Sunday, June 11, 2006

A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Blogger/Blogspot was a nightmare. We couldn't post what we'd written and what we did manage to post went up in any order it wanted. We think we've fixed the order.

First thank you to everyone for allowing us to repost the following highlights:

Music Spotlight: Kat reviews Free Design's Kites Are Fun
Teniente del Ejército se niega a ser trasladado a Irak
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca covering Dahr Jamail and more on Flashpoints
Ruth's Public Radio Report
C.I. talking about the willfully useless
Times critique by C.I.
Humor Spotlight: Thomas Friedman is the Jayne Mansfield of NYT
Humor Spotlight: Wally explaining Nouri al-Maliki
Blog Spotlight: Elaine on tuna and Cat Radio Cafe
Blog Spotlight: Kat covers the California elections and Guns and Butter
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca takes a pass on the overpriced coffee mugs
Blog Spotlight: Cedric discussing Law and Disorder
Blog Spotlight: Mike on Iraq

If you notice different fonts and sizes in them, you're not crazy. When we realized we could have everything posted by seven a.m. EST, we divided up the highlights and various people e-mailed them to the site. Different e-mail services provided the different looks.

Unless otherwise noted, all new content was 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.

We thank Dallas for his helps with links and more.

"Truest statement of last week" -- we think we'll do this each week. This wasn't supposed to be the top post. It was supposed to come before the radio highlights. However, we like the way it looks. This week it's the top item. Next week, the 'truest statement' will probably change.

"Editorial: Administration attacks the American Way of Life" -- we were looking for a feature.
C.I. said it was the editorial. We started writing it and it became obvious it was. This was completed at two a.m. and usually the editorial is the last thing, other than the note, we work on. We were moving, we were going to be done at a decent hour . . . Then Blogger/Blogspot laughed.

"TV Review: Windfallen Perry and Gedrick" -- Ava and C.I.'s latest offers up a few lessons for pin ups of the moment. Laugh and nod.

"Strange people (fictional recreation of reality)" -- this is Cedric's story paired with another. They are fictionalized version, both stories, of reality. Our apologies to Cedric for not making time for his last week (in the fiction issue, especially after we asked him to hold off writing about at his own site so that we could use it here).

"New York Times kind-of, sort-of reports the death of civilians" -- the death of civilians. Dropped in a reporter's lap. He notes it, he doesn't investigate it. And he wants to call himself a "reporter"?

"E-mails" went up instead two features in the print edition. We've done this tonight. A number of e-mails came in during the day and we try to address the topics being raised.

"Katha Pollit on Radionation with Laur Flanders today" -- If the most e-mailed question was "Where's Ava and C.I.'s piece?" -- the second biggest topic was this feature. (By the way, we just noted that we mispelled "Laura" -- our apologies.) If you haven't read it, read it. A number of e-mails coming in. A lot of "YES!"es, a few complaining. Good. That's what we go for.

"Radio (online and over the airwaves) highlights" offers you some listening suggestions.

That's it for this week.

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