A note to our readers

Hey --
Sunday. And we just want to get to bed. One and a half hour loading to Flickr and all the illustrations didn't even load. Ay-yi-yi.

Let's thank the ones who endured:

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.

And Dallas who was a sound board a link locater and so much more. Let me (Jim) add in here that Dallas has some photos we'll be using next week for a feature we'll be doing. C.I. was discussing a topic we needed to address while we were brainstorming and Dallas said, "I've got photos of ____ taken in ____ which really drives home the point." So Dallas' help never ends. Thank you, Dallas.

Now here's what we came up with this edition:

Truest statement of the week -- Joshua Frank -- one of the few voices today who trusts your mature enough to decide how to vote.

Truest statement of the week II -- Marcia Pappas speaking from strength.

Editorial: What a friend the left has in Barack -- And Pappas words could be applied to our editorial this week. Before I go further, C.I. wants Elaine's "Kim, pack up your office" noted. Had there been more time, Elaine would have been linked to in the editorial. (She may yet be when do typo corrections on Tuesday.) NOW PAC and NOW are not the same thing and someone needs to explain to Kim Gandy that, as president of NOW, she really can't pretend to 'mix' things up. While Gandy abuses the tax status of NOW to cheerlead Barack, he 'repays' her by putting an anti-choice homophobe on the robe as his surrogate. (Something Kim Gandy -- and many others -- play dumb about.)

TV: Do Not Disturb The Propaganda -- The first of three Ava and C.I. commentaries this week.
In this one, they're tackling a number of topics including a show they weren't planning on reviewing: Do Not Disturb. They knew they'd have nothing nice to say about it. When it became the first series of the fall season cancelled, they had to play catch up and watch the three episodes. They were able to pair it up with Goodman, Moyers and the double standard (possibly the only 'standard' that most 'journalists' can claim these days). It's a very hard hitting commentary.

TV: One ticket gets a pass, the other doesn't -- A few Common Ills community members began e-mailing about Tina Fey's comments on Monday. I begged C.I. and Ava not to do a joint-entry at The Common Ills and to instead save it for a commentary here. As the phone rang all week with friends continuing to complain, I asked, "How likely is it that this point's going to be made strongly by someone else?" Their feeling was not very likely as all because it's a performer's point-of-view and spin meisters and political operatives won't grasp it on their own. With that call, I asked again for them to save it for this. At one point last week, they both got so many calls that this almost became a lengthy topic in an "Iraq snapshot." But they were able to hold off on it. This is my favorite of all three and I thank they handled it perfectly. You'll note that they use the word bitchy in it frequently. That's because Tina Fey's insulting 'parody' of Palin is bitchy. That's the only word for it.

The campaign with momentum -- Our Ralph Nader piece. Only three expressed a desire that we feature other buttons. (And Jonas knew which two he wanted so we used those for the first illustration.) Since the regular illustration (also included) is fine with everyone else e-mailing, we'll stick with that one. Nader's campaign is going places. Anyone paying attention can see he's fought an uphill battle and he's still standing.


Sexism and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- The topic was hugely popular in last week's e-mails with many stating either they thought they were the only one wondering about the sexism or that they hadn't noticed it before last week's article. Monday, the Hall released their latest list of nominees for induction. No surprise, it's yet another long list of men and only one woman. When the list was published, a large number of you e-mailed about stories you were reading on the nominees and your disgust that all the write ups ignored the sexism. So we're tackling the topic again. The illustration is 3614 Jackson Highway, a solo album by Cher that was released in 1969 and is, in fact, where we get our "dig it" quote at the top of the site.

TV: The 'debate' -- Ava and C.I.'s third commentary. I was pushing it in asking for two and I knew it. I didn't ask for this one. Dona did. We had to have a debate piece. (Ava and C.I. disagreed and still do.) Readers would expect it. It was one of the first suggested topics when we started the writing edition. But we had no time to write one. Dona presented it to them as there was no way a piece on the debate could be group written in a short period of time. She asked them to work on this while the rest of us worked on a transcript piece. They say with me, they would have turned me down but because Dona rarely asks them to do an additional piece, they agreed. (The truth is, with me, I would've worn them down, pestering and insisting. But it is true that Dona just had to make the case once.) They tossed this off quickly and said, "We're not even reading it to type it." So I typed it up. This is a very good commentary, a very strong one. But they never intend to read it and note that, thanks to Flickr problems, the promise that if they did it we'd all be able to go to sleep much quicker fell apart.

The New Adventures of Old Christine -- This is the transcript piece the rest of us worked on. We drew names for the order. The New Adventures of Old Christine is now airing on Wednesdays. We hope at least one of us managed to recall something that made you think, "I need to catch it on its new night" or "I need to watch that show for the first time."

MyTV's Fascist House: Princess Tiny Meat Chronicles -- In the brief text to this collage piece, it's noted we're not doing another one again this year. That's because we hate doing them. They're too time consuming. We (Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, C.I., Kat, Wally and myself) go through our clipping stack for possible photos. We then begin cutting. We then begin trying to figure out what works best and it just drags on and on. Ty pointed out (as he does every week) that you are asking for another in your e-mails and that you are also reminding that we promised another one months ago. So here it is and we don't plan another one for the year. When we used to MyTV's Fascist House, we were using Hello! and now we use Flickr. Point? You need to click on the collage to see it all.

Coming Up -- TV highlights for the week.

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

Speaking of highlights. Two things to note. Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Boys Do Cry" went up this morning. (Would have gone up sooner were it not for Flickr problems.) Two Sundays ago, Isaiah had a comic that didn't post. He'd done it Saturday morning and it was Barack on SNL. C.I. saw it and phoned to tell him Barack might not be on the program. So Hilda's Mix got that comic. (Barack wasn't on the program.) Wednesday morning he did a comic planned for Thursday about the debates. By Wednesday evening, McCain's participation in the debates were iffy. Isaiah took that comic over to the gina & krista round-robin. This one went up at The Common Ills. So be sure to check it out and the other highlight is Kat's latest CD review, "Kat's Korner: Chris Martin's cold play" -- which was supposed to go up Saturday. She forgot and so did the rest of us. It and another CD review were typed up by her Saturday morning. The next one will go up tomorrow morning. Kat hopes to do another one by next Saturday night.

So that's it. See you next weekend.

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