Lewis e-mails to complain there hasn't been a mailbag in forever. Tony notes "No Ty's Corner!" So I'm combining the two and will call this "Ty's Corner Mailbag."
Jordan was among 52 e-mailing to praise "The Thomas E. Ricks Dialogue." Of the 52, 17 want more pieces like this and four wonder why we haven't done them sooner. The problem there would be what most of you expand many words on: C.I. No one could have done that debate/dialogue except C.I. in terms of making the case for withdrawal. And C.I.'s concern is always about "dominating" the site. C.I. will say, "I've got The Common Ills." Longterm readers will know it's a little more than that and how it was over a year after we started this site that C.I. finally would be listed as one of the Third gang. The person you need to lobby for more of those pieces is Jim. Jim held his own and I'm not sure any of the rest of us could have. Jim held his own in the dialogue -- like the readers, I think C.I. won the exchange and not Jim posing as Thomas E. Ricks -- and held his own in the lead up. This idea was floated as soon as Jim read the book. So that was probably early February or late January. (Find out the street date for the book and subtract at least two weeks.) Because Jim wanted it, C.I. agreed. And I agree with everyone who wrote that it was one of our strongest pieces.
Morey e-mails wondering if he needs to go elsewhere? He supported John McCain and he's not sure he's welcome here. Morey, Oklahoma community members voted for John McCain and they're welcome here. We've stated before, we don't care who you vote for. If coming by makes you think, laugh or get angry and you like your response, keep coming back. We have not joined in any attacks on McCain. We have not attempted to hop on the never-ending "ATTACK SARAH PALIN!" bandwagon. If McCain were wrong on something and we saw it, we'd consider calling it out. However, we (core six: Jim, Dona, Jess, Ava, C.I. and myself) did discuss this topic immediately after the election and McCain would have to make a really big blunder that was really public. Otherwise, we have other things to cover. The feeling (we were all in agreement) was that the wounds were too raw from the election, that Oklahoma community members went with Barack and that we did not want to make anyone feel unwelcome. You'll most likely see McCain covered by C.I. over any other site because C.I. covers Iraq and, as she's pointed out this year already, what McCain says on Iraq -- regardless of whether it's right or wrong -- tends to be the next stomping ground -- he usually gets there a few months ahead of the others.
John McCain remains a senator and, if need be, he will be called out. He is, however, one senator out of 100. Unlike Amy Goodman, we don't flap our gums about how I.F. Stone or whomever said the press has to make the powerful uncomfortable and then turn around and kiss Barack's rump. That's what Amy Goodman does. The president of the United States, regardless of whom he or she may be, will always be a target of this site, as long as we're around.
Morey wasn't the only one asking that, he was the only reader comfortable with having his name used. (Thank you, Morey.)
Fay wonders what it's like for all of us to live together and why we refer to it but don't write about it? For those who don't know, we all live at C.I.'s. I was the first to come out (to California from NY). I did so because I was soured on my previous college and ready to start over. I mentioned it to C.I. and how I was thinking of changing majors and considering various colleges to transfer to. C.I. encouraged me to go to one in this area and said I could live here. I came out during the summer to do an internship with a director friend of C.I.'s and ended up staying. Ava and Jess came out a few weeks after. Ava grew up out here and prefers it to NY. Some of her family lives out here (some lives in NY). Jess, Ava's boyfriend, saw why she preferred it. For all the talk of 'melting pot,' NY really isn't the 'melting pot' for Latinos. (Ava is a Latina.) She was already decided but hadn't announced when Jess asked if they should stay. So that's how they ended up staying. That left Dona and Jim back East. And they came out for a few weeks and were going to stay back East but then decided on the spur of the moment to stay here.
My boyfriend finished up at our old college. He now shares my room with me. And Betty's here with her three kids while she's working out here for a year (her job transferred her). Wally's here but he, Kat, Ava and C.I. are on the road every week (Monday through Friday) so he's really not out here -- nor is Ava or C.I. When she's not on the road, Kat can often be found here and has many times been invited by C.I. to move in but she has her own "funky" place that she's had for ten or so years and she can't see giving it up. (She had to move into the building and then wait and wait until she got the dream place.)
So that's background. Why don't we write about it? As a topic exclusively it's not something we're interested in because we know C.I.'s a private person and who wants to read about their home? We could do something on it for one of the community newsletters. But to put something like that online? No, thank you.
Randy e-mails about next Saturday's demonstrations. DC and other areas will have rallies to end the illegal war. If that's news to you, check The National Assembly to End the Wars, the ANSWER coalition, World Can't Wait and Iraq Veterans Against the War. Randy's question is do we feel that the turnout will be huge or small? We don't know. We would love it to be huge but we're not sure how many people are even aware of it? We've tried to get the word out on it and we will be participating. We know those two things. That's about it at this point.
Audrey wants to know what we'll cover when the Iraq War ends? We'll probably have gone dark long before the Iraq War ends. When the Democratic Party primaries were ongoing I personally thought there was a chance the illegal war would end. I thought Hillary Clinton would end it. She staked out a position and she would have stuck to it. Barack never got any pressure and he always had a weak position. But back in the days when I thought Hillary was going to receive the nomination (she won it, it was stolen from her), I would float that to others. We weren't sure when this site would go dark and there were many other things we discussed covering. I really wish, Audrey, that we could stop talking about Iraq because the war was over. But it's not and we're not going to be like the news media and other websites -- we're not going to drop the topic.
Olive (community member from Australia) pointed out in an e-mail last week that Third is lucky because there's always more than enough news for an article once a week. ("Or two or even three.") But C.I.'s got to cover Iraq every day and, no, that's not easy when the media withdraws before the troops do.
Bruce wants to know how easy or hard it is each week to do these editions?
It varies. We started this edition Saturday night. Mike, Ava and C.I. were late in joining us because they were finishing an Iraq roundtable for Polly's Brew (community newsletter published on Sunday mornings, run by UK member Polly). We weren't getting anywhere and, by the time they joined us, we still weren't anywhere. We had nothing. It was mainly we were tired. So Dona and C.I. made a list of what we knew we'd have to do: Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary, the Iraq roundtable, Highlights, etc. I was asked if I'd do a Ty's Corner and I said I would but would do it with mailbag. Dona then read the list of what we had back to us and we all sighed in relief because we actually had an edition. It didn't feel like that before the list.
Ethan wonders what we do during the writing sessions besides write? That question's come up several times before but I don't believe it's ever been answered. Ava, C.I. and Wally have the washer and dryer going. They arrive home Saturday and leave out Monday morning. So they're washing their clothes. We're generally nibbling and drinking on things. Tonight, C.I. made tortilla soup because Jim seemed under the weather. (That's two batches of tortilla soup. One with chicken, one without -- vegetable broth and no chicken.) So we've all been eating that. It's wonderful. We can't remember C.I. ever making that before but maybe it's just been awhile. We also try to clean as we go. (C.I. has household help but we try to clean our own messes.) Betty's kids are here and we'll stop for various reasons there. By the time they're down for the night, less need for that. But we will stop before that. And even Jim -- not the most tactful of people -- will stop everything when, for example, Betty's oldest son wants to show us a song he just learned to play on guitar or when he wants to ask C.I. or Jess to show him how to play a section of a song. (Wally's learning the guitar now as well. Jess and C.I. know how to play guitar. C.I. knows how to play piano, bass and I don't know how many other instruments. When we quote a song and there's a dispute about the lyric, one of us will at some point rush to the music room where all the instruments and sheet music is kept. We'll come back with the sheet music and say, "No, the lyric is ____!")
George wondered about the music? We've always got music playing. Cedric participates by phone and he's not the only one. But the others participating by phone are all at Trina's. So if Cedric's got something we can hear, we'll tell him to crank it up. Otherwise, it's generally us blasting the music. (Trina's home has her grandbaby and Rebecca's young daughter on the weekends. No blasting of music.) So far tonight, we've listened to Mary J. Blige, Jackie DeShannon, india.arie, the Kinks, the Weepies, Tracy Chapman and Jefferson Airplane. We all have eclectic tastes. Dona and Ava set out to have that. They made the first two years of college (they were roommates in college) about expanding their music knowledge. Jess grew up in a home where music played all the time but the TV was only on for PBS -- and not on that often even then. But we all bring in different things and, right now, the music just shifted, John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band is playing. We listen to a variety. I know that when she's working on a difficult entry at The Common Ills, say an end of the year summation, C.I. will put on classical, usually a ballet (The Firebird is a popular choice) but we don't listen to classical when we work on these editions. (I should also point out that C.I.'s more likely not to pick out anything during a writing edition and let's the rest of us pick it out. On her own, she'll generally go with something like Odetta or R&B of any era.) (And I'll point out that about the second time I heard The Firebird, I asked, "What is that?" I have fallen in love with it and I'm not a fan of classic music. I think it works best on a day where you don't have to rush and can wake up to it and just enjoy it.)
Melody notes we've mentioned "many times" that we divide up Sunday breakfast duties but what about lunch and dinner? Lunch? We're generally asleep after being up all night. Dinner? Some people feel like eating, some don't? Some are up to going out, some aren't. (If we go out to eat, Ava and C.I. are the sunglass twins who do not remove their sunglasses no matter how dark it is outside. Which actually has nothing to do with their eyes but everything to do with not wanting to be looked at. It's their stay-away-from-me stance.) If we're eating here and can all go for vegetables -- no meat, Jess is happy fixing something up for us. Dona will generally whip up something fairly quickly (something tasty). If it's me, it's something I can toss in the oven because I'm not going to stand over the stove. C.I. will actually cook. If one of us asks for something, C.I. will go into the kitchen and cook. Or if we don't want to go out but don't know what we want to eat, C.I. will go and cook a dinner. Italian, Greek and Mexican are her specialities. And she cooks, cooks. She's chopping things, she's doing sauces, it's always from scratch if she's cooking. She will tell you she can't fry worth s**t (that's a quote) and now that Betty's here we will have fried chicken (plus something for Jess who doesn't eat meat) (frying's an art and frying chicken even more so). If Betty's frying, the rest of us are usually doing something else. (Dona doing a green salad, Jim and me peeling potatoes so C.I. will make mashed potatoes, etc.) Because fried chicken is ready pretty quickly so that's a bit of a rush and the rest of the time, when anyone's cooking, it's usually a more leisurely pace.
The bulk of the e-mails were, as always, about Ava and C.I.'s TV commentaries. Dona and I do try to reply if a reply is necessary and/or we happen to have the time. But we (and Jim) read all the e-mails. thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. About music, a topic a number of you e-mailed on, by the middle of April, I promise another music roundtable. We may do some other music piece before then. But we will do a music roundtable by the middle of April.