A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Sunday, Sunday. Sun's coming up. We're almost winding down.

Highlights? Got 'em!

Ruth's Report
Humor Spotlight: Wally on Bully Boy's Plans for Cuba
Blog Spotlight: Cedric discussing Iraq, Law and Disorder and Three Cool Old Guys Blog Spotlight: Elaine on Iraq
Blog Spotlight: Mike on Law and Disorder, tasers and Iraq
NYT Critique (C.I.)
Humor Spotlight: "Thomas Friedman focuses on foundation" (Betty)
Blog Spotlight: Betty addresses music, motherhood and Iraq
Kitchen Spotlight: Jess' Summer Vegetable Blend in the Kitchen
Blog Spotlight: Cedric on our responsibilites re: global warming


New content? We thank Dallas for his input, link locating and more. New content written by the following (and we thank those of us who are not us):

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and, me, 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 Ils);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
Wally of The Daily Jot
and Ruth of Ruth's Report

Beltway Babies -- we planned to put that with another feature but time ran out on us.

Recognizing Resistance -- Truth Out's keeping Iraq on one of the front burners, you should be too.

Fogged In -- meant to run last week. Jess and C.I. worked out a whole melody for this (and counter melody). It started when we ended up trapped in a meeting going nowhere -- random associations written on note pads ended up evolving into that.

Summer Tour Not To Miss -- Susan wrote an e-mail saying that we had not endorse something important . . . a concert tour. We hear you, Susan. So this is our plug for a summer tour. The six of us have already seen one performance on the tour and will be seeing another shortly. But everyone participating in this edition does have tickets (Ruth has tickets for herself and her grandchildren Tracey and Jayson who love Ben Harper's music -- but don't we all love his music.)

10 Tracks That Got Us Through Last Week -- Dona said, "I'm not doing this. When the sun's up, my butt is in bed. Short pieces." She demanded, we agreed. (That was a joke.) Here are ten songs that got us through the week.

Bully on the Run -- already up at Kat's site but since Jess and C.I. are 3rd Estaters we feel we can call it original content that's going into a wider release by appearing at two sites now. (Ava says Elaine noted it at her's Saturday. Okay, it's on a platform release.) (Don't ask me. I just type what's said some mornings.)

Editorial: Don't let Lynne Stewart be isolated -- one of our two big pieces. We worked four and a half hours just on the writing then cut like crazy in the editing stage. Ruth participated in this and we thank her for that (and encourage her to jump in anytime she wants -- we don't feel comfortable asking her because she's busy during the week watching her grandkid and has her Friday Iraq discussion group, and . . . so just jump in, you're never going to be turned away, Ruth, we're always glad you to have your input).

Thoughts on liberalism and realism -- inspired by an article in The Nation. Points that might have been addressed with more space but points that need to be made. If you count the series of phone calls, this was the longest piece by far. The actual writing of it was five hours. We edited very little and are sure that shows.

Truest Statement of the Week -- Dalia Hashad, who we started this semi-weekly feature with awhile back, had another statement of truth, common sense, frustration (we hear you), you name it that was worth noting.

And that's it, hope to see you next week . . .

What's that? No, no Ava and C.I. TV commentary. They blew off this weekend. We tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't listen to us.

Seriously, TV: Grey Enemy (C.I. and Ava just said, "Seriously?" -- it's used as a question on that show all the time). Ava and C.I. take a look at Grey's Anatomy and don't care for what they see. Read it and see why.

See you next Sunday. Hope you found . . . You know the drill, Dona says "Post it! I'm tired!" Next week, we'll pull from what we couldn't do this week. The Lynne Stewart sentencing is important and we'd pushed back that editorial over and over. Having done that, we really wanted to devote time to it.

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