Hey --
We all have a nasty cold. I (Jim) caught it and by Saturday evening, everyone (Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.) had it. (We warned Kat, who, instead of coming over, participated by phone to avoid catching it.) We do have an edition.
Here's who participated:
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.
And Dallas. We thank everyone. The way the edition worked, we mainly were staring at each other (Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, C.I. and me) and feeling that out of body disconnect you have during a nasty cold. Dona rightly called for short pieces early on. Ava and C.I. immediately broke away (the break away republic?) to work on their TV piece figuring they'd be stronger at the start than at the end of the writing session. At three o'clock a.m., we asked that "Highlights" be written. When it was completed, we told everyone goodnight and took a two hour nap. These are very roughed out pieces. After our nap, we worked on the smoothing over what we had and they are basically what went out in the print version while we were sleeping.
Like Janis Joplin with Southern Comfort, we got through the writing edition each holding our own bottle of cough syrup. Most of us went through two bottles in the course of the edition and took far too many cold capsules.
But we've got an edition. Here's what we've got:
Truest statement of the week -- the one and only Dolores Huerta. Nuff said.
Editorial: The Democratic primary is for Democrats... -- It really is and if there's a personal disappointment in this edition for me it's that this didn't become sharper post-nap. It's too on the nose. But, to steal from Kat, it is what it is.
TV: The Christ-child fumbles -- When, post-nap, inspiration wasn't there, Dona said, "Hey, we've got Ava and C.I.'s commentary and it's strong." It is. If nothing else works this edition, we've got this. Ava and C.I. hitting hard. We actually raided their commentary for other pieces. In the process, they wonder if they were clear enough (in the final version) on the Dohrn issue. Bill Ayers could say he's just a member, as Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg were; however, they weren't Bernardine's partner. Bernardine was the leader of Weather Underground, Bill was a member and the partner of the leader. It's a big difference between Evans and Rosenberg. See the note on the end for why they did not include a series they planned to. Ava explains as I type that if Fox is telling the truth about giving Canterbury Law a big push this summer, it makes more sense to do a review then when it will be airing as opposed to now when it has finished airing. As they note, they're not sure they aren't being lied to but they'll wait on their review. Totally unrelated but I did a note at The Common Ills to one of C.I.'s entry and Rebecca asked me to include this somewhere in my note because a question has come up. She planned to address it in Friday's roundtable but there wasn't time. Some organization e-mailed about a contest to vote on your fave female blogger. E-mailed the public account of TCI. I noted it, noted C.I. wasn't a blogger, so use your vote some other way. I wrote, without checking with C.I., that C.I. would cover it. C.I.'s attitude (rightly) was, "I didn't write that, I don't have to explain to it." C.I. didn't support the contest. C.I. checked with the other women in the community and they didn't support it. So it was never mentioned -- community wide -- except in the note I added to one of C.I.'s entries. It was seen as pitting woman against woman and also thought that it wouldn't be about what anyone actually did, just name recognition. That is how it ended up. My apologies for promoting a popularity contest and, to be clear, C.I. hasn't commented on it and won't comment on it because, quote, "I never brought it up."
The Symbionese Liberation Army endorses Barack! -- This is a humor post. We note that at the end. If Weather can endorse Barack, let's hear from the other 'revolutionaries.'
Words from the 'Prophet' Michelle -- She's so smart. At least that's the lie. This is a short piece. Ava and C.I. didn't work on this piece, they were writing their TV commentary.
10 Questions Charlie and George could have asked -- Ava and C.I. also didn't work on this piece due to writing their TV commentary. Their seems to be some notion that George and Charlier were out of bounds and asking questions no one should ask. Here are some that the rest of us felt they should ask.
Mental midget -- Sammy the Socialist works on the Obama campaign and that, no doubt, prevents him from 'advising' Noam Chomsky as to how Chomsky might actually reach people. (Funny, we thought Chomsky had reached millions.)
Ms. magazine welcomes homophobes -- Hey, hey, ho, ho, ho, Donna Brazile has got to go!
The sad, sad decline of Robert Parry -- When we woke up, Jess actually had the ending for this. It was a lyric he made up himself but no one wrote it down. Ty was going to write it down but, sluggish from the cold, forgot. No one, including Jess, could remember the lyrics. Since they're forgotten by all, we naturally assume that they would have been perfect for this piece and lament their loss.
Campaign Politics -- We raided Ava and C.I.'s commentary to get the point about Amy Goodman not knowing that Matt Gonzalez, if elected in November 2003, would NOT have been the first Green mayor in the US.
Dumb Ass of the Week: David Corn -- He really embarrassed himself last week, didn't he?
The roundtable -- This is a Friday roundtable that we're resposting.
Highlights -- Mike, Ruth (whom we forgot to list last week, sorry), Cedric, Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Elaine, Marcia and Wally wrote this and picked out the highlights. We thank them for it.
And that's what it is. Us, we're blowing our noses for the millionth time and getting some real sleep. See you next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.