Jim (Con't): First, I need to note Corrine Smith's "10 Riveting Reads About the Iraq War." I'd wanted to work that in last week and had e-mailed that I would but we didn't do a roundtable and we ran out of time for anything else. She's compiled a list of ten books on the Iraq War and you can look at her list and see if you agree or disagree or would add to it. I agree with nine of her ten picks. Ty?
Ty: Last week, Ava and C.I. wrote "TV: It Takes Two" which was popular. And I'll hear from everyone who e-mailed about loving it that they weren't quoted but I'm quoting an e-mail complaining. But, and this is to Ava because I've got an e-mail question for C.I., Suliene e-mailed complaining about the article and also suggesting that it wasn't "fair for you to write about what happened behind the scenes." She's referring to you and C.I. writing about input that you offered on the show before it came on.
Ava: First off, we get slammed all the time for writing about people we know. We get slammed for not writing about something, last week, we should have -- to hear two friends with Saturday Night Live tell it -- have written about their season debut. We've noted conversations we've had in reviews before. We noted with Fringe, that we weren't going to write about it and we'd wait until later in the first season because we had a problem with the show and we were told that problem would be addressed -- the problem was the lack of female characters. With Undercovers, the show we were writing about last week, we had stated what the problems were before the show aired. We not only were brushed off, we were mocked. Okay. But the show goes on the air and, golly, we had pinpointed the problem and they should have listened. So, yeah, we're going to include that in our review. Why wouldn't we? And wouldn't have been dishonest not to? We were upfront when we were contacted the day after the pilot aired that we would be writing about our interaction with the show.
Jim: So no regrets.
Ava: None at all. And I'll add that Undercovers got even worse ratings this week.
Dona: Eleanor e-mailed to ask if I would support flipping the template anytime soon? That's probably because I'm the one always screaming for more visuals. But longtime readers, like Eleanor, know that the current template is one Jim, Ty and I went to and destroyed the archives. It's now fixed but it was a nightmare. For that reason, I haven't even thought about flipping our template in months and months. But Eleanor, now that you've put the idea in my head, I may start checking out other templates.
Wally: C.I. flipped mine this weekend. Marcia may want to talk about that.
Marcia: C.I. asked me, "Do you ever look at your site?" I said yes. I love my new template. It's black, beautiful -- ha ha -- and I thought distinctive. I pull it up and say, "Yes, I like it." C.I. asks, "But can you read it? What did you write about Nancy Pelosi?" That was in "Pelosi's damning confession." So I go to read that outloud and I can't. It was black writing on a grey backdrop and it just wasn't showing up very well. If I'm on my PCU, no problem. If I'm on my laptop, I just can't see it. So I flipped my template. I love this template. The new one. I love it so much.
Cedric: And I saw the change and told Wally we needed to think about flipping just because we've got the same templates we started with forever ago. In fact, Wally's profile needs updating because he hasn't been a college freshman in years. But I mentioned it to Wally and I was worried because of the problems Third had and problems that others had when they flipped. Ruth didn't have problems for some reason but others who have flipped have had problems.
Wally: So I said I'd talk to C.I. about it and I did. The big problems have mainly been fixed, the stuff that screwed up Third forever ago. But there were some things we needed to know and we watched for those during our flip. I need to do some more thing and hope to but I did flip the template.
Cedric: Ditto to what Wally said.
Betty: And I jumped in on that. Since C.I. was helping Wally and Cedric, I pulled my laptop out and went over -- C.I. and Wally were here, Cedric was on the phone. And I've had the same template for five years and five months. I liked it for about a year. I've needed to change it ever since. And I especially need to change it when Blogger made us do different things in terms of log ins because that change -- internal, not obvious to readers -- destroyed my archives. You would click on the week and it would display two of the five posts and that was it. You couldn't get the rest of them. I tried switching the way it was archived, that didn't help. I apologized at my site because I didn't notice the problem, readers did. But that was my big concern, whether or not we could fix the archives. So as soon as Wally and Cedric were flipped, I jumped in and said, "My turn! Fix me!" Now when you click on a week, it displays the first two posts, like before. But. But it lists the titles -- linkable -- to all five posts and you can click on anyone to read them. So the archives are up and running. And thank you to Child Of The Sixties for linking to me. I didn't know I was linked to or followed. I've added her as a link and as a follow. That was very sweet of her and thank you to her.
Jim: Is anyone else thinking of flipping?
Kat: I'm thinking of it. Wally showed me how his flip didn't require that he redo all the links. If I can find a template like that, I'll flip. Otherwise no. I have too much to do to sit down and do all my links again. And remember that those links include a link to all of the reviews I've done at The Common Ills. Which C.I. was more than kind enough to do for me New Year's Eve 2009.
Rebecca: I want to flip because I'm sick of mine. I've had it since January 2005 and I just want to change it up.
C.I.: You want to stay with pink as a background?
Rebecca: Yeah.
C.I.: I'll flip you on break. I'll just do the basic. Make sure your e-mail address still shows on your profile, make sure your links are there. If you want to add so that the posts -- latest posts at a site -- show, you can do that yourself later. But I'll do the basics.
Jim: Okay, In addition to Rebecca and Kat, Mike and Elaine are using classic sites. Trina, I'm not sure if you are using classic or not.
Trina: Yeah, mine's the original offerings. I'll stick with it. It's not a big deal to me.
Mike: And to correct you, Jim, C.I. already flipped mine. When she was talking to Marcia, I asked her to talk me through on mine. I stuck with blue but otherwise, it's different.
Jim: Yes, you're right. I like that template, Mike. His is mountains. Elaine, that leaves you.
Elaine: Like Trina, I'm fine with the old one. I actually like mine. I'm not bored with it. If you got Kat's right now, you'll see the type of template -- and that's the basic look of the site, where the title is, the kind of font, the colors, etc -- that The Common Ills had originally, Betty had, this site had, Wally had, everyone in the early days had. Now if you go to mine, you'll see there's a little more color, not much, just a little more. So I've always loved my template. Having said that, readers will probably e-mail demanding a change. But I'm fine with it. It's got a back-to-school look to it. Which goes with my whole journal feel.
Jim: Ruth, you never had problems when you flipped the template. Any idea why that was?
Ruth: I flipped a little while after Third flipped and I was expecting problems so I did with C.I. on the phone. She talked me through and told me what to check before ending my update. I actually found the new template so much easier. I like Kat's look which is crisp but I do understand and agree that Elaine ended up with a template far different than the rest of us had back then. I also could not imagine Trina's site looking different.
Jess: And now Ruth sounds like a Common Ills community member. I'm laughing so let me explain. C.I. finally flipped the template a few months ago. And for about 11% of the community members this was a huge problem. They've very slowly gotten used to it but if you asked them they would insist that it would be better to return to the old template.
Jim: And it wouldn't?
Jess: No. A) It needed an update and b) the new template offers additional things that weren't possible with the old one. I understand Elaine's point and agree with her but a lot of the other sites -- including this one -- had way too much white on the screen. Tamara e-mailed wanting to know why we're not using more photographs these days?
Dona: Because I'm lazy. Ava, C.I., Kat and Wally are on the road every week and when they come back I should be grabbing the memory stick out of their cameras and uploading but I generally forget. But they're always taking photos. In fact, I'm grabbing Ava and C.I.'s cameras during this and pulling the photos off the memory sticks. Bruce e-mailed asking that we have more illustrations that are drawn or painted. To that I say, Betty's kids are usually our best with that. But I don't think they've done any lately. Any that we can upload. Isaiah also sometimes draws illustrations for us.
Jess: Actually, Betty's kids did do one illustration this week and I'll go scan that in now so we'll have it as well.
Jim: Isaiah, anything to add about illustrations?
Isaiah: I'll add a technical aspect. If I'm doing my blog and posting an old comic I did to it, I can get the HTML code and insert it and that can be a hassle -- especially if the comic was posted via Hello. But if I'm in Firefox or Flock, one of those two browsers, I can actually just copy and paste the comic in without getting any of the code. It's a lot easier and a lot quicker. It won't work in Internet Explorer, however.
Ty: That's good to know. We'll start doing that here. Okay. I'll use this time for a question for C.I. Merle e-mails that 30 Rock is "repeatedly knocked around by you two" -- C.I. and Ava -- and Merle thinks it is "a funny show, not as funny as it once was, but still funny. So if you had to sleep with anyone in the cast, who would it be?" C.I.?
C.I.: That was an e-mail? No transition in there, just 'It makes me laugh, who would you have sex with?' Okay. I know Alec Baldwin and I'm not going to pick him because it would be too weird but that's not an insult of him and he's an attractive man. If I was going to sleep with anyone on the show --
Ty: It can be guest stars as well.
C.I.: I don't know that they've had sexy men as guest stars. But if I had to sleep with one of them, there's only one sexy man, Grizz Chapman who plays Grizz. The show would be a lot funnier if they returned to jokes about the alleged sexual tension between Grizz and Liz.
Jim: Trina, there was an e-mail from Stephen who wanted to know if you get tired of covering the economy? He wrote that he gets very frustrated with the economy and couldn't imagine writing about it daily.
Trina: Well I agree with his point and there are nights when I have this idea of doing a long piece and then I'll go searching the economic news and not be in the mood. One thing, on the economy, that I've noted is most of the news aggregators are burying the unemployment stories. They're never on the main pages and you have to really search for them. This despite the fact that the news continues to be bad. Or maybe because the news is so poor.
Ty: Rebecca, your "lone star" resulted in an angry e-mail from Belinda who says she and her husband went on Hulu to check out the show based on your post and now they find out that the show's been cut.
Rebecca: Well I didn't cancel it. I wrote about my own surprise Friday in "look what they've done to my show." I cannot believe they canceled that show. It was a very strong show with a lot of layers. I think the lead was amazing. I think David Keith and Jon Voight were already establishing characters that would have lived forever in pop culture. I think anyone watching was anticipating the battle supreme that would take place between those two. Both women playing Bob's two wives were great actresses. It was a great show. I loved it. I am as mad as Belinda that it's been canceled. Be sure to insert the photo of the lead James Wolk so everybody knows what they'll now be missing.
Jim: Stan, there were five e-mails on your "Thoughts on Black Republicans." All wondered what Marcia would have written on the topic and some also wondered if there were any thoughts on the issue that could be in a roundtable?
Stan: Okay. First off, there are a record number of Black Republicans running for the House of Representatives this year. Marcia was going to write about it; however, she had another topic she had to grab and asked if I'd mind covering it. I had no problem and was thrilled to be able to cover it. Marcia?
Marcia: As I wrote the next day at my own site, I couldn't have written the post better. Stan did a great job. On the issue, I agree with what my cousin wrote. I'm not a Republican. But there are many people who are and I would like to see our community well represented in all groups.
Betty; Right. And when we say that, we're aware that there will be people like Clarence Thomas who aren't really that interested in racial issues. If, for example, Thomas was as protective of Civil Rights as he is of the rights of porn users, we'd be a lot further ahead today. But the point is that we need to be represented in all groups and, hopefully, most of us will care about issues such as equality and will advocate for it. And, by being in all groups, racism can be fought. Even by a Clarence Thomas. How so? If we're represented in all groups, it makes it that much harder for certain people to tell racist 'jokes.'
Cedric: I know two African-Americans who are Republicans. They got to my church. I don't know them on a political level but, on a church level, they are very nice people. I'm a Democrat but not every African-American needs to be one.
Ann: Well thank goodness for that, honey, because I'm a Green. I hear these conversations a lot and I always think -- or wonder -- if they perpetuate the two-party stranglehold? We're focusing on Black Republicans because they are setting a record this year in terms of campaigns and good for them, more power to them. And Stan is a Democrat and approached it from that angle. But I hear the conversation and I just think: Uh, there are other choices.
Betty: That is a good point. And, of course, the Green Party ran a Black woman for president last go round, Cynthia McKinney. I'm a big fan of Cynthia, who used to be my rep in Congress, so I should remember that she's a Green and seek to be more inclusive. I know Ann wasn't calling anyone out but I'm just taking some accountability here.
Cedric: I think she was calling one person out, but that's okay, we're married.
Ann: Yes, I would think that being your wife would require you to be a little more aware that African-Americans are Greens as well.
Cedric: Which is kind of covered in our comments on African-Americans being represented in all groups but your point is taken. Thank you.
Dona: And I'm jumping in. I've uploaded photos and we'll try to use some and Jess uploaded the drawing that Betty's kids did. We need to wrap up the roundtable.
Jim: Okay, this is a rush transcript. We'll try to cover more e-mails soon.