Third Estate Sunday Review: A note to our readers

Sunday, April 15, 2012

A note to our readers

Hey --
Another Sunday.

First up, we thank all who participated this edition 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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's K itchen,
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. What did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week

Michelle Obama knocked out Barack. He was also in the running. Seriously. We were considering giving it to him. But we agreed Michelle Obama may have said it in less words but she said it stronger and she said it better. She earned her truest.

Truest statement II

Mike Prysner's speech was noted by C.I. last week and we had 15 e-mails asking us if we could do something on it? Maybe during another week. This edition was too hectic. So we grabbed a quote and called it a truest. But it is a really important speech.

Editorial: Iraq

If we were posting this edition tonight, I (Jim) know I could convince people to go with my comparison of Nouri to Spatz in Some Like It Hot. Then we could use some of Bonaparte's speech in the editorial, "Now some people say he's gotten a little too big for his spats -- but I say he's a man who'll go far. Some people say he's gone too far -- but I say you can't keep a good man down." But we were pressed for time and Nell is a popular film -- in terms of quoting it to one another -- among many participating. So we went with Nell. And this editorial was written by everyone listed above and everyone participated on the selection of truests.

TV: It's the context, stupid

This edition was too hectic? Ask Ava and C.I. "Don't talk to us, Jim," Ava said to me at one point in the writing edition. "If you're mad, just say so," I said back. "Jim, we don't have the luxury of time required to be mad. We just have to focus on what we're doing." Which was write two incredible pieces together and Ava did a third alone. This TV piece they had to write. It was obvious this would be covered here and that it would be covered by them. They worked first on the other piece and stated they were tired when they wrote this and that it doesn't get to most of the points that they wanted to make. I disagree and love that they brought in a PRI program. They've got to be the only ones who've criticized that program (and it needs to be criticized). I don't know how they watch, listen and read all they do while they're on the road each week. They are amazing.

Revenge: A discussion

This became one of our Abby Road editions. Meaning we're all doing a solo piece here and there. (Clearly, Ava and C.I. are our Lennon & McCartney.) Dona and Ty did not want to do a heavy piece. They didn't want to do two individual pieces. They wanted something 'easy.' I pointed out that Rebecca really wanted us to do a short post featuring the illustration used in this article so maybe they could do that. (Rebecca's getting the word out that Revenge airs six new episodes in row, each week, starting this Wednesday.) They decided to do a dialogue, just the two of them and Rebecca discussing the show. It's a transcript piece, remember, rush transcript and all that entails.

Jim's World: Explaining Bad Reporting

My piece where I discuss the other big subject we had to cover. That's two so far. Hilary Rosen's remarks was one. Two was the nonsense of a dumb reporter. Three? That was a book.

Carole King's Conditioned Role and Desire (Ava and C.I.)

Mammoth. And we spent an hour arguing about the title. Seriously. All of this could have gone up an hour earlier. But Ava and C.I. hated my title. Now it wasn't a case of just disliking it, they felt that it conveyed a "very wrong" meaning (I was told). I had done a play on the book title (A Natural Woman) and called it "Carole King's Unnatural Choice." They felt that could imply other things and they weren't comfortable with "unnatural" and "choice" being paired together. They also told me -- at loud volumes (I'm sure my own were loud as well) -- that what was I was calling "unnatural" was, in fact, "conditioned." At that point, I came up with a title that they could live with. Thank goodness because, title aside, this is a great piece of writing. When I read this or their other recent book critiques -- "Trapped in an AA meeting with Judy Collins" and "Books: One writes, the other types (Ava and C.I.)" -- we should say, "Okay, you've done a great job on TV but we think from now on you should just cover books." And you should have seen them, they were antsy while they wrote this. I'm not joking. They were all over the downstairs. They were roaming. It was like they were poking at a fire and they would burn their hands and have to walk off to cool it off. And just as that was something to see, this is something to read. It is the finest piece of the edition.

Jess's Take on A Natural Woman

And Jess the self-described heretic. This took me completely by surprise and I loved it. Go Jess.

Ava's Confession

This was Ava's solo piece. As noted this was a hectic edition and we knew that going in. On the way back from Boston (the flight back), Ava wrote down a few ideas that she was able to turn into this solo piece. Now you know what Mike, Trina and Kat meant when they would explain that Ava wasn't doing something because she had a family thing right now. I told her that people also thought she'd stopped covering Scott Brown because it was an election year. She laughed at that.

Mailbag: Our readers sound off

We had to address Hilary Rosen's remarks in some form. In addition, we had to address the issue of the dumb reporter. In part, we had to address it because our readers were already on it and then some.