Sunday, September 30, 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 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?


" Sometimes," wrote Adam Barksdale in an e-mail, "it feels like the truests are always the same sources.  For example, Cindy Sheehan, Glen Ford, Cindy Sheehan, Glen Ford, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Ratner, Glen Ford, Michael Ratner . . . I know it's not quite that bad but I was wondering if you ever thought about varying it up a little more?"  We mainly go for the truest we hear that week.  When we get together, there are usually a minimum of seven suggestions for the truest.  We vote on them and that's how we pick them.   But there are two never-before-cited voices getting truests this week so maybe that will help.  This one is John Barry.


And this one is Kevin Carson.

Iraq was our editorial.  There was some debate about doing a feature on Iraq that we didn't.  Depending on how the week goes, we may end up doing it next week.  This is a reminder to myself (Jim) as much as sharing.
Ava and C.I. wanted to cover Jami Gertz' new sitcom and Partners on CBS and . . .  But the broadcast news -- especially PBS -- refuse to do their job.

How do we choose the order for each edition?  Editorial always goes under the note, then Ava and C.I.'s media article.  After that, we try to figure out what works where.  Sometimes an article is short so it ends up higher on the list.  Sometimes the topic is deemed important so that bumps it up the list.  This is a piece on Afghanistan.  We don't do many of those so that meant it was going high up.  In addition, it's the 2000 mark which also argued for a high placement.  Ty moderated this roundtable.
This was not what we planned.  What we planned was a book discussion roundtable.  And we did that.  For over an hour.  After we were done, no one was happy.  Kat put it best noting, "This [the roundtable] is so f**ked up, not only do I not want to read it but it would scare me away from the book."  What was the problem.  Again, truth teller Kat pointed out that there were about 8 different points of view and various asides and no focus at all.  Kat said, "We should all just let Ava and C.I. write it.  They'll be able to do a coherent review that will make people eager to read the book."  Ava's reply?  "Let us, wow, how lucky are we."  She was being sarcastic.  Nothing against Heart, she just didn't understand why they were being assigned two pieces this edition?  As Kat suspected, Ava and C.I. were able to cover the book and raise your interest in the book.  They deliberately left out everything cited in the roundtable.  I didn't notice that at first.  Dona caught it right away and rightly guessed that they did that by choice.  The reason?  They didn't want anyone to feel their contribution in the roundtable was what made it fall apart.  Because that roundtable fell apart.  Big time.  Remember that Heart's new album comes out Tuesday.  Great album.

Having failed at the book discussion, we were pressed for time and desperate for ideas.  We had a piece on the Mars land rover Curiosity but that didn't work out.  Nor did a piece on Medicare and we were half-way into a Fast & Furious piece when Ava told us Univision was doing a big broadcast on the topic tonight.  So we scrambled.  There were three topics we cared about at this point: Iraq, Afghanistan and the campaigns.  So the decision was made to do mini-roundtables.  I moderated this one.  And C.I. wanted Ava and Jess' remarks pulled -- their remarks at the end but we outvoted her on that and the praise stayed in.

 Dona moderated this one.  Ty and Dona did great jobs moderating.  Dona isn't pleased with her job.  We had a time limit.  Why?  To make sure we didn't have another meandering roundtable like the book discussion.  Sticking to the time limit meant Jill Stein was noted in terms of the debates but only in terms of that.  Dona had wanted to end on Jill's campaign but time ran out.  Next time there's a roundtable dealing with campaigns, she says she's bringing Jill up first.   This one really features more about Gary Johnson's campaign which is fine since we've only noted him once this campaign season.  And good job Marcia on preparing for the background about his vice president.



Jill might not have been discussed in depth but we do repost this from her campaign.  (Those who plan to vote in the election, those participating in this edition, plan to vote for Dr. Stein.)

This is a Bonnie King article from Salem-News.org.  Be sure to use the links to check out more great content at Salem-News.

And this is a press release from Senator Patty Murray's office.

Lastly, Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.


So that's what we came up with.

See you next week.
Peace.


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



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