A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday. We did things a little bit differently this week.

We were typing and uploading images when Dona said, "The chat & chews start on the East Coast in about ten minutes." At which point, she started uploading anything we'd finished editing and typing stopping with Ava and C.I.'s commentary which addressed the topic the chat & chews would be obsessing over.

Dona wanted that up before the chat & chews started airing and now that we're on the West Coast, we tend to forget about that unless we're watching satellite feed while we wrap up.

Let's note credit before we get further down the road. Along with Dallas, the following helped write 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),
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.


We thank them all. We thank you for reading. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and -- hold on. Say it with me now FFFFFOOOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!.

Hold up, we have another feature to do.

Okay, first, reader Bill wrote about "The music and book roundtable" last week and his was among the many e-mails I (Jim) read on that. But his was the one I loved best and I printed it up and shared it with everyone and then asked, this morning, "Did anyone e-mail him to tell him how much we loved his e-mail?" To which Dona replied, "Why would we e-mail him about that when we'd assume you already had?" Point taken. Bill, I loved your e-mail, we all did. Your comparison made me laugh out loud. Thank you so much for writing.

If you write, understand a few things.

1) If you go into SPAM, you may or may not be seen. (That applies to this week.)

2) We don't 'do' FaceBook. We're aware of them. We're very much aware of them. We do not 'do' FaceBook. Not now, not ever. Don't expect a response to your invites.

3) We work the inbox as best we can. If you go to the SPAM folder we may not see you until the last minute.

4) Ava and C.I. do not take payment for their reviews. They do risk pissing on friends each week when they tackle shows that they usually have a friend or two working on. But if you have something you want reviewed, no amount of money is going to make Ava and C.I. review it. They don't need money and they wouldn't do a review for payment. That was a big thing last week in the e-mails with people who have books or movies or albums to promote e-mailing to ask how much Ava and C.I. would charge? They won't charge. They don't accept money for reviews. In addition, they have their own list they're working through. (They had hoped to do an hour long drama today but current events changed that.) Kat reviews music in this community (and she doesn't take money and has pangs of guilt when she grabs one of C.I.'s advanced copies instead of buying an album herself). Books? We all review books in a roundtable here and we do not take money for those reviews. In some cases, we have an advanced copy due to a friend of C.I.'s. I hope that clears it up.

Today at 5:00 pm PST on the Kevin Pollack Chat show, you can hear Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kevin-pollak%27s-chat-show

Remember my "FFFFOOOOCCCKKKK" (I can type that, it's not with a "u")? The announcement on that went to spam and Ava and C.I. were looking at the spam folder while we're doing the note. SO we just paired the announcement with a cell of Roger.

There are some other things in the SPAM folder that, if we'd seen before, we'd be noting this edition. But we didn't see them. For a Seth MacFarlane (whose hugely popular with our readers) appearance, we'll do a quick announcement.

Okay, what do we have?


Truest statement of the week -- Third week in a row, Peace Mom gets the truest of the week. That is a record. Two weeks in a row has happened before but never three.

Truest statement of the week II -- John V. Walsh wrote a very important article and we went back and forth on what was "truest" and what was "truest II"? We finally decided Cindy was the source and Cindy's activism is what Walsh is writing about so Cindy gets truest. Nothing wrong with Truest II and we encourage you to read Walsh's commentary if you haven't already.


Editorial: You can't drive on the left side of the road -- Kat groaned loudly and said "FFFOOOOCCCKKK" when Ava and C.I. made a CD selection. They put on an album and Kat loved it. She identified it as Nanci Griffith, which it was, and assumed it was an older album, which it wasn't. It came out a few months ago. Kat's thinking she's now got to find a way to do a review of it, of Carly's upcoming CD and two others that she really wants to review. And nothing's coming up in the next two weeks, she says. But, if you're wondering why Nanci Griffith pops up twice this edition, that's why. This was the most debated piece. Why? Long term readers who've already read the editorial will be able to guess: "We told you so." C.I. really didn't want that in but finally waived it through. I love saying, "I told you so." C.I. loathes it. It was finally allowed when I argued it might be humorous. As Mike would type, ":D" Illustration is by Betty's kids and Betty's daughter is very, very proud of this. Is Cindy supposed to be angry, we asked her? "No, she 'termined." She meant determined. And that is the highest praise, we're not joking. "Whatever you do, be 'termined." That's what she has long hair Barbi tell the other Barbies when she's playing, "Whatever you do, be 'termined." We agree Cindy Sheehan is determined and we applaud her.

TV: Ghoul Watch -- Ava and C.I.'s masterpiece. And the other place Nanci Griffith's noted. We love this. We couldn't believe how hard they worked on it. They're covering: The NewsHour, Nightline, CBS Evening News, Democracy Now! and CounterSpin and citing The Washington Post, Stars and Stripes, Socialist Worker, WSWS, CounterPunch, PEW, Diane Rehm Show, Los Angeles Times, Anglola Press and you name it. This is a huge and ambitious piece and they pull it off and even provide some laughs along the way. They planned to tackle an hour long crime dram and watched ten episodes of it that have aired while reading two scripts for the coming year. They did all that work and then had to shelve it due to current events. As Marcia has noted, the work these two do before a word is ever written really is tremendous.

No health care plan but there are a bunch of liars... -- Trina worked on the editorial and she worked on this. She wanted to work on this and that's why we got her help this weekend. We thank her for her help and we love working with her. There is NO plan and left gas bags who insist upon attempting to bully and scare people into hopping on board should be ashamed.

When Coward met Zirin . . . -- Elaine brought this idea over. I wasn't overly impressed. I read the ISR article (in the magazine itself) and didn't really catch it. It was only when this piece was written that I got the point. Thank you to Elaine. Illustration by Kat, Wally and Betty's kids.

Iraq -- Friday, C.I. was rushing to get the snapshot dictated and sent before 6:00 pm EST when everything had to stop. C.I. had to get on the laptop. Why? Because the idiot Steven Lee Myers was writing an end of the month piece. No, August has not ended. And, since he works for The New York Times, SLM was lying. He didn't have the numbers right or anything. So C.I. went through all the numbers thus far. Now the reason we're doing Iraq each week here is due to the fact that (a) it's fallen off the radar and (b) the number of Iraqis killed each month is never rendered honestly by the media anymore. The undercount is even smaller at the end of the month than if you count all the deaths they reported.

Jim's World -- I respond to Denny Loo madness.

Shame of the Week -- Our jaws dropped. Shameful.

10th anniversary of Timor-Leste's historic vote -- From ETAN.

Seth MacFarlane online at 5:00 pm today -- I already explained this one.

To Dennis with Loo from Ava and C.I. -- Repost of Ava and C.I.'s response to Denny Loo.

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

And that's what we ended up with. We'll see you next week.

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