A note to our readers

Hey --
Long edition. Dona says "short pieces" are the norm for next week. (I, Jim, agree.)

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 them all and here's what we have.

Truest statement of the Week I -- Bonnie Erbe continues her strong streak.

Truest statement of the Week II -- John Walsh who was calling out the pro-war Air America Radio as early as 2004.

Editorial: Withdrawal can be done in 100 days -- This topic was almost the Thursday "I Hate The War" topic at The Common Ills. C.I. promised me we could have the topic here provided something else came up to write about. I'm glad we got it, I knew it would be an editorial we could write quickly. And we did. "500 Miles"? Sonny & Cher's Look At Us. I made the mistake of going to Crapapedia which, among other mistakes, says, the duo recorded an album called I Got You Babe (not a compilation). This resulted in C.I. saying, "Jim, I'm going to show the progess of Sonny & Cher and next time you go to Crapapedia, you're not going to question me." (As Mike would say, ":D.") So C.I. hauled out the vinyl and went over it bit by bit.

TV: Transformations -- This isn't the commentary Ava and C.I. wanted (they wrote it). They wanted to spend more time on Eli Stone (which they love -- Dona shouts she does too). They agreed to bring in Norman Solomon. Actually, Ava and C.I. almost scrapped an Iraq snapshot last week and took on Norman in its place. I was on the phone with Ava when C.I. asked her and I said, "No, no, no! You've got to save it for your TV piece!" Which they did. But I tivoed Davy-Cakes Shuster ("Sweetie) with PUMA on MSNBC because I thought they should include that and pretty soon, the topics were so immense that they did not have the time to make it an Eli Stone commentary with a paragraph or two about Norman Solomon. I think it works out great and everyone loves it. They point out that they intended to do a simple review and that flew out the window. ("Again," says Ava.)

Jeremy Hinzman ordered to leave Canada -- We need to scan some stuff for this edition including for this feature.

Open Up The Debates! -- John Edwards . . . Sidenote, this should be an interesting week for Edwards newswise. But the point of this is you can get canned statements that never vary if the debates stay closed or you can get actual issues if they're opened up.

What If Feminists Were Swing Voters? -- Ava and C.I. proposed this for the last edition. We loved the idea but knew it would be a lengthy write. So we put it off until this week. Knowing it would be a lengthy write, we worked on this first.

The race card, what's not feminism, and more -- This was decided as a topic at the end of last week and had a lot of supporters. We knew it would be a long write. We didn't realize how long until Ava and C.I. started adding things about Alice Walker (who they like). We loved what they were contributing and encouraged them to add more. They did noting they wanted to review it before we published it. We ended up taking a lengthy break near the end which allowed them to both review it and sleep on it. We were sure the Alice stuff would be pulled this evening. It wasn't. They did insist that other verbs be used in places (softening the statements) but they say, 'Alice knew she offended people when she justified imprisoning AIDS victims and she knew that she outraged many. For her to stay silent on homophobia and, in fact, endorse the candidate using it makes it now a pattern for her and we aren't afraid to call her out. She needs to take a look at her actions.'

Catching on to the Peace Resister -- Dona came up with this idea and noted it would be a short piece (which is was). Easiest thing we wrote and, hopefully, we'll have more like this next week.

Roundtable -- While Ava and C.I. were doing the TV commentary we decided that, since we would be talking anyway, we should do a roundtable and actually produce something. (As opposed to the usual, Ava and C.I. finish a mammoth commentary, rejoin us and learn we just shot the breeze the whole time they were gone.) Dallas speaks! And without prompting. Because he spoke and because our notes were so hard to read (and took forever to type -- Ava and C.I. usually take notes) we told Dallas we weren't going to provide any links so not to worry about locating them. That was a group decision on the part of all participating.

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

Where it stands -- Dona and my quick note on where the edition stands. We couldn't go on. Wally had crashed out already. Betty was off to church. Everyone was tired. C.I. was reading with one eye. And I fell asleep for a few seconds before Dona and I wrote this note. Due to the length -- and we started early -- Wally and Cedric didn't post until today. They thought they could post late Saturday night. But we kept working. Then they thought they'd post early Sunday morning, but we were still working. Kat wanted to edit a CD review at some point but there was no time for it. It was a very long edition.

So that's what we got and we'll see you next week when we intend to do more short pieces.

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