A note to our readers

Hey --

Sunday and we've got another edition. Somehow. We thank all the people who worked on this edition including Dallas and the following:

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.


And what do we have? Or as we worried, "How bad is it?"


Truest statement of the week -- Jim Webb was the clear choice for the week.

Truest statement of the week II -- A rare moment of truth in the paper of record deserves noting.

Editorial: Same Way To Quagmmire -- This wasn't the planned editorial. The planned editorial was ditched after no amount of editing could save it (despite repeated tries). At which point, this article became an editorial with various bits of tweaking. It works as an editorial. Luckily.

TV: Crime and Intent -- "How bad is it?" was our question about the edition. The answer was, "So bad we need to ask Ava and C.I. to redo their commentary." Why? They covered Criminal Intent which we were told last Wednesday they'd be doing. And, as they'd stated, they'd just cover that show. This edition was shaping up too poorly so, when they came back with their commentary, we said, "Great. But could you go back and redo it to include some news?" They'd planned to do a separate article on The Tonight Show but we asked them to go long and toss it in here as well. They managed to make it all work -- to their surprise and our surprise -- and when I was reading this out loud to everyone, I could feel everyone (including myself) breathe a little easier. ("Myself." This is Jim.)

The Roy Wilkins goes to . . . -- A failed piece on homophobia also left us with a huge hole in the edition. It was suggested by Rebecca we do a piece on this topic and Betty asked, "What was that guy who sold out Paul Robeson?" C.I. said, "Roy Wilkins." And we were off and running.

Ty's Corner -- Remember the failed piece on homophobia? When we sent Ava and C.I. back to the drawing board to redo their commentary, Dona asked Ty if he would grab just one example from our failed article -- any one -- and do a Ty's Corner on it. He agreed and we thank him for this.

Roundtable -- We should have done a music feature. Why? No matter how awful it might have turned out (and most things we worked on this weekend were turning out awful), we would have posted it because we could have justified it under the excuse, "Well, the readers always e-mail asking for music features." The edition was over except for typing and editing and we'd thanked everyone not of the core six and told them to get some rest. Then I remembered I'd asked Stan to hold a topic he was planning to write about at his site. We never got around to that topic this weekend. So I asked him if he'd like to take part in a very quick roundtable (and said I'd understand if he was too tired). He was up for it and the plan was one movie on DVD, one movie now playing in theaters. But we never got to the second one because there was too much to say on the first choice. Thank you to Stan for holding the topic for Third and for participating in the roundtable.

Chris Hill sings 'Much More' -- Marcia thought of the song. Rebecca would be the obvious choice but Marcia's quickly become as huge a Barbra fan as is Rebecca. This was a last minute feature and may have been the last thing we wrote before we told everyone to go to sleep. (Dona says it was the last thing.) So we had spent forever on a solid idea that Betty had. We'd written it every way possible including as a fiction piece and it never, ever worked. We said we'd take another pass at it after we heard what Ava and C.I. had written. After I finished reading that to everyone, it was time to take another swipe but Betty said, "It's just not working." So instead, we quickly substituted this as a topic.

They're they go again -- "Short items would mean we'd already be done," said Dona throughout the writing. Even so, this is the only one we managed.

'Thousands March Nationwide: End the Wars!' -- a reprint of a greaty article by the Party of Socialism and Liberation.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Wally, Marcia, Ruth, Stan and Cedric wrote this and we thank them for it.


And that's what we have. Via strong contributions by Ava and C.I. and Ty, we ended up with a stronger edition than it looked like we'd have. We like the editorial. We like the short item. And maybe it's a better edition than we realize due to the fact that it was a pain in the ass this weekend? Who knows? We'll see you next week.

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