A note to our readers

Hey --

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),
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

We thank them all and we thank you for reading. Dona, Ty and Jim are off this week due to the holiday. We are late today due to personal issues (one involving a death, the other involving all three of us -- Jess, Ava and C.I. -- throwing up a great deal of this morning). Except for the TV piece, all of this could have posted by six a.m. EST. All features were completed and, Ava, "C.I. and I tried to push forward with the TV article but we were really throwing up by then and just didn't have the focus, sorry."

So what did we get?

• Truest statement of the week

Cindy Sheehan offering some harsh truths that are sorely needed.

• Truest statement of the week II

Russ Feingold. Kat, in the roundtable, makes clear that she's not impressed with the words of members of Congress anymore. We agree to a degree. We're also aware (as is she) that the Senate had little time for debate or discussion during this vote so the rest of us voted for Russ.

• Editorial: Gulf Oil Disaster might last through August

The editorial. We thank everyone for this. Stan deserves special praise for this because when it wasn't working, he brought in the McClatchy quote we open with. He'd highlighted the story at his site and thought it would make the perfect opening for the editorial. We thank him. Betty, Kat and Jess worked hard finding news posting and breaking this morning and we thank them. We thank everyone and that especially includes Rebecca who cries over this disaster. We're not joking. It makes her sick, it makes her cry. We appreciate the time she put in on this editorial with us despite the topic.

• TV: The Visitor

Jess: This is Ava and C.I.'s piece and already it's getting reactions in the e-mails. I read three e-mails including one with a headline expressing outrage. How dare, the e-mail proclaims, two feminists refer to a vagina as a hole. First off, Grace Slick called an album Manhole. Second, they're not referring to a vagina but how interesting that your hetro-centric mind went there. They're referring to an anus and they can get more specific if need be. Why do you think they have Barack insisting it's none of the children's business? Don't forget, Ava and C.I. have spoken to Barack's parents friends, Barack's friends, Barack's ex-lovers, go on down the list. They know where all the bodies are buried and the corpses' preferred positions. This, as Jim would note, is a hilarious commentary.

• Terry Gross Still Hates Women (Ava, C.I. and Ann)

Ava and C.I.: Big thank you to Ann for this. She would have taken the weekend off were it not for this feature. When NPR friends passed on Alicia Shepard's insistance that "one month" surveyed hardly established a pattern -- too lazy to do your own work, Licia? -- we knew we'd have to follow this up. We did. Terry, as the headline notes, still hates women. So where's the NPR ombudsperson? (Cowering in the shadows as always.)

• Roundtable

This was a good roundtable and we all think Ava did a good job moderating. For the record, Jess has moderated before and would be happy to do it again but Ava never got a chance to moderate here and Jess decided this week she should grab it. This is our Iraq feature. We could have done more on Iraq. We had visuals for another story but no time to write it -- we might do it next week. We also wanted to do a Dan Choi story and didn't have time for that either. Thank you to everyone participating.

• Those wacky political rags

A reader prepares to deploy to Iraq -- no, that war is not over. She's a big fan of our magazine survey pieces so, when possible, we try to include them. This edition we offered political magazines . . . .

• Musical rags survey

And we offered musical magazines.

• Highlights

Mike, Elaine, Stan, Rebecca, Ruth, Betty, Kat, Cedric and Ann wrote this. The group decided they'd go with the usual byline. (Which includes some who took the week off.) That's their business and we thank them for the article.

And that's what we managed this week. We'll see you next week.

Peace.

-- Jess, Ava and C.I.