A Note to Our Readers

Hey --

Long Sunday. We ditched mail bag and a number of other features to get something together in the limited amount of time before we had to catch our flight out of here.

Here's who worked 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 all of the above and Dallas for hunting down links and being a soundboard.

Here's what we've got.

Truest statement of the week -- Breslin telling it like it is.

Editorial: Impeach -- There really are no more excuses for the Democrats refusing to bring impeachment.

TV: The Soggy Katrina retrospectives -- Where's Lopez? That was Dona and my (Jim) question. Ava and C.I. wrote this during the time that we were editing the other pieces. When they were done they couldn't believe we were still editing. No Lopez this week. We were all on the road (along with Kat -- Wally joined up for some of the mid-week travel and speaking). Ava and C.I. caught the Katrina coverage and figured that having wasted their time on so much bad coverage, they could write about that. (We also think they're carrying the Lopez commentary over to El Espirito as Ava has threatened.) This is really amazing. We were expecting Lopez and for it to be light because we know how tired we all are. Instead, they provided a hard hitting commentary. If you're not someone who did the job needed, you'll probably read it and weep. (Hoprah!)


How Not To Stage A Rally -- We hadn't planned to come to Texas. Let us say first off, community members in the DFW area are committed, do care, are willing to work. And you made Dallas pleasurable (not just bearable) for our last minute Saturday visit and party. We grasp you are not to blame for the nonsense in Fort Worth and that's true of non-community members in the area as well. There was no leadership, there were no efforts to get out any news of the event and the 'media cooridnator' tended to piss everyone off across the board by ignoring attempts at contact. It's their failure. It's not the failure of the people of the DFW area. We're noting it and we went back and forth while writing this and while editing it. We kept coming back to one member who came all the way into DFW on Saturday from Chandler, Texas. (We don't know the county but it's outside Tyler. C.I. says it is not Smith County although Tyler is Smith County.) She was furious. She was furious with the wrong information about the trains, she was furious because there were no efforts throughout the week to connect with people. She said, "This happens over and over and Texas gets this reputation for not caring. You have to write about this. You have to do it so people don't read the news stories of the low turnout and think 'Well Texans don't care'." They do care. But 'leaders' who can't get their acts together hurt the entire peace movement. We're moving on before we tell you what we really think of those 'leaders'.

A Day in Dallas and time wasted at Parkland -- "Skanks"? That's not the term we used while writing. We couldn't think of a term. Betty came up with skanks and before she left (she and her oldest son are already en route back to Georgia), she told us she had no idea. "I think they're trashy, like hookers. Or sleazy." We don't care what they are, the word's perfect for the "VOLUNTEERS." Time permitting we'll go in and add two lines that accidently got lost during the editing process.

The GOP's new Larry Craig Diet -- Short feature! And do we have any illustrations? We were without our paint, et al. Without a scanner. So you've got us using older illustrations and public domain photos.

10 CDs -- As requested, it's back for this issue. Dona was watching the clock like a hawk.

Things to Watch -- Apologies to Kimberly Wilder, we meant to note the Green Party press release last week. We mean to do a lot. These are always a scramble.

Highlights -- Thank you to Mike, Kat, Elaine, Cedric, Wally, Rebecca and Betty for doing this feature. We appreciate their hard work.

We're headed home and that's going to be it. See you next week.


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