Hey --
Sunday and, amazingly, we're done before six a.m. PST. We're usually working six more hours most Sundays. Early for us is two hours more. (Unless Ava and C.I. are doing the edition and the rest of us are on vacation. When Ava and C.I. steer the edition, articles are posted quickly.)
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.
We thank them all. And then some.
What did we come up with for this edition?
My fingertips are holding on to the cracks in our foundation
And I know that I should let go but I can't
And every time we fight I know it's not right
Every time that you're upset . . .
You think it's wrong that Dona wants that Kate Nash song played at our wedding reception? I'm joking. ("I" is Jim.) We'd wanted to work in a Kate Nash feature but that didn't take. Next week, you may have a DVD review. Ava, C.I. and Dona were discussing a movie during breaks -- one Dona wanted to love and forced me to watch -- and I was scribbling down what they were saying so that might run next week. But no one even wants to look at it right now, let alone type it.
"Jim," Ava just declared, "this will not be an essay. We're not going to be up for an hour more so you can churn out an essay." As I was saying, what did we come up with?
Cindy Sheehan continues her run as a truest.
I actually nominated this one. Michael Hastings from his article explaining why he thinks Newsweek has failed.
We could have done an Iraq editorial here and there was talk of doing one even after the roundtable. But it was noted by Jess that there was a sameness to doing weekly editorials on Iraq. "Duh and/or Hello!" to quote Archer. So we tossed around several ideas and when Ava proposed the topic we ended up going with, it immediately clicked.
Ava and C.I.'s classic. I think you can read this and just, on the most basic level, enjoy it. However, they've done a few things in this that actually mimic the show. FlashForward fans may be upset that Ava and C.I. couldn't give it a strong endorsement (and Ava and C.I. will hear about that non-endorsement from friends with the show); however, there are little treats in here even for fans of the show.
This wasn't planned as the Iraq roundtable. I wanted to tackle Iraq first and move on to other topics. But there was some strong participation on the topic and it ended up being a longer conversation than we'd expected so we just made it the Iraq roundtable. And our e-mail address, for those having trouble finding it, is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. It's hard for a lefty to pin down the most embarrassing thing about our side but certainly what passes for our 'independent' press has to top the list. A regular reader got deployment orders and asked if we could do a magazine survey because it is one of her favorite features. We gladly did this one . . .
. . . and this one as well. It's music magazines. And news on three tracks you can download for free. Don't miss them.
A book feature.
This is a repost of Workers World -- and it's Workers World not "Worker's World." I do the headlines so let me go in and fix that typo right now. We'd planned to do a repost from this outlet at least once a month since they let you repost in full.
Mike, Elaine, Wally, Kat, Betty, Ruth, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Cedric and Ann wrote this and we thank them for it.
And that's what we ended up with. "Foundations" was playing when I started this and now "Birds" is playing. From Kate Nash's debut album Made Of Bricks. (We love it and we especially love Kate Nash's new album My Best Friend Is You.) Since Jess told me to wrap this up in three minutes over ten minutes ago, I better wrap it up. We'll see you next week.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.