Hey --
The nightmare Sunday.
Highlights? We got 'em:
Music Spotlight: Kat ponders Ani DiFranco
Humor Spotlight: Betinna scoffs at a column 'miracle'
Ruth's Report
C.I. offers a reality check
Blog Spotlight: Rebecca explains the realities.
Blog Spotlight: Mike lets his friend Tony pick his favorites of the TV reviews
Blog Spotlight: Elaine talks music and Zinn
Humor Spotlight: Wally and Cedric attempt a White House Intervention
Kitchen Spotlight: Appetizers in the Kitchen
We thank everyone for the permission to reprint.
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;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
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
That's right, we had input from Kat on this edition (for two features).
Reminder, Kat's site is still active -- Just a heads up and noting that Kat was able to work on two features for this edition.
Patricia Heaton's Pep Talk (parody) -- Oh Patty, you're so sick. (Sing to the tune of "Cocaine.") So Patty Heaton was there to attack the husband of Terry Schiavo and she's there now to prop up the attacks on Michael J. Fox. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Her ugliness has been on display for years but it's amazing how the left appears to know so little of it. The right knows every performer they disagree with. Know you enemy, her name is Heaton.
Gold Star of the Week: The Progressive -- TESR giveth and TESR taketh. This week we give a gold star to The Progressive. C.I. was going through the mail (C.I. and Dona both were out of town speaking Wednesday through Friday. C.I. had noted that at The Common Ills but didn't note on Dona not knowing if she wanted that public. An attitude we all had actually. Turns out Dona's got not problem with -- she had told her parents which the rest of us didn't know and was our big concern -- "Guess who's been skipping!" They were more than fine than with her missing class to speak out. And she'll be doing that again in a few weeks when C.I.'s headed to Dona's home state which will also allow Dona to catch up with her family.)
MyTV's Fascist House -- we continue to be surprised by the popularity of this feature but here's our latest attempt.
So what's up? -- Explaining what's up with the site. Here's what was up: Blogger/Blogspot was in out all night and all morning. At five a.m., we said screw it and went to sleep. We figured the problem would be fixed when we woke up. It wasn't. We got a few pieces posted and then it went down again. At which point, C.I. suggested we go to a party. So we were gone for about four hours. We came back, started posting and the problem's still there. Blogger/Blogspot doesn't seem overly concerned about. We're counting seven of seven days last week when there were problems with Blogger/Blogspt and this week? They're already off to a bad start.
Did war resister Kyle Snyder return to the US Saturday? -- Did he? We don't know. Read this feature. This was also the last thing we got up before Blogger/Blogspot went out and we went off to party.
13 Things You Can't Tell By Looking at Them (Movies) -- A roundtable! And one of the two pieces Kat participates in. We mention book roundtables at the end and we actually may have one sooner. Remember the mail earlier in the note? C.I. was also opening packages (Jim claimed the M. Ward CD) and there were a number of books including one we've been passing around since we got back from the party, Free Press: Underground & Alternative PUblications 1965-1975. We may grab that next week.
Oh, that 'campus' beat -- This is actually one of two-parts.
'Independent' media? -- This is the companion piece to the above.
Tina Turner: A retrospective -- Elaine wrote about Tina Turner last week and Dona and I (Jim) really enjoyed that. We called to compliment her on it and she offered to put off her expansion of the theme and let it be a group piece. She'd spoken to Kat in the past about Turner and felt the thing she wrote really summed up both their points. Saturday night, when Kat phoned, we were able to get additional input. Kat provided input on this and the roundtable. Everyone else other than the core six provided input on all features above.
TV: Kidnapped by the Water Cooler Set -- Ava and C.I.'s latest. It's up. Stop the e-mails asking where it is! Truly. We're awash with e-mails. It's up, readers can breathe easy. They were actually planning on going with another show and may grab it next week. A friend involved with the show they passed on asked them to watch and, if they liked, to note it. They did like it but they weren't in the mood, with all the problems with Blogger/Blogspot, to do it this weekend.
Editorial: Three Little Words -- this is just the core six. We assume that everyone who worked on other features would agree but this was written late today and it was by the core six. Note, there are typos, we're sure, in everything posted. Live with them, embrace them. The reality is we couldn't get into the program to do our entries. We had to do them elsewhere and then, in any moment we could log in, we had to copy and paste them in. (And do so quickly before it went out.)
So that's the edition. It's up. C.I.'s now headed over to The Common Ills to do "And the war drags on." We're all tired. C.I. says, "Do not expect much."
--Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.