A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
We're still way ahead of last week! Here's who helped out the 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

Truest statement of the week -- a wise pick. Read it and see why. And thanks to the students and Ron Jacobs for having the dialogue.

Editorial: The silence that harms -- Where is Camilo's book? A few e-mails have come in on that. C.I. noted Joshua Key's, quoted from, early on and a few members complained saying they hadn't read or hadn't read that far ahead. C.I. said, "X number says they'll buy it the week it comes out -- not think about buying it -- and I'll wait two weeks before quoting from it." That expires tomorrow. So we'll be discussing it next week.

TV: The 'boys' are back in town -- "Brilliant" wrote Elise. We agree. Ava and C.I. hitting hard at the realities of TV. I (Jim) wrote the headline and they've stated they think it should be "The 'boys' are back in town -- they never left."

Nation Isle -- Don't you love the illustration? I'm going to talk about this the most. We're all tired and ready to go to bed. Mike, you'll beat me tomorrow. We worked really hard on this and actually did it while Ava and C.I. were soloing on two features. They came back to add their input. Cedric and Wally had shaped Gary Younge, Ty and Jess had mainly worked on Doug Henwood. The rest was pretty much up for grabs. While Dona added some details and descriptions, C.I. and Ava we about taking the dialogue written for Katrina and Liza and sharpening it, rewriting it, and at the end there were two strong (and funny) characters. We think Gary Younge, Liza and Katrina come off as the most full bodied characters. This arose from my reading over C.I.'s shoulder yesterday morning and saying, "That's a great one liner about the cruise. We should do something on that." C.I. pulled the line and that's how this feature originated.

Roundtable -- You asked for it, you got it. Talk-ota.

A Mother's Day Message From Bully Mama -- Thank you to Isaiah for allowing us to post this. And Mike asked us to note that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Bully Mama" should have appeared in "Highlights" but they forgot. (That's the comic we've reposted.)

Mailbag -- Do we have any short features, wondered Dona? Ty had pulled a number of things for the roundtable (pulled from e-mails) and Dona looked over those and thought we needed both the roundtable and the mailbag.

The Trojan -- Obama. Need we say more?

Pigicles? -- A reader os 13 months asked that Ava and C.I. address something. (See you asked for it, you . . .)

Pencil it in -- Things to Do in American While You're Still Alive.

Robert Knight's "The Knight Report" -- if you've never heard "The Knight Report," check this out. If you have, take a moment to enjoy Robert Knight's work again.

Highlights -- Thank you to Mike, Wally, Cedric, Betty, Rebecca and Elaine for doing this feature.

This is a quick note. We all want to go to bed.


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