A note to our readers

Consider this the mock issue as in mocking. We'd had a different issue planned including a strong editorial. For various reasons, we altered that at the last minute which meant we all had to start over. (Including Ava and C.I. who had written a review of Fran Drescher's new show Living With Fran.)

We were outraged by many things this week. But somehow outrage didn't seem the way to go this week. So we took a page from C.I. and decided to "mock, mock freely" and "don't knock the mock" (as C.I. once wrote). We think humor is really important to getting through the day and to the sanity of humanity currently.

The media roundtable was one of the many things postponed this issue. Hopefully, we'll get around to doing that next time. (It's not being held, it hasn't been done yet.)

We'd argue the scramble produced some of our best writing.

Let's start with our choice for blog spotlight. We spotlight Betty's Thomas Friedman is a Great Man. It's a funny blog, it has a point and we love it. There were a number of entries this week from community members that were worthy of highlighting. Folding Star's been hitting hard on the Senate. Rebecca had an amazing week (even if she did take off Friday to attend a wedding and Saturday to help us). And what can we say about C.I.?

"When Judith goes scoop, nothing goes right." Ava was the only one of us who knew the song, but once she sang it for us (she has a lovely singing voice) we too couldn't stop humming it. We think the Times should make that a slug line for all pieces by Miller: "When Judy goes scoop, nothing goes right." There was the usual Indy Media Review which was informative and gave you a heads up to issues and emerging issues. (Check it out, you'll find a link to a story on a then unnannounced candidate for governor among other things. You'll also learn about about an election discussion that took place in Tennesse and the press didn't tell you about.) And we loved the highlight of Bob Somerby which turned into a highlight on the state of the news print media today. There was amazing stuff all around.

Once Dona and Jess groaned that they were tired early Saturday evening, we decided to make it a mock issue. And that gave us the perfect opportunity to highlight Betty who does outstanding work.

With short notice, C.I. and Ava pulled from the mailbag on their TV reviews going through some of the less threatening e-mails received. Not surprisingly, while the rest of us brainstormed, they went off and wrote that in less than an hour while we were still brainstorming.

We includes Betty and Rebecca who always are so kind to help us out. We thank you for that.
We'd also like to thank Folding Star who read early drafts of the piece by Ava and C.I. as well as the piece on swap meets and legacies.

On one of our breaks in this all nighter, Ty found a story from The Guardian and that ended up being a commentary on Harry Reid with whom we grow ever more disenchanted with (to put it mildly). After many drafts, we were pretty pleased and thought we were through. We had done it as AP reports by Glen Johnson all the way through and made it a factual reporting of Reid's potential continous shifting. But then C.I. wondered if we were going to do this spoof, why not take a moment to use the spoof to also comment on the New York Times? Great idea and we were quickly moving through additional drafts. We think it's a funny piece and a funny piece to us is something that makes you laugh and underscores a point.

In the middle of the drafts on that, Dona wondered if anyone had given thought to the editorial?
Ava and C.I. both said if we're spoofing, we should make a point to spoof the Times' editorial on the case against the protestor. Great idea since the Times could have told people what happened in NYC during the Republican convention but chose not to. And now they'll get a lot of credit for their "half-assed' story which they push as a more or less isolated incident. There's another part of the story (read our editorial) and the Times hasn't seen any of that as "news fit to print" yet.

We usually try to have one additional story each edition but since we were doing humorous writing, we often found our first drafts being straight reporting that we then had to turn into humorous reports with each draft. That took up a great deal of time.

But we hope you'll enjoy what's there.

-- Jim, Jess, Ty, Dona and Ava