Starting with the crazies and the kooks, Stacie Adams.
In response to last week's "The new age of privacy?," Adams e-mailed "Some corrections." We read it eagerly wondering what mistakes were made by us? None.
Adams spews her anger but offers no corrections.
1) She offers how she obtained Martha's e-mail address. We already knew how. Dissident Voice publisher Sunil K. Sharma had hazard a guess in an e-mail to us about how that happened. Adams wasn't supposed to write Martha and really shouldn't have had access to Martha's private information. Equally true is that Adams attempts to fudge reality implying that Martha e-mailed her. (Martha did not e-mail her. Comments left at articles are automatically e-mailed to the author of the piece.)
2) Adams admits she wrote Martha. Yeah, we knew that already. That's why we wrote the article.
3) She insists that Martha calling out Adams' use of "braying" and "shrill" to describe a woman for the sexism it is is somehow some glaring comprehension error on the part of Martha. No, Liar Adams, it's your fault. It was sexism.
4) No doubt taking time away from bashing special-needs children, Adams insists there was nothing wrong with her sneering statement accusing Governor Sarah Palin of 'passing around her special needs child.' It was offensive, Adams. You are offensive.
5) Adams makes multiple errors throughout and never offers anything in need of corrections. She's too busy offering insults (of a very juvenile sort that only had us laughing at her) and claiming she's some amazing writer.
6) She gives her permission to post her e-mail but why would we bother? She's a hateful person ranting hateful thoughts.
For the record, non-journalist Stacie Adams, when writing for "corrections," it's important to point to something factually wrong. You didn't. Indicating you might need to return to your lame days of writing 'independent' articles celebrating Comedy Central.
152 e-mails came in from parents of special-needs children. They did see the insult in Stacie Adams' bad writing. Renata gave permission to be quoted: "When I read that statement [by Adams], I was so mad I was shaking. She is obviously a hate-filled person who takes joy in ripping into those who have done nothing to her and could not do anything to her. My five-year-old has Down syndrome and she is a blessing and a treasure. If Ms. Adams is 'grossed out' by special-needs children, perhaps she needs to consider growing up."
Renata's thoughts were echoed in the other 151 e-mails and for Adams to find it shocking that we would call her out for her phobia ignores not only Ava and C.I.'s past work here on special-needs children but our own coverage of the challenged and disabled community which did not begin or end with our coverage of Gallaudet.
The second most popular feature (Stacie Adams getting called out wasn't the most popular) was "Editorial: Raw emotions (Ava and C.I.) " and it resulted in over 300 e-mails. Along with the praise for Ava and C.I.'s writing, many also wanted to thank Dee Dee for steering them to Leela's "Bullshit Feministing - Sara Palin was an Excellent GOP Choice" (Feministing). One reader who especially felt Leela was speaking for her suggested that if we really wanted to endorse the conversation Leela was willing to attempt, we should link to a site Leela blogs at: Citizen Girl. It's doubtful we'll be able to add the link during this writing edition but, by Tuesday evening, it will have been added to the our permalinks.
As always the most popular new article in last week's e-mails was Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary ("TV: The Fringes"). Lawrence spoke for many when he said he was glad they unintentionally extended the life of this site. A number of you e-mailed to say you'd enjoy it if, until the election, Ava and C.I. would continue to focus on a number of programs in each article. Their reply is, "We never know what we're doing until we go off to write the piece." And that really is true. Saturday night they were debating whether to go with Saturday cartoons, with public affairs programming, with a new entertainment show, or with some mix. They also had a friend from Saturday Night Live call asking them to take a look at this week's show. (Which they did.) When we broke off into individual groupings moments ago, Ava and C.I. still had no idea what they were going to write about.
"The UN's embarrassment in Iraq" resulted in many e-mails. Reader Luann offered that it was embarrassing that a UN rep took part in that for-show press conference (which stigmatized/demonized women and the press) but wondered if maybe she wasn't "forced to go along with it for access in Iraq?" That's a valid issue and one we were aware of when we wrote the piece. Our feeling was that her participation in that press conference (and the attacks she herself launched) went against the perception that the United Nations was an independent body. On the issue of cholera itself (the supposed topic of the press conference), as news coming out at the start of last week would reveal, she wasn't even honest about that. The UN can't really afford to sully their reputation. The press conference provided cover and misinformation and did so with the participation of a United Nations' rep.
"Sarah Sewell & Her Cult" resulted in e-mails in three categories. 1) Sewell's a War Hawk and thank goodness someone's calling her out. 2) "She's really nice!" (Sewell students). 3) Readers hoping something like that might be done each week. "Ty's Corner" will grab themes from the e-mails. In terms of what's being requested and presented here (sort of a mailbag without discussion) it may or may not be possible. What's going on right now as we work on this is that Jim's typing a roundtable, Ava and C.I. are working on their TV commentary, Ty is editing a musical piece and Mike, Betty, Rebecca, Wally, Cedric, Ruth, Marcia, Kat and Elaine are working on "Highlights." Because enough people e-mailed in for category three, we thought we'd use this time to grab it and would determine after the edition how that went. (For example, did it end up delaying the edition? Did it help it move more quickly?) Longterm reader Pamela noted we attempted this in 2005. She also advised for "the newbies" that we explain why this online magazine does not offer the option of comments? In November and for some of December 2004, The Common Ills offered the option of commenting. Keesha expressed her concern that comments led to her being attacked at other sites and that it would happen at The Common Ills. (Sort of like what Stacie Adams did to Martha.) C.I. said if it did happen, the comments would be shut down. When it did happen, the comments were closed. This site started in January 2005. We (Dona and Jess) and Jim were for the comment option. C.I. brought up the issue of what had happened to Keesha (which we knew, we were TCI community members) which led Ty to explain how it had happened to him. It seems to be an issue with persons of color especially. Wanting to be a welcoming site to all, we took a vote (including Ava who didn't care one way or the other until C.I. and Ty spoke) and decided not to do comments. As a result of that, in the early days, we did do features similar to this one or last week's on e-mails.
Since we will not respond in e-mail to anyone but regular readers (due to Gutter Trash's nonsense), we are aware that we need to find other ways to register the e-mails. That's why Ty has developed "Ty's Corner." Prior to that, for the last two years, we've offered "Mailbag" and also try to work e-mails into roundtables (and did on the roundtable we've done for this edition). The problem with "Mailbag" is that it is a transcript piece and can very easily veer off from "Mailbag" into "Roundtable."
Though this isn't a "Mailbag" piece, we will be using the "Mailbag" art. Suggestions on how to better address what's raised in e-mails can be sent to thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
-- Dona and Jess