A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Sunday. And the edition's winding down. This week, we again focus on Iraq. Made necessary by the fact that all media big and small continues to take a pass.

Highlights?

We've got 'em:

Walking Through Watada (Ehren Watada's Article 32 hearing)
Blog Spotlight: Mike boils the week down to one word
Blog Spotlight: Elaine on what Ehren Watada's stand means
Humor Spotlight: Hide the underoos, Bully Boy's got a new spy plan
Humor Spotlight: Betinna tells us Thomas Friedman is all gobble, no action
Blog Spotlight: Elaine, Betty and Kat dream up a program focusing on Iraq
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca doesn't grade on a curve
Humor Post: Wally & Cedric capture Bully Boy's tips for Ehren Watada
Blog Spotlight: Cedric says "Hands off Ehren Watada! Let him go."
Blog Spotlight: Kat on Living With War
Kitchen Spotlight: Trina's Easy Fudge


New content? We got it and the following worked on it:

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

Dallas hunted down links and also acted as a sound board for which we thank him.

"three times as many people were probably killed in Iraq in the same period" -- sets up the premise behind this edition. The dying in Iraq continued. As did the dying media coverage which seemed to (especially with regards to independent media) run from Iraq as opposed to addressing it.

Recommended Read: Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse -- we've wanted to note Palast's latest for some time and had hoped to pair it up with another new book (when it came out). That pairing didn't work because we hated the other book. So we've tried to find something else to pair it up with and do a discussion. Ty noted that a number of readers had warned of mutiny if there was no attempt to note a book in some form this week so we dropped the discussion and offered an overview of Palast's latest.

Challenged? We respond -- last week we did a heads up to four recent songs which led to Martin challenging us to find ten songs from the 60s and 70s that addressed Vietnam. He asked for ten, he got ten.

8 Films Taking an Indepth Look At Life Today -- this is an Ava and C.I. piece with only one exception. "Fart" is courtesy of the comic geniuses Mike & Wally who want it noted that they can offer much more than dick jokes. Ava and C.I. really didn't feel they had a TV review in them this week. They went off to write the review and did everything but. At one point, flipping through the ads in the movie section of a newspaper, they came up with this. When they rejoined us, they'd written everything but, as Wally and Mike pointed out, "There's no fart joke!" Working quickly, a sentence was grafted on.

Cindy Sheehan (again) Ups the Ante -- news you may or may not hear of. AP continues to provide more coverage of Sheehan than any other outlet. (At least The Lone Star Iconoclast can offer that it's only a weekly.)

Recuriters struggle to meet lowered targets but gays and lesbians are still 'unfit' -- Perry Watkins. It's a name you should know. C.I. alluded to Watkins two weeks ago and e-mails came in asking, "What are you talking about? No openly gay person has served in the military." C.I. offered that as a topic for last week's edition and we didn't have time for it. Three e-mails this week made sure this topic was on the must-do list (and, in fact, it's the first thing we wrote for this edition). Despite the fact that recruiters can't meet quotas, despite the fact that tours of duty are being extended, the military still wants to run off qualified persons who want to serve if those persons happen to be gay or lesbian. When the military's witch hunting during war time, it's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Iraq, the war independent media forgot -- Well they lowered the Israel coverage (those that don't make that their beat) and seemed a little despondent. What crisis could they 'cover' next?
While they were figuring that out, most took a pass on Iraq (again), took a pass on Ehren Watada (again), took a pass on a lot of things. In fact, the topics covered last week pretty much played out like a bad attempt to play catch up on everything they let fall through the cracks during the five or so weeks they focused on nothing but Israel's actions. Strangely, Iraq didn't make their must-cover list.

Whack-a-mole (Recipe for Disaster) -- this was thought up by C.I., Kat and Jess and written by all. It's a recipe for disaster and no one cooks it better than the Bully Boy.

TV: Kyle XY -- SEE! -- Ava and C.I.'s commentary. We almost didn't get it. We'd told them not to worry about fitting into the Iraq theme. Last week, we begged them to and they ended up tossing aside the commentary they'd already completed on Twins while they tried to find (quickly) something to review. (The Twins commentary ran in the print edition last Sunday as well as in Friday's gina & krista round-robin.) It was a long week, a long edition. They really didn't feel they had a TV commentary in them. As the deadline approached, it was Tracey & Jayson who said, "You really don't have anything?" They had something in long hand. They didn't think it was worth going up here. Jayson and Tracey (Ruth's grandchildren) read over it and then convinced them that it was worth typing up. (Thank Tracey and Jayson. The rest of us weren't going to push the issue.) We think you'll enjoy it and see it as proof that Ava and C.I. remain their own harshest critics.

Iraq: This is what failure looks like -- remember we said long week? C.I. passed out Friday afternoon. Coming to, C.I. was muttering Gloria Steinem's famous reply about what forty looks like and demanding a piece of paper (settling on a bank deposit receipt) during which the basic points of this editorial were sketched out. Doubting the merit of an idea that came to (being) while coming to, C.I. was doubtful but showed it to Jim and Kat who both agreed this needed to be fleshed out and both also thought this was the editorial. When others saw the notes (Saturday), they agreed as well. For all of those still pining for that turned corner that they just know is a'coming, face reality, this is what failure looks like.

Truest statement of the week -- Mike called it the truest statement of the week on Thursday and we all agreed. Read it and you'll see why.

Next week? We hadn't planned on focusing solely on Iraq for the second week in a row, so who knows? Generally Iraq is one feature and we cover other items as well. There are other items that are news worthy. But with the silence that's surrounded Iraq, we've felt we could complain about it and do the usual mix or we could complain and do our part to highlight Iraq.

So who knows what's coming up in the next edition but we'll see you next week

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