A Note to Our Readers

Later, much later, today (tonight) this will be replaced with an actual note to the readers. We're tired now and going to bed. There's one more (brief) feature that will follow this if anyone's waiting to see what else will be posted.

Hey --
We're leaving the above note.

Another Sunday, another edition. What took so long? Usual problems plus problems with illustrations. Hopefully, some of what wasn't used this week we'll be able to use next week.

Highlights? We got 'em:

Ruth's Report
C.I. takes on War Pornographer Michael Gordon
Blog spotlight: Mike on who got rendered invisible
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca watches the watchdog
C.I.'s NYT critique
Humor Spotlight: Cedric & Wally on Bad Times for Bully Boy
Humor Spotlight: Betinna finds Thomas Friedman's Bad Ideas and Blurry Boundaries
Humor Spotlight: Wally & Cedric on Condi's book plans
The substitutes
Blog Spotlight: Elaine on what it takes a middle-aged man to feel like "a guy"
Cooking Spotlight: Brownies and school party tips in Trina's Kitchen

We thank everyone for their permission to repost.

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;
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 the above and we thank Dallas for input and links.

The new content for this week?

Truest statement of the week -- poor Gordo, praising the 'peace' of Tal Afar on Thursday. If only Saturday hadn't come along to reality check him.

Editorial: Going to where big media is and ignoring war resisters -- a lot of e-mails (and we're behind in replying -- don't expect any replies until Tuesday at the earliest, we're all exhausted) asking about a note on C.I. in it. C.I. was fine with Amy Goodman receiving her share of criticisim. Her share. When the editorial was written, we were all shouting out as Dona and Jess took turns typing. Before the note went up, about ten examples were cited on Goodman. C.I. called a halt and noted that it was one thing to hold all accountable but it appeared that we were dog piling on one. As we note, Goodman has covered more than most. That's why we were in agreement with the statement. As long time readers know, Democracy Now! only recently got criticized by name in an editorial. If you remember that editorial, you'll remember that other examples followed. And somewhere in that should be a statement about how C.I. stated that if we're naming them, we're going to criticize others. C.I. remains a listener of the show and allows that not everyone in The Common Ills community is still. But they do offer more than most. We're not trying to make friends, win links, appear in print or on air. We'll continue to call it as we see it ("we" includes C.I.) but there was a dogpiling in what was being shouted out. We're disappointed in the coverage of Iraq provided by Goodman. We can say that and critique it (via analysis, humor, mocking or whatever we want) but we don't need to dogpile when there are others who've done far less. Other than those questions, most wrote to say it needed said. (They were referring to all noted in the editorial.) We agree.

TV Review: Men in Trees, Water Cooler Critics swinging from them -- This was one of the longest periods and most fruitless we've ever spent on an edition. Fruitless because so much of what we did (illustrations) didn't dry, didn't photo shop (or worse, we'll note that as we go along) and we were all ready to pack it in. Through it all, I (Jim) said, "If nothing else we've got the review." Then, near the end, I started asking, "Who are skewering this week?" They're praising a show. And apologized for that. They didn't realize we were counting on a hard hitting review. We rushed to read it, fearing that we might need to scrap the whole edition, and were relieved to see that, although they are praising a program, it's still a hard hitting review.

Thoughts on Mark Foley -- Some people can't see all of this illustration. Go to Rebecca's site. With this and another illustration, we worked and worked forever trying to get it to show up here. (Both show up in full at Rebecca's site.) We don't know what the problem is. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the illustration and the text.

Mutha Cokie and the Blind -- The other problem illustration. Again, go to Rebecca's site. Mutha Cokie and the Blind was a fun piece to write.

Are You On CounterSpin's Guest List? -- We wrote this at the end of the session. Dona was asking what happened to planned pieces? Where were they? We looked at the list and saw this was one of them and couldn't believe we had forgotten it. This is the second most popular currently in the e-mails (TV is first as always, third is the editorial).

Entertaining what troops? -- C.I. was writing this at The Common Ills Saturday morning. Others were reading over the shoulder and adding input. In the end, C.I. pulled it from the entry and copied and pasted it so we could use it here because it had turned into a group effort. We were very grateful to have this one (which we did rework with everyone participating adding input) with all the other problems going on.

Operation Sinbad: Ongoing and then some -- Ty saw the Indpendent article and remembered C.I. had addressed the fact, in a snapshot a while back, that Operation Sinbad was first launched in 2003. Dallas did research and this was a short entry.

MyTV's Fascist House -- One of the few illustrations that didn't provide a posting problem and thank God. We're still surprised by the enjoyment level of this collage. We intend to continue it and hopefully do so every two weeks.

That's it. That's the note. If we live through the week (we're exhausted), we'll see you next week. C.I. and Dona note that we're all eating sandwiches fixed by Ty and that no one wanted to do this note. We're that tired. Ty said, "I'll cook dinner." That gave us the energy to face the computer.

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