Jim: Illustration. First issue. Randi e-mails to say that when she looks at the page, she sees, where the illustration should be, "Roundtable" on last week's "Roundtable." We did it wrong, she insists. No, we didn't. Hit refresh and you'll see the illustration. That's a computer issue and, for a change, has nothing to do with a mistake on our end.
Dona: Reader Clifton e-mailed to note that last week had a ton of typos and that we generally fix them on Mondays so what happened? What happened was Blogger/Blogspot was down for the bulk of the day Monday. You could read it. You could even log into your account. But when you attempted to edit, you'd get a message informing you that Blogger/Blogspot was down and they were working on the problem. We do not correct all typos. We do not catch all typos. Roundtables are a rush transcript. We don't correct them for typos. If someone's been misquoted -- often that means a word or two was left out -- someone will come in and fix it. Usually C.I. or myself. C.I. will get an e-mail saying that, for example, Betty's point is lost and did we, when typing, rush and forget a word or two? At which point, C.I. grabs the notes she and Ava take and looks for Betty's actual words and corrects them in the transcript. I do the same thing. If we have a factual error? Jameson e-mailed asking about that and I e-mailed back asking him if he had one that needed correcting but haven't heard from him yet. If we have a factual error that is caught by us or by a reader, we go in and we correct it and leave a note of when it was corrected. We give the reader credit if it was caught by a reader.
Jess: Why do we lean so heavily on Ava and C.I. so often? First, Ty distributed the questions we're answering right now. Second, you just don't know. Ava and C.I. did a media piece that we're seriously considering making the editorial. Doing so would require them writing a second piece. We're on the fence on that right now. We lean on them because they are our heavy hitters. They deliver. Everyone knows it. Every week, the bulk of the readers of this site are reading them, are enjoying them the most. It's not a source of pain or jealousy, we're thrilled to have them as a drawing card for the site. But they clicked as a writing team five years ago and they manage to reach so many people in ways that group writing or other pieces don't. They're very talented and we know we lean on them a great deal.
Jim: And that was from?
Jess: Melissa who's a community member.
Ava: Doug e-mailed to ask if C.I. and I ever get tired of doing TV and if we ever regret that the others aren't helping as they did the first few weeks when the TV pieces were a group project? Tired? No. Sick of it? Yes. It's a lot of work. For example, we're going to be reviewing cable this summer. That's fine. Except we're watching USA shows right now and TBS shows and some other shows. We're on the road -- C.I., Kat, Wally and myself -- most weeks speaking out against the Iraq War. So to suddenly have to watch discs, as we did last week, of seven episodes of this and six of that is just really a lot to be asking. Right now, we don't have a TV piece this week. We did radio. And that's fine. Except there was a show that we wanted to open with it needs to be canceled because there will never be a better episode than the one they just broadcast. And we want to praise that episode and celebrate the show. But we're pressed for time. There are also other shows we want to cover that we didn't have time for during the year. There's just a ton of stuff still to do so, in terms of a group project? No. We could never get Jim, for example, to agree to sit down and watch seven episodes of Justified. No. It's better that it's C.I. and I writing these.
C.I.: Lonnie wonders if we ever think, "Boy, were we wrong?" No. We can be wrong and I'm sure we were many times; however, the reality is that we don't read what we wrote. People can, it's been a few years since this was addressed, recite a few lines back to us from something we wrote here and we'll nod and say that's good but we won't know it's us.
Elaine: Let me jump in because I have covered this repeatedly at my site. Ava and C.I. have their own rhythm when they write together. If you quote a line or two, they won't know you're quoting them. If you go for a paragraph or two, they'll recognize the rhythm as their own and know you're quoting them. Sorry to jump in.
C.I.: We'll recognize our style or rhythm or whatever. But we don't go back and read these things. So it's not like we're saying, "Oh, look, we're wrong here." I don't think we've been wrong on TV too often. That's because we know too many people and are able to pick up the phone -- and do -- to do our research in depth long before we write a word. The show Ava was mentioning that we wanted to review, we've already talked to a writer with the show, the producer of the show, an actress on the show, a guest star on the episode we loved and to a network exec. And we're not even writing the review yet. One thing that we do want to do is to review The Middle. That's an ABC sitcom, and I hope I got the name right, starring Patricia Heaton. Ava and I do not care for Patricia Heaton as an actress or a person as anyone going through the archives will quickly discover. But we really think she accomplished something with this show and think it's a show worth watching. Why didn't we weigh in sooner? Because we dislike Patricia, friends at ABC didn't push us to review it. All of our reviews since the fall have come from friends pushing us to do them for the most part. We tackled Cougar Town -- praising it -- as our first review because we knew it was in danger. Any show that we knew was in danger, we were willing to step up to the plate for. Which led a lot of friends to push their own shows and ask us to take a look at them. We trashed a show, what was that, Ava?
Ava: I don't even remember. I just remember that we kept saying no. And in the review we wrote, we noted that we tried to beg off. It was just like Dollhouse. We didn't care for it and we were clear about that but they just begged for a review and finally we did one and they weren't happy.
C.I.: Right. So near the end of May, a package arrives at the house and it's noting various ABC shows for the fall, overview stuff. And our friend's also included some episodes of a TV show, Patricia Heaton's show. And he jokes in his note that since it survived the cut -- it's been renewed -- we might want to review it. That's the first time we saw it.
Ava: And we were prepared for a disaster. It was a show we laughed at and found much to praise especially with regards to Patricia Heaton.
C.I.: So if we never get around to the review due to current events, for the record, Patricia Heaton is doing a fantastic and amazing job in The Middle.
Ty: Which brings me to the question I was sitting on. Becky e-mails to ask if Ava and C.I. have to work to be fair. She notes "The Genderquake Quakes Again (Ava and C.I.)" celebrates women's victories on Tuesday and doesn't attempt to say, "Oooh, you're gross because you're not from my party!" She says, "I found it to be a very encouraging and fair piece. Is that hard to do because I know you are all strong leftists?"
Ava: C.I.'s nodding to me. When we woke up Wednesday morning, we were looking at the headlines online and listening to NPR over the radio and no one was talking about the women. We found one AP article that one paper was carrying and that was it. To us, the women were the story. We wanted to do a piece that got that out into the discussion. We saw it as big news for women and we can remember being young girls so we didn't feel the need to screech and moan the way so many men on the left did. By that I mean, I can remember being a young teen, or maybe 12, and seeing some story on the TV about a woman accomplishing something in politics. I didn't know her party, I didn't care. I was 12 years old. What I cared about was a woman accomplished something and what it said to me was that I could as well. In 2008, women were savaged and C.I. and I are not going to waste our online voices by not celebrating women when we have the chance to.
Betty: There are other questions Ty has but I want to jump in here. I agree with Ava. I'm thinking about various female athletes that I saw growing up. I would know __ was a track star or ___ played in the WNBA. I would know that a woman was doing it and that I could do it. I was an outstanding basketball player in school and that was, in large part, due to seeing women in sports. I didn't know what this woman did when she woke up in the morning or who she voted for or whether she wore this label or that label. I just knew she was out there doing something. And I love that Ava and C.I. celebrated women on Wednesday morning.
Jim: And it looks like we may get stuck on this because Kat and Dona are both wanting to speak and I'm sure others joining us by phone are as well. Ruth and Marcia, you reposted Ava and C.I.'s piece at your sites. Did you want to jump in?
Ruth: I will. Betty is so right. And I also think it says something to all women. Because we do go through periods of doubt -- often brought on by society and the roles they try to force into -- so to see some women winning really does mean something. It makes you -- or it made me -- smile.
Jim: And the fact that a lot of the women were Republicans?
Ruth: I was happy for women. And hopeful that some Republican wins will encourage more Democratic women to run and win.
Jim: Marcia?
Marcia: Betty and Ruth get the point across. Sometimes it is just great to be able to say, "Yea! Team!" And, like Betty, I played sports in school. Some of the nastiness to Ava and C.I., drive-by e-mails to the public account of The Common Ills, really made me reflect on how my coaches always made us say "good game" to the other team and always congratulate them if they won. I guess good players differ today?
Jim: Okay, but these women, the Republican ones, people will argue are not good for women.
C.I.: Can I jump in? Okay, I heard that on Diane Rehm's show Friday so I want to jump in. I have my opinions of what is most pro-woman and what is not. They are my opinions and I will loudly advocate for them. That said, stepping back from my own beliefs and just looking at beliefs in general, the women of the right do not advocate something because they think it's crazy or will harm people. They honestly believe in their beliefs. We disagree, the women of the right and myself. That's fine. But let's not say that their beliefs are anti-woman. That happened on Diane's show, the women's beliefs -- never identified and apparently in total -- were labeled as anti-woman. I'm not trying to pull a 'can't we all get along' here, I'm just noting that the reality is they hold their beliefs as firmly as I hold mine.
Jim: Okay, point taken. Some would argue that the Republican women who won primaries would hurt certain policies -- abortion, equal wages, etc. -- if elected.
Rebecca: How would they hurt equal wages? Jim, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I saw the same cable show you did where that was presented as 'truth.' But I didn't buy it then and don't know. The two women in California, Meg Whitman and the other one, how do we know they'd be against equal pay? Wouldn't two women who've worked be more likely to support equal pay? So until we get some sort of proof that they've backed wage discrimination in the past, I don't buy that. In terms of abortion, I don't vote in California so I'm not following the governor's race or their Senate one, but, yeah, they could harm abortion rights if elected to the Senate or appointed to the Supreme Court. But I don't know that that's reason not to vote for them. I say that as a strong supporter of abortion rights, by the way. And I say it because, the Republican women who are opposed to abortion chip away at it. But if the Democrats -- all of them -- would get off their asses and go beyond maintaining the limited abortion rights we have to advancing them, the chipping wouldn't matter. Instead, abortion rights have grown stagnant and they're this piece of marble that Republicans chip away at and Dems in office don't even care.
Kat: And, if I could build on what Rebecca's saying, yeah, Democrats should be carrying things further. And that's also true of these wins for Republican women. Dems have taken women for granted in one election cycle after another which is how we end up with a sexist president and a DNC chair that hates abortion and wants to overturn it. I'm glad Republican women were Tuesday's story. I hope it forces the Democrats to compete for votes because they've treated women like s**t for too damn long.
Cedric: If I can jump in, I agree with Kat. Let's remember that their 2004 convention? They planned their speakers and no woman was to speak in prime time. They were forced into letting Hillary speak when the outrage became too much to ignore. But this is the Democratic Party and they were going to hold a convention and not let a woman speak in prime time. Don't deny that they've taken women for granted. That's before you get into how they stole Hillary's nomination and gave it to Barack.
Mike: If we're going to stay with this topic, I think it's worth noting that Ava and C.I. were congratulating five women on their wins and three were Republicans and two were Democrats. To read, and I have, some of the trash that was e-mailed on that article, it's pretty obvious most people don't read or count too well.
Jim: What did you think of Ava and C.I.'s article, Mike?
Mike: I liked it. I remember a lot of conversations when I read it. I remember Ava and C.I. pointing out that, in 1984, Democratic women expected all women to be happy for Geraldine Ferraro -- even if they weren't going to vote for her -- because she was making news and history. And yet, that same courtesy wasn't extended to Sarah Palin. And what I saw and heard after Tuesday night was a replay of that. The women were savaged and attacked -- usually by women -- and there was no one coming forward to find any moments of pride in it. I'm thrilled that Ava and C.I. wrote the article. One thing I don't think people understood -- because they don't read too well -- was that Ava and C.I. were not endorsing any of the women in the piece.
Wally: Good point. And people did miss that. Ava or C.I. would be reading the e-mails out loud to us, the drive-bys, and it would be, "How dare you endorse . . ." No one's endorsed. First off, Ava and C.I. only endorse in races they can vote in. They can't endorse Blanche Lincoln, they don't vote in Arkansas. They can't endorse Jane Harman, we live in Nancy Pelosi's district.* They can't endorse whomever won in Nevada to match up against Harry Reid. That left the governor's race and the senate race. Second, they made clear that they would vote Jerry Brown in November for governor and they made clear that if voting were held today the Green Party candidate would get their vote for US Senator. People missed that completely. Including the idiot C.I. replied to in "The Whistle Blower and the Idiot." That man was accusing Ava and C.I. of "myopic gender" vision and the reality was that, in the piece itself, every time they're voting -- I'm laughing, sorry -- every time they're talking about who they are voting for, it's a man.
Ava: Wally is correct and he was present when we were writing it and pointing that out to each other.
Wally: Right. They were like, "Is this defeating the article itself?" But they only commented on races they would vote in. And that's pretty much what we all do now. Ruth's voting for Richard Blumenthal, she's endorsed him, he's running in her state. That's what we do. But it was just so funny to see them accused of "myopic gender" vision on a piece where the only candidate they endorse is a man. Jerry Brown's the only one they said they'd vote for in November.
Jim: I missed that. You're right, Wally, and I realize that now. But reading it, that flew over my head. Did you catch it because you were there when they were writing it?
Wally: Yeah. The piece itself was written really quickly. But they took time to debate leaving in the Brown endorsement. They were talking to each other and saying, "Well this isn't coming off as 'she's not the right woman!', is it?" They spent more time on that discussion than on writing it.
Jim: And they came down where?
Wally: They came down, as they note in the piece, as "We've known Jerry for years. We share belief systems."
Kat: Did Gavin win? I absentee voted and I never heard and never even thought to ask.
C.I.: Of course he won.
Jim: I liked that, especially the tone. We all voted for Gavin Newsom on the West coast. He won the Democratic Party nomination for Lt. Governor.
Jess: I didn't vote for him.
Jim: Correction, all those voting in the Democratic Party primary in California voted for him*: Dona, Ty, Kat, Ava and C.I. Jess and Betty didn't vote in the Democratic Party primary. They are Greens. Okay, I've got two questions left. We drew names on these two. The first will go to Isaiah and Stan and the second was to go to Ann and C.I. But since C.I.'s already spoken, we'll just stick with Ann. First up, Keelan wants to know, "How has the ongoing and illegal Iraq War changed your life?"
Isaiah: Well for one thing, I don't really have time for the 'fun' stuff I used to. By that I mean, if I'm talking with friends, I want and expect some of that to be Iraq. What, in 2000, I would've used to talk basketball teams, for example, is time I now use for Iraq. And there are things -- like watching basketball -- that I just don't do anymore because it just seems to frivilous in a time of war. I'm not picking on anyone who does -- and certainly any US service member who follows it, should -- but I'm saying that normally, right now I'd just be coming up for air after months of non-stop basketball talk and watching and going to games and all of that. And I haven't done that since the Iraq War broke out. It just strikes me as really silly. That's just one example but I could give many more. Stan?
Stan: Wow. I wish I had something like that to say. Mainly the way it's changed my life is I know longer trust people I don't know personally. If, for example, Jim tells me, "I'm going to call you tomorrow night," I know Jim's going to call me or have a good reason for not doing so. I trust Jim. I know him. But politicians? The Dems told me in 2006 if they had one house of Congress the war would be over. We gave them two and it didn't end. It still hasn't ended. It's made me realize just how craven politicians are, just how willing to lie they are, just how they have no ethics and it's opened my eyes in ways I'm glad for and in ways I'm sad for. But there's no going back. It's kind of like Thelma & Lousie at the end of the movie, you either turn yourself or go off the cliff.
Jim: Good answers. Both of them. Okay, Ann, this may be embarrassing for you, I hope not. Dina wants to know, this was asked of all of us, actually, "If you could sleep with one movie star -- dead or alive -- who would it be?"
Ann: And I'm the only one stuck answering this one.
C.I.: My name was picked and I'll go ahead and answer so Ann doesn't have to be embarrassed. Dead: Lew Ayers. In Holiday, especially, he was something to lay your eyes on. Alive? Mark Ruffalo's pretty hot.
Ann: Thank you! I am so glad I'm not the only one answering this question. I'm not worried, before anyone wonders, what Cedric's reaction will be. He's not going to care. And I already know his answer --
Cedric: Lela Rochon.
Ann: I knew that. But I was squeamish because I get a lot of e-mails from people who, at worst, are judgmental and, at best, have high expecations for me. I'm not joking, I'm constantly graded in e-mails on what I did or didn't do here.
Jim: To repeat, Ann didn't volunteer for this question. We put everyone's name in a bowl and picked out two names for Dina's question and two names for Keelan's question. They weren't told what the questions were. They first heard them when I read them off in this roundtable. Ann, your answer?
Ann: I don't do well with surprise questions and time limits but the name that's coming to mind right now is Terrence Howard.
Jim: Alright then. This is a rush transcript and this was our odds & ends roundtable.
--------
*Ty note added: 6-14-10. Wally confused people with his remarks. To explain, C.I.'s home is in the Bay Area. A number of us live there including myself (Jim, Dona, Ava, Jess, Betty, Wally, and my boyfriend). Wally lives there but he retains his Florida voting registration. He did not vote Tuesday in California's primary because he votes out of Florida. Hope that clears up any confusion.