A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Another Sunday and things are moving a tiny bit faster this morning.

Here's who participated 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


And also Dallas. We thank them all. A note on the note, it has run together without spaces between paragraphs for the last two weeks. That's nothing we're doing intentionally and attempting to fix it after we see it doesn't help. (And in this screen we type in as well as the "Preview" screen it shows that there is spacing between the paragraphs.) No one's griped about it but a few have assumed it went to the fact that we were all tired when I (Jim) write this note.
Oh, C.I. just said, "I have an idea if it does it after we post." If it does do it, we should be able to fix it this time.

Here's our content for this week:

Truest statement of the week -- We have five choices but went with Studs Terkel because he was stating the truth that so often doesn't get stated. That's a great interview by the way, if you missed it.


Editorial: The state of resistance -- Elaine wanted a footnote. C.I. agreed to it being in my note ("if it has to go in"). Elaine said, "No, I'm not participating" unless it's a footnote to the editorial.
Only Elaine could have pulled that off. Seriously. And that's not an insult to either Elaine or C.I. Elaine and C.I. supplied back history for two things this edition and this was one. She was needed on this editorial, she knew she was needed and she wasn't doing it without a promise that credit would be given where it was deserved (to C.I. which is why C.I. objected, by the way). There's actually a post-writing story to this editorial but I'll let Mike tell it in his post on Monday because it involves him. Hinzman and Hughey are not being kicked out Canada. "Any day now," the right drools. There are other options to explore. And the war resistance movement within the military is only stronger.

TV: I want my ... I want my Zen TV (or not) -- I got a compliment. That's rare on the titles I give to Ava and C.I.'s commentaries. Week after week, I'm used to reading the e-mails and hearing how I should have called it this or I should have called it that. Apparently, this time I wrote the perfect headline for their piece. Good to know two readers don't think I again defaced Ava and C.I.'s writing with my headlines. (Seriously, thank you to Annette and Dan who think the title fits with what Ava and C.I. have written.) There were about three different things they were toying with and a fourth. The fourth was no commentary at all. Although they'd told us they'd write through the strike covering new shows as long as possible, they did have second thoughts. They're still torn but after they completed this -- the longest time they'd ever gone off to write -- and we asked if there were any problems before we read over it, they informed us that they had been on the fence. They still are torn. Some friends (on strike) think they should continue the commentaries and some friends don't think so. So they are torn. They covered Life this week and did so wonderfully. Keesha also e-mailed about this already (the note goes up with the credit but nothing else until C.I. posts at The Common Ills -- if C.I.'s posting in the morning) to say she's glad to see they provided a link to Margaret Kimberly in their commentary and to praise it. (Of course to praise it, regular readers check out the TV commentary each week before anything else.)

Mailbag -- It's practically a roundtable! It practically is. It went on longer than planned but Dona didn't know about the e-mail asking a question of those of us doing the note. When that popped up, she thought it was only fair that all participating in the writing of the edition be given the opportunity to respond. (Dallas, not surprisingly, elected not to. All others did.)

Rolling Stone needs a Weather Person -- We honestly hadn't read this until a reader suggested we take a look at Bon's Q & A (Ty says it's reader Shirley). There's a lot in the issue to be appalled by.

Bad now, bad before -- This is the other piece that really depended on Elaine and C.I.'s memory. It actually started out as a very short piece. Dona said, "There are some bad songs in that top five and this is a bad period in terms of current events, but surely there's been a top five with at least as much nonsense." C.I. replied yes, and listed off that top five. That was all the feature was going to be and then I pointed out that while everyone should grasp that this was during Vietnam, we might need to provide some context. That led to Elaine and C.I. tossing out various things that were going on in the month of November 1970. We selected the ones we thought were most noteworthy.

Dear Sasha -- One e-mail came in on this saying, "I thought this was a slam piece on Sasha and then I read all the way through." Ty says that was from Kit who has never been noted here for any of her e-mails. Kit's right, it's not a slam on Sasha Lilley. It is saying, "There are better ways to present yourself as program director when you write a piece for a newspaper -- especially when all readers will not know all the details about KPFA."

Programming Guide -- Some notable programming this week.

In light of the Canadian Supreme Court's refusal t... -- Make your voice heard on support for war resisters in Canada.

"Fred Kaplan falls off his pony" (C.I.) -- Toby e-mailed asking that this be reposted. This was an amazing piece by C.I. ("Amazingly bad," groans C.I. -- we all disagree). Toby says he saw De Palma's film and everyone needs to see it. Not only that, Toby says he feels like the biggest fan of the movie. Toby, you may have to fight Wally on that. Wally said, during the discussion before we started writing, that De Palma's film is important and classic and that he didn't care what else we worked on so long as the film was noted in some way. The film is Redacted, by the way and Mike and I saw it Friday in NYC. It is a must see. (Ty, C.I, Ava and Jess have seen it as well and recommend it strongly. Dona's seeing it tonight with me -- I'm going back for a second viewing.)

Highlights -- Mike, Kat, Cedric, Rebeca, Elaine, Betty and Wally wrote this and we thank them for it.

That's the edition. Yes, we will have one next weekend. Planned? Joshua Key got bumped again. We really didn't expect the news to come down last week from the Supreme Court (Canada's) on Hinzman and Hughey. We also hope to do a short Santa piece and something on the primaries.

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