Hey --
It's Sunday.
We thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's 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.
Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess are off this week so we (Ava and C.I.) steered the edition. We weren't in the mood for a never ending writing session. We had hoped to have a piece on the two Congressional hearings we attended but time ran out and we said, "Oh well." Sorry, if we're in charge of the edition, we have a firm cut off.
So what did we manage to come up with in the allotted time?
We've been told we use the same people over and over (or too often) by some readers. This week, Jane Arraf got a truest and we don't believe she has before.
A truest also went to Emily Youffe and this is her first. (Both truests were selected by all listed above.)
In an ideal world, we'd have Iraq in every article and, after last week, we certainly could have done an all Iraq edition. This is about the political crisis, the latest one, that's threatening Iraq. (Worked on by all listed above.)
We put TV on hold to note the Bash The Bitch round being played the last week on Kathryn Bigelow. It's not about a film, don't let them kid you. It may be about a woman directing a film, but it's not just about a film. If it were, they would have protested a ton of other films. But focusing on attacking Kathryn does allow them to ignore calling out those in power who refuse to prosecute law breakers or refuse to end torture.(We -- Ava and C.I. -- wrote this.)
We did a roundtable. We stuck to e-mail topics because there were a lot of e-mails complaining that there had not been a roundtable in forever. That's because no one wanted to do a never-ending roundtable. We'd floated it for the last three editions (or others had) and the response was usually "I'm not spending two and a half hours on that."
Reader Carter e-mailed about this sale this morning. We were publishing articles already when we came across the e-mail and knew we had to do something quick on this. $4.99 for a full season (streaming). (Wally, Betty, Ava and C.I. wrote this.)
It's not really the place of US Senators to demand a damn thing from a film studio or to alter any artist's work. This is outrageous and they should be ashamed of themselves. (All listed above wrote this.)
This is our second Iraq article. Nouri is targeting journalists. He's done that throughout his six years of misleadership. (All listed above wrote this.)
During the roundtable, we listened to our MP3 playlist of kd lang. Trina loved the songs she hadn't heard before (she has one kd album). This song was her favorite of many favorites she heard. It's a great one. (Trina, Kat, Betty, Marcia, Mike, Ava and C.I. wrote this.)
Vanity Fair deserves a round of applause for allowing Judd Apatow to expose himself as the vile sexist (expose himself to those who couldn't face the truth prior). (Marcia, Ann, Ava and C.I. wrote this.)
Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and fights daily for veterans issues.
A repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
We've added credits in parenthesis in response to Kevin's e-mail asking who wrote what and in response to Lenny e-mailing to ask if Wally was listed wrongly since he does not participate in the roundtable? Wally worked on other pieces (as noted above).
And that's what we came up with. We're about to go to sleep. Most Sundays, we'd be looking at 10 to 12 more hours. And maybe this would be a better edition if that happened? Maybe not. We believe in a start time and an end time.
Peace.
-- Ava and C.I.