Hey --
Another Sunday, another note to our readers.
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.
And what did we come up with?
Joan Smith ended up earning this one by, in her opening paragraph, juxtaposing one position against the other and demonstrating that when Barack said "change" he meant his own right to do so after being voted into office.
Chris Floyd. Going with this allowed us to note him and to note Charles Davis so it was a two-for-one.
Our Iraq feature. This is a short edition or seems like one. Two Iraq features ended up not being publishable. We considered trying to do a fourth so we'd have two things on Iraq but, in the end, we decided we were too tired and just wanted to go to sleep.
This wasn't the show they planned to review. Saturday Night Live. Again. Tina Fey. Again. But the phones never stopped ringing Saturday night as various people called to weigh in and they knew they'd have to tackle it. This is an Ava and C.I. masterpiece. It's also probably the strongest thing this edition.
E-mails resulted in our doing this feature. While checking C.I.'s notes (at C.I.'s request), Jess did this screensnap. ("C.I.'s request" does not refer to her delegating tasks onto others. When we decided to do this piece, my first question was to C.I., "Did you take notes during the hearing?" My second was, "Can we use them?" To which she replied, "Yes, but check them." Why? She didn't do a transcript in that day's snapshot because Eleanor Holmes Norton was really showing her ass. Try to do someone a favor by not providing a transcription of them embarrassing themselves and disbelievers show up insisting, "That never happened!")
Tom Harkin has to be the ultimate victim, the 21st century damsel in distress. Last week, a 12-year-old was arrested in Harkin's office. A twelve-year-old girl. Ooooh. Scary. Poor Tom Harkin.
We did a mailbag piece. We were half-way through it when Dona pointed out that it was a mailbag and we had an illustration. We (Jess, Marcia and myself) were calling it "Dear Third Estate" and working up a grand intro on that topic.
We just wanted to be done. Ava and C.I. tied this moment into Tina Fey and included it in their TV commentary. We just wanted to be done. Dona asked if that moment could be pulled and, if so, could the moment be a short entry? Ava and C.I. (as tired as the rest of us) agreed and we all ended up writing this.
Mike, Elaine, Wally, Cedric, Ann, Stan, Marcia, Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Ruth and Trina wrote this and we thank them for it.
And that's what we came up with. Jess is streaming The Ambushers online (one of Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies) and C.I. and Ava took care of breakfast which is now ready so we're going to eat, finish up with Jess' film and go to sleep.
See you next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.