A note to our readers

Hey --
Latest we have ever been for the second week in a row.

Thank you to all who worked on this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona 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,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

Thank you to all who assisted and apologies as well.

• Truest statement of the week

Bob Somerby simply stated.

• Truest statement of the week II

Libbyliberal gets a truest.

• Editorial: Fairytales die hard (Ava and C.I.)

Jess and Ty spent the weekend with their families. They didn't help on this edition. Was that the problem? I (Jim) have no idea. I just know we worked forever and we really imposed on Isaiah asking him to do drawings for features. He did them. The features didn't work out. Our apologies to him. Our apologies to Ava and C.I. who didn't want to be part of this edition and have stated that they cannot do this again. They are very clear on that issue. We had an editorial that was weak and that we all worked on. We scrapped it. After we asked Ava and C.I. to please do a long feature on a topic -- hot or otherwise -- to make up for what was a weak edition. They worked on this for at least an hour and when we read it, we said, "This is the editorial." Thank you to them.

• TV: To Know, Know, Know Her Is To Avoid Her

Ava and C.I. were going to cover The Event this week. That was their plan up until one o'clock Sunday morning when the edition was falling apart. They said they could cover a 'news' program if that would help. We said it would.

• Roundtable

The roundtable is the only feature that we all worked on which turned out. And thanks to Ann there because I was sure we were done with Iraq when she corrected me.

• How Iraq is just like the US

A short feature. This took a lengthy article we all worked on that was not working despite a good three hours spent on it. Dona distilled it, via editing, into a short feature.

• Afghan Withdrawal pushed back to at least 2014

Ava and C.I. proposed this repost. This is Workers World.

• Highlights

Mike and the gang kindly wrote this. We thank them for it.

We spent forever on this edition. And we had nothing to show for it. Had Ava and C.I. not written their second piece (which ended up being the editorial), I'm not sure we would have posted an edition. I hope things are better next week. I do understand Ava and C.I.'s vocal frustration which includes the fact that C.I. has to turn around and now pull together an entry for The Common Ills after working over 15 hours on this edition. My apologies.


Peace.

-- Jim, Dona, Ava and C.I.