A note to our readers

Hey --
Sunday night and finally getting around to doing the note.

Along with Dallas who is our soundboard and link locator and much more, the following worked on this edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
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 everyone. We also thank Isaiah for the use of his comics and we thank Betty's eldest son for his drawings.

What did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week -- Glen Ford grabbed this one easily. There really wasn't any debate which is why we offer only one "truest" this week.

Editorial: NPR aka Home of the Unqualified -- Ava and C.I. received non-stop complaints from NPR friends about this today. Apparently the editorial (which all worked on) hit a nerve. We think it's pretty sorry that NPR's allowing someone to post 'judgments' at the ombudsperson's page and to 'explain' journalism in e-mails to listener when she's never practicied journalism, never studied journalism and just 'graduated' from intern to assistant (after just graduating college with her English lit major). Tough crap, NPR, try maintaining some standards.

TV: The stench of 'public affairs' programming -- Ava and C.I.'s latest and I've got a number of things to cover here. First, a sentence in it is now deleted. They added it right before posting when I (Jim) said we'd come back and do the note tonight. Knowing how emotional Dave Zirin can be, they included a warning in the commentary since he Googles his own name constantly. Here's the warning. When Zirin went after Mike, Ava and C.I. were 'not happy' to put it mildly. They have not forgotten. They immediately began compiling their file -- 150 pages of text plus photo copies and photos -- as they worked their contacts. Get on their s**t list and they put together a file. Mike put it behind him (Wally has not, Ava notes, and will never again mention Zirin) so Ava and C.I. wait and the file goes tick-tick-tick. That warning is included in the note and has been pulled from the commentary. Second, and I meant to do this as a stand-alone, last week I linked to two or three of Ava and C.I.'s older commentaries from the earliest days and began receiving e-mails about one which noted, "It's not a soap opera and they're using 'bitch' repeatedly." It's in their commentary, they aren't using it. Ava and C.I.'s stuff was the thing everyone responded to in the first month of TV stuff here. Their observations, their one liners. I didn't get what they were doing (as I've admitted many times) back then but I did get that they were the force behind the TV articles. We turned TV over to them in Feb. 2005. We offered them a byline but this site was created for group writing and they refused. At some point, the praise was so intense that the rest of us were embarrassed to be getting credit for their writing so we began noting that they do the TV commentaries. That's all first year stuff. In a roundtable in 2005, there was a major clash when Ty brought in an e-mail about Ava and C.I.'s writing that noted a change in one of their article. Ava and C.I. denied making any such change. They didn't. That's where I 'fessed up that I'd been going in and fixing typos and (sad but true) sometimes altering a word here and there because I thought it would be even funnier. When that came out in the roundtable, Ava and C.I. made clear that (a) their typos are not always typos (sometimes they're inside jokes for friends) and (b) if they are known for writing it, no one should be editing or altering it without their permission and it being known. I put in "bitch" in the review everyone's e-mailing about. Had that come out during the roundtable, it would have been explosive. I don't remember what I was caught doing but it wasn't that. Ava and C.I.'s original review of The Simple Life used the word "brat." They didn't remember but, as e-mails poured in last week, I dug around through some boxes from our big NY move and found the original longhand version of it. "Bitch" will stand in their review because, Ava, "That things been up for years now. Readers who have been around since 2005 are familiar with the roundtable and know that story. C.I. and I found the turmoil over last week's e-mails funny because we know what we write and what we don't write. Jim took this much more seriously than we did. At the time, we made clear that it needed to stop right away and we also made clear that we weren't going to read over the commentaries to try to figure out what was changed. We don't read over stuff after it goes up. We don't go back and read it. We don't have the time and, though we're glad that some enjoy them, we're just trying to finish them and be done." C.I. points out that when the roundtable revelations took place it was noted that only Ty could go into the TV commentaries from now on. Ty does not change anything without checking to make sure a typo is a typo and he doesn't 'edit' them either. They both know (a) it's a dead issue at this point, (b) they're living in 2008 and (c) The Simple Life piece continues to result in e-mails so obviously "Jim's word substitution was not 'harmful' and people enjoyed it. We wouldn't have used the term in that review but we're focused on 2008, not 2005." What they're focused on right now is doing Eli Stone next week. Unless there's another major TV embarrassment this week, they intend to write a ("brief" says Ava) TV commentary next week. They remind Eli Stone airs currently on Saturday nights, on ABC, during the last hour of primetime.

Stop-Loss -- Dona just said, "Keep the rest short." (C.I.'s still got to post at The Common Ills.) This article is about stop-loss and reminding that Matthis Chiroux needs your support.

'Friends' and Bigots -- When Ava and C.I. went off to write their TV commentary, we still didn't know what we were doing this edition other than the editorial (and highlights). And on the editorial, Jess reminds that several paragraphs (word for word) were dictated in Friday's snapshot by C.I. The snapshot was too big and C.I. pulled that section and slid it over to us to use if we wanted. We did and turned it into an editorial. So while Ava and C.I. were working on the TV article, the rest of us were trying to figure out what to do this edition. Betty wanted race to be addressed. She made a strong case that should have been an article (and hopefully will be next week) that had us all saying, "YEAH!" Marcia, who was on board immediately, said right after, that what Betty was talking about was an article much longer than we probably had time for this week. So she, Betty, Cedric and Wally worked on coming up with two smaller units. They narrowed the focus down and we wrote this article.

You can learn a lot from a movie -- When Marcia said it needed to be in smaller units, Betty asked, "Did everyone read C.I. this morning?" (It was still Saturday when we started.) Betty brought up the lyrics quoted from Grace of My Heart. Ty and Jess zoomed in on what an ass Eric Stoltz' character was. So we had our 'unit' for this article which also addresses race. Barring any big news this week, we hope to pick up the larger scope Betty wanted. We also hope to do a piece Ava and C.I. advocated for but we didn't have time for this week.

Nader and Gonzalez speak to the people -- Here we wanted to note the Nader-Gonzalez campaign but also to be sure Bonnie Faulkner got her well deserved credit. Her program the week before was nominated by a reader for "truest." He wrote about a statement but didn't include the statement and Ty saw the e-mail Sunday. It was too late for us to listen to the program and we felt bad because she does go her own way and not try to be part of the circle-jerk so many in Panhandle Media are. So we really wanted to be sure she got her credit this week.

War resistance then -- A carry over from last week when time ran out.

The sorry John Edwards spectacle -- Ava and C.I. had a very good idea for an article and Elaine was the strongest supporter of it. But there was also this topic. At one point, there was a chance that the topic would make the TV commentary. Ava and C.I. included it on their bullet list of ten items to cover in their commentary. But it didn't fit. They could break the flow and force it in but we told them not to even try. We were glad that they were willing to consider it. To be clear, Ava and C.I. are not interested in sex scandals. They've avoided this topic and it would never be addressed at The Common Ills. When John Edwards announced he was going to be on Nightline, they were willing to set aside their own personal tastes because it did fall under their beat. They watched and made notes (some of which may have made it into this piece because we had read their notes). They were willing to cover it if they could fit in. It didn't fit. That's fine. But we wanted the topic covered. Males participating in this writing edition especially had leaned towards Edwards at various points in the primaries. By January, it was really just Wally and Mike still holding out hope that Edwards might show some strength. He never did. Ava and C.I. were told the affair was true in August which is another reason they didn't participate in this feature. Elaine is closed mouth but she learned around the same time and not from Ava or C.I. Rebecca learned from a friend that the story was being shopped to the tabloids. All four chose not to work on this and Rebecca kindly warned us that we should not make any end-of-story statements because the full story is not out there. For those of us who majored in journalism especially, it is offensive that politicians (not just Edwards) think they can give a media confession and then no one must ask any questions. Your confession (belated in this case) does not end the story. There's also the issue that Edwards was on a high-horse in his opposition to same-sex marriage and pointing to the Bible on that. We like the way this turned out. We put a byline in brackets when I decided we'd wait on the note. That was to be clear who wrote and who chose not to participate (Ava, C.I., Elaine and Rebecca). Dona says our conclusion comes from a note in Ava and C.I.'s shorthand on the Nightline interview where they wrote in big letters: "WHAT ABOUT RIELLE!!! WHAT ABOUT HER FEELINGS!!!!" and underlined that repeatedly. We took those two exclamations and turned it into our conclusion. If we had more time, we would have gone even longer on that. "Our privacy" the Edwards insist. Rielle's privacy? She hasn't spoken to the press about her relationship. She didn't go on Nightline or blog at The Daily Toilet Scrubber. And she has a child. It really is cute how the Edwards slam the door shut and glorify the newfound sanctity of their marriage when their message has the implication that it's all Rielle Hunter's fault. The 'evil temptress' who led John astray. That's bulls**t. [Dona says to add those shouting comments to include on this topic in the note did not include Ava and C.I.]

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

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