Highlights

These highlights were selected by (and this feature written by) Kat, Cedric, Rebecca, Wally, Betty, Mike and Elaine.

"Tomato and Zucchini Casserole Bake" -- Trina's provides an emergency recipe at the request of the reader and provides commentary on the state of things. Like the need to grow the peace movement on your end because media's not going to help you.

"Watch out for that Cheney! (humor)" & "THIS JUST IN! PUBLIC SAFETY ADVISORY RE: DICK CHENEY!" -- Cedric & Wally's joint-post on what the dour mood of Dick Cheney requires.

"Community reactions to the silence on Watada" -- we liked this piece by C.I. but we're including it because it resulted from a lot of e-mails from independent media. A few noted that they were afraid of independent media's disgusting silence on Watada and other war resisters. None stated they would do anything about it. But all but one wanted C.I. to know that they had feelings too. (The one agreed it was shameful, noted that he fought for the coverage and noted that he'd begin to suspect, like community members, that nothing was going to change.) An added note that Elaine wants made: "C.I. will never allow a 'reply' to go up trashing a member. If you have a problem with something a member said, get used to it. It's the equivalent of a radio call in. Members are allowed to express their opinions and C.I. will never, ever, allow you to have a 'comeback' to a member. You have your own space, don't try to disrespect membership."

"rebecca posting at elaine's site" -- don't install Explorer 7. Mike, Elaine and Rebecca found it wasn't worth it (due to bugs). It put everyone behind in blogging. When it was removed from the three's computers, the result was that they still couldn't log in. That's because when it returns you to Explorer version six, it puts your settings (security) as "Custom level." If you uninstalled and now can't log into your Blogger/Blogspot account or something else, check the security level. (If it's on "custom level," switch it back to default.)

"When it rains it pours" -- Elaine insults this post but we like it. It's open with music, it's got a story to tell (no electricity), Blogger/Blogspot problems, it's got some news commentary and it has a happy ending. What more could you ask for?

"Guns and Butter (Bonnie interviewed Todd Fisher)" -- the infamous Kat post. (We're laughing.) Last week, here, there was a "Roundtable" discussion. A number of people thought Kat was furious with C.I. in it. We've read it over and over and can't see it. But we participated so maybe it reads different? It's also true that roundtables are "rough transcripts" and that, after Cedric and others lost their most important points in a feature that was written here, Dona wants everyone to note their comments that are most important to them before Ava and C.I.'s notes are typed up. She also urges us to suggest cuts from our own comments. The roundtables are always too long to post in full. On typos, because C.I. has no problem owning up, the other big thing is, "C.I. typed it, right?" C.I. never types the roundtable nor does Ava (exception being the December 24, 2006 edition when they were the only ones who do run this site participating -- they put together that edition). That's because they've had to take notes throughout. Kat and Jim have both owned up to their typos before but it's always, "Did C.I. type this?" (C.I.'s actually more likely to note a typo here than at The Common Ills where the entry's are the equivalent of "We're on the air!" C.I. also does a ton of editing and polishing here and doesn't bother to at The Common Ills.) It's a rough transcript. If someone feels they're misquoted (a word missing in the typed version may indicate that while speaking they left that word out), they can add it. (No one's cared enough to do that.) Whoever gets stuck proofing on Tuesday will add a word (in brackets) to note that a word was left out by the speaker -- they do that only if they fear the point is confusing without the word. No words are added to it in the typing. For transitions, a line or two may be dropped (dropped for only that reason). Mike pulled a very lengthy section last week. He was offering various hypotheticals. One, though he didn't know it, actually reflected the experience of one of Elaine's patients (he doesn't know which one, only Elaine does). Elaine explained that there was one point in there that could be misconstrued and he immediately said to pull it. (Mike notes that it was "no loss to the world.")
If the rest of us had made the hypotheticals and included whichever one Mike did, Elaine wouldn't have said a word. But due to the fact that Elaine and Mike are involved, if the patient wondered "Is that me?" the fact that it came from Elaine's boyfriend might have made him wonder even more. Wally just pointed out that C.I.'s stopped looking over the notes in terms of pulling things. Jim thinks C.I. pulls too many things so C.I.'s not even looking at them now before they post. Back to the main story, Rebecca just pointed out, readers were so convinced that Kat was pissed at C.I. that after Kat kept denying it in e-mails to them, they started e-mailing C.I. suggesting, "You need to talk to Kat." C.I. did. There was no problem. Kat explains what she was frustrated with (the roundtable was the first feature we did and she didn't feel that the readers' complaints about Katha Pollitt's column were going to be dealt with). The all caps section was added on Thursday.

"what will become of sarah olson!!!!!!!!!" -- Rebecca (this time at her own site) offers up the tabloid story of our time. The title inspired a feature that goes up here today.

"And the war drags on . . ." -- Ty asked us to note this one by C.I. because e-mails to this site had picked it as the best. Kat's written (in her highlighted post) about how tired C.I. was and how difficult last week was for all the core six plus Kat. Illustrations suddenly wouldn't work (because the Hello! program decided it was no longer going to interface with Blogger/Blogspot). That meant writing a new feature for one that the illustration was integral to and writing a new editorial for the same reason. (Both pieces ran in the print edition.) After the edition went up, hours were spent trying to find a program that would allow images to be posted because Isaiah's comic had to go up. (Members were e-mailing asking where it was.) So there was that headache, there was the 29 hours the core six and Kat had been up and running before the edition finished, there were so many things. The editorial that didn't post here included the Anne Sexton quote (C.I. had picked it out) so Jim said, "Use it." Kat said even she wondered if there would be an "And the war drags on . . ." going up. "But at the last minute, C.I. rallied, and what was a disappointing entry suddenly came to life." Ty says readers of this site were quite clear that they agreed with the journalist and the military person who said Olson wasn't being asked to do anything unusual.

'Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Bully Boy's Baby War Steps"' -- the comic that finally went up. It looks different than they usually do and Isaiah didn't color it "harsher." He says that's the new program that C.I.'s using to post. ("And that's not a complaint. I can adapt to it.") The new program is Flickr and Jess told us yesterday that some visitors saw the icon on The Common Ills and went there. They wrote they were disappointed because they thought C.I. was posting photos. Nope, it's just for the illustrations. (And Kat says, "Even the UK Gurus couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work and how C.I. suddenly got it to work. They were on the phone trying to help. So don't be surprised if illustrations take longer to post, I'm not sure C.I. even knows what the mystery step done was.") Wally adds the program is "Flickr" -- there's no "e" missing, that's how it's spelled.

"Law & Disorder, Anthony Arnove, Michael Schwartz" -- Mike covers a segment of Law and Disorder that featured Anthony Arnove. We all respect him and to "BE HONEST," we think if some left pundits would familiarize themselves with his work, they would grasp what the peace movement is trying to do -- though grasping it might prevent them from doing their one sentence slams. (As Kat called it in her highlighted post above, that sentece was apparently "the full coverage" on Iraq or maybe "the fool's coverage" on Iraq for the year.)

"The Wino Friedman" -- Betty's latest chapter. Thomas Friedman is back in Betinna's home (not by choice). Ty asked that we talk about the title because there were two e-mails on it. When we were all together this summer, Betty's oldest started learning guitar and wanting to hear a lot of guitar music because he's a "pro" you understand. (We're joking. But he is taking lessons and he's very good. He's stuck with it.) So every day he wanted a CD with guitar. He'd ask C.I. to find a CD with guitar. On one of them was a song called "The Rebel Jesus" -- on a Jackson Browne CD. Kat and Elaine say that's on The Best of Jackson Browne (single disc) and it may be on another CD as well. So Betty's son loved that song. He wanted to know the chords and as soon as C.I. showed them to him, he worked on that thing like crazy. In two days, he had a good fake version of it. He kept working and he's got a pretty good version of it down. He sings and plays it still. If he's up when Betty and C.I. are on the phone with each other, he grabs his guitar and insists he get the phone to show how much he's improved. (We won't say "for a kid" he's good. Because he's just good period.) So he gets the phone, puts it down and starts singing and playing "The Rebel Jesus." In his early days, when he was still learning it, he'd make up his own words when he couldn't remember them and do it real soft and then bear down on "The Rebel Jesus." So Betty and C.I. have been using that with each other for some time. "The Idiot Bellafonte," "The Wino Friedman" and others titles and monickers are a nod to "The Rebel Jesus" and all the work Betty's oldest son has done to learning to master that song.

"Dick Cheney does the hard press (humor)" & "THIS JUST IN! DICK CHENEY GOES A'WASHING!" -- Ty said a question came in on why Wally & Cedric always get in the highlights with two entries each? Because they're joint posts. When they were posted in full here, highlights (back before the switch to Beta), that was done as well. They're short posts and they're joint posts. Joint-posts always get highlighted. We like working together. They probably get slighted because they do joint-posts pretty much every day, Monday through Friday, and we only choose two. This one explains how Dick Cheney knows all about hogwash.

"Catching Up " -- Seth returns from blogging for the first time since August. He's covering gay portrayals on soap operas.