A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
For us, this is early!

Here's who worked 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,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.

We thank all of them for helping us and we thank Dallas who always helps, locating links, acting as a soundboard, fact checking things we're only 92% sure of and more.

Special thanks need to go to Betty, Dona and C.I. who worked very hard Saturday morning. It was Saturday morning (3:00 a.m. for C.I., 2:00 a.m. for Betty and midnight for Dona -- all were in different time zones) when they decided to outline the edition and come up with a set list of features we'd cover. One thing we never got to, AOL's continued sexism. If we're able to, we'll get to it next week but it ticked off Ava and C.I. during the summer "swimsuits" and a reader e-mailed to complain about a story they were featuring over the weekend. If there's time, we'll grab it next weekend. Otherwise, we'll grab it the next time they flaunt their sexism.

Here's what we've got:

Truest statement of the week -- Julie Christie. Root for her tonight because she knows an illegal war is taking place and she's not afraid to speak out. Also root for her because last week, she managed to mention war resisters in one comment more than Amy Goodman did in an entire week's worth of Democracy Now!

Truest statement of the week II -- Lambert at Corrente. This is one of the truths that people probably don't want to face but it is reality. Again, we do not endorse the post Lambert was commenting on (nor did Lambert, as made clear in an earlier comment to the post).

Editorial: Reality on Iraq votes -- Outside of Ava and C.I.'s writing, this is our only feature that addresses Iraq this week. That isn't "we're backing off!" The theme this edition really is the treatment of Hillary. Rebecca wanted an article last week and not only did we not get around to it, we forgot about it. She really wanted that article and pitched it hard. We all agreed to do it and we never did. She called as things were going up Sunday (there's a long delay after we tell everyone helping to go to sleep and while we edit and smooth over the pieces completed so that they can post) and Kat, Dona and C.I. pulled together a quick piece. As a result of that, we were more than willing to do a Hillary feature this week and had urged everyone to think up a piece or two. Betty, Dona and C.I. thought up a theme.

TV: The strong and the weak -- Ava and C.I. writing as only they can. They planned to do a cartoon this week but forgot to ask us to TiVo something here while they were flying back on Saturday. For those who enjoyed their commentaries on news shows and public affairs programming but longed for the return of entertainment TV, this week is a mix. ("Next week, we return to entertainment television," says Ava right now.) It's a state of the world, state of feminism piece. It's powerful, it's funny, it may get the most fan mail this week or it may lose out to . . .

Radio: Panhandle Media -- Ava and C.I.'s second piece. I wrote an intro on this because we had problems with Flickr and weren't sure how quick pieces would go up. I wanted to reassure anyone checking and finding this but no TV that this was a bonus piece, not a replacement of their regular TV commentary. What happened is that they wrote a hard hitting piece for today's El Spirito on how KPFA's debate 'coverage' betrayed Latinos and Latinas. It was so hard hitting that as soon as Francisco read it Saturday (he, Maria and Miguel do El Spirito), he called to tell them how much he appreciated it. They were out and the more I heard Francisco talk about it, the more I wanted to read it. So I booted up C.I.'s laptop and read their copy on it. They write their El Spiriot pieces on the plane ride back each Saturday along with their piece for Hilda's Mix. So I immediately looked for that. (They cover radio for Hilda's Mix.) That was also a hard hitting look (from another angle) at the KPFA broadcast. I would have loved to have stuck a flag in either piece and claimed it for Third. Instead, as soon as they got back, I asked them, "Could you write something on KPFA?" No. No. No. I waited until the writing edition and brought it up again. No go. I then bribed them with, "We could all be done by eight if you did." It's now nine o'clock, so obviously I lied. But what a powerful piece. They covered it from another angle while touching on few points that you can read in El Spirito and will be able to read Tuesday in Hilda's Mix. This really is amazing and will probably battle with their TV commentary for favorite of the week.

How Little Media Operated -- The untold story it seems because no one wants to tell it outside of this community. No one wants to talk about how Little Media, excuse me, how Panhandle Media (they coined the term for their radio commentary and we'll all be using it now) stacked the deck and trashed Hillary to build up the scant credentials of Bambi.

Trashing -- This comes before the feature above. It's the first thing we wrote and it shows up on Saturday because that's when we wrote it. When we fixed the time so everything would be in the right order, we forgot to change the date to "24" from "23." This is the feature the two that run after it leads into. Trashing is a feminist term and this deals with how Hillary has been trashed.

Bash the Bitch -- Not all criticism is trashing. That points is made throughout. It's equally true that when it's time for a round of Bash the Bitch, people need to stop and self-check on whether they're offering criticism or participating in a public stoning.

Rubbing the feet of the powerful -- Amy Goodman disgracing herself again. It's too bad no war resister is a cabinet possibility in a Bambi White House. If they were, Goody might have them on her show.

Dumb Ass of the week -- Some people can't pass a basic fact check. When you want to create a narrative that "last week" everything changed, you better be damn sure that the things you are offering as proof of your narrative did indeed occur last week.

Mailbag -- No roundtable so you get this. Thank you to Elaine for her kind comments. I almost said that in the feature but stayed silent to keep us moving on time. But here I will say thank you, Elaine. As Rebecca said, after the feature, "I was just about to make that point." Like Rebecca points out frequently, she and I (Jim) are a lot alike. So coming from her I still would have felt thankful but coming from Elaine I was thankful and surprised.

Highlights -- Mike, Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Cedric, Wally and Elaine wrote this and picked all highlights except where noted.

KPFA Blog from their debate coverage -- The blog was edited. By KPFA. It's supposedly been edited even more if you find it (it's hidden under the link in Ava and C.I.'s radio commentary -- the link in the first paragraph). When the 'editing' of it began, a friend at KPFA passed it on to us. We thank them.

And that's what we've got to offer this week. Hopefully you found something to make you laugh or think or get angry. Ideally, you found all three. See you next week.

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