A Note to Our Readers

Hey --

Another, Sunday and we're moving faster than usual (despite huge Blogger/Blogspot problems). 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,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
and Wally of The Daily Jot

And Dallas who hunted down links and was a sounding board to all. Thank you.

Here's what we got:

Truest statement of the week -- Glen Ford. Says it all.

Truest statement of the week II -- Glen Ford again, with Peter Hart this time. This was an important broadcast of CounterSpin. We've actually noted all the segments of it this edition.

Editorial: War resistance and war resisters matter... -- Important topic.

TV: Cullum's Big B.O. -- Ava and C.I. hated the program CEO and you can probably tell that by the commentary but just watching that crap made them sick to their stomach. (That's not a joke and Ava notes C.I. actually threw up after they finished watching the show.) This is the show I mentioned last week, that a copy of it had been delivered with a cover note. There strong streak continues. They're sick of news and public affairs. They long for the writers strike to be over but they'll continue covering "this crap" until the strike is over. Read it and if you've never heard of the show before, be glad of that, be very, very glad. Just reading Cullum's 'questions' should be enough to give you a headache.


Roundtable -- We didn't plan to do one. We thought we'd do Naomi Wolf's book this week as a book discussion. Then a Bambi lover e-mailed late Saturday saying we only did roundtable when Hillary won. Dona points out, right now, we did Iowa. So it wasn't true already. We gathered all the people who participated last week plus Jess (who wasn't able to last week). We were looking for results. We couldn't find them. We were all ready to get started and C.I. said blankety-blank "let me make some calls." As the roundtable proceeds, you'll see why we couldn't find results (meaning actual numbers), they weren't in yet. But that didn't stop The Nation from going to town claiming a win before even a third of the votes had reported. That's not journalism. Other topics addressed are the Green Party, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, the Communist Party, public radio, Florida and much more. A very long roundtable. In part because we were trying to go on as long as needed until the bulk of the precints in South Carolina had reported.

What doesn't get covered -- Iraq. Iraq was in the news all last week. General Dynamics reported record profits for the fourth quarter off of the Iraq War. In England, they're getting closer to uncovering (or appear to be) how the intel got 'sexed up.' We focused on the destruction of the Constitution and the binding of US forces to Iraq for many years to come. It's a damn shame that topic and the other two weren't seen as worthy by 'independent' media last week. We note CounterSpin's headlines in this feature.

Smut Merchant of the Week: Matthew Rothschild -- C.I. heard about this nonsense from a friend working on the John Edwards campaign. Even those working for Edwards were appalled by Matty's smut. You should be as well. C.I. actually announced this feature in Thursday's snapshot (dictating on one phone and listening on the other) which is one way to make sure we cover something here.

The Primary System -- This was the third segment of CounterSpin. We really did note all the segments this edition. If you missed the broadcast, go listen. You won't want to miss it.

Ty's beef -- Dona says short features next week and if not, less features. Why? Ty nearly lost it. (Ty agrees right now.) No one could figure out what was going on (except C.I. whom Ty had already spoken to about it). The woman is a nut case. But it's also true that we're all stretched to the limit (none more than Ava and C.I. on the road each week speaking out against the illegal war). Ty did not have time for this woman's nonsense. C.I. suggested we work on it as a feature. That did help Ty provide some perspective for himself. (It's written in the singular voice, but this was a group piece.)

Laura Flanders' Blue Grit reissued in new format -- announcements that C.I. carried over from The Common Ills.

Highlights -- Mike, Rebecca, Betty, Wally, Cedric, Kat and Elaine wrote this and selected all highlights unless noted. We thank them for this.

Bambi & the Kingpin -- Repost of Wally and Cedric because we loved it and it was requested.

"Democracy For Who!" -- Repost of Ava and C.I. because we got ripped apart in e-mail after e-mail last week for not re-posting it last Sunday.

That's what we've got. We're done and going to bed.

See you next week.

Oh, illustrations! Dona just pointed that out. C.I. will put them in tonight. Flickr isn't something we wanted to fight with this morning.

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