Sunday, March 04, 2007

A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
Sunday! Another edition.

Here's who did writing on this edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and 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,
and Wally of The Daily Jot

We thank them and we thank Dallas for his help with links and for being a sounding board. We thank Rebecca for photshopping illustrations. On those, we have fewer illustrations than usual because, as Dona pointed out, Rebecca's on the road and using a laptop. Let's not overload her with illustrations (or her laptop). So we've used some public domain stills from films. (The Earthworm Tractors is the film the still of Joe E. Brown used to illustrate AlterPunk is from.) We did do an illustration of Agustin Aguayo.

New content:

Highlights -- Mike, Cedric, Elaine, Wally, Betty and Rebecca wrote this and selected the highlights.

Last Senator Standing -- We were trying to use Russ Feingold for truest statement of the week and instead went another way.

The Nation Stats -- 4 men for every woman? Why does The Nation hate and silence women?
This installment, we cover two issues and we also listen to Troy's point (thanks for the point and thanks for writing, Troy) that it will be a nightmare when the last 2007 issue is noted and we have to start finding links to include every feature we've done all year noting the statistics. Be sure to check out the "photo" of Katrina vanden Heuvel with the mag's writers.

AlterPunk needs a Net Nanny -- Oh that AlterPunky Brewester. That Cindy Brady of the Faux Left. He's grabbed Linus' blanket. placed it over his head, and is in vigilante mode! He's proposed a Council of Bloggers which only demonstrates that he needs to stop watching Survivor.

Mini-mailbag -- We just did that. We were in this entry thinking we were done when Dona looked at her notes and saw Ty wanted a mailbag this edition. The idea was to answer some questions that had come in and to share some e-mails. We didn't have time. Two things we did note, the response to last week's TV commentary (it may be on the verge of becoming the most popular one Ava and C.I. have ever done) and Jason's e-mail because it does note who our intended readers are and it also notes that, for those without cable but who do get the hideous I network, Charlie's Angels should be starting up the Farrah Fawcett episodes this week.


The Nation magazine goes in search of America's youth -- If you thought the way students were ignored by The Nation was bad, wait until you see how awful things get when they try to lure them in as readers.

Quick news catch up -- We wanted to do a lengthy feature on the NGO report. Ty and Dona were both exhausted (probably most of us were, but they admitted it). So when it was four o'clock (seven in EST time zones), Dona noted we could keep on and be up early or we could take a three hour nap, get some rest and be posting our articles at the regular time. We went with the latter. Mini-mailbag was written just by the core six (because it was done after everyone was gone). This was two quick features that we paired with the NGO report comments so, as a single feature, it was worked on by everyone.

War resister Agustin Aguayo to be court-martialed Tuesday -- This was the piece we were working on when Dona made the suggestion. We were at a loss for an end to it. That was one reason we agreed with Dona that we should get some sleep.

TV: In Case of Emergency, Laugh! -- Rebecca photoshopped this last year when Ava and C.I. were thinking of doing the review (that includes a stamp Rebecca put on it). We really enjoyed reading this one and we think you will as well. Next week, they're hoping to tackle another sitcom.

Editorial: The wrath of the jealous 'Big Boys' -- The tough talking military, acting like Alex in Fatal Attraction. Hide the bunny rabbits! And leave Kyle Snyder alone!

That's it for us. See you next week.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.