A note to our readers

Hey --
Sunday and we're done!

We thank Dallas and everyone else who 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,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ
and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.


What did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week -- This is Marie Cocco (her second time getting a truest) and we wanted to highlight and actually do so much more than we did.

Truest statement of the week II -- Louis Proyect. Elaine and C.I. found this one and we all encourage you to read the entire commentary by Proyect. You're cheating yourself if you don't.

Editorial: What do you mean 'we'? -- We knew this would be the editorial. It was a long writing edition. We almost tossed this out. Then Jess and C.I. (bored with the rest of us bickering over some detail) started out acting out the scene from Good Times that now opens the editorial. They did it perfectly and at first we weren't aware it was from a film and were wondering, "What the hell's going on between Jess and C.I.?" After we realized what it was, we put on the Good Times soundtrack and rocked out repeatedly to "It's The Little Things" while writing this editorial.

TV: Tina Fey to the lido deck, Tina Fey to . . . -- NBC suits were calling the house Thursday and Friday repeatedly. I (Jim) kept passing on the messages to Ava and C.I. (they were calling for those two) and I also informed them that I wanted the topic covered here whatever it was. (I actually thought it was more cancellations.) So they offer up another look at 30 Rock. This is very funny.

10 Cover Classics -- To read this, you'd never guess it took the longest of any to finish. Not due to YouTube. Dona loves the Barbra Streisand video and included that in her remarks so we decided to do links for all the songs. That was fairly quick. The problem was in narrowing it down to ten. We also refused to let any artist make the list with more than one song. Cher (with or without Sonny) could have easily taken up all ten spots (and we love, love "500 Miles) and certainly the Mamas & the Papas "Dream A Little Dream" could have made the top ten. But, as Ty pointed out, that's probably a very well known cover, one of the most well known covers during the rock era. They really aren't in any order except we all do agree Streisand would top the list with "If You Could Read My Mind." It really is amazing cover.

Bedtime stories for the Cult of Barack -- Sorry, kiddies, he's not the first politician declared a "rock star."

Joan Didion on the Cult of the Christ-child -- We transcribed this because we know there are a large number that streaming doesn't reach. Either the computers won't stream (connection or operatirng software) or the person has hearing issues. C.I. said,"I'll transcribe it for Hilda's Mix" (which is geared towards special needs community members) and we thought, "No, let's not put it off. Let's do it now and make sure it's available to all." It's an important judgment.

Yes, let's stop kidding ourselves (Ava and C.I.) -- I belly ached about how we were supposed to do something more with Cocco's column and Ava and C.I. said finally, "What do you want and we'll work for five minutes and no more." They weren't joking. They set a timer. There was no ending. They wrote a sentence or two quickly and said, "There. Leave us alone!" (In fairness, it was the last thing written.)

Music Access -- This was an Ava and C.I. piece originally because we were supposed to do this week after week. We'd promised to tackle the issue after the election (we still have another issue to tackle that's been on hold) and Ava and C.I. knocked out a version last week. We held it because everyone wanted to work on it. This is basically another draft of what they wrote last week. ("Four more drafts," says Ty.)

Ike Skelton reminds Death Of Free TV Is Coming -- PSA.

The War Drags On -- We really love the animation here. Thank you to Syreeta for e-mailing it.

Highlights -- Stan, Marcia, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Ruth, Cedric, Wally, Elaine and Mike wrote this and picked out the highlights. We thank them for it. My apologies to Stan who I left off last week.

And that's the edition. Hope you found something to make you laugh, scream, cry or complain.

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