Hey --
A long, long session that shouldn't have been. Technical problems (some of you noticed it took forever for features to go up after "Highlights" went up and guessed we weren't having any luck posting) accounted for two hours, C.I. attempting to upload visuals (no luck for own artwork) took forever, and we had assorted other problems and issues.
Let's note who worked on 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
Thanks also to Dallas (soundboard and links) and to Rebecca (photoshopping for the print edition this time since none of our artwork made it online).
Whadda' we got?
Truest statement of the week -- we had all agreed early on last week, this would be truest statement of the week short of a drunken Bully Boy, stumbling before a mircophone and yelling, "I'm back on cocaine! I'm a War Criminal! I lied the nation into war! You won't impeach me! You're too damn scared! Soon as I come down from my coke high, I'm declaring Martial Law!"
that this would be truest statement of the week. Since Bully Boy has yet to state the obvious, it remained the truest.
Truest statement of the week II -- This is a C.I. and C.I. didn't want it. But we had so many problems that when Dona said, "We can go with this or we can write another piece," C.I. said, "Fine." This was actually recommended as truest by three readers including Stanley who has a birthday today, Happy Birthday Stanley!
Editorial: The Thrice Screwed Adam Kokesh -- Paris Hilton gets covered on KPFA and those fighting to end the war may or may not get covered? That's screw one. Screw two is the MSM coverage. Screw three is is the US military. You know what would be really great, if the US media -- BIG AND SMALL -- could grasp that the Iraq war goes on each summer when they run off to vacation or cover other topics. That would be really great. And I will say it (I can feel C.I. cringing over my shoulder) -- if the independent media had done ANYTHING to cover Cindy Sheehan last summer maybe she wouldn't have felt like her efforts were being wasted -- maybe if they had covered her fast, her trip to Jordan, Camp Casey opening again, she wouldn't have felt that way, others would have learned what was going on and the whole peace movement would be a lot further along. We can't afford a second summer where independent media runs from Iraq and if anyone thinks we've been nasty thus far, just try to pull that sh*t this summer and you'll see how rude we can get. "Sh*t" because if C.I. doesn't have time to send out e-mails, we're censoring. I meant to note that last week (Mike did) but forgot. There are some that use a work computer on Sunday and on Monday and that's the only access they have. They get a mass heads up from C.I. when we're using language so they don't have to worry about write ups or firings. When there's not time to do a mass e-mailing, we'll censor.
TV: Creature Crap -- Ty says it seemed like I was ragging on Ava and C.I.'s commentary last week to most people e-mailing. I wasn't. I was really tired (we all were). I thought they were funny and observant but I did feel that they were making comments about serial dramas that I hadn't heard before (even from when we're all sitting around talking during the week) so that stood out the most. But it was funny and I wasn't trying to say it wasn't. This one is funny as well. I laughed my ass off while I was reading this out loud to everyone. Wally said, "Jim, either stop laughing or give it to someone else to read." Sidebar, I fill in for Rebecca and pick my ten favorite Ava and C.I. commentaries from 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 thus far. Just the favorites that come to mind. That was at least a month ago. I'm still getting hate mail on that. I'm still getting, "How dare you forget ____!" and e-mails along those lines so forget that I love what they do, just to avoid those angry e-mails I would never diss Ava and C.I. Again, this one will have you laughing. (I heard the phone call at the end of the review, by the way, and I was laughing during that too.)
Liam Madden -- Liam Madden held a press conference on Thursday. Friday morning, KPFA couldn't note that in their news breaks during The Morning Show but they could note Paris Hilton. Again, are you seeing the problem here?
Get America Out Of Iraq -- The print edition version of this is longer with each person drawing names out of a baseball cap and you got a candidate's name and "postive" or "negative." You then had to find something positive or negative (depending upon what you drew) to say about their plan. We liked it for the print version. We didn't want to defend Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton's plans up here. (No one drew "Obama positive.")
The Nation Stats -- Two more issues and the problem continues. Friday, on KPFA's The Morning Show, they addressed how few women owned radio stations. (More own rural than own big city and total percentage of women owners is 6%.) Does it make a difference when women are in charge? Looking at The Nation, you could argue, "No, it does not."
Caged Tepid -- Get it? Caged Tepid. Not Caged Heat? This is our humor feature.
Wait! Dahr's not Canadian! -- Two big features collapsed on us. One, C.I. pointed out this wasn't the week for. (When it is the week for it, we'll note it was the delayed feature.) C.I. didn't pull it. C.I. explained that we probably didn't want to offer praise or attention and we all knew why. So that got pulled. The other just wasn't coming together. (The latter ran in the print edition.) We'd put it through several drafts. We also had a short feature that C.I. said, "That's nice but Isaiah's comic for today is that exact same thing." So we killed that and were left with a huge hole and nothing to fill it with. Dona asked C.I., "What didn't you note -- for a short item -- last week that you meant to. Remember, short item." (Dona says short item every chance she gets.) C.I. remember the Thursday correction in The New York Times so we ran with it as a short item.
Socialism 2007, Chicago, June 14-17th -- This takes place this coming weekend. Lot of people there. Anthony Arnove, Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Sharon Smith, Jeffrey St. Clair, Kelly Dougherty, Camilo Mejia and Garrett Reppenghagen among others.
Highlights -- Mike, Wally, Cedric, Elaine, Rebecca and Betty did this. We thank them for it.
That's it. We'll see you next weekend and next weekend may be our summer fiction read. May not be. But it's next weekend or the weekend after. So that's your heads up.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.