratry. The clans of the Tsizhu Moiety were grouped into a single seven-clan phratry. Two Tsizhu clans did not belong to this phratry and oral tradition says that these were the last two clans to join the Osage. Regarding the importance of Osage moieties, David Graeber and David Wengrow write: “The basic village pattern was a circle divided into two exogamous moieties, sky and earth, with twenty-four clans in all, each of which had to be represented in any settlement of camp, just as at least one representative of each had to be present for any major ritual.” One of the functions of the moiety system was to regulate marriage: people could not marry within their own moiety. If a man belonged to the Sky People moiety, he would have to find a wife among the Earth People moiety. Marriage The ideal Osage marriage was arranged by the families, and it was considered preferable if the couple did not know each other prior to marriage. Individuals were not allowed to marry someone who belonged to one of their four grandparents’ clans. The marriage ceremony included an exchange of gifts between the two families. Polygyny (the marriage of one man to multiple women) tended to be sororal as the husband of the oldest daughter had marriage claims on the younger sisters. Religion   Like most other Indian tribes, the Osage were animists. Wakanda is the mysterious, creative, and controlling power that gives life to all things, that resides in all things. By thought, Wakanda created all of the forms on earth. There are four major manifestations of Wakanda: earth and sky, and day and night. Catholic historian James White, in an article in Chronicles of Oklahoma, reports: “Divinity had no personalized existence; the ‘Great Spirit’ was simply whatever underlay the existence of nature.” According to historians Gilbert Din and Abraham Nasatir: “At a later time Americans mistakenly concluded that Osage belief in the Wakonda made them monotheistic. They were, however, pantheistic, for they had many gods, goddesses, such as those of the sun, earth, moon, day, night, and cloudless days.” While speaking of young men who fast to seek visions that will give them strength, Osage elder Black Dog says: “But sometimes it happens that a young man has dreams or sees visions which make him imagine that he is a woman. From that time on he takes upon himself the dress and occupations of a woman.” Each Osage clan had its own sacred bundle which was cared for by Little Old Men. According to anthropologist Garrick Bailey: “The process of becoming a member of the Little Old Men was long, arduous, and very expensive. Those young boys who were selected had to learn to recite the long and complex ritual prayers verbatim.” In addition to the clan bundles, there were also two Osage tribal bundles: the big sacred bundle and the great medicine bundle. In June, the Osages held the Iloshka Dance, a four-day ceremony. During the dance, Osage children received Osage names and were formally initiated into the dance In March, the Osages would hold a Coup Count ceremony in which a large corn cake about 3-4 feet in diameter would be baked. It would then be cut into pieces. One of the principal warriors would then approach the cake, recount his noble actions, and then distribute pieces of the cake. This would then be followed by another warrior who would recount his noble actions; and then another, until all had spoken. More tribal profiles Indians 101: A Brief Overview of the Assiniboine Indians Indians 201: A very short overview of the Chickasaw Indians Indians 201: A short overview of the Duwamish Indians Indians 101: A very short overview of the Havasupai Indians Indians 101: A very short overview of the Iowa Indians Indians 201: A very short overview of the Kiowa Indians Indians 101: A Brief Overview of the Omaha Indians Indians 101: A very short overview of the Yuma Indians

[Author: Ojibwa] [Category: AmericanIndians, NativeAmericanNetroots, Indians201, OsageIndians] [Link to media]

— Preparing for site migration: what won't be migrated, what you need to do

 

at 4/1/26 4:56pm

Greetings again, friends! As we all prepare for the migration to the WordPress version of the site, currently scheduled for April 15, 2026, we’re going to take a few opportunities to post and repost “Preparing for site migration” stories covering what you, dear site community users, need to know to ready yourselves for as seamless a move as possible to the new site. In the coming weeks you can expect to see stories and/or comments from several of us (Allison McHenry, iterology, and minos) providing updates on changes to site features, in tandem with Markos’ general updates on site migration progress. All of these stories will be collected in the Daily Kos Announcements Group. And you can help by spreading the word: mentioning these stories to friends among our community of site users, linking to these stories in your community Groups as a heads-up, and republishing these stories to your active Groups for visibility among your membership. Forewarned is forearmed. Early this week we discussed the need to know your login credentials, since all users will have to log in at the new site when we launch. Today we’ll note what is being migrated and, more pressingly, what we are unable to migrate to the new version of the site; we implore you to act now to save unmigratable content of practical or sentimental value to your offsite storage. NEITHER STORY DRAFTS NOR DIRECT MESSAGES WILL BE MIGRATED TO THE NEW SITE; IF YOU NEED TO RETAIN THE CONTENT OF STORY DRAFTS OR DIRECT MESSAGES, YOU SHOULD DO THAT NOW  Here in summary form is what WE ARE MIGRATING: user accounts and their login credentials and their associated records such as site subscriptions, along with most badges (excluding the Trusted User badge) published story content  comments story and comment recommendations community Groups, Group associations to published story content (the byline indication of “published for [Group]”; the notation indicating ‘”republished by [Group]”), and Group membership rosters (excluding unused or long inactive Groups) records of account followers/followings most classes of images used in stories and comments over the years (some formatting must necessarily change, so that images beyond the first image in comments with multiple images will be reduced to hyperlinks; the display of older pre-Image Library images from offsite hosts like Photobucket is not guaranteed; a small subset of older images in formats that do not meet web / WordPress standards can not be migrated) actively used Tags Here is what WE ARE NOT ABLE TO MIGRATE: draft story content peer-to-peer messages (DMs, kosmails) Group messages  If you have important content in draft (unpublished) stories that you need or want to retain, you MUST act now and copy/paste the content of those stories into a document(s) outside of Daily Kos.  If there is important (practical or sentimental) content in either form of your message histories (peer-to-peer messages or Group messages) that you need or want to retain, you MUST act now and copy/paste the content of those messages into a document(s) outside of Daily Kos. There willl be new systems for peer-to-peer messaging and Group messaging on the new version of the site.  ONCE WE LAUNCH THE NEW SITE, THE CONTENT OF CURRENT DRAFT STORIES AND MESSAGES WILL BE UNRECOVERABLE These are difficult trade-offs that had to be made as part of the non-elective migration process. We recognize that you may have years’ worth of valuable conversations and in-progress thoughts that you don’t want to lose. Please copy and paste these into Google Docs or Word or whatever you prefer by no later than April 13, 2026, so that they remain accessible to you. P.S.: for those of you who will participate in beta testing, please note that use of the beta site will involve creating a new account for use ONLY at the beta site, and that account (and associated content) will exist ONLY for the duration of the beta testing. The username, email address of record, and password for an account on the beta site are independent from your existing account here, and beta accounts will not be migrated to the new version of the site.

[Author: minos] [Category: Community, DailyKos, Meta, Recommended, wordpress, WordPressMigration] [Link to media]

— Indians 101: American Indian tribes 100 years ago, 1926

 

at 3/31/26 8:15am

According to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, Indians were going to simply disappear. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being Indians when the twentieth century arrived. In his chapter in Indian Self-Rule: First-Hand Accounts of Indian-White Relations from Roosevelt to Reagan, Roger Buffalohead writes: “When the twentieth century began, most Americans who thought about Indians at all did so in the past tense. Like a photograph, the image of Indian culture was frozen in time. Yet, for Indians, the twentieth century was to become a time of recovering. Instead of a photograph, Indian life and culture was like a motion picture and the way the story line moved on, transcending the ending which American history seemed to have confirmed for Native Americans.” The reality of the twentieth century was that Indians didn’t disappear but increased in numbers. The actions of the government toward the Indians during this century can be summed up in single word: schizophrenic. Briefly described below are some of the American Indian events of 1926. Grand Canyon National Park In Arizona, the National Park Service proposed adjusting the Grand Canyon National Park boundary to include the Havasupai Indian access road. While the Park Service went to great lengths to avoid the private property of non-Indians, there was no concern for Havasupai property rights. Also in Arizona, the National Park Service began construction of a sewer line to Grand Canyon Village in Grand Canyon National Park. The new sewer line was intended to service the growing non-Indian community at the South Rim. In constructing the sewer line, several Havasupai camps were relocated. The park superintendent set off a 160-acre plot for the Havasupai Indians and told them that they could stay on it. Creek In 1926, Creek millionaire Jackson Barnett was considered the richest Indian in the United States. As an Indian, however, he did not have control over his wealth. In 1912, the Department of the Interior approved oil leases on Jackson Barnett’s 160-acre allotment. Six to eight wells were drilled and by 1913 his monthly royalty income was $14,000 to $15,000. As a ward of the government, this money was not paid to him, but was collected on his behalf by the Department of the Interior and deposited into his Individual Indian Money (IIM) account with the Treasury Department. Barnett was only allowed a few hundred dollars a year: the rest was managed for him by the Department of the Interior. It did not take long for the world to discover that the World’s Richest Indian—as the press soon labeled Jackson Barnett—was only allowed to have a few hundred dollars on which to live. As his millions accumulated in the Treasury Department many people other than Jackson Barnett became interested in spending his money. Anna Lowe, a 39-year-old non-Indian who has been generally described as a “gold digger,” set her sights on marrying him. She managed to seduce the 64-year-old Barnett and persuaded him to elope to Kansas with her.  The federal government vehemently opposed the marriage. With the help of his new wife, Jackson Barnett managed to increase his monthly allowance from the government in order to support a more extravagant lifestyle. The couple moved to California and purchased a large home. In 1926, Jackson Barnett was seized by U.S. Marshals and the Secret Service. His wife, Anna Lowe, told the press that her husband had been kidnapped in a gross abuse of power by the Justice Department. Barnett was taken to Oklahoma. There he was released into the custody of his wife. However, federal agents again staged a daring daylight kidnapping on Muskogee’s principal street. Once again, the courts ordered that he be released into the custody of his wife. Note: in 1927, a judge would strike down Barnett’s government-established trust, meaning that the Department of the Interior no longer controlled his money. Nez Perce In Idaho, the Nez Perce met in general council and named a nine-member executive committee to draft a tribal constitution. In Oregon, the grave of Nez Perce Chief Joseph, the Elder, was moved to the foot of Wallowa Lake. The move was made with the permission of the Nez Perce. Yaqui The Yaquis are a Uto-Aztecan-speaking group whose homelands are along the Rio Yaqui in Sonora, Mexico. In his book Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Carl Waldman writes: “The Yaquis remained fiercely independent throughout Spanish and Mexican rule.” In 1926, a number of Yaquis, fleeing from a battle with Mexican troops in Sonora, established their own communities in Arizona. Blackfoot In Montana, the Blackfoot were farming only 306 acres of the 21,341 acres in the extensive irrigation projects on the reservation. Anthropologist John Ewers, in his book The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, notes that the irrigation projects are:   “…a monument to the futility of planning the economic future of the Indians without regard for the Indians’ own habits and desires.” Northern Cheyenne In Montana, the Northern Cheyenne allotment act gave mineral rights to the tribe for 50 years. After this time, mineral rights go to the allottees. Duwamish In Washington, the Duwamish filed suit in the Court of Claims asking for $900 for each of their 56 longhouses which had been destroyed. It took the Court more than a decade to dismiss the claim. Samish The Samish, a landless tribe in Washington state, adopted a formal constitution and bylaws. Paiutes In Utah, the Mormon Church bought land for the Cedar Band of Paiutes, moved them to the property, and burned their old camp. The Cedar Band was classified as a “scattered band” by the government and had been living for some time in “pitiable” crude shacks. The government had been asked to help this band, but when it failed to act in a timely fashion, the Mormon Church proceeded with their own removal plan. Title to the new settlement was held by the Church. Osage In Oklahoma, the FBI arrested five men in conjunction with a series of Osage murders. Former FBI agent Lawrence J. Hogan, in his book The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a Multiple Murder Plot to Acquire the Estates of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members, writes: “…the Osage Indian murder case firmly established the Federal Bureau of Investigation as one of the world’s greatest police agencies.” Crow In Montana, the federal government decided to kill all 30,000 horses on the Crow reservation. In his Doctor of Education Dissertation Language and Culture Mobilization in Public Schools on the Crow Reservation Since the Crow Act of 1920, Ben Irvin reports: “To destroy the horse herds would force the Crow to give up their past heritage and take the ‘Whitemans’ road;’ so the government hoped.” The impact of this slaughter does not accomplish the government’s goal. According to Ben Irvin: “After the great killing, the Crow became even more concerned about the need to retain their traditions (including language) rather than to allow continued acculturation.” Congress approved a jurisdictional bill allowing the Crow Indians to litigate its complaints involving the exclusion of the River Crows in the treaties establishing the Crow Reservation in Montana. San Carlos Apache In Arizona Coolidge Dam was built on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, flooding some Apache farms. Non-Indian lands were included in the irrigation project and as a result little water was available to irrigate Indians lands. While the dam produces hydroelectric power, the federal government refused to provide the money to construct the power lines which would give the Apaches access to this power. Navajo In Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo Tribal Council voted to set aside 20% of its oil revenues to purchase land. In Arizona, the Navajos found out that money from their oil leases had been earmarked to build a bridge across the San Juan River at Lee’s Ferry. According to historian Kathleen Chamberlain, in her book Under Sacred Ground: A History of Navajo Oil 1922-1982: “Virtually no Navajos would ever use the bridge, but the structure opened a convenient automobile route to the Grand Canyon for tourists and greatly benefited the Fred Harvey Company, which own concessions there.” The Navajos also found that they had been charged for several off-reservation bridges, for bridge repairs, and for building a road from Gallup, New Mexico to Mesa Verde, Colorado. More American Indian histories Indians 101: American Indian religions 100 years ago, 1925 Indians 101: American Indians 100 years ago, 1925 Indians 101: American Indian art 100 years ago, 1925 Indians 101: American Indians and the federal government 100 years ago, 1924 Indians 101: American Indians and the states 100 years ago, 1924 Indians 101: American Indians in Oklahoma 100 years ago, 1924 Indians 101: American Indians in Montana 100 years ago, 1924 Indians 101: American Indian reservations 100 years ago, 1924

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