Another Sunday.
Here's who helped:
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 Dallas. We thank all for their help. We thank everyone for their help and we thank Isaiah for allowing us to use his comics.
Here's the new content:
Truest statement of the week -- this was an obvious choice even in a difficult week.
Truest statement of the week (Readers' Choice) -- Mike's readers Leigh and Beau (Beau is also a community member) led the charge for a readers' pick this week. We heard you. C.I.'s summation of a really, really bad book.
Editorial: "The surge" has worked? -- We said, "If we do it, we all go to sleep after." It was a long edition and we were thinking of C.I. who agreed that Isaiah's latest would be posted and since Kat's latest review was up, that was enough for the morning at The Common Ills. We've put this feature off over and over. Specifically, John McCain's repeated lies about the 'surge' which he damn well knows is not a solution (or a success) because he called out this nonsense in August of 2006. So desperate for votes, he'll tell any lie today.
TV: Beware the Reaper -- We were doing short features with everyone and Dona kept saying to Ava and C.I. that they could go work on their TV commentary. They didn't want to. There were too many topics to cover. We didn't understand because the show is The Reaper and they actually reviewed it last week but pulled it to offer up the harder hitting "TV: The Wall St. Journal's Entertainment Program." We honestly thought this weekend would be a breeze for them and they'd just touch up what they'd previously written. We weren't aware that they'd faxed it around for input and the overwhelming opinion of those in film and TV was that Kevin Smith needed to be put front in center. We also didn't realize that what had been, the week before, a basic review of a bad show was instead going to pull in so many elements. When I (Jim) finished reading it outloud, Rebecca probably summed up our attitude towards it best when she asked (only semi-joking), "Are you sure that's not the editorial for this edition?" They both say next week they're coasting. If they do, they've earned it. This is among their finest. (I'd rank it but then I'd get the usual angry e-mails of "How dare you forget their review of ___ and their review of ____ and their review . . .")
NYT: "Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq" -- We had a list of features going in. We didn't have time and later developments meant other things had to be covered. We'll be picking up another Obama topic shortly. In addition, a war resister feature got pulled on hold until next week. This is a piece where we're using the transcript of The New York Times' interview with Barack Obama (linked to at the end) to demonstrate how their front page article Friday should have been written. (We don't link to the article but Ty says one e-mail already asked. You can google or you can use the link to C.I.'s snapshot which contains a link to the actual article. As well as criticism of it.)
1 Book, 10 Minutes -- This went up Thursday. It's the book discussion we did October 7th and held. We weren't going to run it unless either made some sort of response. When the male half of the due told a paper last week that "a group won't even read the book," we felt we had a response. It went up about five minutes after we found out about that article, Thursday morning. The e-mails on it have been tremendous with most stating not to ever again hold something this hard hitting. We should go in and do an intro note at some point. When it went up Thursday, some e-mailing were writing things like, "You already discussed Norman Solomon and Susan Faludi's books." Yes, we did. The discussion took place weeks before that.
Mailbag -- First up, Dallas asked that we toss in Ruth of Ruth's Report. She's mentioned repeatedly in the feature and didn't get a link. Dona maintained a strict time limit. C.I. apologized after the feature for 'monopolizing' the time. It wasn't monopolized. We almost put the points made in the mailbag into the article last week but were too tired. Mike had noted last week that we'd respond to the feature and we did.
It is not and has never been about "our freedoms" -- This was our planned editorial but we honestly didn't have it -- "it" being the inspiration. When it wasn't working, repeatedly, we pulled it as the editorial and made it a feature.
Like a two-year-old, Karen Hughes keeps waving bye-bye -- "Visual and short!" cried Dona and we all went in search of potential topics. This won out for good reason.
FCC hearing in Seattle Friday -- We didn't have time to write about this so, fortunately for us, since Ruth had, we just excerpted.
The US State Department wants your feedback -- When Mike posts the questions from a poll (Zogby) his readers always enjoy that to see what's being asked for the upcoming poll. We include the silly State Dept. poll for that reason.
TESR Exclusive! Condi filming musical! -- C.I. noted the Waxman hearings in the snapshot the week of. Last week, they popped into a snapshot again. When discussing that with C.I., Ava and I were surprised to hear that Condi had stated the US and, "especially" the Bully Boy, were "absolutely devoted" to Israel's national security, we thought that called for noting somehow.
Nader and McKinney -- Green Party candidates? We'll know by the end of the year. Also, we tried to post the video itself of Nader speaking, we had no luck and after an hour of attempting, gave up.
Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Betty, Kat, Cedric and Rebecca wrote this and picked all selections unless otherwise noted. We thank them for it.
And that's it. We'll see you next week. We're off to eat quickly and then fall out watching a movie. (I'm pulling for the Marx Brothers' Room Service.)
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.