A note to our readers

Hey --
Another Sunday.

This is our fourth annual summer read/fiction edition.

Helping out here were Dallas and the following:

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. We curse Flickr which added three hours on to what should have been a smooth edition.


Truest statement of the week -- Matthis Chiroux's statement last Sunday on why he is not deploying to Iraq. The only choice for truest this week.

Editorial: What's your acceptance level? -- This is longer in the print edition and does not include the asides. Dona wanted it shorter, tighter and more personal. Did Ava or C.I. jot down Elaine's remark? Or C.I.'s? Could they remember it if they didn't because "that's what our readers will enjoy." This is part of out continued efforts to provide the forgotten history and, as Dona pointed out, the Vietnam era includes what was going on here, not just in Canada and Vietnam.

TV: Breaking what? -- In the tradition of their CSI and 7th Heaven commentaries, Ava and C.I. had worked out a fiction angle for this week's commentary. They tossed it aside as Jim asked, "Can you raise this issue?" repeatedly. It was not a slow news week. (Some issues were also taken over to another feature.) A summer-read may not have been fully possible any week but there was a ton to comment on this week. Ava and C.I. decided to do a 'straight' commentary. Which doesn't mean there aren't laughs (for example, check out their opening sentence). My apologies to them (this is Jim) for asking them to put aside what they had planned but without this grabbing a number of things, I could feel the e-mails pouring in asking, "Where is your committment!" (Again, we do this summer read edition every year and this is our fourth year doing it.)


New York Times, Early Edition -- a funny short story that Cedric, Ava and C.I. led on was tossed aside online (it ran in the print edition). It needed a "strong polish" (Ava). As noted above, I was worried about the fact that we weren't covering any of the big topics of last week. C.I., Elaine and Dona came up with the idea for this to calm my nerves. This begins our summer read offerings.

Clouds -- This was the short story everyone loved and, if it suffers from anything, it was too much care and too much time. To shorten it, we pulled out numerous details. The long version runs in the print edition and will also run Friday in the gina & krista round-robin. A note on the illustration. It was done for the humorous short story we're not running online. Jess wondered if Rebecca could reverse one detail in photoshop? She did and saw why Jess asked. Removing a detail created a completely different illustration and one that would work for this short story.

The non-whistle blower -- This is mainly Mike, Wally, Cedric and me. All stories went through several drafts but we had this idea and worked on. The David Gregory thing may be the only detail that was added to it (Ava and C.I. said "put that in" and Kat and Dona wrote it into the story).

Bee-bees and cockle bugs -- Ty had an idea for a short story that would have some sort of horror theme. It would not work out. Marcia said flip it so that it's one girl and one boy (it was two boys originally) and once that was done, it came together fairly quickly.

Circling -- With no time to do the polish needed for the humorous short story (and Ava and C.I. rejecting "dashing" one off as they have in past years -- they still had to do their TV commentary), we were at a loss. Betty said, "Did we ever try anything in the Dorothy Parker style?" I reminded her we didn't have time to polish a humor piece so we didn't have time to write a new one. She corrected me by noting Parker wrote obsessively about love obsessions.

Nader-Gonzalez -- We carry campaign finance over to this. Community sites hit hard on this issue last week and Ava and C.I. grab it in their TV commentary (at my request) but I wanted us to note it in at least one other article. This is a big issue, there's a great deal of silence on it from the left and 'left' and I didn't want us to be guilty of that.

Highlights -- Mike, Ruth, Kat, Betty, Wally, Cedric, Marica, Rebecca and Elaine wrote this and picked all highlights unless otherwise noted.

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

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