A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Sunday, Sunday, how we grow to hate that day. Computer security issues ate about two hours and ten minutes of our time last night.

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

Credit to Dallas for finding links, credit to Betty's kids for helping with the illustrations, credit to Rebecca for photo shopping them. Credit to Tracey for adding them to our edition last week (on Monday). In addition to Betty's kids, Tracey and Jayson along with all listed above worked on the illustrations. (Tracey and Jayson are Ruth's grandchildren.) We thank everyone.

Whatta' we got?

Truest statement of the week -- please let Goodman's lead be followed and a shift in the independent media coverage take place. (In March, most outlets repeated the Pelosi-Reid measure as "Troops Home Now!" which it wasn't.)

Editorial: They don't exist and no one's looking f... -- They don't exist and no one's looking for them. This wasn't actually our planned editorial. Then there was a phone call asking if C.I. was "ever" going to note the update to Lance Hering's story that was filed Friday. Huh? In the print edition (distributed at our old campus by Ty's boyfriend -- who will be out here the first week August so Ty will have at least that week off from e-mails, that's your heads up) we had another editorial. It was good. We think this is better. Even if we were all ready to fall over (or eat our own limbs if it meant we could crawl into bed).

TV: The Racial Bee -- Credit Ty for Ava and C.I.'s selection to comment on this week. They weren't planning to do this. They were going to work on a George Lopez commentary. Ty pushed and pushed all week. By Friday, they were making calls. Saturday they finally watched it. They warned us Saturday afternoon, "It's a half-hour show, it's a reality show, don't expect much in length or in terms of anything." While it's not 'epic,' it packs a punch. (All chart positions noted are Billboard. Unless noted as R&B, it is the top forty pop chart they're referring to.) I actually read a review in a paper (I won't say which one) this week on the show. (You never show those to Ava or C.I. or they won't take a look at the show in question.) The reviewer completely missed the point that's being made here. Though nothing may top last week's commentary (Ty says it now holds the all time record for number of e-mails on an Ava and C.I. TV commentary), no one's going to feel cheated by this one.

A do nothing week for Congress' do nothing Dems -- At one point as we were pulling this one together, Kat noted, "There are going to be a lot of links in this one." There were. Think of this as our "assessment" of last week in terms of Congress and Iraq. (All jokes in the piece come from Wally, Mike, Ava and C.I. The rest of us were tapped up from the security issues. Dona said, "We need some humor in here. Any one?" The four of them stepped up to the plate.)

The Other Censorship (done by The Nation) -- Once upon a time, I (Jim) used to really get on C.I. about the "talking entries" at The Common Ills. C.I. would rightly reply back, "It's a conversation. If I had wanted to be in journalism, I would have been." Not only did I come to grips with that, I actually embraced the talking entries and have done my own when guesting for others at their sites. This owes a great deal to a "talking entry" approach C.I. took on Thursday. From the e-mails to this site (asking it be noted in our highlights), that obviously worked. We're doing a bit of a different approach here but both are valid and both communicate. (I owned up to all of that when I filled in for Elaine or Mike. I'm not sure I've ever mentioned that here. Dona thinks it came up in a roundtable in 2005.)

Mailbag -- We dip into the mailbag. All mail selected by Ty. One thing was censored by C.I. Ty was quoting his boss, on something his boss wanted noted. C.I. said get him to write it down before it gets included. We'll include it in our next mailbag or roundtable. (It wasn't anything bad, C.I. just wants to be sure it's precise.)

Horse racing or Iraq? Which wins out at The Natio... -- So did The Nation really cover Iraq? Suggestions led us to explore the first six months of this year even more closely.

Story shared -- This was supposed to go in last week. We were going to write it for that edition. We thought it was a nice story about an apparently nice person (Ava and C.I. say, "No apparently needed") but we ended up doing a theme.

See, that's NBC -- Raven has never been quoted in the mailbags or had a question noted in the roundtable. She made a point to get that across in her e-mail. We've quoted her this time. Ty says she's been e-mailing since at least June 2005. If that's the case with any other regular readers, please note that in your e-mail.

Things to do, Things to follow closely -- "A clip job," Dona said excitedly. Turned into a little more at the end.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Wally and Cedric wrote this and picked highlights unless otherwise noted. We thank them for that.

And that's it. Another long edition (due to security issues more than anything else). See you next week.

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