Hey --
Another Sunday. Another long Sunday. But, as you'll see, we're offering more than usual. Along with Dallas, the following helped 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,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
What did we come up with?
Truest statement of the week -- Richard Engel's very true words were like a slap in the face to Juan Cole. May many more come soon.
Truest statement of the week II -- Jonathan Steele continues to demonstrate why he is the finest columnist in the UK.
Editorial: Some on the left drive the country to to the right -- Betty and C.I. were exhausted. We'd been working forever and when this was written, everyone was dropping. It was Dona, Ty, Jess, me (Jim), Ava, C.I., Betty, Wally, Trina and Mike. We were the last ones standing. And Dona was pointing out we had another feature that could be an editorial. We could save this topic -- which Betty and C.I. brought to the edition -- until next week and do a bang up job then. But as Betty and C.I. pointed out, anytime that's done, what really ends up happening is the idea from last week is then seen as "old news" and there's not excitement or energy for it. So they'd rather have a badly written editorial on this topic today than to risk that it never get written. Fortunately, it's not a badly written editorial.
TV: Jaw-dropping viewing -- There were yawns when Ava and C.I. came back with their piece. People were tired and ready to pack it in -- in addition to the articles we posted, we worked on six that hit the trash -- but when I read this outloud to everyone, we all had a second wind. A very strong commentary from Ava and C.I. One of their finest.
The Iraq Inquiry embarrassments -- Why so many articles this go round? There's the Iraq Inquiry and there's the State of the Union. There were many other things as well but those required a lot of coverage. We especially didn't want to short change the Iraq Inquiry. This was actually two planned articles but time ran out and Jess and Dona found a way to do an edit, get Ava and C.I. to come up with a wrap around and turn it into one article.
KPFA Silences Women (Ann, Ava and C.I.) -- This article was written by Ann, Ava and C.I. Check the numbers and grasp how few women appear on The Morning Show as guests. Illustration by Betty's kids.
Coward Zinn (1922 -2010) -- Remember how I was talking about pieces carried over to another edition losing their 'heat' and being seen as "old news"? That happens with a lot of proposed articles and could have happened with this one proposed by Mike. This was postponed for four or five weeks. Fortunately for Mike, he had vocal supporters in Betty, Ava, C.I. and Elaine which kept this piece alive and, after I had killed it last week, C.I. told Mike to post at his site (as he did on Monday) that the article would run today and that would really help force the issue. Which it did. Tuesday morning, looking at the e-mails (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com), I knew we were going to have to tackle it due to the high interest level. Then, of course, Zinn died. And a Panhandle Media type e-mails C.I. saying she owes the PM-er and that she better kill the story. Oh really? You really think threats work on us? What are you going to do? Not link to us, not mention us? No one owes you anything because you never gave anything. And you're in no position to threaten. We stand by this piece and only regret that it's this edition because we could have gone much deeper on another week. Illustration by Betty's kids.
Iraq -- Our Iraq piece we do each week. Covering some of the stories and news coming out of Iraq.
The myth of the need for bi-partisanship -- This is the piece that Dona thought could be the editorial when we were all tired and wanting to go to sleep. She pointed out that a quick polish would turn this into the week's editorial. Betty and C.I. rejected that idea.
Senate Committee calls out Secretary of the Navy -- As Trina likes to point out, C.I. does real reporting. In this case, Thursday she was writing about Senator Richard Burr calling out the Secretary of the Navy in a Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.
Pompous Ass in Chief -- Jess, Ty and Dona came up with the idea to take a long article on the State of the Union address that just wasn't fixable and to extract this section from it.
The real deal of the week of the week -- The last thing we wrote for this edition. Wally, Ava and C.I. were adament that the edition couldn't be put to bed until in some way the protesters on Friday were acknowledged.
Scary Ass Stupid -- An NPR friend tipped C.I. off about Grayson's ridiculous remarks. When we listened, we swore that no matter what we'd find a way to work the idiot into this edition.
Freak Show Tony Blair -- Another Iraq Inquiry piece.
'Inspiration' comes from familiar places -- Another State of the Union piece.
Highlights -- Mike, Elain, Wally, Cedric, Betty, Kat, Ruth, Ann, Stan, Rebecca and Marcia wrote this and we thank them for it. Rebecca worked on this and "Pompous Ass in Chief" and nothing else. She's still in England and thinks she'll have to stay through at least Wednesday. She was hoping to come home this weekend. Wally will continue to fill in for her this week.
And that's what we ended up with. We'll see you next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.