A note to our readers

Hey --
Sunday evening. A shorter edition than usual but, to pull an Ava and C.I., I'll get to that.

Along with Dallas, here's who's responsible for 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.

And here's what we've got.

Truest statement of the week -- Patty Murray. Mike and Wally were probably the strongest advocates for this. It was easily the strongest of the nominated statements we had. Check out her bill.

Editorial: Paying for the silence -- When are war resisters going to matter? Not when Panhandle Media ignores them and not when 'helpers' can't get their facts right. It's past time that "there's no draft" was retired as a talking point -- by everyone along the political spectrum. And the left and 'left' should be especially ashamed because it is hurting today's war resisters.

TV: American Oh-Dull -- Ava and C.I. agreed to write long when we realized there was little time for a full edition. They weren't sure how they were going to do it and weren't pleased with the prospect. They accuse me (Jim) of applying outside pressure (such as time wasted during the edition) to force a strong commentary. That may be true. (It's certainly a nicer explanation than what I'll offer shortly.) Regardless, this is amazing piece.

The VA can't be bothered with MST -- Ava and C.I. wrote this. Or 'wrote' it. They want Dallas thanked "big time" because he not only did the links, he checked to make sure their quotes were right. They dictated this. Time had run out and they were already headed to Sunday morning's first event in Puerto Rico. They haven't read over it and they note it Dallas hadn't fact checked for them and done links, it wouldn't be up. There was no time. We had no time and we had very little. They were out the door and I asked, "One topic we planned to cover but didn't, could you write something about that." Ava, "Uh, yeah, we'll write it in the taxi and mail it to you with a stamp." They agreed to dictate it. Dona and I typed it up and Dallas then went in to verify quotes and to add links. It's one of the strongest pieces. But there's not anything weak this edition. That's the trade off, everything strong but not a lot of pieces.

Hillary and the Democratic Party -- This was the last thing we wrote this morning. We have no Ralph Nader feature, as C.I. pointed out, and our apologies. He's discussed in another feature.

Rountable -- That would be this feature. I was totally disorganized. I wasted time (as did Wally and Mike) talking about sports for 15 minutes during this (that's edited out) until Dona said, "How long is this little sidetrip going to take?" When C.I. called an end to the roundtable, "End it now, Jim, I'm not joking." It had run five hours. It was lively and I wasn't paying attention. It was suggested (and agreed to by all) that I should type up the parts we used by myself so I would grasp just how far behind this put us. I typed a good portion of it but Dona also helped (she took pity on me). I take full responsibility for it. It was out of control, it meandered, I wasn't focused and it is the nightmare that has everyone saying, "I don't want to do a roundtable next week." When C.I. said it was time to end it, Mike hollered, "Holy s**t! Do you know how long this has lasted?" No. I'm in South Dakota in a hotel room. I've got no big clock on the wall telling me the time and I didn't think to wear my watch while we were writing. I didn't pay attention to the time. No one's fault but my own, I admit it. We're also scattered to the wind which probably didn't help. Betty was at home. Everyone else? Either in South Dakota or Puerto Rico. I also, wrongly, thought we could hold off publishing. The deal, when we weren't through at eight a.m. EST, was that we would get together at night/evening (depending on the time zone) on the phone, Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava, C.I. and myself and do the note. I decided that maybe we could talk everyone into doing some more features. Dona told me, "You are so wrong and playing with fire." She was correct. When I shared my idea, Ava was the first and loudest in objecting. She noted that she and C.I. wrote long "as requested so that everyone else could work on the short features. Well where are the short features, Jim? Huh? We didn't just write long, we did a second piece. You're telling me we don't have enough pieces, that we only have seven and you're telling to a person who co-wrote two of them so find someone else to complain to or ask for more time because I'm not in a giving mood." Jess pointed out that this was their dinner and they would be hopping a plane shortly to go back and "exactly when is C.I. supposed to write at The Common Ills? It was supposed to be during this but that's already blown with the discussion of this proposal and the need to still do the note." As Dona told me when she and I were supposed to be publishing the pieces online, "You are so wrong and playing with fire." I was. (Only Ty and C.I. did not explode but they voted "no" on any more pieces.) Again, the roundtable was totally disorganized (my fault) and took way too much time. We were supposed to do short pieces but Dona gave up in disgust, announced she was taking a nap, because while Ava and C.I. were doing their TV commentary, we were all shooting the breeze on the phone. It needs to be noted that we're in South Dakota or Puerto Rico trying to get out the vote for Hillary so no one has slept since Saturday morning. As Dona warned me this morning, I was playing with fire.

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

We'll see you next week. If we all survive.

Added: Monday night, "The Democratic Race for the presidential nomination" was added to this week's edition. To keep it 'filed' with the rest (we archive by week here), we've backdated it to Sunday.


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