Hey --
Sketch to be filled in with a note.
We switched templates. We did that because we wanted to post a video (read on). After the switch, that Blogger/Blogspot would allow us to post the video, the "widget" that was supposed to be visible wasn't.
We'll continue playing with the template. In switching it, we lost all links except The Common Ills. Dona, Ty and me, Jim, spent about a half-hour putting the links back in. They never showed. As we type the note, we have added some links. We will continue to add more -- as the week goes by. "Was it a blog purge?" No. It was switching a template. Some that were on the link list won't be back. Some we no longer have use for, some involved a link exchange and then they either never followed up or delinked shortly after they got their link. We didn't have time or want to make time to pull those people. We thought they were small and petty. (At best.) But now that the links are wiped out, you can be damn sure we won't be going to the trouble of putting those back on our list.
Ty, Ava and C.I. read some of the e-mails (some) from regular readers this evening (and only names they recognized). We'll try to answer the questions as we go through. (Yes, there's one big topic, no surprise.)
The following helped with this edition:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
and Wally of The Daily Jot
If you're late, welcome! We're always late. We've actually been later in posting new content than we were today. But we did make a point to take a lengthy break. We'll go into it in a bit. But thank you to all of the above for their help. Thank you to Dallas for his help as soundboard (we used him more as that than as link locator -- those who wonder about the number of links, that wasn't our issue this week, it wasn't pressing). We thank Rebecca for photo shopping the one new visual we used this week.
New content?
Message from Jim, Dona and Ty -- The three of us explain what's going on. We weren't planning to do that. Most people know we'll be late. ("As usual," wrote T.L.) But because we (the three of us) had switched the template and lost all the links, we figured we better post something or people might say, "No new content. And links are gone. Are they shutting shop?"
Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Cedric and Wally wrote this and we thank them for it.
The winners are -- The winning video is worth checking out. We love that video. C.I. phoned midweek telling us to check out the video. We did, finally, on Friday. It's really great and this is the video we really wanted to post on our site. Congratulations to the winners.
The Nation Stats -- You can round up or round down, but throughout the year thus far, The Nation continues their pattern of one female byline for every four. Publish or perish? The Nation must want to kill off women, especially since they achieved the 'feat' of publishing an entire issue without one female credited in an article's byline. How proud they must be. The Nation has a woman as editor and publisher. Those who think that some woman, any woman, being placed in charge means advances for all women should really be following the numbers. When this issue was brought to C.I.'s attention (by friends, including some with the magazine) last year, it was stated that under a man, The Nation offered more articles by women. Every time this feature runs, we hear from readers and we also hear from the press. On the latter, while the congrats are nice, why aren't you covering it?
Roundtable -- C.I. had a bad feeling. Trust the gut. Early on, Rebecca admitted that she felt left out when Elaine started her site (Rebecca plans to write about that tomorrow -- she will write about it this week, we told her the number of e-mails that had already come in). We were all surprised (except Elaine and C.I.) and, afterwards, all agreed we figured that was the thing that would get the most comments until . . . "Jess just exploded," wrote Pam. Yes, he did. And we all understand why. We don't blame him. Bob Somerby couldn't get away with that crap if he was basing it on race. But he wants to create a false stereotype and blame people, scapegoat them. He's a sick ___. (C.I. insisted "___" be used.) We all roll our eyes about B.S. He's compromised himself and we've addressed that before. So when we learned of the Friday post from readers, we were rolling our eyes and thinking, "What an idiot." All except Jess. In retrospect, we should have caught that ourselves. We're sorry we didn't catch it. (Ava knew Jess was upset by it, she had no idea he was that upset.) B.S. is linked to by Mike, Rebecca and C.I. C.I.'s pulled him as we write, Mike and Rebecca will as well. This is not just that B.S. was wrong. He's been wrong before. This is a case of him stereotyping. (Ava may address B.S. next week. If you think she said all she had to say in the roundtable, you are mistaken.) His comments were wrong, that happens frequently. The fact that he was attempting to create a group of people to tar and feather is why we have no use for him, not even for cheap laughs (which is what we understand is all he gets on the third-tier comedy circuit). C.I. wants it noted that Betty deserves a huge thanks. Read the roundtable. Betty's just keeping it going and going. Betty and Wally. Dona, Ty and me (Jim) broke away to figure out what to do because there was the choice of wrapping up quickly or just leaving it there. That wasn't due to Jess as much as it was due to our all feeling bad that we hadn't grasped how hurtful B.S. was. Jess didn't want to speak, Ava and C.I. had already waived off speaking and pointed to their pads (they do the transcription of the roundtables and any other feature that starts with us discussing it). Betty and Wally really stepped up and kept it going, so thank you to them for that. (Thank you to everyone but it was Betty and Wally -- who each pulled one early statement they'd made -- if that was included, you'd see exactly how they kept it going.) Betty said we could note that she shared a personal memory of when it was made very clear to her, by a White person, that she was seen as 'different' and "less" because of her race. We really did think this would be an easy roundtable, except for C.I. (who still hasn't said "I told you so.").
Your Guide to the Horse Race -- the roundtable was done early. Ava and C.I. had done their TV thing, we'd done an interview. We had other pieces semi-started and planned. We had illustrations for them. That all went into the trashcan after the roundtable. C.I. suggested we all take a break. Betty and Cedric wanted to be a part of the full edition to show solidarity with Jess so they asked that we regroup after they were done with church. So we took our break. When we got back, we were tossing around ideas, the planned edition was over. Someone suggested this. Jess liked the idea and C.I. said, "I am only participating in this because of Jess."
We're not planning to do handicapping. Our contribution was to note how, election cycle after election cycle, the the gas bags waste time and the object of their gas bagging crashes and burns.
Thomas e-mailed that Obama comes off poorly and notes that C.I. ("who doesn't endorse") had comments about Obama before. C.I. made those comments before Obama was in the race. The piece contains no endorsement. We're not Hillary fans. She comes off better than anyone. (Thomas and others have e-mailed to note that.) We're commenting on the system itself. How it tends to play out, cycle after cycle. As to Obama, if you're unfamiliar with the fact that his campaign in 2004 faced only one serious rival, wake up. If you're under the impression that the one rival decided to embarrass himself and his ex-wife, wake the hell up. If you're under the impression that squeaky clean Obama's campaigns aren't littered with those sorts of 'events,' you're in a coma. But as to it being a non-endorsement of Obama, we called Betty for a reply (as Thomas requested). Here's Betty's response: "Obama runs trash campaigns. That's a fact. Noting it doesn't mean he's not endorsed. Sometimes you need the trash man to take out the trash." The illustration? We have very few visuals. When this was agreed upon, C.I. said, "Hold on." Kat had mentioned the Laura Nyro song and suggested we use it. C.I. went off to the bedroom and came back with this t-shirt. We scanned it. It's from the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign.
Talking with Ruth -- Done early Saturday night so Ruth didn't have to stay up. This is very popular in the e-mails and why not? Ruth's a great woman. Thank you to Ruth and thank you to Brady for the e-mail to C.I. and Ruth that led to this interview.
TV: The not-so-universal White Boy blues -- "Where is the illustration?" That came up a great deal. It's generally known that Jess and Rebecca did the regular illustartion. Had it been dropped? If so, why? Was it because of the roundtable? Yes. Yes, because of the roundtable we dropped the illustartion, because of the roundtable, Ava broke up with Jess, because of the roundtable, we've, in fact, banished Jess. No! We all agree with Jess. Our only regret is that we didn't catch what he caught ourselves. The illustration was pulled because we had publishing problems. After everything was done, it took about two hours just to get it to publish. The text of the commentary? We get it, okay, you love Ava and C.I.! Seriously, we love them too. Dee Dee wrote that it "is so strange that the former Pax had to move a show from the seventies back an hour and it's even stranger that this didn't get attention from others. Now they've dropped the show and given us another boy's life tale. When I started reading, I wasn't sure what to expect. I think they carried the theme off very well and that there are multiple themes. It's my favorite." Dee Dee, you were far from alone. Ava and C.I. trash everything they write so none of us were surprised when they told us, "This is our worst. No one will like it." As usual, they were wrong on the reaction by a huge margin.
Editorial: Shameful -- Most know exactly who the unnamed is. We weren't surprised. If you follow the issue, you know who we're speaking of. We, however, did not want to spoon feed those who would trumpet it.
Truest statement of the week -- Harvey loved this and wrote that he had forgotten about The World According to Garp and felt this was the perfect comparison for WalkOn.org.
See you next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.