A note to our readers

Hey --
Sunday. Barely. Everything's up but the note that's being written.

Here's who helped out plus Dallas:


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 them all. What have we got. As Ava and C.I. point out, the agreement was no more than seven features this week (counting the note). The agreement was supposed to have been followed and was not.


Truest statement of the week -- We went with Marie Cocco. Read her column and see why.

Editorial: The teachable moment -- Ava and C.I. were in Puerto Rico this weekend, Dona, Ty, Jess and me (Jim) were in Oregon. Hence the concerns for doing the edition quickly. Didn't happen. This editorial is not the editorial in the print version. This was actually a feature story that we added to (and took somethings out) to make the editorial and did it tonight. Redoing the editorial did not go over well with Ava and C.I. To put it mildly. This is a strong editorial but we were supposed to be done by 8:00 a.m. EST when Ava and C.I. had to be out the door. Instead we regrouped. This was one of the pieces we reworked.


TV: The return of I Dream of Jeannie -- Ava and C.I. point out that they completed this at 2:00 a.m. EST Sunday morning. Meaning, don't blame them for the delays. They left the roundtable to write this. They were going to focus on Washington Week and to be brief but we begged and begged them to include FAIR's CounterSpin. It's kind of big news. Panhandle Media's declaring war on liberals as they rush to promote Barack even more. Ava and C.I. did it. They did it damn well. It's funny, it's hard hitting and where they got the idea for I Dream of Jeannie, only they know but it works perfectly.

Ty's Point of View -- We had many topics to cover this weekend and on the list of seven musts was the verdict. At 7:49 a.m. EST, Ava and C.I. said this article had to be written. They were speaking in eleven minutes and didn't have time to participate. Ty said he'd write something and he ended up writing a great piece which is why it's bumped so far up. The understanding was Ty would write this piece while we got the other things posted but that didn't work out due to Flickr problems and other things and soon it was time for us to go speak. So nothing was up. When Ava and C.I. learned that this evening, they were shocked. ("Loudly shocked," adds Ava.) The rest of us had decided that the editorial needed to be scrapped and the IVAW feature article pulled to use for this and that other topics needed to be covered, chiefly John Edwards.

Roundtable -- This was the first thing we did. It went easily enough although with Ava and C.I. out of it early on (to go write their piece), I ended up not using topics I'd asked C.I. not to comment on at TCI so we could use them here. I am sure I will be reminded of that frequently this week. C.I. just reminded to include a point Dallas wanted made. Susan of Random Notes gets a link to her site but she was going to be linked to for her Edwards commentary; however, Dallas was on his laptop and Susan has so many videos posted and so many posts on the main page that there were huge problems with her page loading and Dallas had to finally give up after repeated Adobe script errors (due to the videos). We are trying to work e-mails into our roundtables and we do hope to return to "Mailbag" soon.

Dahr Jamail doesn't know how to research -- Jar Jar wrote a bad-bad article. Someone e-mailed it to us and I'll credit them next week but we're tired and no one remembers who e-mailed it. It may be credited in the article. Regardless, he's steals Stephen Zunes false claim and passes it off as his own. Both Jar-Jar and Loony Zunes were wrong. It was wrong in March, it's wrong today. Learn to research.

Come out of your closets before you Awake and Sing... --This is the problem. This is why we regrouped. Readers of the print version (our friends from college) loved this. I had 15 voice mails about this on my cell and Dona and Ty had voicemails as well. (Jess isn't checking his cell today.) This needs to be an editorial was the consensus. It needs to be expanded. We carried some portions of it into the editorial but otherwise left it as it was for the online version.

John Edwards: Professional Boy-Toy -- This was a piece when we regrouped. It wouldn't have been written were it not for Isaiah's comic. Rebecca posted the comic (at TCI) for C.I. and C.I. and Ava were adament that they were tired, that something needed to go up at The Common Ills and that the promise was 7 features this week due to everyone being on the road. When I mentioned Isaiah's comic (which C.I. hadn't seen), I could tell there was a shift and I pressed that. They finally agreed (provided Isaiah's comic was at the top of the article).


Liars & Losers -- We're tired. I wrote all the headlines and obviously picked this one wrong because no one can remember what this feature article is about. Ava and C.I. pulled it up and say it's Katie and Gary. Oh yeah. The liars and losers.

3 Things -- Three highlights.

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

That's it, we'll see you next week.

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