A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Disagreeing with the Mamas and the Papas, Sunday, Sunday can't trust that day. Another long edition. Here's who helped put it out:

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

And we also acknowledge and thank Dallas for his help as link locator and soundboard. We think the student who let us use a photo of a section of her bulletin board (and note that the full photo as well as photos of some her art work -- all photos taken by Kat -- will run in Hilda's Mix on Tuesday). We thank the student in Wisconsin who passed on the Courage To Resist card. We thank Ava and C.I.'s friend who passed on The Bionic Woman trading card. And we thank Isaiah for the use of his wonderful comics.


Truest statement of the week -- We have two. Josh Gaines more than earned notice by becoming the first Iraq veteran to return his medals. We applaud him.

Truest statement of the week -- we applaud Gloria Steinem and encourage to listen to her speech if you're able to. It's amazing. We had considered (due to being tired) just going with Gaines but, as Dona pointed out, we don't hide behind the military. And when it comes to peace, Steinem was there speaking out against Vietnam, against the wars in Latin America, against the support for the racist regime in South Africa and has been speaking out against the current illegal war. We gladly note her statement. (And we'll note there are many funny remarks in the speech. After The New York Times appeared to imply last week that feminists didn't have a sense of humor, the speech may be a much needed corrective to the paper's latest assault on feminism.)



Editorial: Independent Media, Go To Your Room! -- But where is the corrective for independent media? While C.I. was working on the morning entry at The Common Ills (we post this with title and credits only so C.I. can link to it, after C.I.'s done at The Common Ills, we all work on this note), Ty was checking the e-mails. There is one strong objection to the editorial which notes that we "assume or portray" independent media as male based on the references to masturbation. Actually, sorry to shock you, but both genders masturbate. One of the many jobs C.I. had during college ("all those years ago") was pre-K. In the class was a young girl who would get up on her hands and knees at nap time, put her head down on the mat and go to town on herself. Many young boys did the same. The director attempted to reem the the girl out and C.I. pointed out, "___'s got his hands in his pants all day and all you ever do is say, 'Get your hands out of your pants, ___!'" Well it's not ladylike, the director responded. "Well, I don't like seeing any of it, but fair is fair. Tell her to get her hands out of her pants, don't scream at her that she's going to hell." So to the reader assuming that it's only young boys who pleasure themselves, it's not.


TV: Moronic Woman -- Ava and C.I.'s latest. And correction to last week. They were planning to write about Chuck. They have a lot of hopes for that show including that it does -- as its creative team insists it will -- make a point not to glorify government invasion of privacy and abuse the way Alias did. They grabbed Bionic Woman this week. They were going to jump the gun last week because they did so with Heroes last year and that ended up being the big hit of the year. They think Chuck has the potential as well and will probably now wait until much later in the season to review it. Bionic Woman? They loathed it. They got back home late Saturday and when we picked them up at the airport, they were already working the phones to speak to people with the show and people with The Bionic Woman. They compare the update and explain why it is nothing but crap. Again, thank you to someone with the original show for providing the card. It didn't make it into the print edition. Ava and C.I. wrote around it but were doubtful it would be brought over in time. We were very late this morning but even had we not been, we would have had it in plenty of time to scan. Oh, 15 regular readers e-mailed to guess who the female singer was. You all guessed correctly. Her problem, to be clear, isn't that
her lovers are noted. Her problem is that men (including some of whom were her lovers) are treated with "You da man!" while she's portrayed by Crapapedia as a whore. Those guessing correctly knew exactly which men are being applauded while she's being trashed. Her attitude is basically: "Be a prude and condemn us all if that's what you want. But don't condemn the women and congratulate the men for the same behaivor."


Courage to Resist -- War resisters remain under reported on. The 2007 crop has been almost universally ignored by independent media. (C.I. notes Joel Bleifuss -- In These Times -- actually did report on some. Credit where it's due.)

Strangely familiar -- The same independent media that can't shut up about the 2008 election (while the year is still 2007) couldn't note one of the most important moments in a debate where the three 'front runners' revealed themselves to be War Hawks willing to continue the illegal war through 2013. C.I. just made a point that I'm not going to include. It's too strong for the note. It needs to be carried over to "And the war drags on" tonight. (Too strong doesn't mean bad langaguage. It means it's a very strong point that needs to be made and I don't want it buried in this note. I, of course, am Jim.)


Support the Jena 5 (or fact check on indymedia) -- This was the longest piece. Betty's father wanted this covered. He asks, we'll do it. We did it and then waited for when he wakes up in Georgia (5:00 pm their time) for Betty to read it to him. He had a few suggestions and we worked those in. Then Jess said, "You know I'm going to hear about this from my dad." So we had to run it by both of Jess' parents. That led to a thirty minute conversation after it was run by. We took their suggestions and also added the section noting them at the end.

Now Bully Boy's concerned about spending? Now? -- Bully Boy's sudden concern over governmental spending is comical.

Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain -- "Short feature!" Dona was screaming after the Jena 6 feature never seemed to be put to bed.

Rusty Yates -- We aren't doubting the e-mailer. But our note ahead of the e-mail is to state we did not verify this. The e-mail was seen late and we posted it in full. Another point to be emphasized is that Ava and C.I.'s commentaries (which get more mail every week than anything else) have a LONG shelf life. Things they wrote in 2005 continue to be noted by people just stumbling across them. In this instance, the e-mail was adding to a commentary they did in June of 2006. Dona's said before that if she was going through and saving things to remember later on about this time period, she'd save everyone of Ava and C.I.'s TV commentaries, a huge number of editorials and several other pieces. But even Dona would first save the TV commentaries. She says now, "It's like a 'The house is on fire!' question: What do you grab?"


Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Betty, Rebecca, Wally, Cedric and Kat wrote this and picked all highlights except where noted. You know I'd love to pick one and, if you paid attention this week, you know which one. I'm offended and outraged by that nonsense e-mail Mike received. I'd love to say more but he's trying to let it go so I'll leave it at that. (If you don't know, go to highlights, and click on the link to Trina's post. As Mike's mother, she feels -- rightly -- that if her son's attacked, she can defend him whether or not he's asked everyone to act like it never happened.)

So that's the edition. Hopefully there's something to make you laugh, think or get mad. If it's all three, yea for us and yea for you!

See you next week.

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