One more 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:
This truest was chosen by Third, plus Betty, Wally, Kat, Mike and Elaine.
This was chosen by all listed above in the "who worked on the edition" section.
Also chosen by all.
Everyone listed in the link list above -- and Dallas -- worked on this. We worked on it Sunday morning. We rushed the edition. I (Jim) wanted to be sure it was done before the Superbowl and that I could get a long nap in as well. I admit it, I cop to it. So what happened was a few hours after the Superbowl -- which Jess, Ava and C.I. skipped to go the movies -- when the skippers returned, I explained my attitude which was the entire edition sucked. Would they be willing to work on it again? So this was rewritten and tightened in another round by Betty, Kat, Wally, Mike, Elaine, Dona, Ty, Jess, myself and Ava and C.I.
Ava and C.I. surprised me by immediately agreeing to a re-working. They had written a piece they weren't happy with (not uncommon for them, they rarely like their own writing). At the movies, they had thought of all they should have said. So they rewrote this? No. The original piece was about a show that sucks because the show lost an actress. They thought of all the ways women were screwed over by the entertainment business currently and they planned to add that to this but it went off on its own direction. This is a very great piece of reporting and it's much stronger than their other piece.
With a brief final draft by Betty, Ava and C.I., this is more or less what we all worked on early Sunday.
This was a piece for the second edition. Why? Because we had a much smaller group which I hoped would make a roundtable easier.
You've wanted it back. We've noted that in roundtables. We've said we'd bring it back. And then we didn't. Over and over for two years. At least two years. It's back. Thank Dona and Elaine for that.
Ty wrote an incredible piece. It started with him complaining about something in gay porn and C.I. replying that it was "like a porn rule or something." This led Ty to joke about other porn rules in gay porn. We were all laughing. C.I. said, "Ty, you've got to write something on this." Ty said no. Then we got an insulting e-mail and, when we got back together for the let's-do-it-again writing session, Ty agreed to do this piece.
Goes to Noam Chomsky.
Pretty damn racist. I wasn't aware. I learned a lot on this one. The piece was started by Jess. He wrote the first two paragraphs in the Sunday morning edition. It then went through a draft with everyone and really didn't work. So it went to the trash heap. The second time we got together, Dona asked Jess to pull up his first version and we then worked -- Kat, Betty, Wally, Mike, Elaine and those of us with Third -- on it till we got it right.
The e-mail that made Ty (and the rest of us) mad is in this piece I wrote. I tried to grab the e-mails that I couldn't fit into the roundtable.
Repost from Workers World.
Press release from Senator Wyden's office.
Repost from Workers World that I hope you will share with everyone you know -- a very important article.
Mike, Elaine, Wally, Betty, Cedric, Ann, Trina, Isaiah, Ruth, Rebecca, Kat and Marcia wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.