A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
The note's going up late this edition. It was all we could do to make it through. The following helped write 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 them and we thank Dallas for his help hunting down links.

New content?

Next week? -- tells you what little we know about what's going up next week. Jess, Ty, Rebecca, Mike and Kat wrote this.

Highlights -- Jess, Ty, Rebecca, Mike and Kat wrote this and selected the highlights.

The US military divides up Baghdad -- Dona loves short features (so do some readers). They provide variety and can be done quickly. This is the map you may not have seen.

Look who's invited out of the stye -- Jess hit the e-mails earlier (Ty is on a break from the e-mails until the new year) and was surprised (happily) by the number of e-mails on this. One woman who self-identified as a victim of sexual abuse wrote, "It needed to be said. Thank you."

MyTV's Fascist House -- the popular feature is back. This is Donald the Rumsfled's last 'episode.' (As a regular!)

Truest statement of the week -- we just put this up. At the request of nine readers.

The Susan Seaforth Hayes of independent media -- how many mistakes are allowed in a single article and who, if anyone, bothers to fact check? Ladies and gentlemen, the Susan Seaforth Hayes of independent media.

Tower Records R.I.P. -- this is the sort of feature we'd like to do. It's a fun feature (Christy calls it the best thing on the closing of Tower she's read -- thank you for that e-mail, Christy). It's creative, it's alive and, yes, it was real.

Danny Schechter's The Death of the Media -- this is where we take another look at Danny Schechter's book and this time see how we can apply it. If you haven't checked out the book, please do -- it will give you ideas as well. (For those asking about the illustration -- when they cut off, that's beyond our control -- usually in 8 or so days, they fix themselves.)

"F.U." from The Nation -- a very popular feature. Jess hasn't read all the e-mails and we haven't been able to either. C.I. gave a teaser last week and that's because Jim really wanted to open with "F.U." and C.I. was worried that some might stop reading at that point. So a heads up was given to the community.

TV: What About Rosanna? -- with the usual problems, Ava and C.I. said they didn't know that anyone would like what they wrote this week. We did. We loved it. They blew us off. No surprise, of the e-mails read, this is the most popular feature of the week. Read it.

Editorial: Thanks to those who strive for peace -- a different sort of editorial. Jess read one e-mail asking why, if it was important to note, the war resisters referred to in two e-mails weren't noted? One of the two got a response from Ava and Jess (they work the e-mails for The Common Ills along with Martha, Shirley, Eli and, of course, C.I.). They asked if it would be okay to note the family celebrating in Canada. Since it wasn't, we didn't name names.

That's it, see you next week.

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