In the darkness, the sound of many voices talking registers. Many overlap, some speak at louder volumes.
VOICE 1: Wait. I think we need to explore this a bit more.
VOICE 2: We've walked it, we've talked it to death. If there was any breeze left in it, we shot it out hours ago.
VOICE 3: Probably the best thing to do --
VOICE 4: I'm not so sure about that.
VOICE 3 (Con't): is just to start writing.
And so it went. Over and over. Repeatedly to the point that by five a.m. we had a bunch of rough drafts and nothing finalized. At one point, and everyone was exhausted, when Ava and C.I. were working on their TV review, they both fell asleep. Now they've been tired before and one of them's had to wake the other up. They've nodded off before and suddenly jerked awake. But this time, they both fell asleep and were out for five to ten minutes.
The edition was made worse by the fact that, as Cedric noted, Ava and C.I. both agreed to participate in a story they weren't crazy about with the promise that we'd do a story on two topics they wanted. (The targeting of independence movement figures in Puerto Rico by the FBI and the activism in the United States over the immigration proposals.) In the end, there wasn't time for those stories.
Four hours were utilized talking about stories as opposed to actually writing anything. (Dona was consistently the voice that stated, "Let's just get started.")
So we posted late and never put up "A Note To Our Readers." The thought was that we could do that Sunday night, despite Ava saying she wouldn't take part in it. When Ava remained firm on that, we decided to do it later in the week, after Danny Schechter's Wednesday talk. But the fact was only two people were in the mood to do a note (Jim and Ty). The attitude on the part of the others who participate in the note (Dona, Ava, Jess and C.I.) was that they had given more than enough time to this edition and to attempt to write about what happened would probably result in another never ending session.
So what happened? There was a lot to cover. Both in terms of things we wanted to write about and in terms of personal events we wanted to share. We didn't have a focus.
And the focus extended to the edition, the lack of focus. The stories being suggested were good ones but there wasn't an overall theme. As Dona pointed out then, that's never been a problem before. As C.I. pointed out then, write something and the theme will emerge.
Jim was the one wanting to hammer down a theme before anything was written. That's how we ended up with a focus on Democrats -- a focus that didn't strike anyone involved as worth the time and trouble involved in hammering out the focus ahead of time.
So that's what happened and why. This week, we're flying themeless, unless something emerges unexpectedly after everything's been written.
We thank Dallas for all of his help hunting down links last week. We thank everyone who allowed us to repost for our highlights. We thank those who participated in the writing. Except for the TV review, all pieces were written by the following:
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
The new content for last week's edition was:
Danny Schechter speaks on Iraq and the media 7PM March 29th in NYC (open to the public, no charge for admission)
Will Interview With The Vampire become the new Catcher in the Rye?
NSA Hearings This Tuesday on PACIFICA RADIO
Editorial: Who's hiding in the shadows and who's waving their Feingold?
TV Review: Joy Ride?
The Washington Post leaves us still Waiting For Lefty
The 2008 Democratic primary is already over
Saturday's third hour goes to the arts on RadioNation with Laura Flanders
Why They Crawl
We hope we've got it together this weekend. Whether we do or not, we have one less hour for this edition due to the fact that it's daylight savings time (set your clocks forward an hour -- spring forward, fall back).