A note to our readers

Hey --

Sunday! And look how early we're done for us. And the biggest delay was (as always) Flickr.

We plan to use Isaiah's comic in a piece next week that we just ran out of time on.


Along with Dallas, the following helped 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,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ
and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.

We thank them one and all. And what do we have this week?

Truest statement of the week -- Carol Marin revealed last week that the press conferences were staged, Barack's. And that really hasn't been an issue, has it? We don't have a working press.

Truest statement of the week II -- Chris Floyd stepped up to call Barack out over efforts to destroy Social Security. (It needs no 'fixing,' it's fine.) He's one of the few who can make that claim. Lot of silence going on. Or, in the case of the idiot Matt Rothschild, a lot of widl cheering.


Editorial: Racists make Burris jump through hoops -- Exactly when is the same criteria applied to Senator Roland Burris used on the other senators? Exactly why is he repeatedly expected to jump through hoops? It's racism and you can watch Face the Nation on CBS and see if Dick Durbin can offer another reason but that's what it is.

TV: About that digital switch -- Ava and C.I. were going to do a mixture that would pull from Washington Week, one entertainment program and a news program. But then came the e-mail and they were laughing about it but thought, "We really should do another piece on it before the switch." They refer to this as the PSA (Public Service Announcement) article and that did not have me eager to read it. But, surprise, surprise, when I read it out loud to everyone, I saw they'd worked in their usual jokes. Be sure to read the note at the end. Ava says, "The other show was Saturday Night Live. Liza Minelli had a very brief cameo and she was funny and looked great. We really wanted to note that so we'll put it in Jim's note." C.I. adds, "They should have worked her into at least one more skit or given her a musical number. But even so, it was a strong show and Neil Patrick Harris made a wonderful host. The only problem was Seth. We could have written and written about that for days. So it's good that we did the PSA instead."

1 Book, 5 Minutes -- No Mailbag this edition. Can't do that and do a book discussion. Ava and C>i. wrote the TV commentary. Betty and Kat worked on every other piece this edition except for the book discussion. Trina worked only on the book discussion. We thank her. Glad to have her anytime. She doesn't even need to ask. (Though I know why she feels she needs to. We were all real asses the weekend she started. We didn't know it was her, we just knew C.I. was on the phone helping someone set up a site and we were thinking, "We don't have the time for this!" We felt like idiots when we found out it was Trina. We should have felt that way regardless of who it was.) So anytime you want, Trina, you're always welcome. Dona wants it noted that she was indicating the time to me and not C.I. during this discussion, "I was waiving to Jim who was ignoring me and my intent was to let him know not to open this up after C.I. finished. Instead, Jim ignored me and C.I. ended up rushing through."


Chummyness You Can Believe In -- Short features, cries Dona. And here's one for you.

Ms. Pathetic, fold tent please -- Where are the links? We already got a call on that from one of Dona and my classmates who meant to Ava and C.I.'s stuff. Our regular readers know what we're talking about. And they know how to find it without the links. But, in case you missed it, Ava and C.I.'s "TV: 2008, the lows and really lows" contained an acknowledgement that they've been repeatedly ripped off by one person. Ava wanted that in there or it wouldn't have gone in there. She's damn sick of it. (C.I. could care less about the rip-offs and feels they're cheap copies who just embarrass themselves.) But grasping how someone (we all know who) would love to, for example, talk about Michele Kort or about the Donna Brazile article, we decided not to make it easy for a theft to occur. And, for the record, I (Jim) agree with Ava. I'm getting damn tired of Ava and C.I. working their asses off here and Monday or Tuesday someone stealing their insights and their jokes and attempting to pass both off as original work. If this continues, we may start calling it out with the name of the person doing it.

The New Ms. magazine! (Parody) -- This is really Ava, C.I., Rebecca and Mike. After they wrote it, we smoothed it out mainly by correcting spelling. We may have added a word or two or we may not have. So we did the serious post before and that was going to be it. But Mike said, "We really need a parody." Dona said, "I don't think we have time, but if we do . . ." We didn't. We wrote the editorial and then sent everyone packing except for Third (me, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.). But Mike said, "What about that piece?" Rebecca said she'd stay up and Ava and C.I. said they'd work on with Mike and Rebecca. They worked very fast. It is funny. They would have liked to have done a lot, lot more. But this wasn't planned and, other than Mike's we-need-to-do-a-parody, nothing was done or thought of until they went to work on it. Ten minutes later, they were done. So this piece, only Ava, C.I., Rebecca and Mike really deserve credit on.

How safe is the US Embassy in Baghdad? -- Another short piece.

Barack's fan club poses as journalists -- Okay, so if Corporate journalists get to cozy to politicians, that's bad. But Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Katrina vanden Heuvel, et al can host an inauguration ball and that's fine and dandy? And, in Goodman's case, it's ball and a fundraiser for her show. So she's making money off of how excited people are about Barack. And she sees no conflict of interest? They are pathetic. They are beggars and they work in Panhandle Media because that's the only place that would 'employ' them.

ETAN: Blair Poor Choice for NI Director -- An important message from ETAN.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Ruth, Cedric, Wally, Marcia and Stan wrote this and picked out the highlights unless otherwise noted. We thank them for it.

And that's what we got. We'll see you next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.