A note to our readers

Hey --

Sunday and consider this our holiday edition.

Dallas, as always hunted down links, was a sound board, a friend and a savior. We thank him. Others participating in this week's edition include:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's 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.

Jim and Dona are off this weekend as was Ty. However, Ty did join us for the roundtable.

Here's what we came up with:

Truest statement of the week -- We had no time to write about the disaster that is Barack and Rick Warren's love affair so fortunately Harry Smith had a Truest that had to be noted.

Editorial: The Pathetic and Shameful UPFJ -- A movement brings pressure, it is not a fan club. UPFJ is disgusting and along with owing African-Americans an apology, they owe the country one.


TV: Twins Anne Slowey and Gwen Ifill -- They really are two of a kind, Gwen and Anne. If Anne thinks we (Ava and C.I.) went too far she should know that when she brings on her underage niece to act like a total bitch, she's inviting strong criticism and we refrained from criticquing the niece. We bit our tongues even though we think when a child acts like she did, the child needs to be called out loudly and rudely so she grasps how far from 'all that' she is.

Roundtable -- Could we have a roundtable? Yes, we could! Ty passed on that there was a big request for it. (This was before Ty planned to participate.) We (Ava and C.I.) will note that Jess did a wonderful job of moderating and that Betty rounded up Ty and Stan who were planning to take the weekend off.

The Ultimate Tina Turner Collection -- We enjoyed writing this feature and this comes from Betty and C.I. who have worked like crazy coming up with their dream playlist for Tina over the last four weeks.

An indictment of the 'New' Iraq goes unnoticed -- Our Iraq feature. And, no, we're not saying that people couldn't laugh at the video of the shoe toss, we are saying that if it ended there, if everyone's needle got stuck on that and didn't go beyond it (which happened), that was very sad and very telling.

DVD release of The Women (Ava and C.I.) -- Jess saw an e-mail from Belinda (community member) wondering if a DVD feature could be done? Either last year or the year before we all did some DVD feature at Third and Belinda was hoping for something like that. We didn't have time to, sorry. But two of us had seen The Women recently and were more than willing to write about that.

Hmmm . . . -- Continues the short features that Dona has drilled into us to include. Always.

The Princess Brat Chronicles -- This was a planned feature and we address everything needed in it.

Carolyn Maloney works her ass off for New Yorkers -- But this wasn't planned. We were surprised by how much this person did last week and how little attention the press gave it.

Andrew Cuomo works his ass off for New Yorkers -- See above.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Cedric, Wally, Marcia, Ruth and Stan wrote this. Thank you! This was the last thing written. The writing edition went very smoothly. We started six hours later than usual so everyone could get some sleep. And we then turned out the edition in about eight hours. It moved quickly because everyone brought so many wonderful things to the table. By everyone we mean: Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Cedric, Wally, Marcia, Ruth and Stan. We thank them so much.


So that's it. Happy Holidays.

-- Jess, Ava and C.I.