Jim: Roundtable time again. . Remember our e-mail
address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; 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); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the
illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.
Jim (Con't): First up, Iraq. Are elections going to take place this year?
Wally: They're scheduled for October.
Jim: But will they take place?
Ava: I hope so. I don't think the Iraqi people would put up with very much of a delay. Past elections have had delays because certain legislation wasn't passed. That could take place again and postpone it some weeks. That's why the press seems to be doing their job right now and actually using terms like "scheduled for" and not just saying that in October elections will be held.
Jim: Who's going to end up vying for prime minister.
Dona: Let's back up first. Iraq elects members to Parliament. Based on the turnout, a party or slate will vie for the role of prime minister-designate. That's someone that the president of Iraq declares -- based on the turnout -- and they have 30 days to assemble a Cabinet -- nominate and get the nominees approved by the Parliament.
Jim: Good point. So who's vying?
Mike: Nouri al-Maliki, a two-time holder of the office, wants back in. Moqtada al-Sadr has wanted the post before and seems to still hunger for it. The current prime minister is Mustafa al-Kadhimi and he would like to have a second term.
Elaine: Which is something he insisted he didn't want. But after he got into office, instead of moving for early elections and focusing on corruption as he stated he would, he's done damn little and he's worked to postpone the elections. In fact, if the elections were not to take place in October, a good chance might be him postponing for some 'reason' or another.
Isaiah: He did insist that he wouldn't run, didn't he? Mustafa was just going into office and he was going to do some serious work and get right out. But now he's addicted to the office and even being a failure he won't let it go.
Jim: How many see him as a failure?
Ruth: I think we all do. No one has been held responsible for any of the assassinations of the activists. People who attack protesters at protests, they're not even held accountable. And 'people' are the Iraqi forces to be clear, the people attacking the protesters. This is done during the protests, in public, and no one is held accountable. He is a failure.
Mike: Which more people would realize if he didn't have so many former co-works in the media. He worked for a number of outlets -- a fact they don't disclose when they write their glowing pieces about Mustafa The Wonderful.
Cedric: But it's all nonsense anyway. Our current president made that clear back in 2010 when he was vice president. Joe Biden overturned the election results with The Erbil Agreement to give Nouri al-Maliki a second term. That second term leads to the rise of ISIS. The Iraqi people rejected Nouri but the US government -- especially Samantha Power -- insisted that Nouri had to have a second term so Joe oversaw The Erbil Agreement. It was clear, when the votes were tossed aside, that elections didn't matter in Iraq.
Ann: And participation in the elections after that one suffered as a result.
Cedric: Which was no surprise. When you see your votes tossed aside, you realize you risked your own life to vote for no real reason.
Jim: Jess?
Jess: Yeah, I wanted to talk about the vaccines for COVID. Trina, you wrote about the issue of insulin and other medications being delivered at the start of the pandemic and how it effected some more severely. You wrote about that in "." I know you and C.I. have done stuff for the various community newsletters regarding the vaccine and I was hoping you might just talk about that because they weren't available to all in the sense that a lot of people in a bubble think they were.
Trina: C.I. and I addressed that in all the newsletters but kept our focus on that in HILDA'S MIX because that's the one that's intended to highlight issues effecting the challenged and disabled and Hilda was so good about passing on any issues that members had. But basically, let's use me as an example. Say I'm at risk or in the right age group for the shots. So I am a woman with a husband, a woman with adult children. Forget that I'm a nurse. I have ample means of getting somewhere. Now let's pretend that I live a different life. Let's pretend that I'm in a wheel chair or use a cane. Let's use that one, a cane. So I have difficulty getting around. And I don't have the same support group. I have to be taken to two appointments for the shots. How am I getting there. If my community planned carefully, the shots are linked to a bus line. But that didn't happen for a lot of low income people. So you had people who either could not drive or who did not have cars and they had to use a taxi -- which is an expense. But taxis not hailed in the street don't always run on time. And you might have to request one for forty-five minutes before your shot was scheduled to ensure you got there in time. And then you needed to wait. So the cab wasn't going to wait for you. You had to wait in line, you had to get the shot and then they wanted you to wait after the shot for a bit to make sure there were no side effects. I get in my car and go. No problem for me. But everyone's not me.
Jess: I think that's the biggest problem today. We expect -- sometimes demand -- that everyone be just like us. There's a line in a Chase Rice song -- forgetting which one -- that goes, "
Whatever happened to we all make mistakes? Let's put a little more amazing back in the grace."
C.I.: What? Oh, it's "Belong."
Kat: She said "what" because she's taking notes and looked up when we all stopped talking and she saw that those not participating by phone were staring at her.
Jess: Waiting for the answer.
Trina: I love THE ALBUM, his new album. And I think you're right, Jess. We don't have enough empathy or even realization that we're not all blessed in the same ways. And I do love that song and the sentiment that it's expressing in those lines. But someone taking a taxi to shots is going to have a very long day because they have to wait until they are 'released' to request the cab in most cases --
Wally: There are cabs that want you to call when you're ready and then they want you to wait for them. If you admit you don't know you're ready, that you think you will be, the dispatcher will tell you to call back.
Trina: So it's a lot to juggle. And a lot of people don't realize that.
Jess: I think C.I. did a better job presenting than most sites, I'm talking about sites outside the community..
Trina: I agree. And so did the government. Right after her last post where she called out the continued 'science, science' talk a new PSA drops that talks about your mother instead. The PSAs were tailored poorly and only for one group of people, the group that was already responding. There's a lot more I'd like to say on this but I'll table it with the hopes that we can right a piece on it in the future. But I do praise C.I. especially for her honesty. She talked about getting ill after the shot. She talked about you making your own decisions. And when you respect people, when you're honest with them and you trust them, you're more likely to reach them. We need new strategies to reach the people who aren't yet vaccinated. And insulting and shaming and attacking is not going to work.
Marcia: Nor is lying.
Jim: Want to note Chase Rice. His new album is THE ALBUM and Kat reviewed it, see "Kat's Korner: Chase Rice serves up a masterpiece." It's a really popular album with the community and since Elaine noted the roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin and the country legend C.I. voted to sit in on that roundtable, see her "Jonathan Turley, Chase Rice ," I wanted to ask C.I. about the album. In terms of why she, C.I., is promoting it?
C.I.: When I have an album that really moves me, I promote it to my friends. You can ask Rebecca and Elaine who've had to suffer over the years but it's true of anyone I'm close to especially if I think they'll love it too.
Rebecca: I heard both Liz Phair's EXILE IN GUYVILLE and Lauryn Hill's THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL over the phone first -- both during phone calls with C.I. Both times she said, I've got to play three songs for you. And she did. There are other albums as well and she also gifts albums that she loves. I know for a fact that she bought nearly 1,000 copies of COMING AROUND AGAIN when it came out because she loved the album and wanted Carly Simon to have another hit. And on Lauryn, C.I. also gave interviews talking up MISEDUCATION. She's always been very passionate about championing artists who really deliver something amazing.
Jim: Back to Chase Rice, you think this is an important album like that or the Afghan Whigs' GENTLEMAN to name one Elaine noted?
C.I.: I do. I think it's a classic album. It may or may not be a big seller -- I hope it will sell huge -- but it's an album people will remember that will grow in reputation over the years.
Jim: As opposed to?
C.I.: Jim's not telling people who will be reading this that he heard my friend and I talking after the gina & krista round-robin and what he's really wanting, clearly, is the comparison I offered that my friend agreed with. So, fine, I'm not scared to say it. Chase has made an album that matters. It's a great album. And it's worth so much more than the nutless -- yes, that is the term I used -- work of Tim McGraw. Chase's work is alive. Tim's dead on arrival. That's what you wanted, right, Jim?
Jim: Uh-huh.
C.I.: Tim's had a ton of hits mainly by selling a lifestyle. His hits are generic and worthless and sound as though a computer wrote the lyrics. You don't believe them. His wife Faith Hill has recorded a lot of crap as well but she probably has at least 20 songs that will be remembered -- half of which are poorly produced but she is a great singer and that's why she has a legacy. Tim's not a bad singer, but he's not a great one. So he really should have thought about a legacy. You're starting out -- in any field -- you take what you can get. But at some point, you need to think about a legacy. Debra Winger's addressed that topic very well over the years -- quality versus a body of work and how you try to mange both. Ben Harper is a good example of someone who makes choices. He's popular but he's not as popular as some others. He could easily do "Diamonds On The Inside" over and over and just try to consolidate the popularity; however, he has the respect of the industry because he's instead attempted to stretch repeatedly in his career with various projects. He's created -- and is creating -- art. Some people, like Tim McGraw, offer nothing. He's popular today, he'll be forgotten by country music fans ten years after he retires -- if not sooner. He's done nothing outstanding and has coasted on his lifestyle and not his art. People confuse popularity with art all the time, they aren't the same. Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand started out at the same time and people didn't think they'd make it -- even at COLUMBIA RECORDS -- which signed both. Many artists were more popular than them -- Connie Francis, to name one. She got by on lifestyle too, Tim McGraw might need to grasp that. But all these years later, Bob and Barbra are artists and recognized as such. Connie's not popular today and no one really considers her work art -- not even kitsch art. Chase is a good singer but it's as a songwriter that he's really building his legacy. He has shown talent since the beginning of his career but THE ALBUM was a huge step forward for him. Kat?
Kat: I'd agree with that. I think it is a masterpiece, the album. BLUE just hit fifty, Joni Mitchell's BLUE. There are a ton of albums that outsold BLUE -- probably over 500,000, maybe a million, in the US alone. But most are forgotten. And will remain that way. C.I.'s right that popularity is not legacy, it's not art. I do agree with her that Tim McGraw coasts on his lifestyle and uses that to sell recordings. The recordings themselves are bland and lifeless, nutless is a good term for when men record those kind of banal and superficial songs.THE ALBUM feels like someone's sharing their life, the songs move you, they capture moments you can relate to. He digs in deep.
Mike: You can't listen to THE ALBUM and not love it. It feels real and lived in. If you had told me last year that my favorite album of 2021 would be a country music album, I wouldn't have believed you. But there are just so many great songs -- "Bedroom," for example.
Jim: Okay, so this is a rush transcript. Thank you for reading.