A note to our readers

Hey --

Another week.


Along with Dallas, here's who helped with the writing:

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,

Ann who's filling in for Ruth at Ruth's Report,

Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,

Wally of The Daily Jot,

Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ

and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.

Illustration wise, the only new one by us would be the photo of the sun and two photos of Greg Rucka. Those were taken by Jess.

We thank everyone who worked on this edition.

What did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week -- We actually had plans to do two truests but ran out of time. So we went with just one, myiq2xu.

Editorial: Save us from the panty sniffers -- All the gossip prevents real news from being heard. However, if the gossip wasn't there, who knows what news we would be served? Regardless, we're getting tired of the tut-tutters on the left who are starting to sound a lot like the 'moralizers' on the right.

TV: Give till it hurts -- Two features we wrote for this edition fell apart. Ava and C.I. said they'd try to grab the topics and work them in. They managed to do it and then some. This is really a wild ride and Ava and C.I. have done something amazing here. I have a feeling this will rank among 2009's favorite pieces. They're addressing a new NBC show, Barry O, Monica Conyers, NOW and a host of other topics.

A Rucka, a Batwoman, a Zeus and a Heatwave -- Dona, Jess, Isaiah and Dallas wrote this article. Dona gets listed first because I'm engaged to her and this is my (Jim) note. So, except for Dallas, they flew out Friday to cover this Saturday event. They wrote two articles. The other one will run in Hilda's Mix. That one is more Rucka heavy. We really liked it and said we should run both but Dona pointed out that they really weren't seperate articles and that we needed to choose one or the other. We went with this one. And we thank Dallas, Isaiah, Jess and Dona for covering the story and writing the article.

Ty's Corner -- Ty wrote this. I'm in disagreement with him on a few things, mainly that last week was so bad. I do agree with him that Ava and C.I.'s participation in the writing would have meant a humor short story. I also think that's a glaring hole in last week's summer read. But I think the short stories are on the same basic level as each summer's offering. I think that a few of them are actually better. I also remember that we hate every summer read (short story) edition after we finish it. We read over it in a week or two and realize that it's not as awful as we think. That roughly a third didn't like it? Glad you shared if you didn't like it. (And longtime readers know that's not sarcasm.) I think Ty covers things well and honestly but I do strongly disagree that last week was a failure. (And Jess is saying, "Because if it was a failure, you'd be responsible since you insisted we do the summer read that week." Possibly.)

Be very, very scared -- Barry O was going to 'fix' the White House and country and now most know that the fix was always in. Now Barry O's going to 'fix' the Democratic Party primaries. Be very, very scared.

Winter Soldier covered by Free Speech Radio News -- If you missed this last week, you missed the best report on radio. (For those wondering, Friday's Democracy Now! had a feature that didn't work out. If you saw Friday's show, you know it was noteworthy.)

Unsolicited e-mails -- When we were looking over Ty's column, we started talking about e-mail issues and ended up writing this.

Question raised last week -- Short features, Dona always screams. Here's one.

Papuans being slaughtered -- from ETAN.

The Quota Queen's on her head -- a preview for next week. That's a story Ava and C.I. are working on. They didn't have anything written, just discussing it, but a number of e-mails have come in about next week's edition since we announced a few weeks back that Ava and C.I. would be steering it. So that's a taste.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Cedric, Wally, Marcia and Stan wrote this and selected all highlights.


And that's the edition. There will be one next Sunday. You won't want to miss it.

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