Another Sunday. We're finally done. We've never had so much content.
Along with Dallas, here's who helped with the writing:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's 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,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ
and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.
We thank everyone who worked on this edition. We offer no original illustrations. And we're not really sure which ones we used. If you're looking at a drawing or a painting and any of Betty's kids tell you they worked on it, they're telling the truth. We note that because it was an issue a year ago. If you go to school with Betty's kids and you doubt their word, e-mail here and we'll set you straight.
Okay, here's what we've got.
Truest statement of the week -- Riverdaughter was an obvious choice for the week.
Editorial: Taking sexism seriously -- Two articles became one editorial as time was running out. The truest statement really should clue you in that this is the edition where we're addressing gender and sexism. Dona, Jim and Ty were aware of this edition. Two of us (Ava and C.I.) had the idea weeks ago when watching yet another Democracy Now! segment where the topic was clearly a woman's issue and yet all the guests were men, we decided it was time to yet again check in on how our 'friends' are representing women. This piece also acts as your table of contents for many of the individual pieces in this edition.
TV: Trash TV -- Okay, Ava and C.I. here. And we had no plans on writing about Michael Jackson. We made a point to avoid him last weekend. What happened was Amy Goodman did that awful segment last week and Common Ills community members were outraged by it. The e-mails flooded in and it was noted (at The Common Ills) that we'd look at it and if it was as bad as everyone said, we'd address it. We actually found it far worse. We found it far worse because Suzanne de Passe was stripped of her contributions, Diana Ross' were minimized. We actually could have written four times this length. For example, we could have noted how the 'great' songwriter Michael Jackson ripped off Frankie Avalon's "De De Dinah" to 'create' "Dirty Diana." We could have talked about the use of Toto (misuse). We could have talked about a huge, huge number of things. And we could have done that last weekend. However, we were attempting to avoid the entire topic of the pedophile. A week after he died, when even trying to avoid the topic, we're being saturated with it, we'll write about it. And we'll write, as we so often do, in defense of the children that our society chooses to ignore. It's appalling, it's disgusting.
Women actively challenging the spin -- We wanted to highlight women who made real contributions last week. Because we try to include an Iraq feature, we went with contributions on Iraq.
The Nation: Can't get it up, you won't get in print... -- The Nation stats. Yes, we're back to the topic. No, they haven't improved.
Bill Moyers Journal: Find the girl! -- In 2007, this site tackled the issue of The Nation and gender because women writers approached us at the end of 2006. In the TV beat, Bill Moyers is frequently held accountable for the sexism his show broadcasts. And when we do, you'd be surprised how many feminists call up, drop by or e-mail to congratulate us on that. However, they never use their own forums to call the sexism out. We wonder why that is and we're also getting pretty damn tired of being the ones you hide behind when you want a problem addressed.
Washington Week: Gwen must be belle of the ball -- Why does PBS have guidelines if no one has to follow them?
CounterSpin: Let the men talk -- We're eager to read the lovely e-mails from FAIR that we're sure this piece will generate. We're so very, very eager.
Matt Rothschild: twice as likely to speak to a man... -- Thanks to Dallas on this especially because he checked our numbers here. We were all very tired and at this point we just were about to fall over. Dallas kindly checked our numbers to make sure we were correct in our count.
Harper's magazine: Only pencil neck males allowed -- And Dallas deserves thanks here for the same thing. It really amazes us how Harper's doesn't offer a real female blogger online and barely prints women in its magazine but no one ever calls it out. We find that very amazing. Especially considering the sexist venum the publisher spewed at Hillary throughout 2008.
Queen Bees v. Quota Queens -- This is an explanation of terms piece. Due to e-mails. Although a number of readers did get the difference last week.
Liz Smith: Women who hurt women and themselves -- We were done. Or thought we were. Elaine reminded us that we hadn't done this feature. Did we want to? We were tired. But Elaine had mentioned it last week at her site. That sealed it, tired or not, we'd do it. What is about these self-loathing lesbians? Liz Smith wants to act like homophobia (excuse us, beating men up because you're a homophobe) is attractive and sexy. And Laura Flanders wants to fondly remember a pedophile. What ever happened to lesbians who celebrated women? What's up with all this cock worship from these self-loathing lesbians? It's really embarrassing and reminds us a great deal of Melissa Etheridge's shameful defense of Barack. Hey, she doesn't make that any more. She appears to have learned her lesson. If only Liz and Laura could.
July 8th rally for Kimberly Rivera -- We didn't write this. This is Iraq but we're just reposting.
Indonesia President SBY Covered Up Murder -- ETAN repost.
Accountability in the Run-up to Indonesian Electio... -- ETAN repost.
Highlights -- Elaine, Mike, Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Wally, Cedric, Stan and Marcia wrote this.
Kat worked on highlights only. She was tired. Everyone was told they could have the weekend off if needed. Dona, Jim and Ty grabbed the offer (and good for them). Ann worked on a lot of the above and possibly all. We're really not sure. Mike will do his breakdown of this edition this week and trust his take on who worked on what. We're just trying to get into bed at this point and last night and this morning are a big, big blur. The Liz Smith feature was written by Mike, Elaine and the three of us. We know that for sure because it was the last thing we did. Otherwise, it's all a blur.
Hopefully, in all that's offered, you'll find something that you enjoy on some level. That's it for this week and we'll all be back next Sunday.
-- Jess, Ava and C.I.