This week’s entry comes from Jessamyn West’s journal, Abada Abada. I liked her descriptions of the students in her technology class, particularly the line about “skunk essence.”

I like to include stories of people learning to use technology in the newspaper — it seems like most technology reporting focuses either on a new product or service, or on how some people are just totally clueless when it comes to computers. I like to promote stories about people getting it, or trying to, anyway. I like to note those moments when the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I want to provide some kind of snapshot of this moment in our cultural evolution. Before long, everyone will know how to use a computer, the same way that everyone knows how to use a telephone. I think it’s helpful to reflect on that learning process while we’re in it.

Plus, skunk essence is kinda funny.

Seven Days’ deputy publisher and co-owner Cathy Resmer is a writer, editor and advocate for local journalism. She works in the paper’s Burlington office and lives vicariously through the reporters while raising money to pay them. Cathy started at Seven Days as a freelance writer in 2001 and still has the Rolodex to prove it. As the paper’s first online editor, she launched Seven Days email newsletters and started the paper’s first social media accounts. Cathy has overseen Kids VT, Vermont’s...