A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday. Another Sunday. Some Sundays it's very difficult.

Let's start with who helped. Dallas and the following worked on 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 also give a special thanks to Ava and C.I. and you'll understand why if you look at what we've got.

Truest statement of the week -- Ian Wilder's never had a truest before. He earned this one.

Editorial: Delivering the lambs to slaughter -- Thank you to Trina who came in to help with this editorial. We all wrote this and this was our seventh attempt at an editorial. Our seventh attempt? Yes, it was a very difficult, difficult edition.

TV: The Suckers -- Ava and C.I. wrote this as a bonus. They're addressing The Vampire Diaries and Bill Moyers Journal. And covering Iraq. This is funny, pointed and you'd swear it was the piece they had planned to write. That's not the case. We begged because four articles went down the drain. One of which was a roundtable that said practically nothing. If we're being honest, we could have reduced the roundtable to just a monologue by Betty. Jess even suggested that: Pull out everyone else and make it a piece by Betty. Betty felt we were overrating her contribution (we weren't) so we didn't do that. But we had nothing. Could they do another TV article? Yes, Ava and C.I. could. Did. It's wonderful.

Iraq -- Our Iraq feature. This is a weekly piece on Iraq. We keep track of the injured and dead and note some of the week's significant events.

TV: The Fall Season -- Ava and C.I. had written two articles already. If they could do one more, pretty please? Okay. They'd do an overview of the fall season. To mix it up a bit, they interviewed those of us here in California (which includes Betty, Kat and Wally). I (Jim) had begged and begged them to do something with the fall preview since Rolling Stone and TV Guide were.

TV: Specials -- This is the only article they intended to write. It's the first one they wrote. As Dona points out, it's the perfect time for a TV edition. As Ty points out, we've only once before leaned so heavily on Ava and C.I. (Once before we asked them to do three articles.) Again, we thank them.

Nanci Griffith: The Complete MCA Recordings -- This was written by us (Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess) and Betty, Wally and Kat. Ava and C.I. were working on the TV piece on Moyers and Vampire Diaries. We had one piece besides the editorial we liked. Liked. Not loved. So we quickly wrote this.

Pet Peeve (Dona) -- Noting that we were really, really leaning on Ava and C.I., Dona expressed disappointment in others and herself. She was really angry and said she might as well have spent the last few hours cleaning out her purse, it would have been "more productive." I said something idiotic (that I don't even remember now) and she grabbed her purse, threw it on the coffee table and began cleaning it out. At some point, when she saw the stack of business cards from the hair salon she frequents, she had an idea for Pet Peeve which could be a regular feature where we all step up and do an article by ourselves. (Ava just groaned. Okay, everyone except her and C.I. They already gave at the office and then some.)

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

And that's the edition. Ty says, "Repeating, we say a big thank you to Ava and C.I." We'll see you next week.

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