A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Long, long edition.

Let's get credit out of the way:

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

Thank you to those helping out. Thank you to Dallas.

It was a tech plagued edition. Less links, no art. We meant to put in the TV illustration and will at some point.

Let's get to what's up.

Truest statement of the week -- We listen to students (five of us are students!). We heard you.

Editorial: Meet Ross Spears -- I'm scared to make a predicition. I (Jim) did last week and, sadly, it came true.

TV: Global Boring -- "OMG!" as Mike would say. I'm tired. Everyone's about to fall over. This may be all I write about. Ava and C.I. planned this to be a blow off week. They've been trying to keep it low key since the May commentary that got so, so much attention. This week was going to be The George Lopez Show. Put an actor and a rock star on the phone demanding they cover this (as well as other friends) and they set Lopez aside. Epic? It's like the Beowolf of TV commentaries! (Ava and C.I. insist I come up with a different comparison. I'm having trouble thinking right now, too tired.) This is epic and beyond. First, we watched with them. We heard them talking on the phone, we heard the one liners. It was hilarious. Ava had 14 pages of notes and C.I. had 14 and 1/3. They did not include all their notes when they finally got down to writing. (Tracey, Ruth's granddaughter, called dibbs on the notes and, reading over them, said, "Oh, this was good too!" A lot of funny lines fell by the wayside to make it workable.) So they're funny and will make you laugh. What else? Okay, they cover Live Earth. They inform you of why the big names stayed away. (You did notice that, right?) They discuss issues of bravery and zoom in on Melissa Etheridge who came out six or so years after everyone knew. They then go into the issue of closeted gays and lesbians and drop a few historical refs. (Who is Frank McCarthy? I did not know the name before this commentary.) They call out self-promotion. They call out shoving governmental responsiblities off as personal ones. And it's funny. If you doubt it, FYI, they're writing about Madonna again. Check it out.


Roundtable -- Longer than Dona wanted but we all could have gone on for at least twice this length.

Got a feeling that you're playing some game with m... -- Okay, we were supposed to name all pieces except Highlights and Ava and C.I.'s commnetary after songs by the Mamas and the Papas. I forgot and messed that up on an earlier one. Got it right here and on the rest.

A bit of free advice (vice, vice) We'll tell it t... -- We don't need your stinkin' advice, Nation magazine!

Get on your pony and ride, Get on your pony and ri... -- Well, they really can't get a high horse, now can they? Get on your pony and ride. Get on your pony . . .

Boys & Girls . . . have a good time together -- Part of our "Sense of Purpose" series.

That's leadership on Iraq? -- Here's where I screwed up and forgot we'd picked out Mamas and Papaps songs for our titles this edition.

Those wonderful Republicans -- Short piece! cried Dona. And for once that actually happened.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Wally, Cedric and Betty wrote this. We thank them for it.

What's going on? We're almost finished. Notice t... -- look at that feature and find the title. One of our biggest problems was that we couldn't put in titles in Blogger/Blogspot. We had to mail them in then take all we'd written and slap it on to that page. It was so long. We are so tired. That's the short story.

That's it, we're about to fall over. See you next week.

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