A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Another long Sunday but less long since the clock flipped back an hour. The editorial, written, has been delayed in posting due to technical problems resulting in constant error messages.

Let's note our highlights/reposts (and thanks to all for their permission):

Music Spotlight: Kat on Etta James' All The Way
Soldado estadounidense declara en audiencia de asilo en Canada
NSA hearing spotlight: Ruth & C.I.
Blog Spotlight: Cedric on Afghanistan, Katrina vanden Heuvel and more
Humor Spotlight: Wally on Bully Boy switching focus
Humor Spotlight: Betty on "Thomas Friedman's Frostings and Facials"
Blog Spotlight: Kat on Etta James and Bonnie Faulkner
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca notes Jill Carroll, Flashpoints and Iraq under Bully Boy
Press Analysis Spotlight: Elaine & C.I. note the sexism behind the coverage of Jill Carroll
Ruth's Public Radio Report part I
Ruth's Public Radio Report part II
Ruth's Public Radio Report part III
Cooking Spotlight: Tortilla Soup in the Kitchen

Ruth's report is split into three parts because we had no luck (again) getting it to post by e-mail as one post (and no one wanted to copy and paste the entire thing due to the spacing problems that occur when that's done). So we broke it up into three parts.

Let's note who worked on this edition:

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

All contributed the new content in this edition (except for the TV review which is always done by Ava and C.I. only).

New content?

Editorial: That's what it sounds like when bullies bluster
TV Review: What happens on Vegas will bore you to tears
Ned Sublette interviewed Kevin Phillips on Saturday's Radio Nation with Laura Flanders
Tricky Dick all tricked out for 2008
Why They Schill
5 CDs that got us through the week
Air America Radio back on the air in Arizona
About Last Week

Now let's go over it quickly.

Editorial: That's what it sounds like when bullies bluster may read like two pieces. If so, it was intended to be two different pieces. Time constraints and technical problems meant that we could cover one of two topics or we could combine the two. When we combined the two (with the theme of bluster), we had to drop certain things. Since Carole had written in asking about the media's role, we felt we had to note the media. As a result, our feelings about the fact that another milestone happens next month (third anniversary of Bully Boy standing in front of banner that read "Mission Accomplished" while he boasted that major combat operations had ended) were dropped, our comments on the permanent bases being set up in Iraq were lost and we also ditched some other blustering moments by the Bully Boy.

TV Review: What happens on Vegas will bore you to tears is Ava and C.I's contribution. Dona successfully argued, when we were nearly done with this edition, that the smart thing to do was to let C.I. go over to The Common Ills and do the morning entry and post Isaiah's latest comic (which we used in our editorial) so that when the note was finished, we were all done (as opposed to C.I. having to spend another hour online while some of us hopped into bed). But would we be getting a C.I. in less than top form if we did that? (I, Jim, raised that question.) Dona said "be a human" and we followed her suggestion. What we were told ahead of time about this review (before the break) was that they needed the city slogan of Las Vegas (Ava hunted that down) and that this would be a brief review. Like all of us, both were tired. They also said it wouldn't be very funny because they just wanted to go to sleep. C.I. came back with a second wind and Ava took down time to get her own second wind during the break. The result? Damn funny and far from brief. Ava and C.I. fans, take note, this is destined to be one of their classic reviews. (They haven't reread it and don't intend to -- as always.)

Ned Sublette interviewed Kevin Phillips on Saturday's Radio Nation with Laura Flanders is our report on Flanders' show that we do each week. Flanders is on vacation and we might have ditched this entry but we'd asked, last week, Don to give the show a try and he did. We've utilized his comments in the article.

Tricky Dick all tricked out for 2008 was part of Dona's hope for brief articles since daylight savings time meant losing an hour and since last week was a pain in the butt for most involved.
Mark Warner got some praise for the cover photo and we can't grasp why. He looks like Richard Nixon. We shadowed the image to make that more obvious. In the full size, undoctored image, he also has frightening teeth. It's like Bruce Springsteen before he got them fixed.

Why They Schill Carole wrote us and asked that, since we noted demonstrators and we noted the Dems who won't stand up, we offer some sort of criticque about the media. We felt an author had already said it far better than we could and if you haven't read the book already, read it.

5 CDs that got us through the week Mike's dad asked us to do something on music. Dona felt this idea (Jess' idea) would work best with our hopes of short pieces that would allow us all some reasonable sleep time.

Air America Radio back on the air in Arizona is a short item noting something that is important to readers (as we found out after we did a piece on AAR at the request of a reader who was upset that Arizona no longer had an AAR station).

About Last Week attempts to briefly summarize last week's problems and to note the credits for what went up.

And?

What do you mean "and"? Greedy little readers.

Seriously, we'd planned for this to be a shorter edition due to the loss of an hour (daylight savings time) and due to a need for people to get some rest. That's one reason there are so many illustrations in this edition.

Hopefully, you'll find something that makes you think, bothers you or makes you laugh (or maybe all three).

Thank you to Dallas who hunted down links and helped as a sounding board throughout a long night/morning. Next week, fingers crossed, the return of the book discussions with at least two books as the focus.

See you next Sunday.

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