Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.



"Katty and Betsy drop in" -- Betty wasn't sure she was going to do a chapter this week. She wanted to but she had other issues she wanted to pursue. In the end, she says, it came down to the realization that if she didn't do a chapter this week, it would be too easy to turn her website into a blog "and too tempting."



"Basic pasta sauce in the Kitchen" -- Trina focuses on recipes for those suffering economically and also shares some family news.





"barack insults women again" -- When you think Barack can't disappoint any more, he surprises you. Here Rebecca addresses Barack's belief that women need to "get over it."



"Iraq snapshot," "THIS JUST IN! DNC OR GOP? WHO CAN TELL?," "Extreme DNC Makeover!," "LAT and Barack -- liars liars pants on fire," "Barack sells out, Matthis stands firm," "Glen Ford, Kevin Zeese," "Public finance, Bill Moyers Journal," "Barack sells out, Matthis stands firm," "the liar barack" and "Public financing" -- Don't ever say this community was silent when Barack Obama broke his pledge to use public financing and destroyed the system put in place to deal with the abuses of Watergate.



"The Nation & Progressive hold a tag sale on beliefs" -- Panhandle Media wasn't silent on public financing . . . until Barack decided not to use it and Panhandle Media decided to look the other way. Mike digs into the archives of The Nation and The Progressive to demonstrate how they couldn't shut up about the importance of public financing . . . until their wet dream decided to opt out.



"Pride and shame" -- June is Gay Pride Month and Marcia continues her highlighting of stories effecting the LGBT community, good and bad.



"Sexism and more" -- Ruth's amazing post/essay saved Tuesday night is the opinion of everyone writing this. Tuesday night, Blogger/Blogspot had a problem. When you went to publish, you got a "502 error" message. If you hit the "back" button, you were taken back to either a blank screen or your post (in full or part). Ruth called C.I. who had that error before and talked her through how-to-save her post. The rest of us lost our posts and threw together what we could quickly. We were all feeling like we'd woodshedded and not to good about Tuesday night until we read Ruth's post. This is really amazing. She hasn't had time to return to the topic but plans to. She reveals that "Eli X" e-mailed her and wanted a private exchange but she'd already replied with a lengthy e-mail. He wrote again and she thought, "Am I going to spend all that time on another lengthy e-mail or am I going to take the topic to my site? Since he had stated in his e-mail reply that 'now' we were having 'a conversation,' my attitude was, 'I will have it in public.' No offense to Eli X but the topic matters to me. I am not getting that it matters to him. I am getting that he has concerns about 'tone' and I honestly wonder how sincere he was to begin with since I have not heard from him since I took the discussion to my site -- without naming him."



"Isaiah and comments to Kevin Zeese," "Glen Ford, Kevin Zeese," and "Backstory" -- Kat's not doing private e-mails period. She states, "Zeese has been pretty nice in his e-mails but I've been burned before. All of my replies are public as a result of the nonsense I went through in 2005 or 2006. I was lucky that the jerk distorted my words posted at my website and not my e-mails. If he'd distorted my e-mails, it would have been my word against his. Because he elected to alter my statements while keeping them in quotes, it revealed him to be a liar. I'm not about to go through all of that again. My replies will remain public. When the jerk launched his attack on me and kept insisting I publish his words as my own -- an 'apology' he'd written for me to post -- I lost interest in e-mails and, again, I was very lucky that his attacks on me included taking sentences from my website and altering them because it demonstrated how 'big journalist' had no ethics and would distort and lie. I honestly think Kevin Zeese and I could get together, knock back a few beers and have a lively conversation we'd both enjoy. But the jerk spoiled e-mails for everyone who's not a community member -- and I don't even have time to reply to most of them who write me."



Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing" -- As C.I. notes ("And the war drags on . . ."), Isaiah was supposed to be on vacation. Hillary's speech suspending her campaign effected all of us. Wally and Cedric had each other to bounce ideas off of but Isaiah does his comics by himself and that requires humor and thinking and getting a visual. So he was supposed to take some time off. He surprised everyone (including C.I.) by doing a comic last weekend. It's already become one of his most popular. As Elaine's noted, Isaiah had been toying with this one for sometime -- as far back as before Puerto Rico held its primary. He revamped the visual in his head and came up with this.



"Matthis Chiroux" -- Kat picks this post by C.I. and explains the backstory includes revamping the entire thing quickly as C.I. tried to find out what Matthis said. A friend with IVAW said (over the phone) that the video had been e-mailed and C.I. was rushing through the e-mails to find it. "C.I. only had time to watch the video once," Kat explains, "Ava, C.I. and I had about fifteen minutes to get to the airport and I was amazed to see C.I. typing up the entire speech after one viewing of the video. C.I. noted that it may be 'born' and not 'birthed' that Matthis says but otherwise, C.I. had every word said. It was 'birthed,' by the way, as a call later explained. But C.I. was attempting to figure out how much to open up this entry with, how much of the speech, and where to include it in full and how to redo the entire post. I was looking at my watch and Ava was saying, 'Don't worry, we'll be out the door on time.' And we were. But it was a hectic moment and, later that night, when I read it, I was surprised at how smoothly it ran together and how well it worked because 'rushed' doesn't begin to describe the writing. C.I. was going through three different phones and listening on those to people talking and listening to video of the speech. I wasn't writing it, but just watching had me freaking out."



"Blogging, Pride" -- Marcia has a 'fan' -- one with a known name. He thinks her writing about being a lesbian and about Gay Pride Month and the weddings in San Francisco is not helping Barack's campaign. Marcia replies to note that (a) she doesn't give a damn about helping Barack and (b) her site allows comments and if you're e-mailing to have privacy, it doesn't apply at her site.



"Isaiah, Third, Nader, etc." -- Mike breaks down last week's writing edition and talks about Ralph Nader.



"Iraq snapshot" and "Senate Armed Services Committee" -- C.I. and Kat cover the Senate Armed Services Committee on SERE and torture.



"Pride: Tammy Baldwin" -- Marcia highlights Rep. Tammy Baldwin for Gay Pride Month.



"Ralph and the race for president" and "the 2008 vote" -- Elaine and Rebecca write about Ralph Nader's run. Elaine covers it from the perspective of your vote and Rebecca covered it from another aspect "and got a ton of crap over that," Rebecca says. Not from her regular readers who love it when Rebecca writes about friends (friendship has always been a strong theme at Rebecca's site and her readers enjoy it when she writes about her friends) but from visitors. Elaine says, "As usual, Rebecca illuminated a topic -- several actually -- by focusing on others and that's one of the things you may never get online about Rebecca, she's much more interested in others than she is in herself."