A note to our readers

This is another theme issue. With all the talk of have we reached the tipping point, Jess suggested we take it to the tripping point and impose a sixties sensibility upon the present.

Great idea and we thank Ruth, Betty, Kat, Folding Star and Rebecca for their assistance on this edition. (We don't thank C.I. here because we continue to maintain that C.I. is a part of The Third Estate Sunday Review gang.)

We knew we wanted to deal with an e-mail C.I. had received but we weren't quite sure how. Then Ruth suggested we do it as a fairy tale noting that they were very big in the sixties. ("White Rabbit," anyone?). That became the mammoth entry (believe it or not, we have severely edited it) that never seemed to end. It was a nightmare roundtable.

In it, we blended in lyrics throughout of songs we like and felt were worth noting. There was a wonderful Carole King song that didn't make the cut much to Jess' disappointment but maybe next time. But the blend of fantasy and music struck us as very sixties.

We also did "Ten CDs, Ten Minutes" focusing on picks from that time period. We hope you'll enjoy that and that it continues the theme of this edition.

What else to write, we wondered. We were all exhausted. At one point, an electricity shortage led to our losing contact with one member helping with this edition. When we were all back on board, it seemed to us that an essay would be a way to go. Kat pointed out that essays were all the rage back when people had longer attention spans. Ava suggested that we could add song lyrics to the piece to flesh it out and to keep with the theme.

Ava and C.I. had an interesting assignment, they had to review a TV show imposing the sixties on today. We had no idea how they'd handle that task and Rebecca expressed concern that creating characters might dilute their critics voices that readers enjoy so much. We were all nervous when they finished their review and read it carefully (there are times when we rush through it and just say "great, let's post it now"). Much to our delight, they found a way to pull off even that task. It's funny, it's sixties, it's today and it's to the point. Next week, we may ask them to review the state of the world and figure out for all of us how to fix things. (That was a joke.)

We weren't planning to do a blog spotlight or to highlight a book review from Folding Star because we wanted to keep our theme. Then Ruth remembered a post C.I. wrote about Rudith Miller. It's a parody about two women in the sixties, in college, one Rudith Miller and the other Heather Rain Farrow who steals Rudith's identity and look to become the Judith Miller we know today. We found it very entertaining back in January and it fit our theme perfectly.

That left only the editorial and we'd always agreed that if something broke, we'd do that "straight" and break the theme of the edition. Something did break, more evidence against the legality and honesty of the invasion/occupation.

We tried to stretch with this edition and we have the sore fingers and bags under our eyes to prove it. Were we successful? We're too tired to judge that at this point. But we do think it was a learning experience and it was fun exploring. We hope you'll find something here that amuses you or enrages you.

Now we'll do the thank you to C.I. You and Ava pulled off the impossible with your TV review so thank you for that as always. And thank you for hanging in throughout even though it meant delaying posts at The Common Ills last night to help us pull this edition together. Ty is chanting "One of us, one of us" from the classic film Freaks. And he's right, you are (one of us, not a freak!).

Thank you also to our readers who have had some amazing e-mails of late that have been such a joy to read.

We'll also note, because Ava points out that we haven't done it and figures if we don't put it in print here, we won't, that we're adding Jude of Iddybud to our links as well as our beloved Kat who's just created her own site. We've been meaning to add Jude for sometime along with some others. The others will have to wait but we will add Jude after this goes up and we thank her for her shout out last week and, Jess adds, for her humanity which shines through at her site.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava