Hey --
It's nearly nine p.m. Monday and we're putting this under Sunday to keep it with the edition.
First up, those who need crediting for the writing on this edition:
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
We thank all above (other than the core six) and we thank Dallas for links and for sounding board and much more.
New content:
Highlights -- covers our picks of some of the best entries from the community last week. We can't e-mail still. (We usually post in full and do that via e-mails -- we can't repost and space and all that and put out a new edition.)
Where's the content! -- was a brief note done by the core six minus Dona just to say content is coming. We were late for a number of reasons including wanting to catch up with Kat (who is back from Ireland).
Playlist this edition -- short entry by the core six minus Dona.
Mommy's Pantyhose wants to be a tough boy -- thanks to Rebecca who photoshops all of our illustrations. The illustrations this edition were done by Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. and by Rebecca who adds to them in photoshop. We like this entry and it's very popular in the e-mails as well. Connie e-mailed that the illustration perfectly matched the text. A rare event, if true!
Judith Regan: Trash merchant (still!) -- we weighed in. We went back and forth on whether too or not. (Hasn't enough been said? Obviously not, it's bigger news on Monday than when we posted our feature Sunday.) It was a possibility for online. We knew we'd do something for print. Then Dona loved the illustration we'd done for it and said we had to write it for online (all online features were in the print edition as well except a note -- our "A Note to the Readers" in the print edition was "UGGGHHHH!").
Happy Birthday -- C.I. and Dona were gone for most of the week (speaking with high school and college students about the war). C.I. had calls and visitors while gone. I (Jim) didn't pass on the messages. There was enough to focus on (for C.I. and Dona). C.I. heard about it Saturday when they (C.I. and Dona) returned. Moments after learning some of it, a friend was at the door. This is to someone C.I. knows. C.I. was asked to write it (and asked while gone but I didn't pass that on) as an open letter that would circulate among friends (and go to the intended). On Saturday, C.I. explained there was no time for something like that, we had an edition to turn out and there were other things as well. The friend who'd stopped over asked if it couldn't go into the edition?
C.I. asked us (Ty, Ava, Jess, Dona and me) what we thought and we were all for it. We assumed it would be for the print edition. Rebecca knew the woman it's to and Elaine as well (less so than Rebecca) so they were eager to participate as well. We all worked on it and decided what resulted needed to go online for several reasons. For C.I.'s friends, it made the "open letter" more open. (They've e-mailed it like crazy.) For us, we're trying to get C.I. to allow us to post something or work on a new version of it -- an open letter C.I. did in the 90s. It's a holiday greeting and quite humorous. The reaction to this has been positive enough that C.I.'s considering it (not as a repost, as something we'll all work on). If it's not clear, and C.I. was against this going up for that reason, the woman in question is not a "hippie." She voted for Bully Boy. She was never a "hippie." No one ever thought she was. But pleading "hippie" allowed her an excuse for all her other stunts before. (We also had an e-mail from her -- griping. We laughed when we read it today.)
Justice for Abeer and her family? -- one of the longest pieces in terms of writing time. Also in terms of the artwork. What we're going for is putting the rapists in the foreground to get across both how much smaller the 14-year-old Abeer was and also to get across who was the concern at the time (themselves). With the exception of brown and black for hair and green for one t-shirt, we're largely working with red, white and blue and, yes, that was intentional. We were disgusted with the actions Barker described. When we talked to other people, who'd heard it (some on Democracy Now! during Friday's headlines), it was obvious that, though they were offended, they didn't really picture it. We did three illustrations with the hope that it would get across how awful the crimes were. While we think it's sad that it hasn't gotten across, we're also aware that these crimes have not been covered seriously in the media.
Music retrospective: Stevie Nicks -- the never ending feature. Truly! We just added to it tonight. Dona didn't work on the short features. She was attempting to prune what we'd written down to a workable length. We ended it before it was over (while we were writing on it) when it was pointed out we'd been writing it for over three hours. (We were also out of chocolate.) Dona took it and did a great job editing it. As we were working on the short features, we realized we needed to add a bit more. We added that tonight.
TV: Day Break -- Ava and C.I.'s TV review. This has been the most instantly popular since Prison Break. A lot of people who watched wrote to share their agreement and we've also got e-mails saying, "I'm checking it out Wednesday." (Illustrations to all Ava and C.I. TV reviews are the work of Jess and Rebecca.)
Editorial: Signs of activism life on campuses -- we were done. Oh no, we weren't. We never wrote the editorial! (We did have a host of technical problems.) We did this as quickly as possible. The thing we didn't note, that C.I. would have asked for a "C.I. did not participate in this editorial," resulted from a "tension" in the writing that we hadn't noticed. We've re-read the thing we were going to include and there is a "tension" in it. If someone's writing for reasons that are less than on the surface, we say more power to you and are glad we didn't include it in the editorial.
Thanksgiving weekend? (This coming Sunday.) We're not sure who will be participating. Wally's a maybe. Kat's for sure (she's trying to get back into the normal routine now that she's back from Ireland). Rebecca's pretty sure she's she's out. If she is, we're thinking of asking Mike and Elaine to bow out (so that they can have a whole weekend). Betty says she's in and Cedric says he's in. But it's all still up in the air. (Anyone who needs the weekend off should take it.)
See you Sunday.
--Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.