Hey --
We thank all who participated this week which includes Dallas and the following:
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,
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.
And what did we come up with? Huh? We?
Jess hurt his back during the writing edition. Not joking. We're all confused by that. He was sitting. He must have had a pulled muscle that just came loose with the pain. At any rate, that did effect the session.
And led us to rely very heavily on Ava and C.I. As you will see.
We're probably going to grab another statement from Shirley MacLaine next week as well. There's a "truest" on nearly every page of this book (I'm Over All That). You should really pick it up, it's a great book.
And the great Chris Hedges explaining the point of the education system in the US today.
This was a suggestion of Ty's and we were all on board especially when Jess couldn't go to the hospital -- too much pain -- and we ended up addressing it. Well I (Jim) watched. What ended up happening, after Jess was in too much pain to head for the car, was Ava offered to call an ambulance but Jess didn't want that so C.I. sighed, said, "Okay, lay down flat on the floor, face down," explained she once threw out her own back (and, yes, that was turned into a scripted moment, as Elaine quickly pointed out) and she knew what to do. Jess screamed like twenty little girls. I've never heard such screaming. He also got up off the floor and could stand up straight and no longer had any pain. C.I.said, "I'm probably good for that just once." :D So this became the editorial and it's the best editorial we've ever featured. (That's not bragging, we didn't write a word.)
Ava and C.I. worked their butts off this edition. So much so, that I told them their other feature could take the place of TV and no one would mind. I knew their fans wouldn't, I knew our readers' wouldn't. But given the chance to take a pass, they surprised me by explaining that they had to write a TV piece. Had to. Look, they explained, there's a new show that needs to be ripped apart. But even that got put on hold by them. Why? A stereotype got exploded last week and they had already decided that they would be writing about it. So you got this. Not because I begged. Not because they didn't do anything else. But because they believe this is a major TV moment. Read it and see if you agree or not.
This is the piece. Oh goodness. This is long and they could have gone on and on. For example, they cut a piece after they talk about how Shirley explores and thinks. The part they cut was explaining that as Tina book "draws to a close, she remarks on how strange it is that her low rated show is still on the air" and, in that half a sentence, she comes the closest to thought she may ever get." Shirley MacLaine has a new book, Tina Fey has a first book. Shirley's a writer. Tina? Do not miss the ending. They debated rewriting the entire thing when they learned, via a Sunday afternoon phone call, that a number of 30 Rock writers feel Tina ripped off their routines and put them in her book without crediting them. This is a major 'malfunction' on the set of 30 Rock currently. Don't be surprised if Tina doesn't end up commenting on it. Not having the time, they just added a sentence to their second to the last paragraph.
We don't dislike Historiann. We just wish she'd done the work required before announcing she was wrong to slam Katha. The slam was earned. We all wrote this but it does feel like an Ava and C.I. piece. Strangely enough, they were the least involved in the writing of this, leaving half-way through the writing of the piece to go work on their book piece.
Don't you love Americans who go to Iraqi FaceBook pages and ask the Iraqis to stop posting so much because it really interferes with their issues? No? We don't love 'em either.
Mike and the gang wrote this.
ANd that's what we came up with. We'll see you next weekend. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.