A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Sunday morning and we want to scream, but the edition's up.

Let's note who participated:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ava;
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;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
Wally of The Daily Jot;
and Ruth of Ruth's Report


Woah! say you. Where are Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess?

All are with their families and that was the plan. But we didn't realize that the plan was also the weekend off. Dona had said she was taking the weekend off. Ty we were hoping would. (He hits the e-mails harder than anyone else. He's off e-mails until the new year.) We thought it would be: Jim, Jess and C.I. steering this edition. Jim had a family emergency/drama come up and Jess ended up God knows where but out of cell phone range. Mike and Wally figured out that it would all fall on one person.

One of us (Ava) was scheduled to work on the TV pieces and nothing else. When Mike and Wally pointed out the obvious, it became an Ava and C.I. edition.

Let's note what we've got.

Highlights -- Kat, Mike, Rebecca, Elaine, Wally and Betty picked those out and wrote this. Thank you guys for that. Thank you for your help as well and thank you to Dallas for soundboarding and link hunting.

Applause to Amy Goodman -- Dona says "short pieces!" and usually remembers that in the final moments. With the good role modeling she has set as an example, we got our short pieces out of the way early. This was one.

Applause to Rolling Stone -- and this was another. RS covers Watada.

TV: Victoria's Real Secret -- reading the e-mails here this week, we found Theresa's. We weren't planning on reviewing this, and then CW aired. We wrote her and told her we would be grabbing the trash. We also e-mailed this to her ahead of time to make sure she was okay with the mentions from her e-mail. (She'd said she was but it's one thing to say "Use anything." It's another to see it used. Fortunately, she was fine with the review.)

The Nation Stats -- a short feature that, if nothing else, gives us reason to continue the subscriptions.

The One about Keefer Madness and CJR -- again, we read the e-mails this week. We agree that Keefer Madness is a horror. We also agree that his 'work habits' are as well.

The Nation's Slap In The Face to women -- we think the title says it all. Ava: "Ironically, C.I.'s big concern when I showed up was that the edition planned was too light. Too light? I looked at what was planned and what was written, I arrived after the writing for this edition had started, and said, 'No, it's not too light.' And I felt this was but one example." C.I.: "Thank you to Ava for changing her plans but she did not have to."

The story of 2006 -- Rebecca said, "Don't you Robert Parry this!" Meaning, don't act like it didn't happen. (Robert Parry warned everyone about Robert Gates for weeks before the confirmation hearings. He hasn't said it, but should, he was right.) Rebecca wanted us to note, for the first time ever, pieces were going up at 7:00 a.m. EST. And we're not even on the east coast. So we said it. When Rebecca pointed that out, we asked if everyone was up a bit more. They were and we wrote this piece. (Rebecca photo shopped illustrations, thank you, Rebecca.)

Mr. Tony's appointment -- Mr. Tony. Might make a good hairdresser but a lousy, lousy prime minister.

Roundtable -- our roundtable and Elaine says everyone's going to ask why we (Ava and C.I.) didn't talk more. We're always the notetakers. We think this is a strong roundtable and we know readers enjoy them.

TV: Looking forward . . . by looking backward? -- what is I? That's what Ty kept asking us. We had no idea. E-mails kept bringing it up. It's a network and some people have a show or two on that they enjoy. Some wonder if they should watch. So we took a look at it. By the way, on Charlie's Angels, if they stay in order, they're in season three right now. Charlie's Angels? We always want to write about that show and we agreed to do I just so we could. Is the review any good? We don't know. We don't care. We're exhausted. We consider the big achievement the Charlie's Angels cards that illustrate the story. Those are via an actress friend. We asked late and the answer was, "Do you know how late it is?" Yes, we did. We said, "Never mind, someone's got the card with Cheryl Ladd holding the palm tree branch over her naked body, so we'll use that instead." We didn't have that but we knew that would have her hauling her cards over pronto. She has the full set (including never peeled stickers) and, before anyone writes, they aren't for sale. She's currently attempting to get the van to compliment the dolls (TV show, not movie). We thank her for the use of the cards and she also picked the ones to use out. She would want it noted that there are five shots of Farrah Fawcett, five of Kate Jackson and five of Jaclyn Smith.

Editorial: 2007? -- what's 2007 going to be? That's up to all of us. Take ownership of it.

And that's it. Hopefully something's of use. We're just glad it's over. We have one feature in the can for next week. It's a lighter look at a topic. So we finished on time (actually early since we now go by PST time) and actually have one feature already ready for next week. Not bad for flying by the seat of our pants.

If you're celebrating the holidays, happy holidays. If you're not hope you have a good week. Barring the other four reading this edition and asking, "What the f**k was that?" we'll see you next week.

-- Ava and C.I.