Jim (Con't): First up, reader Sylvia asked that the next time a roundtable was done, we note what had been done so far so she could get an idea of what makes it up here and what doesn't. We've completed everything except the editorial and Ava and C.I. haven't written their TV commentary yet. We have a piece on the economy that -- unless Trina knows how to fix it -- will go into the trash pile because it's just not up to printing right now. We have a movie piece that's probably going into the trash pile as well. That's fine, if it does, because we're highlighting a movie review elsewhere so we'll have that topic covered. Jess has written a piece that he wants to fix and, if he can't, he's going to rewrite it next weekend. Oh, we haven't done truest yet.
Dona: And though Ava and C.I. haven't done their TV piece yet, they did write another piece for us that will be hugely popular. I wasn't going to say more than that but I just realized most people will read the roundtable when their piece is up. They're contrasting Women's Media Center with wowOwow -- among other things.
Ann: I love their conclusion and "among other things" includes Fresh Air.
Jim: Which is a good point to start. Last week, they did "Radio: That not-so Fresh Air" and, Ann, you were invited in on that but chose not to.
Ann: Right. And I made the decision not to because I knew the piece would be a lot of work. I figured they could do it better on their own. And I think they did a wonderful job. But despite saying that at my site last week and despite announcing it at my site before they wrote the piece, that I'd been invited in on it, some people continue to think they went around me on that piece. So I'll try to repeat it one more time: Two Thursdays ago, Terry Gross did an awful show. I had heard it that morning. During the roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin, I brought it up and asked Ava and C.I. if they could tackle it here? Had they said no, that next day, that Friday, I would have had to do a very long post taking on the show. I was glad they said yes. They also asked if I wanted to be a part of it. I said I'd think about it and decided no.
Ruth: In part, the misunderstanding on the part of some people is probably due to the fact that you cover Fresh Air at your site.
Ty: And, jumping in, you used to cover KPFA's The Morning Show. Richard e-mailed to ask if you're ever going to cover it again?
Ann: I thought I was clear. On that as well. I have no interest in listening to that show ever again unless Aimee Allison apologizes or leaves the show. I will never listen to it again otherwise. Pakistani lives matter and her bulls**t video? She can lick Barack's balls in private but if she wants to be considered a journalist, she better stop identifying with the powerful and start speaking out for the people who need a megaphone. She's disgraceful, I loathe her. I'm sure Brian Edwards-Tiekert's doing a strong job. It's really telling that he jumped in as co-anchor during my last month listening and, from the start, he was stronger as a host of the show then she was with over three years of 'experience' being a host.
Ty: And Richard pointed out that The Morning Show is no longer noted at any site. Is that the way it is?
Kat: I'm not going to note it. For the reasons that Ann just outlined. C.I. mentions it only if highlighting David Bacon. That's all you're going to get from this community. The Peace and Justice station should never have a program hosted by someone who dismisses the innocents killed in drone attacks in order to glorify a politician. And I want everyone to remember that because if she's not fired, she's going to try to rewrite history when Barack's out of the White House. Remember that she whored it like nobody else for Barack when he was in the White House. When she tries to grandstand about how she's independent and she'll call out anyone, I want to hear people booing her. I want her to go around the Bay Area and be treated like Glenn Close near the end of Dangerous Liasons where everyone at the opera house boos her.
Jim: I would assume that answers Richard's question. Another question was in "A note to our readers" last week when I wrote about there not being enthusiasm over writing about Iraq which led to e-mails. Some came in before C.I.'s "And the war drags on . . ." went up Sunday night and some came in before Mike's "Isaiah, ObamaCare, Chuck, Third" went up Monday night. A few e-mails have arrived since. Just to explain, I didn't in the note, there was the issue of the count, of the wounded and dead. Ideally, that should be done weekly. We didn't do it in March. At all. On the last Sunday in March, I proposed we do it. C.I. said no and said that was too much work. C.I. doesn't like math to begin with. So adding all that together was nothing she would support. Nor did Ava. I think even Dona objected.
Mike: And it was at the end of the writing session.
Jim: Yeah, I was going to get to that. We waited until the end. And everyone was tired and though of going through days and days to count the dead and wounded was just too much. Other Iraq issues? There was an activist being slammed, actually two, and C.I. didn't want to cover that here because the one instigating it all is a woman who's written attack e-mails to Ty repeatedly and C.I. didn't want to have anything up here that would invite another attack on Ty.
Ava: Because Ty reads the e-mails. Dona and, to a lesser extent, you do as well, Jim, but the bulk of the e-mails to this site, thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com, are read by Ty.
Jim: C.I. was comfortable writing about it at her site but didn't want it up here where the woman might find another excuse to attack Ty. So between those two things, most of what we could cover were taken away. That left us with the elections. And when that came up, C.I. said she'd help and she did. And it was a very short feature but that was the point of it. That there had been entirely too much gas bagging.
Dona: And Jim wanted examples such as Quil Lawrence of NPR but C.I.'s attitude on that was that she and Kat had both called out Lawrence enough at their sites already.
Wally: And a lot of us were dropping out by that point, too. Remember.
Jim: Right. People were tired. It had gone on forever and would finish around 11:00 a.m. PST after starting at 10:00 p.m. PST Saturday night. But a few people did interpret it as a "walk away from Iraq," to quote one e-mail.
Jess: No, that's bulls**t. In C.I.'s Sunday piece at her site, she pointed out that sometimes she's just tired of it. And let's remember, she, Ava, Wally and Kat are going around every week and speaking out against the Iraq War to various groups. In addition, C.I.'s writing about the Iraq War three times a day at her site, Monday through Friday, twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. I don't think we've had an edition where we didn't cover Iraq here -- unless it was our summer fiction read but I think we've had short stories on war here. So my point is, by Sunday, it's really too much especially when Jim waits until the last minute. Which, for the record, has happened again. We haven't done the editorial -- Susan, was that the name of the woman who e-mailed -- and it's supposed to be on Iraq and it's supposed to be our Iraq feature this edition.
Jim: Syliva was her name. And, yes, we did postpone that but Ava and C.I. do note the Iraq War in their commentary and it is noted in our look at political journals. And it wasn't my intent to wait so long on the editorial. That's just how it ended up.
C.I.: Excuse me but are we uploading right now? We've got several photographs to use for this edition. If we're uploading them right now that will allow us to avoid waiting and waiting on Flickr.
Jim: And allow us to change the subject.
Dona: Ava and C.I. are taking notes, they can't record the transcript and do the upload. I'm grabbing the disc from the camera right now. And there are 86 on the disc so I'm deleting after I upload and wiping the disc clean.
Jess: And just something like that, just being organized enough to upload while we're doing something else, really could save a lot of time in these writing editions.
Jim: Jess is going to be covering Green Party stuff in his column -- whenever they surface. And he sees it as the main way to contribute here because he's in the real world and attorney now. And I'm being smart alleck but congratulations to Jess. Mike is supporting "Jill Stein" in her race for Massachusetts govenor and Betty is supporting "Deacon Alexander" in his race for California govenor. Both candidates are Green Party candidates. Betty, did you two work this out?
Betty: On Friday? No. I actually called Mike to tell him about an article and he said, "I was just going to call you to tell you about an article." So I went first and he said, "That's what I was going to tell you about!" So we were both thinking about it and we've both talked about doing that once a week, noting our pick for governor. The problem is, and this was Jess' problem this writing edition too, we don't want to come off like hacks. But it's the Green Party which doesn't get enough attention so if we're going to write about political candidates, at least we're doing something that might make a difference on candidates who would make a difference if elected, right?
Mike: I'm in agreement with what Betty just said. I'm actually more inclined to cover politicians than she is. I covered Scott Brown --
Jim: Endorsed him.
Mike: Endorsed him. When he was running for office. I'm okay with doing that. Betty's feeling really differently for a number of reasons including 2008.
Betty: I will never forgive or forget the theft and lies that took place in 2008 to rob Hillary Clinton of the nomination she earned -- earned with work, earned with the votes. I've seen no efforts by the Barack Obama Democrats to include women. I see no reason to vote for them. They can all rot in hell. I stated some time ago that I would vote Green in the 2010 election and I intend to keep that promise. That's for every office in which a Green is running.
Jim: Mike, will you be voting straight ticket Green?
Mike: I might. And, for the record, I agree with what Betty said but, listen to her voice, this goes much deeper for Betty than it does for me. I don't mean "I'm over it" because I'm not. But I mean it was more shocking for Betty than it was for me.
Betty: And that goes to Mike's upbringing. Trina's father's a Socialist and so are others in his family and he didn't have any real illusions about the Democratic Party. I'm a Black woman from Georgia. I thought they had some interest in helping me. I was wrong and I still marvel over just how wrong I was. Which, by the way, includes about Dennis Kucinich who's a shameless and craven asshole.
Jim: Okay. What is the story there? Dennis said that he felt this was -- ObamaCare -- was the only way to get health care reform and that was why he was going back on his promise -- from two days before -- not to vote for it. But last weekend, I wanted to do a piece on that and quote from his GQ piece and Elaine and C.I. said, "No." There was more to it and we didn't have time to go into it. Elaine?
Elaine: Well KPFK's Lila Garrett, of Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett, has Dennis on at least once a month. And not last Monday, but the Monday before last, she began her show explaining she had spoken to Dennis about his vote. Why did he change his mind? She said he told her he changed his mind because groups -- MoveOn? -- were targeting him and his offices were getting all these complaints and calls of they wouldn't vote for him if he didn't vote for ObamaCare.
Jim: That's certainly different than the way he portrayed it at GQ or in his press conference.
Elaine: Lila Garrett, who's not the most honest person in the world but should have no reason to lie about Dennis, stated there had been threats on Dennis' life if he did not vote for ObamaCare.
Jim: That's very interesting. We cover WBAI in a piece here and Ruth covered it twice last week and Ann covered Fresh Air every day at her site, Monday through Friday. An e-mail came in noting all the programs that we cover -- he included C.I. -- and wondered if all we do is sit around and listen to the radio?
Ruth: I wish. If I did, I would cover radio more often.
Cedric: And when you're including C.I. in the mix, you're really fudging the numbers because while Ann covers Fresh Air and Ruth covers Out-FM regularly, C.I. has some weeks where she's covering as many as ten or twelve programs -- more if you include TV. But for C.I., it's friends calling and asking for coverage of their programs or referring to other programs.
Wally: Yeah. Like on Fridays during Diane Rehm, while the program's live, C.I.'s not listening. And then after she'll get a call from a friend with NPR about the show and she'll listen to the Iraq segment over the phone and include it.
C.I.: Right. And also give credit here to community members who will catch things on TV and radio and they will e-mail and say it needs to be included.
Jim: Elaine, you used to cover Lila Garrett's show.
Elaine: Not anymore. I'm done with it. It got more kooky and crazy every week. And I couldn't take all of her hate. I'll look for another radio program to listen to and note for awhile. But I'm done with Lila. I actually finished with her before I last noted her. The only reason I noted her last time was that Bob Filner, Congressman Filner, was on so C.I. had caught that and C.I. told me there was a section, another section, I might want to listen to. I did and that was it for me. I wrote about that but I'm done with the show. I don't think she should have been allowed to use her show to attack some Democrats while promoting Progressive Democrats of America -- an organization she sits on the board of -- a disclosure she didn't make on air. In fact, most of the PDA guests were never identified as such. I'd have to call C.I. and ask, "Is ___ PDA?" I found that show to be as tired and dated as the faux Red Hot Chili Pepper's song she uses as a theme, Keaton Simons "Nobody Knows." For those who don't know the full song -- never played by Lila Garrett on air, it's about cheating and trickery, which I see as Lila's effort to fulfill Freud's proposal that the criminal has a compulsion to confess.
Jim: Trina?
Trina: It seems like I wrote about a radio program last week. I'm forgetting now, but I think I did. Most of the time, though, I read Ruth and if she recommends something, I catch that. I'm more prone to listen to NPR which at least tries for journalism.
Jim: NPR as opposed to?
Trina: Pacifica. I can't stand the bulk of those programs anymore. They're such little Barack enablers, excusers and cheerleaders. If you want to know why the country's so f**ked up, listen to Pacifica and grasp this is what passes for a 'left' -- a bunch of so-called radicals mooning over Barack and repeating one lie after another.
Jim: This part will be included in Hilda's audio mix because I want people to hear the disdain your voice is soaked with.
Trina: Sorry. I'm just disgusted. I grew up in a radical family. I know what radical politics are. Pacifica's not radical at all. It's just a Barack Obama fan club. There are a few tiny exceptions. Doug Henwood's Behind The News being one.
Jim: Marcia, you don't cover a radio show.
Marcia: Hey, Rebecca and I are covering books!
Rebecca: Yeah and Marcia and I are busy so we're looking at reading about 100 pages a week. That means we won't be doing a book every Friday at our sites but we will be doing it maybe every 2 or 3 weeks.
Marcia: And we're reading the same book because it's fun to talk about a book while you read it. I'll be a little ahead of Rebecca or she'll be a little ahead of me and all we'll say is, "Don't miss page 36" or whatever some days but other days we're on the same pages and we'll just talk about it at length.
Rebecca: And yet, we always forget to link to each other. What we plan to do is write on a Friday and then, come Monday, include links to the posts. But we almost always forget.
Marcia: Mondays are tough. It's getting back into the work week and there are times when I honestly have nothing to say. And I'll be on the phone with Ruth and with Rebecca and desperate to find something to write about and when I finally do, time's almost up so I rush through it.
Stan: I feel like I'm one of the short post people in this community. There are days when I wonder why did I even bother.
C.I.: I want to speak to that. Every post or entry doesn't have to be long. The snapshots are expected to be long by community members. So that's why they're so long. But sometimes a short post can say as much if not more than something with tons of words. I think Stan has a strong site and he and Betty are paired up for four days a week. I think they do a strong job. I know Elaine really reached a lot of people last week with basically two paragraphs. I love Stan's essays on movies but I just want to put on record that there's nothing wrong with writing something brief.
Stan: I'm glad you said that because, I shouldn't but I do compare it in my mind to, "Oh, I've got two or three sources. If this was C.I.'s topic at The Common Ills there would be something like forty links here."
C.I.: But remember, a lot of those links come from friends.
Cedric: And to jump back in. Before I teamed up with Wally for joint-humor posts. And I would blog about my church, my volunteer stuff and the Iraq War. But I got it into my head at one point that I could coverAfghanistan. Not a snapshot, just the corner of one -- ha ha. And I tried that for a brief period. I just couldn't do it. I didn't know enough. It's a lot of work to do the snapshots and I don't think most of us have it in our nature to do it. And, thanks to Keesha, we don't have to because we all repost the snapshot at our sites when we blog so whatever we write about it, it's already taken care of in the snapshot.
Stan: Well thank you to both of you, Cedric and C.I., because I do feel like I'm always the backslider or the one not holding up his weight each night. I'd honestly rather just write about movies. I did that last week by doing two posts on Netflix and one on a movie. Can we talk about part of the problem? Part of the problem for me goes to what Trina was talking about with regards to Pacifica Radio. I'm highlighting someone and using them as a jumping off point. But who can I highlight? I'm serious. There really aren't a great deal of people worth highlighting now. There used to be a lot of people calling for the end of the Iraq War. You could go to The Progressive or The Nation or whatever and find these people. Those days are long gone. It's Barry O fan clubs everywhere you look. That's why Betty and I make a point to highlight Hillary Is 44 regularly. It's one of the few left sites -- outside this community -- that hasn't drank the Kool-Aid.
Betty: Right. And I remember Elaine recently crossing off CounterPunch because blowhard Alexander Cockburn was back to sipping the Kool-Aid he'd spent the last months denying he'd ever touched. And I'm uncomfortable with that site anyway, trying to make money off 'cutesy' photos of women. It's also true that we're not on the 'inside' of this Cult machine. By that, I mean we're outsiders and we don't play with liars. We don't play with Amy Goodman and her countless, endless lies. That woman is just trash. And there are so many others who have exposed themselves. Now Matthew Rothschild, I will read him because he seems to be slowly coming around.
Jim: Isaiah, Dona's saying we need to wrap up so I'm giving you the last word.
Isaiah: I'll build on what Betty was just saying and what a few others were saying. There really are so few places you can go today to read commentary. Too many people did expose themselves as shameless liars. There's a whole slew of people I have no use for ever again. They lied repeatedly. Barbara Erhenreich, for example. Forget that her trashy daughter wants to register journalists -- typical fasicst -- just the s**t Babsy pulled in 2008. I bought Nickeled & Dimed. I read her bad columns in The Progressive. I'm done with her. There is nothing she can say, no apology she can give, that will ever make up for her behavior and her lies and non-stop lying in 2008. I feel the same way about BuzzFlash. I have not gone there since Mark Karlin took it upon himself to lecture women that they shouldn't support Hillary just because they were women. Or TruthOut because the idiot in charge decided it was his right to tell candidates to drop out of race. Stuff like that I don't forget. It goes to more than a disagreement of opinion, it goes to what you value and what you don't, to whether you support democracy or not. We found out in 2008 how few people at left magazines really do and how few of them care about being honest brokers -- or even seen as such.
Jim: And on that concluding stanza, we'll wrap up this roundtable.