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?
Not much to be honest.
Julian Assange gets a truest.
As does Clinton Yates.
We think there has to be a great deal more than we're being told currently. We feel that way especially because rumors of infidelity swirled around Petraeus going back to at least 2005. So if infidelity alone was the issue, it seems to us he never would have been made CIA Director -- unless the vetting process failed.
An awful edition that is perhaps saved by Ava and C.I.'s masterpiece. This really is a powerful piece and probably takes the edition up several notches. As two who know Lily, they wanted to avoid weighing in on this show. But they asked a friend to get them scripts and copies of shows that hadn't aired and realized, as they reviewed both, that they had to weigh in. That meant addressing a number of issues and they certainly do. They pair it with Partners which is a show they love and that they've noted once before already this year. I (Jim) agree Partners is a hit. This is the strongest piece of the edition. Jess and Dona have taken to quoting the producer of the soap opera in Tootsie, "The girls saved it." When an actor almost tanks the taping of a scene, Julie (Jessica Lange) and Dorothy (Dustin Hoffman) save the scene. Certainly, Ava and C.I. save many editions here.
There were a number of Iraq reports C.I. brought to this edition. Only she reads Arabic. So she was telling us what she had and we pulled from that. We will probably be doing this feature as a regular one to increase coverage of Iraq.
Rebecca and Betty wanted a Mars feature and this is what we could pull together.
Benghazi. The reason we have a strong understanding of it -- something New York magazine and others can't claim to have -- is because we had four people who attended the hearing (Ava, C.I., Kat and Wally) and five of us have since streamed the archived hearing (Mike, Jess, Ruth, Trina and I).
A repost of Ava and C.I.'s brilliant essay.
A memorial tomorrow.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Where's the election coverage?
Ava and C.I. didn't want to participate. They stated, "Try it but what's going to happen is that you're going to be a lot angrier than you know and it's going to end up one of those pieces that goes through various drafts and never amounts to anything publishable -- even after all the swear words are removed." They were right. But some of us (including me) couldn't admit this after two hours. While Ava and C.I. typed up all the above, I said, "Well we can roundtable it." That only encouraged more anger. So much time was wasted on that. We'll return to it briefly next weekend. Or briefly if it's not working out. Maybe we all just need some distance before we weigh in?
And the dairy piece? Next week. We have an illustration but it's on a drive and we're not sure which one. We'll either have it next week (the drive) or take a new picture. We weren't aware when we started the edition that no one knew where that was.
See you next week.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.