Ty's Corner

I haven't done a corner in a bit but this week requires one for two reasons: last week's edition and a report this week.





Last week was our summer fiction read. We got a record number of e-mails, clearly the most of any our five summer fiction reads.





Some enjoyed a story or many of the stories or all of the stories and, if there's time, I'll note some of that. However, at least 30% of the e-mails were from people who loathed it. Loathed, hated, detested.





After Mike revealed (Monday) that Ava and C.I. really didn't work on the issue, a fresh wave of anger came in insisting that was why the edition "sucked" (a popular term but used 35 times in a single e-mail by regular reader Jonas).





Why did the edition "suck"?





It may have sucked, it may not. The reality is that we were supposed to have done it two weeks ago and were actually ready. (Jim's June 14th note: "As the never ending writing edition produced one failure that couldn't be saved after another -- and as Ava and C.I. pointed out that this was supposed to be our summer fiction edition . . . . Our summer fiction edition? Yeah. But we were convinced that there was too much news needing coverage.") That included Ava and C.I. planning to write of the Letterman controversy in a fictional manner to fit the theme.





That didn't happen. And as was noted, Ava and C.I. were ticked off. They did not, however, boycott last week's edition as a number of readers seem to feel.





This is probably a good time to note this week's report. It's by Dallas, Dona, Isaiah and Jess. (Alphabetical order, "A Rucka, a Batwoman, a Zeus and a Heatwave.") This is the one we told you was coming back in May, that there would be travel for. Dallas remained in Dallas, Texas the others traveled to Dallas. (All flew to C.I.'s house here in California Saturday night.) [Added by Ty 6-29-09, drive-bys are asking when were they told about the planned feature? Repeatedly including in a solo piece Jim wrote entitled "Jim's World."]





As most readers know, C.I. and Ava (of this site and C.I., of course, also does The Common Ills) and Elaine (of Like Maria Said Paz) are past ready to end online life. C.I. hoped to shut things down right after the 2008 election. Because Stan wanted to start a site but didn't want to be starting it just as everyone else was closing down, C.I. agreed to go for another six months. Elaine has said she shuts down when The Common Ills goes dark, C.I. is only agreeing to six months at a time. April ended the first six months renewal and C.I.'s question here was what were we going to do that would justify continuing? Were we going to do anything new?





In March and April, we were discussing that. At some point, Dallas mentioned that Greg Rucka was coming to his area (Dallas, Texas) for a signing. It meant nothing to Jim, who was talking with Dallas on the phone about other issues, but he mentioned it to Jess, Dona and myself. Like Jim, I drew a blank.





Jess and Dona knew his work. They were big fans. Greg Rucka writes in many formats but, among those formats is comic books, and Jess and Dona knew his Daredevil and Wonder Woman work. Jess was on the phone with Ava (Ava's on the road with C.I., Kat and Wally each week speaking out against the illegal war) and she said, "Uh, ask Dona about her secret stash." Jess did and Dona pulled out every Greg Rucka Wonder Woman issue.





He did, she showed it, they rushed to phone Dallas who told him he'd mentioned it to Isaiah who'd decided to attend. So they were all going to attend and they thought, "We could write about this."





Dona and Jess presented that over a Saturday dinner here (present were Kat, Jim, Dona, Jess, Ava, C.I., Betty, Betty's kids and myself) and it quickly became, "Why don't we cover comics?"





The reason TV is covered every week is because Jim fought for it. There wasn't a lot of interest that first weekend and Ava and C.I. were dead set against it. But Jim insisted that college students logged a lot of TV hours and we had to cover it if we were going to be serving a college audience. That was our original goal. And originally, we wrote the TV pieces as a group effort but, by week three or four, we'd turned it over to Ava and C.I. So why didn't we cover comics?





Anytime we'd done any feature article that was about or even just mentioned comics, we got positive e-mails from regular readers.





And that soon became, "Okay, this is one thing we can do that we haven't been doing."





And the plan was that we'd begin to increase our comic book coverage and that would lead up to this week's article.





This factors into the summer read. It was supposed to be two weeks ago. Due to events in the news cycle, Jim insisted we couldn't do a summer fiction read. He said too much was going on which led to a loud argument of how things are always going on and that point is raised every week. But Jim was adamant and stuck to it. For various reasons, last week wasn't good for the summer read. And, due to the article that Dona, Jess, Dallas and Isaiah had planned for this week, the summer read really shouldn't be done now because it could be confusing (I'll come back to confusing) for readers if it ran in the fiction edition. ("Wait, did this really happen, or was it a short story?")





Jim was saying it would take place in July and no way on that. There are too many who believe it should come early in June (too many readers) and they start writing in May of each year. If we put it off to July, then I was going to need a lot of help with the e-mails. (E-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.)





Last Sunday, there was no understanding or agreement that it was going to be the summer fiction read. Jim announced that in the pitch session we do before we start writing. (The pitch session may be preceded by a pre-pitch session involving just Third. The pitch session proper includes all participating in the writing via conference call.)





Right away, Ava and C.I. hit the roof. They pointed out that no one had thought about it all week so there were no prepared ideas coming in and that idea prepared for the week before may be stale now or the enthusiasm gone. Most importantly, next week (that would be today), the feature article by Isaiah, Dallas, Jess and Dona would run and we'd done nothing to prepare for it.





That was a point they'd regularly brought up in the last weeks. One week, Isaiah worked with us all night/morning for a feature we were supposed to do but that Jim decided we wouldn't because there wasn't time. That feature was on comics and was part of our new efforts to highlight comics.

--------------------------------
This blocked off section is added by Ty 6-29-09 because drive-bys are saying, "What? I missed it?"

And ran May 17th, "Where is the love?" -- Mike noted it was junked from the May 10th edition where it was supposed to run and where it would fit and he notes Ava and C.I. were furious because Isaiah had worked with us all night solely for that future and he covers Jim's response the next day -- and Jim explains in his May 17th note that this is the article. C.I. was still bothered enough by it to write about it on May 11th:

On not being in the mood yesterday, Mike's already called and you can read his site tonight. He's going to write about some of the issues during the latest edition and my problem was and is, if people are preparing a report and we need to do a rollout, we do one. There was a short feature that was either completed or would have taken two seconds to complete that got killed and may run next week but it is part of a rollout for a feature Dona, Jess, Isaiah and Dallas will be writing next month. It's also part of a new focus we'll be doing at Third. I'm not mad at anyone (including Jim) but I did think it was incredibly rude to have had Isaiah participating ALL NIGHT during the writing edition when the only reason he was participating was for the feature that got killed. (Isaiah asked that his name not be listed in Jim's note to the readers, lest anyone think he's been forgotten.) On Ava and my end, we were talking to friends working on Fringe when they mentioned something that we worked into one sentence and did so because it was part of what we thought was the rollout for the upcoming article and for part of Third's new focus. It's a funny line so it's fine that's it's still in there but it was supposed to be part of a focus that didn't happen. Mike'll go into this at length tonight. He didn't ask (maybe because he knew) so I'll note this here. We're going through next November. We may go past that, but we made the decision to go through November. Elaine, Ava and I want to bail, we're tired of it. Others wanted to continue so we'll do another six months or so. My one request was that, for Third, we think of one thing we're not doing that we could be doing to make it worth six more months. I tossed that out two weeks ago and Dona, Ty and Jess came up with an emphasis which I think is a good one (and has been hugely popular the other times we've accidentally stumbled upon it). That new thing being brought in is part of the story Dona, Jess, Dallas and Isaiah will be doing. And three of them will have to fly somewhere for this story. I think it's an interesting story, I think it's a new element, I'm looking foward to seeing the photos and reading the copy.

That's what you missed.
-------------------------------------------------------------



We have done that here but not in the way that we wanted.





Last week's most popular feature was, as always, Ava and C.I. ("TV: Fiction"). The next four most popular were:





The curse
Hey there! Marilyn Monroe is using Twitter.
Clooney's Dark Secrets
Summer reads





The Clooney short story resulted in some strange e-mails. But the final of the four ("Summer reads") was what Ava and C.I. devoted their time to.





They did not work on the writing of any of the short stories. They were sounding boards and offered feedback that was utilized. But they focused on "Summer reads."





That's the article on comic books.





And Ava and C.I. made it clear last weekend -- when Jim sprung the, "We're doing the short story edition this week!" -- that something on comics, anything on comics, needed to be written. It had to be because we'd done very little to lead into the article that runs here despite the fact that every week we were supposed to be doing something.





Ava and C.I. phoned a friend who has a comics store and got him to open it at ten at night. They went over and bought over $300 worth of new comics. They spent the night reading through all of those comics to select ten out that were worth highlighting. They then brought the ten to the rest of us before we started writing. No Hero made the top ten list and is Mike's personal favorite. We were all supposed to be reading at least one comic in the last months and Mike is the only one who did. He focused on No Hero.





When Ava and C.I. pitched the ten, they explained nine titles and turned over to Mike for No Hero.





We then selected five from the ten and wrote up our feature (with Ava and C.I. working on it and, as I remember it, their big contribution was noting the S&M in a comic -- paddling of a male -- and insisting that The Infinite Horizon come after it because it featured a shirtless male and would work well with that -- e-mails prove they were right).





They were not boycotting. They were working very hard to do what was supposed to be happening every week.





Mike's been very vocal about the failure to do what we'd planned as has Stan and so, in an effort to raise the profile community wide on comics, they proposed comics for the Tuesday night theme posts: "DMZ: The Hidden War," "gordon brown, wonder woman," "Naoki Urasawa's Monster," "Re-Gifters," "G.B. Trudeau Talk to the Hand!," "Heroes Volume Two," "Mark Evanier's Mad Art" and "Warren Ellis' No Hero, ACLU."





If there was a mistake, in my opinion, about last week's edition in terms of the writing, it was that we all participated in "Summer reads." That should have just been Ava, C.I. and Mike. Their presentation of the ten was better than the article produced and that will happen when people writing don't know what they're writing about (one of the fingers I'm pointing is pointing at me). They were not boycotting the edition, Ava and C.I., they were shopping for comics, then reading all of those comics and then doing the presentation (with Mike grabbing No Hero).





If you didn't like the short stories offered last week, you didn't like them. I haven't argued with any regular reader who e-mailed to say that (and about 30% of the e-mails from regular readers loathed last week's short stories). Some of you enjoyed them (or at least wrote that you did).





I don't think it was our strongest and I think that's due to a number of reasons including that we didn't have C.I. and Ava helping. Had C.I. and Ava helped, you would have, for example, had a humorous short story. Those have always been popular in the past. We came close to that with Clooney and Jess and Rebecca were proposing a humorous short story that we didn't have time for.





Some things work on a personal level. (The short story "The literary ranter" is based on someone Jim, Dona, Jess, Ava and I had in our classes back in New York. And that person is captured perfectly.) Some things work as a writing exercise. Possibly doing writing exercises hurt the quality? If so, that's the readers' fault because the biggest complaint about previous fiction editions has tended to be that it was all first person narratives.





The Clooney short story resulted in e-mails which resulted in angry e-mails from me. These weren't regular readers and they had this idea that we were saying George Clooney really did all of that. I would reply asking them what world they lived in where they couldn't surf around the site to see that it was a fiction edition and that Clooney wasn't a mutant and his father wasn't a numbat?





Replies revealed that these readers were outside of the United States, living in countries where English wasn't the primary language and they'd apparently picked up the short story from a feed on George Clooney and then used an online free translation service to translate the article into their own languages.





Clearly lost in translation.





I don't apologize for the anger in my replies because if you're reading something written in a language you don't understand, don't start an e-mail by shouting and accusing people of things. That's basic. I don't read Spanish and if I stumbled across a Spanish site and was offended by a mechanical translation (this assumes I didn't ask Ava or C.I. to translate it for me -- they both speak and read Spanish), I wouldn't fire off an angry e-mail accusing people of things. I'd write, "I'm not following this, is it a language issue?" Or I'd not write at all.





If anyone's offended (I exchanged repeated e-mails with about thirty people on this last week), too bad.





I found the e-mails offensive. If it's not clear, these were written by devoted Clooney fans. He's got a crazy bunch of fans.





To those regular readers who enjoyed the short stories, thank you. To those who didn't, I'm not going to argue with you. I don't think it was our strongest and I've outlined some of the reasons for that above. I do not, however, believe we failed because Ava and C.I. weren't participating in the group writing per se. They add a great deal and I don't deny that and I readily admit that they would have ensured we had a very funny short story (as we usually do) -- either by siding with Rebecca and Jess or by proposing another topic. But it was weak not because they didn't help but because it was supposed to take place the week before.





Ava and C.I. rightly noted, when Jim declared "Short story edition!," that some ideas might be stale now and that was true because people came in the week prior all excited. Cedric and Wally had a sci-fi idea that week, they really weren't in the mood to pitch it because it had cooled off for them. Betty worked like crazy and give her and Jess credit for last week being done at all. They worked like crazy asking questions about plot and keeping spirits up. But, to use Betty as an example, even she wasn't keen on an idea she had for the originally scheduled summer read. She couldn't get the enthusiasm back up for that. But she did come up with many ideas and keep us focused.





One positive note in the e-mails on the summer read edition was the illustrations. People enjoyed them. (Even the Clooney fan club enjoyed their Clooney drawing. Although some wrongly wrote that it was a "photo.") They really were great and we thank Betty's kids, Isaiah, Kat, Wally and C.I. for the work they did. Some readers (such as Noah) who were less than thrilled with the writing, felt that was due to our increased visuals and that "next year, I know you'll nail it." Noah, if we're still publishing next year, we'll see but I appreciate your faith in us.

Be very, very scared

The Democratic Party honchos took time out of begging for more money to continue Bully Boy Bush policies last week in order to announce "The Democratic Change Commission." Party hack Jonah swung-it-to-sell-it on the official Democratic Party website. He opens by declaring, "Following the Democratic Presidential primaries and caucuses of the 2008 presidential nominating campaign the Democratic National Convention Rules Committee, at the request of then Senator Obama, drafted a resolution calling for a commission to review and recommend changes to the 2012 nominating process."



Though no one with the scars and wounds from the 2008 Democratic Party primaries could deny that something needs to be done, the notion that anything will be done to improve the process fades quickly as you grasp that not only is it called "Democratic Change Commission" (Barack's giving "change" such a bad name that you have to wonder if it's one of the words that will be banished at the end of 2008?) but it's also led by Claire McCaskill and James Clyburn. Both co-chairs are Bama Boosters and Claire's famous for the very public snub of Hillary Clinton before the cameras while James is famous for telling one lie after another and non-stop attacks on the Clintons. The idea that either wants to reform the process is laughable.



What reform is needed?



Since 2005, we've argued that Iowa (a) doesn't need to be the start of the season, (b) needs to be open and accountable (the official tally is never released -- by the Democrats, the GOP releases their own official tally) and (c) needs to change to a primary.



Iowa is rife with fraud every year. Dan Savage revealed how easy (in 2004) it was to participate in the caucuses despite not being a resident of Iowa. The process is rigged and the winner of the 'caucus' is always whomever gets the most volunteers shipped into that state.



Real reform would mean Iowa switching to a primary.



On the subject of caucuses, the "Texas two-step" should be dropped as well. Hillary won the Texas primary but Barack got more delegates due to caucus fraud. Caucuses are rife with fraud and no one votes in a general election for president by caucusing. Caucuses need to be ended and everyone needs to switch to the secret ballot. Each state's determining of a party nominee needs to match the process for the general election.



A long needed fix is rotating the primary schedule. We've advocated that since 2005 and were proven correct in 2008 when some states were allowed to move up their primaries (New Hampshire) without penalty and other states weren't (Florida and Michigan). Like the presidential elections, the Olympics come around every four years. The Democrats letting Iowa kick off each cycle would be like the Olympics allowing one country to forever host the games.



Fair is fair and it is past time that the primary process was put on a rotating schedule.



The party maintains:



The Democratic Change Commission will address three issues: 1) changing the window of time during which primaries and caucuses may be held 2) reducing the number of superdelegates and 3) improving the caucus system.



Considering that Bama stacked commission, the three 'issues' don't appear to be about helping the party members are the process. Number two, the superdelegates, is the best example.



The superdelegates, if they'd done the role they were created for, could have stopped the theft at the convention or before. But they refused to. Having pushed them around throughout 2008, Team Bama now wants to reduce them. No surprise there. And not a lot of sympathy from us because they refused to do their duty in 2008.

Winter Soldier covered by Free Speech Radio News

Thursday, June 25th, Free Speech Radio News featured a report on the latest Winter Soldier by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Click here to go directly to the segment. It's the must-listen radio moment for last week. Transcript below and illustrations of Ryan Endicott, Christopher Gallagher and Devon Read are Isaiah and Kat's which we used previously in " Winter Soldier Southwest."





Manuel Rueda: At home Iraq Veterans Against the War, a grassroots organization of vets opposed to US wars, continues to organize Winter Soldier hearings across the country. It´s a venue where veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan can tell stories from their war days, in a venue where veterans can tell stories from their war days in an environment that's safe and supportive. Leo Paz reports from Los Angeles.



Leo Paz: Ryan Endicott is a former Marine Corporal who did multiple tours in Iraq and returned to the US in 2006. He talked about what it's like for US marines to enforce martial law in a foreign country.







Ryan Endicott: Young boys 18 to 22 are having martial law over a group of people. It's complete oppression and it actually borders on the line of terrorism. I mean you strap dead bodies to your Humvee and drive around a city with it, that's terrorism. That's scaring a group of people into your beliefs -- into your belief system and structure and that's exactly what we're doing, we're terrorizing them.



Leo Paz: Corporal Endicott who was in Ar Ramadi, Iraq says these were not isolated incidents but daily occurrences.



Ryan Endicott: Every single day, every time you kick in a door and drag a man out of his bed in the middle of the night, that's terrorism. That's not -- we're not saving people that's not liberation. You don't liberate people by -- by kicking in their doors in and arresting people by mass numbers by shooting them that's not liberation, that's occupation.



Leo Paz: Some of the soldiers recalled the harsh treatment of Iraqi civilians stopped at the numerous checkpoints installed by the US throughout the country. Former Marine Corporal Christopher Gallagher compared the checkpoints in Haditha and Falluja to herding cattle.









Christopher Gallagher: If any Iraqis voiced their opinion for the way they were being treated the Iraqi police -- we had a checkpoint -- would handle the situation by harassing and assaulting them.



Leo Paz: According to Gallagher when the US military went door to door in the middle of the night, raiding homes to eliminate any resistance to the occupation, Iraqis held massive protests. Gallagher described the typical US response to this protest.



Christopher Gallagher: In 2004 the Iraqis would hold protests in the town of Haditha against the occupation typical response for this was to have fighter jets fly over the crowd and scare them away.



Leo Paz: Corporal Endicott questioned the sanitized version of war portrayed in mainstream American media.



Ryan Endicott: What should be on the media is the thousands of doors that are kicked in every day and the thousands of people that are terrorized by the US soldiers that are pumped up on adrenaline and just looking to kill people. I mean there's plenty of people that joined the military just to kill people.



Leo Paz: Endicott is one of many vets who denounced the indiscriminate shooting of civilians by US military. Devon Read a former Marine infantry Sgt who took part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 saw comrades anxious to fire at whatever came in their path. He told people at winter soldier about driving through Nazaria, speeding on the way to Baghdad, on the back of a Humvee and Marines in his unit shooting randomly at people in houses.







Devon Read: You know, none of the grunts that wanted to shoot people really cared about that. If it was an opportunity to shoot someone, they'd be shooting. So there's two of us on my side of the vehicle and three guys on the other side of the vehicle and we're facing outboard and suddenly the guys on the other side of the vehicle start shooting and I'm curious what the heck they're shooting at but I can't really look because I'm paying attention to my side and the other guy that's with me decides to switch sides, switches over to the other side and starts shooting also. And I finally take a moment to look and I'm looking and they're all just shooting wildly.



Leo Paz: Sgt. Reed was appalled by the random gunfire and wondered how many civilians had been shot by US troops that day.



Devon Read: There's, you know, people in windows way off in the distance, who really knows? Plenty of civilians with their -- poking their heads out of the window but its just someone to shoot at and there's shooting going on so no one's going to ask any questions if they start pulling the trigger too. So everyone starts shooting randomly and I talk to everyone after and none of them had any idea what they were shooting at or why.



Leo Paz: Many Vietnam war vets showed up to support the IVAW and the Iraq veterans in denouncing war and violence. Ed Garza an army gunner with the 173rd airborne Brigade still has nightmares forty years after the war.



Ed Garza: I remember the dead bodies and I remember seeing them and I remember we used to kill the Vietnamese and we'd put our patch on them To remind the other Vietnamese in the area that uh that we were there, the 173rd airborne. So those are some of the things I remember.



Leo Paz: According to a study conducted by Iraqi doctors, and published in a British medical journal, Iraqi dead are in the hundreds of thousands since the US invasion in 2003, Afghan civilians are estimated at more than 10,000 dead. Now into the 8th year of the war, more than 5,000 soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan according to the US military. Leo Paz, FSRN.

Unsolicited e-mails

Each week we get requests (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com) that we highlight this or that.



We try to work in what we can.



But to help everyone out, we'll try clarifying one more time.



We're a site for the left.



So something from ETAN will get highlighted with no problem.



If we don't know you or of you, we'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.



A number of right-wing outlets e-mail for highlights. In fact, we get repeated e-mails daily on that. We're a site for the left. But we will try to include a link when we can fit it in.



So, for example, check out Net Right Daily for the right-wing take on the day's news.



There are some things we're never interested in.



We're not interested in racist, homophobic or sexist articles, blog posts or events.



We are not interested in highlights that go against our basic premises.



For example, in 2007, Betty staked out the position of this site and this community: Barack Obama is not Black. Barack is bi-racial and he claimed that identity as late as this decade. Following his defeat when he attempted to challenge Bobby Rush, he suddenly became "Black." He's not Black, he's bi-racial. Most of the left may be willing to turn the clock backwards on strides made in diversity, but we're not.



Don't send us your stuff about Barack being Black. We're not interested. He's not. We don't knowingly repeat or highlight lies.



We're not interested in your attacks on Sarah Palin. Funny us, we didn't think it was humorous when you were writing little 'skits' of Hillary in bed when she was attempting to garner the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. We didn't appreciate your efforts to sexualize her. We're not interested in your efforts with Sarah Palin.



We're honestly embarrassed and ashamed of you and think, that like Michael Winship, you need to get over your sexual obsession with Sarah Palin. Not only does it creep us out, it blinds you to anything of value you might be able to say.



Let's stay with sex for a moment. We're really not interested in your garbage on Eliott Spitzer and have never been interested in it. Our position from the start was that a scandal was being used to 'assassinate' Spitzer who was a threat to runaway corporations. We said that then and ignored all the scandal copy produced. We continue to ignore it. If we were married to Spitzer, we might have an opinion on the issue. We're not and we're not interested in crawling through the dirty sheets with a bunch of pervs who should honestly try to get lives of their own.



We're interested in sexual hypocrisy. Meaning, a homophobic politician preaching the joys of same-sex fidelity caught in an affair with someone (same or opposite sex) might interest us for the juxtaposition aspect. Otherwise, we're not interested in crawling around dirty sheets with you. If that's your bag, well that says a lot about you, now doesn't it?



Ourselves we're not sexaully frustrated and don't need to obsess over the sex lives of others.



Moving along, we do not open attachments. That's true of all sites in this community.



We repeatedly wrote back last week asking for alternative e-mails and we're not doing that again. If you're silly enough to think any stranger would open your attachement, you really don't rate a reply of any kind.



If you think we have time for online chats, you're also mistaken. We don't. We spend less and less time online. There are very few sites worth reading anymore. Why? They drank the Kool-Aid and even though they're slowing awakening to the truth, it doesn't thrill us to watch them attempt to reposition themselves and pretend they weren't blindly cheerleading Barack for over a year. We don't go online to chat. We go online to read websites (non news-outlets) less and less. One exception is the ACLU's blog. We've all increased our visits to that site.



Lastly, if you're a blogger, and especially if you're considering packing it in, do not write us after you do so to complain that we never gave you a link. Assume we didn't know of you and e-mail us to ask for a link. We do try to work in links requested and actually manage to do so in many cases. It might mean that someone tosses out three things and the fourth one gets noted, but we do try to. The reasons it's not every time include: (1) we completely disagree with what you've written, (2) we loved what you wrote but (a) felt it was best for an article addressing that topic (b) which we wrote but (c) felt our article was trash and not worth publishing online. Two bloggers packed it in and we heard from them last week. No one would link to them. They were writing with no audience. Or that's how they felt. Had we heard from them before they decided to retire or quit and they asked for a link we would have tried to provide one.



The e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.

Question raised last week

If an angel gets their wings every time a bell rings, does a devil get an ulcer every time a pedophile dies?

Papuans being slaughtered

Sent in to the public e-mail account (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com).





West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) Statement on Sweep Operation in Puncak Jaya

Contact: Ed McWilliams, +1-575-648-2078
Octo Mote, +1-203-520-3055

June 22 - Disturbing information has reached WPAT from a variety of sources of a very serious situation now transpiring in Puncak Jaya, West Papua. A "sweep operation,' reportedly carried out by Indonesia's mobilized police or "Brimob," has killed several Papuans and led to the death of others. People's homes have been raided and burned and farm animals killed. Hundreds of Papuans have been forced from homes and have sought refuge in surrounding forests where some have already died due to a lack of food, shelter and access to medical care. Reportedly, seven young girls were taken hostage and raped. At least five villages are believed affected, but the military has also raided houses in Mulia, the Puncak Jaya district capital.

"Security" operations have been conduced in the Puncak Jaya district since April of this year though it appears these operations have broadened and become more violent since then.

In recent years similar "sweeps" conducted by the military, also lasting for months, have led to the death of hundreds of civilians displaced by the operations.

According to our information, West Papuans are falling victim to
rivalries among several different security forces of the army and the police in the area. They are deliberately provoking local resistance groups to engage in armed activities, perhaps as a way to ensure that the security forces continue to be well funded. This contradicts the decision by all West Papuan resistance groups to refrain from acts of violence and to focus on seeking dialogue with the authorities in Jakarta. The groups believe that this is the best way of reaching a solution to the many West Papuan grievances accumulated since their unlawful, coerced integration within the Indonesian Republic in 1969.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of recent events because of long-standing restrictions on travel to and within West Papua imposed by the Indonesian government and security forces as part of their occupation strategy.

We urge the U.S. Government and the international community to demand the following:

... an immediate cessation of the ongoing operations in the central highlands;

... full access to the affected region by Indonesian and international
humanitarian and human rights organizations to assist the besieged
civilian population, as well as by journalists;

... and an investigation by the Indonesian Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham) to determine who authorized and is leading the current operation.

The Quota Queen's on her head

Quota Queen. Gloria Steinem popularized the term Queen Bee to the point that it's in frequent use (as well as misuse) but Quota Queen?


A Quota Queen is a woman who's installed to provide cover for an organization that practices sexism. The Quota Queen exists so that the organization can point to her and say, "See, we support women's issues and women. She works for us."

The Quota Queen smiles brightly and no one's supposed to ask any pesky questions.

Meet Janine Jackson of FAIR, CounterSpin and Extra! -- the ultimate Quota Queen. She exists solely to cover for FAIR's inability to hire or promote women.

Quota Queen Janine Jackson read off a news 'critique' she found pithy on a CounterSpin episode broadcast June 19th: "One of the reasons some people think media sexism is largely a thing of the past is that they only look for certain kinds -- like demeaning treatment of women politicians. Not that that can't be found, but that overlooks the garden variety bias that can frankly permeate other kinds of coverage. Take, for instance, The Los Angeles Times, who as part of their coverage of a Comic-Con convention in San Diego, published a 'guide for girls' about the event. As noted by blogger Charlie Jane Anders, the feature starts out by assuring readers that, contrary to what you might think, the series of science fiction panels and events 'is not just for nerdy guys anymore. And it's not all just about the influx of squealing Twilight girls, either.' Yes, gee, in 2009, it is true that girls, too, are interested in this entire genre of entertainment, and, no, their interest isn't limited to squealing. But the piece goes on to emphasize which male stars will be at the convention for girls to admire, noting for example that 'Women will be rushing the stage, offering to do star Jake Gyllenhaal's laundry on those washboard abs that he acquired for the film Prince of Persia, since he spends much of it fighting, shirtless or both.' Okay, we get it. Or as Anders sums up: 'So girls, don't be intimidated by Comic-Con -- you can do Jake Gyllenhaal's laundry!' Silly? Sure. Also insulting. Ah, dumb stereotypes -- how can we miss them if they won't go away?"

As we noted last week, Quota Queen Janine was only suddenly stumbling upon sexism because so-called watchdog FAIR -- in all its forms -- hadn't called out David Letterman's rape 'joke,' didn't plan on calling it out and Janine was on the defensive. So she read her bad item. [How many times can you use "that" in one sentence? Janine can use the word four times in one sentence: "Not that that can't be found, but that overlooks the garden variety bias that can frankly permeate other kinds of coverage." Take "that," Janine.]

As telling as what she said was, what she didn't say was even more so. . . .

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The above is a teaser for next week's edition. Ava and C.I. wrote the above and they are steering the Independence Day edition (published next Sunday, July 5th, not Fourth) and it's going to be something to read.

Not just the paragraphs above, which we asked them to dash off due to the number of e-mails coming in wondering about the edition (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com), but many other features. They've got the edition pretty much mapped out. You won't want to miss it.

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report (with us in spirit), Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights. Illustration is the movie poster for The Hurt Locker just opened in Los Angeles and New York and opens July 10th in San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Oahu, Portland, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Minneapolis, Denver, Toronto and DC.




"I Hate The War" -- Most requested highlight of the week. C.I. remembers Farrah Fawcett.



"Gay and Lesbian Pride Month," "Farrah, LGBT pride month," "Stonewall and Beyond," "Pillow Talk," "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month," "Marge Maloney & Minnie Bruce Pratt, Glen Ford," "Not interested in Free Speech Radio News tonight," "Kenneth J. Theisen, Boston Phoenix,"
"Out FM""Sandra Bullock, John Kass" and "Roey Thorpe's a liar, a damn liar" -- June is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month and that's some of the community coverage last week.

"You water plants, you don't feed them questions" and "THIS JUST IN! WHITE HOUSE HAS PLANT!" -- Cedric and Wally cover Barry O's stage managed 'press' 'conference.'


"Bully is . . . petulance" -- Isaiah reaches into the archives to provide this classic from 2005.


"3 Bean Salad in the Kitchen" -- It's summer and Trina's readers are focused especially on foods they can fix for their children who are out of school due to summer.

"Blogging," "Farrah and childhood memories," "Comics, the disgusting Laura Flanders," "Naoki Urasawa's Monster" and "Out FM" -- Ruth is in Japan and Ann continues to cover for her. Ruth will return to blogging after July 4th. Ann has stated that when Ruth gets home she might need some time to adjust and get back into the groove and, if that's the case, Ann is happy to grab a few more days. Ann will also be subbing for Mike when he takes a week's vacation. Trina left for Hawaii yesterday and while she's on vacation, Jess will be filling in for her.

"Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Senate Foreign Relations Committee" and "Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity" -- C.I. and Kat report on Congressional hearings they attended.

"the laughs keep coming with gordo!," "gordon brown on the ropes," "gordon brown, wonder woman" and "the do-nothing gordo brown" -- Rebecca continues her coverage of Gordon Brown's slow self-destruction.

"Perv on the bench" & "THIS JUST IN! PERV IN THE ROBE!" -- what happens when you put porn addict Clarence Thomas on the bench? You get the sole vote in support of strip searching young girls.

"Sandra Bullock number one at the box office" -- Instead of a comic, Isaiah did an illustration last week to note Sandra Bullock's triumph.

"DMZ: The Hidden War," "gordon brown, wonder woman," "Naoki Urasawa's Monster," "Re-Gifters," "G.B. Trudeau Talk to the Hand!," "Heroes Volume Two," "Mark Evanier's Mad Art" and "Warren Ellis' No Hero, ACLU" -- Tuesday theme posts on comics.