A Note to Our Readers

Good evening. Unlike the rest of the edition, the note's being written late. A large number of us were in DC for Saturday's World Can't Wait Rally (Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, C.I., Wally and Kat) and we had to start leaving at a set time. When we got the last thing completed, we had time to start on the note or time to grab breakfast. This was Wally's first visit to DC and we wanted to show him around some more plus Ava has family in the area so we all had to make a stop-off visit there.

Despite problems with Blogger, we did turn out an edition.

Our biggest concern was what would our readers think of Ava and C.I.'s latest "Ava and C.I. dip into the mailbag to respond to 'Cowpoke' Rob"? They were going to review The Office. They told us they needed a half hour for that at a minimum because they usually have time to compare notes on the show but that didn't happen this week. That time is where they exchange ideas. It's their prep work. We'll respect the process. But we lost a lenghty feature due to Blogger problems. We'd worked a long time on that entry. Spirits plummeted. At which point, Ava and C.I. volunteered to do an entry (with the hope that once something was up, we'd all focus on what needed to be done and not what was lost). They weren't going to do The Office without discussing the show. But Jim had mentioned an e-mail repeatedly to them this week. They said they could read that and respond to it. (And did in ten minutes.) Once that was done and posted, we were all ready to work.

If you visit the community sites (and we hope you do) you know that there has been nothing but problems with Blogger beginning on Thursday. People couldn't log in, people lost posts. Betty had a post that wouldn't publish because she kept being told to try publishing again in ten minutes.

With that history, when the first piece we wrote was lost, the frustration level was high. So thanks to Ava and C.I. for stepping up to the plate and taking one for the team.

That's how we looked at it. "Ava and C.I. dip into the mailbag to respond to 'Cowpoke' Rob" is funny but would readers enjoy it or complain that there wasn't a new review? Much to our surprise, readers have enjoyed it with many weighing in that they wish Ava and C.I. would do this at least once a month. Rob's e-mail, for those wondering, is word for word with the only thing being censored being the city he listed. (Which we indicate with "___.")

What else you got? What else you want?

As post went up as completed, there was some confusion from early readers. Why did posts go up as written and not saved to draft? At The Common Ills, Ruth's latest report disappeared when it was saved it to draft. For a minute it was listed, then it was gone. We didn't want to risk that. We figured it would be a treat for early readers. But with the e-mails coming in, Dona felt we needed to make some sort of a note. It became more than that and Dona went into interview mode which allowed it to become considerably more than that.

The lost entry was on the Bush Commission. Though we rallied, we weren't ready to tackle it again. Hopefully, next week we will be. C.I. was kind enough to toss a topic that was intended for The Common Ills which is how we ended up writing "How to get coverage in the New York Times if you're a (living) woman." Since our editorial was going to be about The New York Times' lack of coverage (on the op-ed pages) of Coretta Scott King, this provided a nice compliment. Which reader TC has already praised us for as being a well thought out plan. The reality is, we didn't plan it.

Did you hear that NARAL is the reason Alito was confirmed to the Court? Lot of people seem to be pushing NARAL as the scapegoat. Which is why we wrote "State of the web: NARAL as the new Ralph Nader." None of us support NARAL (The Common Ills community came out against the organization in January -- of 2005. ) We think they're an ineffective organization at present (and have been for the last few years). But we're aware that they have no vote in the Senate and we're aware that if the Democrats had stuck together, they could have filibustered.

NARAL's an organization that can do whatever it wants. We don't applaud their actions, we dont' endorse them. But we also don't scapegoat them for the vote. Seems like everytime the Dems screw up, someone starts pushing a boagy man and this time it's apparently NARAL. We don't buy it. We especially don't buy it when it comes from the mouths of people who've trashed abortion rights and appear to be less than honest about why they are now scapegoating NARAL.

Our editorial? On the paper of record's refusal to print an editorial or column about the passing of Coretta Scott King. The paper doesn't think it's important. (C.I. thinks that may change now that Bully Boy's announced he will be attending the funeral.) "Editorial: Does The New York Times editorial board not know that Coretta Scott King died or do they just not care?" addresses the paper's ignoring of the passing. It's interesting that their ignoring her hasn't prompted more coverage. Maybe "race" is another example of "identity politics" that so many want the left to move away from?

What's not here. No entry from Maria. (Or Francisco or Miguel.) Why? When problems with posting prevented a Friday night entry at The Common Ills, C.I. e-mailed Maria and said if she hadn't started working on it, take the weekend off due to the problems with Blogger. For the same reason, C.I. told Isaiah to take the weekend off if he hadn't already completed his latest The World Today Just Nuts. Here's another thing missing: a post by Mike that we wanted to highlight. When Blogger finally began kind of sort of working, Mikey Likes It! wasn't viewable. It remained that way until Sunday afternoon. Our apologies to Mike (who knew of the problem and said it was no big deal but we did want to spotlight him). We had another spotlight from
Cedric's Big Mix. We e-mailed it to the site. It still hasn't shown up.

Thanks to C.I. for that tip. Our spotlights can be a pain in the butt when it comes to posting. They should be easy entries because they're already written. But when we copy and paste, they all run together. We spend forever spacing them. By e-mailing them, we'll be able to do them more quickly in the future. (And if, like Cedric's post that still hasn't hit the site, that doesn't work, we have another backup plan that C.I.'s thought of.)

So we managed a new edition and we couldn't have done it without the help of the following who worked on all articles (except Ava and C.I.'s piece -- which they wrote):

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.

We also thank Dallas who hunted down links. And we thank Ty's significant other who took over the duties of the print version for us.

See you next week.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Remember Pacifica Radio will broadcast the NSA Surveillance Hearings Monday, Feb. 6th from 9:00 am to 6:00 PM EST.