A Note to Our Readers

Hey --

If you are or will be celebrating or gathering for any reason, may you build pleasant memories that carry you through rougher days.


Here's who participated on this edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
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,
Wally of The Daily Jot
and Ruth of Ruth's Report

Our thanks to all of them. Our thanks to Dallas who was a sounding board, a link locator and so much more.

Our apologies to Rebecca whose "nader, the ballet, caving dems" was the building blocks for a feature we worked on that needed additional time. We ended up not having it. (We may pull a quote for a truest statement two for the week. After we've gotten some sleep.)

We especially thank Betty's oldest son who knocked himself doing illustrations, stockpiling them, when we were all in DC in September. Saturday night, before he went to sleep, he asked to talk to us and Betty gave him the phone. Was there anyone one of his illustrations could be used this week. He'd told his friends they'd be coming and only a few had but his sister (Betty's youngest child) wanted to see Santa. One of the things he did was try to pull together some seasonal illustrations. We have three of his illustration posted this week. (He says Kat and C.I. helped him with at least one but they can't remember. He deserves all credit for the illustrations.) We apologize for our long delays in posting his illustrations and we thank him for them. (We also note we have many, many more to post.)

We've had computer problems all morning and would have been done three hours ago were it not for those (which include a "corrupted file" warning on all laptops we were using). But it's up.

Here's what we have . . .

Truest statement of the week -- Elaine was the obvious pick. Most e-mails to all community sites noted Elaine's post and this was one of the often noted passages from it.

Editorial: Should we pray to Santa? -- Betty's son did the illustration. We had a different editorial but couldn't figure out how to work in the illustration otherwise. (Santa is a snowman in the illustration and her son said, back in September, "That's because Christmas melts away so fast." True.) Ruth, Kat, Mike, Elaine, Betty, Wally, Jess, Ava and C.I. wrote this.

TV: The Weak Get Weaker -- This is Ava and C.I.'s piece and this is Ava and C.I. only speaking here. Jess doesn't want to touch it because apparently Jim gets raked over the coals by some readers if they feel he didn't note what was important about the commentary. Here's what stands out to us: We miss entertainment programming! We really miss it. We are so sick of the news programming and all the liars, fluffers and fibbers who seem to inhabit them. A mailbag feature was started but killed. (There was no print edition this weekend. Ty's boyfriend is with Ty.) So since we're not going to comment on what we wrote, let's answer the e-mail. Are we really going to break the strike and review NBC's Medium? We don't know what we're going to do. We know we are sick to death of news programming. We know the network should have settled the strike a long time ago. We're thinking of reviewing a Saturday morning cartoon next week. Is that breaking the strike? (Friends who urged us to stop writing about entertainment programs said no, it wasn't. But we'll toss that out to readers.) We will be tempted to review Medium because it is a great show and Patricia Arquette is amazing. Plus the show does not get the support it needs and you've got some exciting moments this year and some amazing performances (including one guest star and we hope everyone knows who we mean). Along with the e-mail asking, some friends asked about it. What we're going to try to do if the strike is still on is wait. But we don't enjoy writing these pieces to begin with. We're not TV watchers to begin with. Due to the strike, we have to catch a ton of these shows we wouldn't watch otherwise. We can tell you about every Charlie Rose interview last week, we can tell you about five evening newscasts on the networks, we can tell you about all of PBS' public affairs program -- primetime and elsewhere. When we get done speaking, we're either streaming online and watching TV trying to find something that there's a review in. We're logging way too many hours watching this nonsense. And we worry that constant repetition of conventional wisdom will have a damaging effect. So we don't know what we're doing. We do know the networks need to pay the writers' their fair share and that's not happening. We'll probably be tempted to review Medium but will probably wait on that until the strike's over. But we promised another look at that (the original review here was a group project, Jim figured that out last week and told us that we fought over many points others were making -- fought and lost -- so we would like to take another crack at). A friend called this morning and said whenever we get through to call because he has an idea of how we could honor the strike and avoid news and public affairs programming for a week or two. We'll be calling him and blessing him if he does indeed have a workable answer.


The Nation featured 491 male bylines in 2007 -- how many female ones? -- This time last year, "Nation Stats" started. Here's the year run down and it's not pretty and it just goes to show that the answer is not putting a woman in charge, the answer is putting the right one in charge, one who will see to it that women have an equal number of seats at the table. Ruth, Wally, Cedric, Mike, Elaine, Betty, Kat, Jess, Ava and C.I. wrote this.

Roundtable -- Roundtables are nightmares. This one was only a nightmare to type, thankfully. Betty's oldest son did the illustration for this feature and we'll be using it for future roundtables as well.

"I Hate The War" -- Ruth, Kat, Betty, Mike, Elaine, Wally, Jess, Ava and C.I. wrote this, our second feature on The Ballet. Please check out the group.

Dems & Iraq -- A brief look at some Democrats running for president. This was pulled together at the last minute and written by Jess, Ava and C.I. We found Betty's son illustration of Barack Obama (whom Betty's son loathes) and thought we could pull something together very quickly and use the illustration. This is not providing a look at all candidates. The focus is Iraq. We're noting Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Barack Obama. Richardson had to be noted because he was the first to start talking about Iraq and should have made it into a snapshot last week but there wasn't time. Obama's latest dramatics meant that he and Edwards were included. Nothing is intended in ignoring the others except maybe Kucinich because he had a personal tragedy last week and we were too tried to want to go there. (Kucincih is mentioned in this week's TV commentary.)

Iowa -- At last we weigh in on Florida. Thank you to Wally for his patience. (He lives in Florida.) Wally was the leader on this piece and also helping out were Betty, Elaine, Kat, Mike, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Cynthia McKinney announces run for president -- Cynthia McKinney has declared, she is running for the Green Party nomination. This also contains a press release on another Green candidate so please check that out. This piece was written by Mike, Wally, Betty, Kat, Elaine, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Things to watch, things to listen to -- your online TV and radio guide. Elaine, Kat, Wally, Mike, Jess, Ava and C.I. wrote this.

Highlights -- Betty, Mike, Kat and Wally wrote this and selected all highlights unless otherwise noted. We thank them for their great job.

That's it. We'll see you next week provided we wake up after we finally get to sleep.

-- (In spirit) Jim, Dona, Ty, (in the painful flesh) Jess, Ava and C.I.