Jim's World: Explaining Bad Reporting

Frances Robles. What an idiot.


Well it was a week. We can all say that. Frances Robles writes for The Miami Herald. I don't know how or if she reads. From all I can gather she's borderline illiterate.

The 'reporter' -- we use the term loosely -- falsely reported that the killer of Trayvon Martin called 9-11 46 times since the start of 2011. That was false.

That was incorrect.

It was alarmingly wrong.

Ava and C.I. reported here, weeks later, after no one could figure out how many calls or for what period, that it was 46 times from 2004. They did so by getting a copy of the records. Those are public records. They weren't in Florida, so they asked Wally's grandfather if he could do it and then fax the records to them which he so kindly did.

They did not pick up a number and run with it. They did not say, "Well I trust CNN!"

They knew this was a charged and overheated discussion in which far too many confusing details and facts and 'facts' had been offered.

So Ava and C.I. did what reporters are supposed to do: Seek primary research.

Having done that, they were able to tell you that in nearly 8 years, George Zimmerman called 9-11 46 times. They are also the only ones who raised the issue of race involved in the calls or noted that police reports never noted race unless the person was non-White. They told you a lot because they did the work required.

Frances Robles chose not to do the basic work required.

Here's what she originally 'reported' on March 17th:

Zimmerman called police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011 to report disturbances, break-ins, windows left open and other incidents. Nine of those times, he saw someone or something suspicious.


Please note, it was March 17th. The paper's changed the date to March 21st.


Now when you read those two sentences, tell me what you think?

As someone with a bachelor and masters degree in journalism, I know what you're supposed to think. You're supposed to believe the reporter did their own work.

For example, if I write that, it means I did what Ava and C.I. did: I got the 9-11 records and I counted the calls up myself and checked the dates.

If I did that, I could write that sentence.

If, however, I was told that by someone else, I need to note that, for example, "Sgt. Daffy Duck tells me that . . ."

If I fail to do that, I'm not just a glory hog pretending to do work I didn't, I'm also someone who now has to eat the blame pie all by myself because I made it appear I did the work.


Frances Robles didn't do the work necessary and should have noted in her 'report' that she got that information from a police officer -- excuse me, she got those numbers stated to her from a police officer. She never checked the 9-11 logs herself. It's public information, available to all, but she was too lazy to check it herself. She was apparently too vain to share the credit with the person who gave her numbers she never checked.

It is fine to say, "Sgt. Daffy Duck gave me these numbers." It's fine. If they're wrong, you print a correcting that Sgt. Duck gave the wrong numbers. But when you don't credit anyone, it's on you. And in a case like this, the paper should have demanded that every detail be checked.

That includes 46 calls. You don't single source. She could have quoted the officer or attributed the time line to the police department. She didn't do that. She was a glory hog and it bit her in the ass.

In an e-mail, Frances Robles wrote:


It was 4 pm March 20th when the PIO of the Sanford Police acknowledged that he had given me incorrect information. It was within 30 minutes that I sent a correction to our news editor. It ran the next day and all the online versions were fixed. If you are seeing other versions, they are "cached" older versions.



I'm sorry, Francie, when in your original report did you ever acknowledge that you were told numbers by a person and that you didn't do your own work?


Robles is also misleading in the above or doesn't know what she's talking about. (It certainly wouldn't be the first time Frances Robles didn't know what she was talking about.) As she would admit in e-mails to this site last week, the correction was not showing. And that's not on 'cache' versions. If she really thinks that and isn't trying to lie, she needs to try learning the meaning of a word before she uses it.

Now in e-mails to this site last week, she knew that the correction wasn't there. I could share those but I won't.

What I've shared above is an e-mail she wrote to a reader of Betty's blog who forwarded it to Third Estate Sunday Review on Saturday after the reader figured out Frances Roble was being "a real BITCH" about Betty.

Robles wrote this website repeatedly last week. We did not seek her out, we did not contact her. She initiated contact.

Our policy here is and has been: E-mails to this website, an online magazine, are treated as letters to the editor. You have no guarantee of privacy, you should not expect it.


I don't see that Ty gave permission to Robles in their repeated exchanges.

Frances Robles is, apparently, one of those people who never knows when to shut up and always has to have the last word.

If she'd learned to shut up, I wouldn't be writing this article.

But she has no privacy.

I devised the policy here, I'm the only one who can grant privacy. No one else.

It is my policy. From the start, I have stated this policy. I have repeatedly noted that we are not running a pen-pal site and we are not devoting or spending all our time in the e-mails. I've made it clear that what matters isn't how many e-mails we read or replied to but did we get content up on Sunday?

That's what we're judged by in the end.

If we did our job, good for us. If we didn't, we're at fault.

So Frances Robles should, quite frankly, back the hell off Betty. Unless she wants me to publish those e-mails that I gave no permission of privacy on. Or I could always also 'WikiLeak' them to another site if Frances would prefer.


She's a very stupid woman, this Frances Robles. Ty made clear that he knew Betty and yet she continued to trash Betty to him. Ty went on to explain he lives with Betty and she still continued to trash Betty to him.


Frances Robles is a vile and disgusting woman. She hates everyone from co-workers to other reporters judging by her e-mails. So Betty should consider it a badge of honor that Frances Robles hates her so much.

The Miami Herald should grasp a few things as well. First up, when you're told a number, a reporter notes they were told that number. They don't self-present as if they did the work themselves. Ava and C.I. did the work themselves but they're real reporters and strong women as opposed to back-biting little babies. Apply that last section as you see fit.

Secondly, the paper should ask why Frances Robles, fed a number, refused to verify it?

That number was significant in establishing George Zimmerman as a 'nuisance caller" in the words of Goldie Taylor on MSNBC. That number created an image of George Zimmerman in the public mind.

That number was incorrect. That number was false. The 'reporter' who originated that number is Frances Robles. It would appear to me that someone needs additional training.

In the murder of Trayvon Martin, every detail mattered. Real reporters should have done more than the usual verification and vetting. They should have used great care.

But had Robles done even the minimum required, she would have known that the number was false. She refused to do even the basic work required.

It was much easier for a police officer to tell her it was 46 calls from January 2011 to February of this year. It was so easy just to run with that, to fail to verify. It didn't matter to her whether it was factual or not, it just mattered that she get it into print. And apparently that she get it into print as her own work which would explain why she failed to credit the police department with the number and instead wanted to act as if she'd done the basic work required of a journalist.

Betty's not a journalist and doesn't pretend to be. She has an online site where she mainly writes about her kids, music and TV shows. She'll note politics from time to time and she'll note the Iraq War. Mainly, though, she is writing about her kids and entertainment. The exception to that is when non-Black 'helpers' decide to stick their nose into a racial issue that has to do with the Black community and these 'helpers' then get facts wrong. When that happens, Betty will call them out. She is Black (she self-identifies as Black, not as African-American) and she doesn't tolerate distortions, nor should she have to.

She rightly called out Robles and The Miami Herald. it's not Betty's fault that Robles and the paper couldn't get their act together. (Until Ty wrote the paper at the start of last week and asked them to please fix the error or he would be writing about it here today -- that's what prompted everything, let's be clear on that.) It's not Betty's job, when reviewing a bad piece of journalism to contact the journalist.

We've had idiots e-mail that to us before here. That's not how it works. When you're offering a critical appraisal, you are supposed to have a healthy detachment and distance so that you can be impartial and fair to the work. Barring that, you do what Ava and C.I. do which is "a friend with the show tells us . . ." You disclose your links to what you're reviewing.

Betty did what she's supposed to do. Frances Robles didn't like that Betty called her a Media Whore.

Frances Robles, you are a MEDIA WHORE. You are that because you were supplied a number, fed a number, and you didn't check it out. If you'd done the basic vetting or if you'd merely credited the number to the police department, it wouldn't be the problem it is.

But it is a problem and it is your problem and the paper's problem.

The paper needs to seriously examine both your work and your work ethic.

And you need to stop trying to e-mail Betty, you need to stop trashing her, you need to take a hard look at yourself because you have made yourself into a joke -- and a dirty joke at that.

That's how I see it in Jim's World, which, Francie, is an opinion piece and you can kiss my ass.

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

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/17/v-fullstory/2700249/trayvon-martin-shooter-a-habitual.html#storylink=cpy

Carole King's Conditioned Role and Desire (Ava and C.I.)

No one is mad at Carole King for what she wrote about them -- or didn't write about them -- in her just released A Natural Woman: A Memoir. They're just mad on behalf of someone else. Saturday night*, as the calls started coming in, it was really clear everyone was upset but, again, on behalf of someone else.



Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were the most cited as slighted and they do make for the most convincing case. It was, after all, Cynthia and Barry who would drive out from NYC to New Jersey to help Carole when her husband Gerry Goffin was threatening to kill himself or possibly kill someone else. They were, as one record label exec put it on the phone last night, "The Dawn Patrol on Gerry for Carole." (The Dawn Patrol refers to a group of people who took care of Judy Garland when she was making her CBS TV series in the early sixties.) And certainly, Cynthia helped out in other ways as well. Some might argue, "Well Carole's not dwelling on the negtive." That excuse flies out the window when she writes about Gerry being institutionalized and receiving electro-shock treatments.

And, besides, even if she wanted to omit those details, was it really fair of her to refer to Cynthia and Barry as just a couple who wrote songs together? They wrote "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." They wrote "On Broadway." They wrote "Walking In The Rain." And so, so much more. None of that is noted in the text of this book. Mann and Weil, one of the longest enduring songwriting teams, show up on page 94:


Gerry and I competed the most fiercely against Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Each couple came to think of the other as "the other married songwriting team," and each couple was intimidated by how talented the other couple was. Whether in spite of that or because of it, we four have remained friends over many decades. What we shared was unique. We Aldon songwriters may have thought of ourselves as mortal enemies when it came to getting a follow-up, but we were a tightly knit brother- and sisterhood of friends, colleagues, peers, and, most of the time, allies.


Carole wrote or co-wrote many hits including "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman" which the book takes it's name from. However, to read the entire book is to learn that, in 1982, Cynthia Weil wrote "One to One" with Carole. No other song Cynthia co-wrote is ever mentioned. This despite the fact that Cynthia and Barry won the Oscar for "Somewhere Out There," that their other hits after the sixties include "Don't Know Much," "I Will Come To You" and "Here You Come Again." From the sixties through today, all of those monster hits, classics that nearly the entire world can hum along with or sing, are ignored to note instead what Carole asserts was a top 40 hit in 1982. (Possibly she means the adult contemporary chart because it did not make what is generally considered to be the "top forty" pop chart.)

Another notable silence is with regards to Howard Greenfield. A mogul wondered why she ignored Howie after stating that everyone at Aldon was a family? Howie appears on four pages of Carole's book, two as Neil Sedaka's co-writer (just noting one of their songs) and two more pages where he's also in single-sentences this time noting that he wrote with Carole. As the mogul pointed out, Carole claimed to know nothing of gay men or lesbians. This is in 1958, she claims she didn't know women were the victims of violence and "I was also unaware that some teenagers had feelings for others of the same gender." She'd learn "years later" about women and violence and, presumably, about gays and lesbians.

But she knew Howie. Howie was not in the closet. He was openly gay at a time when no one was. Carole knew him through Neil Sedaka before 1958. She knew him as a peer and a songwriter at Aldon starting in 1959. That's not "years later." And it's really sad that a trailblazer like Howie gets ignored in the book -- especially when Carole wants to claim to have never known about such things. [Greenfield wrote the lyrics to many hits including "Oh! Carol" (Neil Sedaka's 1958 hit about Carole King), "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do," "Love Will Keep Us Together," "Where The Boys Are," "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," "Crying In The Rain" (with Carole for The Everly Brothers in 1962), "Calendar Girl" and more.]

Ourselves, we were kind of shocked that the woman who co-wrote "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" in 1962 (with first husband Gerry Goffin) would claim it would be "years later" before she was aware that women were the victims of violence. Strangely, that song's never once mentioned in the book though she does detail abuse from her third husband (Rick Evers) in the late seventies. No one deserves to be the victim of domestic abuse but when you've co-written a song glamorizing it, maybe you need to write about your own role in society's denial -- long denial -- of abuse?

That's not the sort of book Carole's written.

And people reading for answers will be disappointed as well. The notoriously press-shy Carole kind-of opens up but does nothing to ease years of confusion. For example, anyone wondering why she appeared in episode 120 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show ("Anyone Who Hates Kids And Dogs," first aired on CBS March 8, 1975) will be as puzzled as they are when they come across the broadcast and see her in the role of Aunt Helen. Just as puzzled as they are over the fact that Carole chose to be billed as "Carole King Larkey." Charles Larkey was Carole's second husband. Their marriage, as she notes in the book, soured in 1974 and the divorce came in 1975. So why in the world did she choose to be billed with his last name?

It's apparently a mystery that will never be solved or, in A Natural Woman, even mentioned. Tapestry, the 1971 album that took her from the woman who co-wrote "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "The Locomotion," "Go Away Little Girl" and more and turned her into a successful singer-songwriter, results in a highly frustrating series of chapters as you realize she doesn't remember half of what took place. So she talks about playbacks and not performances or how she could see Joni Mitchell and James Taylor whispering and she wondered what was being said? And that's the most she ever writes about an album. Some albums are reduced to a single sentence.


What she does bother to mention is written in a fresh and lively voice for which she should be applauded. A first time book author finding a voice isn't that common. A celebrity writing their own book (with no apparent ghost writer) often struggles with sounding pompous or simple-minded. So Carole's sure and steady touch is no minor accomplishment.

She often makes moments seem real and alive. This is especially true when recounting how she had to battle the state of Idaho in court repeatedly when they attempted to call a private road on her property a public one. Those pages are probably the strongest of the book because they give Carole something to really rage against.

She doesn't rage elsewhere in the book.

Everything's great and everyone's wonderful. She manages that feat of Pollyanna-ism by simply rendering major people in her life invisible. Phil Spector? Carole hated him. They fought bitterly. She fought with Gerry over Phil claiming credit on the songs she and Gerry wrote together. Carole stood up to Phil at a time when few people did. (Cynthia Weil always stood up to Phil.) Now days, Phil Spector doesn't control the music industry. Today, he's infamous for his abuse and torture of Ronnie Spector (the Ronettes lead singer who made the mistake of marrying Phil) and for being in prison currently after being convicted of murdering Lana Clarkson. And despite Carole knowing him and working with him for years in the sixties, he shows up only in a single sentence, "More recently he [Lester Sill] had been the 'Les' of Philles Records (Spector being the 'Phil') and the music supervior of the Monkees' movie, Head."


As this sort of thing happens repeatedly throughout the book, you sort of get the feeling that if she'd spent years in the Philippines with the Marcoses, she'd work in a sentence about Imelda's lovely shoe collection. Or maybe she would have developed a crush on Ferdinand Marcos and written an unbelievable portrait of him the way she has James Taylor?

It's a real shame Carole never slept with 'baby' James. If she had, her romantic and child-like view of him would have died real quick. James can't stand women, he's treated all of his wives poorly, the only ex-girlfriend he doesn't trash is the one who left him (Joni Mitchell) and was smart enough not to cater to him. (The minute you cater to James is the minute you cease to be a person in his eyes.)

Reading Carole's James stories, after you shake off the school girl crush that she can't, you realize she doesn't know a thing about this man she claims to be friends with. She has no insight into him or awareness of him or even fond shared memories unless you're talking memories located in studios and concert halls.

That's because there is no there there. At some point Carole may realize that. Maybe not. She's seventy-years-old and hasn't realized it so far.

Carole did know -- and realize -- not to mention Carly Simon. For those who don't know, a ground-rule for any JT interview is that you may not bring up the words "Carly Simon." Though Taylor is the one who ended the marriage (via drugs among other things), he likes to play injured party (he does the same with regards to his second marriage), so he has insisted that no one discuss Carly Simon, the woman he was married to for nearly a decade and the woman who gave birth to two of his children, the woman who co-wrote songs with him (sometimes credited, sometimes not, yeah we outed that truth), the woman who sang on many of his songs. You can't bring her up or he will walk out on an interview. He's also attempted to tell Carly that she can never mention him. (She attempted to follow that edict briefly before realizing she had no reason to cater her life or public remarks to an ex-husband.)

Carly and Carole weren't especially close. (Carole did sing backup on Carly's 1975 hit "Attitude Dancing.") But considering their conversations about children (much deeper than any conversation Carole ever had with James), it's rather surprising that Carole's so quick to follow James' command.

Surprising until you grasp that Carole's a sad seventy-year-old woman.

Not "sad" as in depressed. Carole loves her life. But "sad" as in kind of pathetic that a woman at her age still defines the world on male terms.

That is the whole point of A Natural Woman in Carole's mind. A natural woman, you understand, caters to a natural man. And that's the story of Carole's life. She's damn lucky that, for all of his LSD trips, Gerry Goffin was a good-hearted and usually level-headed man. Otherwise, what she went through in marriage number three could have started in her first marriage.

There are telling moments throughout the book. High school is nothing but Carole being upset that the boys don't notice her and overhearing conversations about how boys talk about girls. Decades later, when high school alumni come backstage at a concert, all Carole can focus on even then is male approval and male gaze. It's as though in her mind she was the only girl in an all boy school.

Aldon was a songwriting stable with a number of women. Not just Cynthia Weil but also Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager among others. In fact, Toni and Carole Bayer wrote the classic "A Groovy Kind of Love." Toni is mentioned in a rambling sentence (pages 128 to 129) that notes her and four other people but never manages to identify her as a songwriter or a singer. Despite knowing Carole Bayer before she was Carole Bayer Sager or Carole Bayer Sager Bacharach, despite knowing her since the 60s, Carole King never mentions her until page 428 ("with encouragement from my friend Carole Bayer Sager," King decided to produce her own 1997 album). Carole Bayer Sager gets another mention two pages later when she's listed as one of the writers of Carole King's "You Can Do Anything."

"A Groovy Kind Of Love" is never mentioned nor any of the other hits Carole Bayer Sager co-wrote including "That's What Friends Are For," "Stronger Than Before," "Through The Eyes Of Love," "Nobody Does It Better," "Don't Cry Out Loud," "Heartbreaker," "You're The Only One," "I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love," "Anyone At All" (sung by Carole King on the You've Got Mail soundtrack), "It's My Turn," "Ever Changing Times," "Making Love," "On My Own," "When I Need You," "Heartlight," "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)," etc. All a reader of the book will know about Carole Bayer Sager is that she was King's friend who suggested King producer her own 1997 album and, apparently as a thank you, King gave her a songwriting credit.

Contrast that with the lengthy sections on Paul Simon, Paul Newman, John Lennon . . . In fact, she calls the chapter "John and Yoko" but she doesn't even talk to Yoko (her third husband does). She has no time for Yoko.

And that's pretty much the 'natural' story of Carole's male-defined life.

Carole's male-defined life included ignoring her stage fright when James Taylor needed her to open for him at the Troubadour, especially when she was promised all these male musicians on stage with her. As she was working her way through her set (with no stage patter), everyone was told they had to leave because someone had called saying there was a bomb in the club. Carole piped up, "As long as it's not me." That elicited laughter and Carole falsely states that's when she realized she only had to be authentic on stage. That wasn't authenticity, that was clowning.

And if she's going to claim she was authentic on stage following that moment, shortly afterwards, she'll have her Carnegie Hall concert (June 18, 1971, released on Sony's Legacy label in 1996) where she'll declare of Laura Nyro, "a great lady if ever there was one." Laura's now dead. Yesterday, Laura was (finally) inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Bette Midler who noted "love was the main thing" in Laura's art. Laura appears no where in Carole's book. Before there was Carole, there was Laura Nyro. Writing songs, singing, playing the piano. And at one point in her life, at least when she needed to come across with Laura's hometown audience, Carole could sing the woman's praises onstage. But there's no mention of Laura in the book. Carole wrote "Up On The Roof" with Gerry Goffin and her books notes that the Drifters had a hit with it on one page and she spends page after page noting James Taylor later sang it. But she never notes that Laura took it into the top 100 in 1970 and that Laura doing that, Laura recording it, was a major move and one that gave Carole more cachet in 1970 than anything else.

Joni Mitchell gets a few mentions, mainly for sketching King's daughters. No Carly, no Laura, no female singer-songwriters who emerge after 1980. But she's got Bono in there, praising Bono. She's got all sorts of men in her book.

In 1996, Allison Anders wrote and directed the classic Grace of My Heart which was about a Carole King type songwriter who (like Carole) became a singer-songwriter. Unlike Carole, Denise Waverly (played by Illeana Douglas) was actually from a wealthy family. That was among the many, many differences. Carole King was offended by the movie, by this film that is not based on her life and does not pretend to tell her life story. Having read her book, we have to conclude that what really offended her was that Denise wasn't male defined and that she and fellow songwriter Cheryl Steed (played by Patsy Kensit) were not just working for the same publishing house but were also good friends who meant a lot to one another.

No non-blood relative female means anything to Carole in this book except her housekeeper who makes everything perfect when she agrees to move from New Jersey to California. Toni Stern, who co-wrote many of Carole's solo artist hits, is now a professional painter. There's no time for that in the book or for much of anything about Toni. Carole does want you to know, "The Carpenters' performance of 'It's Going to Take Some Time' was Toni's and my first joint appearance at the top of the charts."

Well that's good.

Except number 12 on the top forty isn't "the top of the charts."


And a single written by Carole and Toni that was released in April 1972 doesn't come before a Carole and Toni song that hit number one in 1971 ("It's Too Late"). In fact, "It's Too Late" is on 1971's Tapestry. "It's Going to Take Some Time" appears first on Carole's Tapestry follow up (Music, released December 1971). So it's kind of a big mistake. Not the only one, but the most obvious one.

And it calls into question her re-telling and the framing device she uses. Carole got a print out of important events of each year from the fifties on up. And she worked from that list of events (without mentioning the list) to construct her book. Those who don't realize what's going on have praised that device -- even though it's very clear that Carole doesn't know the first thing she's writing about when she starts invoking those events. That true of 1980 and it's true when she wants to 'talk the 60s' and informs you that if you spoke out against the government, you would be targeted. We applaud David Harris for refusing to comply with the draft. But that's what he was arrested for, not for speaking out. There were many people who spoke out against the government and got targeted for it. Carole seems unaware of them. Again, while we applaud David's civil resistance, we are aware, as was he, that what he was doing was a federal crime. That's very different from, for example, Jane Fonda being a put on enemies list because she speaks out against the war. (Carole's anti-war stance is only with regards to Vietnam. She makes no comment on the Iraq War though she does let you know she's pro-tsunami relief, pro-Haiti relief and pro-Hurricane Katrina relief -- she supports all the easy and non-controversial causes.)

Carole wrote this book for one reason. No, not money. She doesn't need it and she's never done anything for money since Tapestry was first released. She wrote it because another recent book was a best seller and purported to tell her life story and the life stories of Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. That book hinted at a few things and Carole's attitude, after years of keeping a firm wall around her private life, was, 'If somebody's going to start talking about this, I'm putting it out there on the record to get it right.' In that regard, she and her book are a huge success. In getting another woman in music to tell her story, the book is a huge success.

But it's a huge disappointment that she cares so little for other female songwriters or female performers. She'll argue she wrote about Aretha. Yes, she did. Several pages about a woman she never met recording one of Carole's big hits. The women she knew, the ones who were part of the same scene, her peer group? She's got no belief in sisterhood. And if you're not getting how male defined she is, she repeatedly refers to the feminist movement as "women's lib." "Women's lib" is insulting shorthand developed by enemies of women's liberation to demean and put down the movement.

But of all the women she short changes, the one she short changes the most is named Carole King. Opening for Taylor at the Troubadour at the start of the seventies, she notes, "Sitting up again, I ventured a shy smile over my right shoulder to acknowledge the audience members who would mostly see my back because I was facing the other way." And that pretty much describes the book. Anything of great consequence about her art is going to be buried because she's going to face the other way and play it shy and modest. If Carole King had given one lengthy interview in her hey-day, this book wouldn't have been accepted by any publishing house. But because the tales -- often charmingly told -- are new, they're treated as deep and insightful. They largely aren't and that has to do with Carole's refusal to honor women and her embarrassment or shame of women goes a long way towards explaining why she herself doesn't take center stage in a book labeled a memoir.




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* The calls started coming in after one of us (C.I.) mentioned at The Common Ills that we'd be reviewing this book and offering a critical appraisal. The reason there are nearly three hours between that entry and the second entry is because the phones did not stop ringing as various friends -- producers, singers, songwriters, label execs, etc. -- wanted to weigh in on the book and they were all weighing in about how someone else was wronged in the book. One of us (C.I.) knows Carole King. One or both of us know Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Ronnie Spector, Carole Bayer Sager, Cynthia Weil, Barry Mann, Gerry Goffin and C.I. knew Laura Nyro.

Jess's Take on A Natural Woman

Carole King's new book is A Natural Woman. Carole's one of those people I grew up listening to so when Jim announced Saturday evening that the Carole King piece this edition would be written by Ava and C.I., I was a little ticked having spent the whole week reading the 450-page volume. With Ava and C.I.'s encouragement, I'm doing a short piece focusing on the book's biggest weakness.

No, not James Taylor. How anyone could be impressed with that strutting fool is beyond me. But I'm referring to the fact that Carole King doesn't grasp MP3s.

She's not just a recording artist. She's also the head of (yet another) label releasing her own work. So she should have some grasp on the issue or else shut up about it.

The words Napster never appear and I'm sure, were she to read this right now, she'd scratch her head and say, "Huh?"

At points in the books she rails against MP3s as a format. At other points, she grasps that downloads can be purchased. This isn't a minor matter because, this month in the US, digital downloads surpassed CDs in sales.

As a recording artist and as one now releasing her own product, Carole King should brush up on the basics. She might also attempt to review the work of Janis Ian on this subject or even call Janis for a tutorial.

Now let me be the heretic and explain the other reason her nonsense pissed me off. She wants you to listen to the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" -- does she really believe most people haven't heard that song -- and download it, but pay for it.

Is she aware that when the US finally included music as a copyright, it was for one period of 28 years with a 14 year extension after that?

I ask that because I'm really shocked at how these people who made money -- made good money -- in the sixties while, for example, Little Eva got pennies seem to think that they're entitled to a lifetime copyright. By law, they are. They now can hold a copyright on a song they wrote for their lifetime plus seventy years.

"Good Vibrations" came out forty-six years ago. While I don't illegally download, I'm really not concerned as to whether or not Brian Wilson and Mike Love are still getting royalties on that song. Again, Little Eva got paid for the original chart life of "The Locomotion." Songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin have been paid year after year on every sale and every airplay of "The Locomotion." In what world is that fair?

The current efforts at attacking internet freedom such as SOPA are part of the lobbying that never ends by the entertainment industry. Apparently unable to create anything new of value, they have to continue to gnaw on the bones of the past. That is how you go from a musical copyright lasting 28 years with one 14 year extension to a musical copyright lasting a lifetime plus seventy years.

It's as if the whole notion of public domain has vanished, one more of the public commons steadily taken away.

Ava's Confession

"The time has come to talk of many things: Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax -- Of cabbages -- and kings." That's from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" (Through the Looking-Glass). Dona's always said that when we fold shop, we'll make that quote the top thing on the page. And a quote from Charlotte's Web the last thing.

But we're not folding shop. I am, however, talking about something. Jim wants to call this "Ava's Confession" and probably will (I really don't give a damn about the headline). But I don't feel it's a confession because I don't feel that my private life is anyone else's business.

Ty had an exchange with a piece of trash posing as a reporter. The trash just wanted to trash Betty. I've read the e-mails. Before reading the e-mails, I'd heard from Dona that Ty had tried to be very nice to the reporter and had answered questions, etc., etc.

My only question was: Did he tell her about my baby?

No, he didn't.

Then I could breathe a sigh of relief.

But it'll come out at some point and I always planned to bring it up on my terms so I'll write about it now.



If you read the community newsletters, this is old news. But not everyone of our readers is a member of The Common Ills community.

People like Kat and Mike and Trina have taken up for me in recent months at their site noting that I was dealing with a family issue or was very busy in the offline world.

That is correct.

I gave birth to a wonderful little girl.

That's why I haven't been subbing at Trina's site very often to cover Congressional hearings.

The full story.

I got pregnant.

I thought we were being careful.

But Jess and I only see other on the weekends. He's doing law during the week, I'm on the road speaking out against the wars. We see each other on the weekends. We're usually all over each other and both of us can get a little over enthusiastic and a condom can break as we found out.

I didn't realize I was pregnant until C.I. looked at me one day and said, "Ava, you need to go to the doctor, you're pregnant." She could see it in my face. I laughed, "Pregnant, yeah, right!" And then I thought, "How late is my period?" Really late.

So I whisper to Kat, "Get me an EPT!"

I didn't want to be pregnant. I didn't think I was pregnant and I didn't want C.I. to even think I thought I was pregnant.

Kat didn't tell anyone and we did the test together. And I said, "I don't believe it. I'm going to go buy another test." At which point, Kat tells me she bought three. So we do the other one and I don't need the third one, I accept reality.

It was a huge shock to me because I had assumed I'd have some kids in my mid-thirties if at all.

So now I'm pregnant and trying to figure that out.

I make the mistake of telling my older sister who naturally tells my entire family starting with my parents.

This is so great, this is so wonderful -- I'm told -- we all love Jess and you'll be so happy together and let's figure out the wedding and --

Stop.

I don't believe in marriage.

Stop?

Try "Crash."

Am I keeping the baby? Sure. Why not? It wasn't a planned pregnancy but being a mother doesn't cause the problems for me that it would other women. I have money so that I don't have to work, there won't be economic worries and that's probably the most stressful thing about most pregnancies, worrying about where the money will come from and how the bills will be paid.

Jess knows my feelings towards marriage. Longtime readers of this site will remember they popped in a roundtable here in the first or second year and Jess was rather surprised that I didn't believe in marriage and didn't plan on getting married. That was years ago. He's had plenty of time to get used to it.

What I couldn't get used to was my parents. In fairness, my mother took it slightly better. She wasn't thrilled but took the attitude of, "When have we ever been able to talk you into anything? You're going to do what you're going to do." And she was right.

My father, however, took the attitude of trying to guilt me in any number of ways including that someday he's going to die and that may be before "you come to your senses," so I might get married someday, after he's dead, and won't I feel awful then?

To which I replied, "Daddy, of course I'm going to feel awful when you're dead. It won't take a wedding to make miss you."

He did not appreciate my logic.

After various other attempts by him to make me realize he would be dead someday, he switched tactics to the child -- whom he was (wrongly) convinced would be a boy. "How will your child deal with the shame?"

I don't feel there's any shame. We are a Catholic family, yes. But I really think is the 21st century and I think we've all moved on past the notion that you have to be legally married to someone to have a baby or the baby is illegitimate. Certainly, so-called 'legitimacy' didn't prevent Barack Obama from becoming president. (In the eyes of US law, his parents could not have been married even if they had a wedding ceremony. When Barack Sr. arrived in the US, he was already married to a woman in Kenya. Bigamy is illegal in the US. Anyone who is married to more than one person at the same time is considered, by the law, to only be married to the first partner they wed.)

There was never any question that Jess would be in the picture. As some have noted at their sites, I purchased a house near C.I.'s (same street, we can walk to each other's home) in the Bay Area. Jess, Dona, Jim and Dona & Jim's baby live there. Should Jess and I break up and not be able to continue to live together and I not want the house, I'd give it to him in full. If we broke up and I did want the house, I'd pay him half the value of the house. That's because I bought the house but he made the house. I'm on the road. He's the one who oversees it. (And thank you to C.I.'s house keeper who helped Jess interview people to hire for the lawn and cleaning, etc.) If it's a home, it's because of Jess. Not me. It's our home together and if we broke up and needed to live apart, he would either get the house in full or get half the value.

So my parents were freaking out (especially my father and my oldest sister) and it was becoming a real problem.

At which point, Jess proposed.

He flashed an expensive ring and asked me to marry him and I told him, "I can't believe your doing this. You now how I feel about marriage."

At which point, he told me, "I wasn't finished. I'm asking you to do me the honor of both marriage and divorce."

Yes, that way my father could stop freaking out. We would get married and we would get divorced.

Which is what we did. I was in the hospital after giving birth when we started the paperwork for the divorce.

That's not meant as an insult to Jess. We are a couple. But I don't believe in marriage.

So there needed to be a wedding. And my parents wanted a big one but quickly learned that I didn't. And that if they wanted to attend, it would be small and private, no engraved invitations, no announcements. I was doing this mainly because for them (also for Jess who figured a way to please us all) and if they couldn't appreciate that, then I would be doing for them but without them.

We had 200 people. (Trust me, that's a small wedding. If you knew what my father wanted, you would realize that immediately.) We did it in the middle of the week. There were no announcements in the papers. It was family on my side and on Jess' side and it was our friends who could make it during the middle of the week. And Jess had to be in court the next day so there wasn't a honeymoon. We still plan on having that honeymoon. Yes, we are divorced now, but we do plan on taking that honeymoon and we've got it scheduled for July right now.

Now all the above? Even the birth. None of it stopped me or slowed me down.

Unlike Dona, I had a very easy pregnancy. She had morning sickness morning, noon and night. She was always throwing up. And her ankles were so swollen. (As she's written of here.) My 'morning sickness'? I had a morning where I burped repeatedly for three hours straight. Loud belches. Couldn't stop. That was the closet thing to an incident of morning sickness.

It was a breeze and I was determined that it would be. I think maintaining the speaking schedule that Kat, Wally, C.I. and I keep helped a great deal. It allowed me to focus on something else and to stay busy and the time flew.

It's a little different now. Just a little.

When we're speaking, it's not different at all. I take her with me on the road and one of us -- Wally, Kat, C.I. or me -- is holding her while we're speaking with various groups about the wars. She's a happy baby who gets bored if we're home on a Monday. If it's a holiday or somehow Dona's managed to schedule us a Monday off so that we're home that extra day, my daughter will fuss and fuss until you take her to the car and take her somewhere. That is normal to her. And I'm thrilled by that.

Dona and Jim have a beautiful girl (she looks just like Dona -- Jim agrees with that). And I know her daughter and my daughter will be great friends, lifelong friends and I'm so glad of that and so glad that they will be raised differently. That's not an insult to Dona. Dona does a great job with her baby. But I don't want my daughter exposed to sameness. I want her friends to ideally bring a different experience to the table so that my daughter knows about more than just her own life. And like Dona and I bonded over our differences first semester in college, hopefully our daughters will as well.


So my baby's going to spend as much time on the road as possible. She'll see the country and be used to being mobile.

But things are different now. The speaking's the same. But I can't carry her into a hearing with me. If she's sick (or just possibly sick), I'm staying with her. If she's not sick, my mother's watching her. (My mother started looking for a place in the DC area shortly after she learned I was pregnant. She bought a house two blocks from C.I.'s. She gets out schedule from Dona and leaves NYC for DC to be there when we are.) (When my father sees the place, he will be surprised. This is the first home she's decorated solely based on her tastes. It's very lovely. My parents have a lovely home in NYC and in California as well. But those were decorated with an eye towards what my father would like as well. This house she's decorated solely on what she likes.)

So there are times when I can't write about a hearing because I'm not there. There are times when I am there but when the evening rolls around, I just want to play with my daughter. There are times when I'm in the hearing but I find myself texting my mother to ask her what they're doing? And I'm focused on that and not what's going on in the hearing.

So I haven't subbed for Trina much since I gave birth.

And because I'm not doing it, Kat and Wally skip covering the hearings a lot of the time. If they covered it and I didn't, even more people would have been wondering why I wasn't? As it is, there are e-mailers convinced I'm mad at Trina or Trina's mad at me and that's ended my ever subbing for her again.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Trina. She's raised 8 kids and is now helping to raise her granddaughter. She is both a source of inspiration and information. I value her so much. Rebecca's daughter is the same age as Trina's granddaughter. She's also full of helpful advice (but only when asked). Fridays, when we get to Trina's, I don't see my baby except from a distance. You've got Trina, Rebecca, Ruth, Elaine, Marcia, Stan and Mike holding her and playing with her. During the week, I've got Wally, Kat and C.I. and, if we're in DC, my mother. (Or if we're in NYC. As we were for the United Nations Security Council hearing last week. If we are in NYC, Dad works from the home because he has to have to his granddaughter around him.)

I am very lucky that I don't have to worry about a number of things other mothers my age have to. That's both due to money and due to friends and family. On Sundays, Tia Rita (my mother's sister) arrives at 8:00 am and says, "Where's my baby!" And watches her the entire day. Which is good because Third is an all night writing edition (one I loathe but that is how we decided to do it) and I'm exhausted Sunday morning. At home, I also have Ty, Dona, Jim and Betty as resources and I thank them for that. (Jess, of course, as well but he's the father. It's expected that he will be there for his daughter. But I will thank him here. Thank you, Jess.)

That's the only secret I feared being exposed. I planned to write about it but was going to wait until this summer (right before the honeymoon). Having written about the baby, let me make clear that Jess can anytime he wants. He may have wanted to before but been respecting my wishes. But since I've let the cat out of the bag, if he wants to, he can now write whatever he wants to about the above (the baby, the pregnancy, the wedding, the divorce, anything).

Mailbag: Our readers sound off

Loraine M. e-mailed to say, "I have sometimes disagreed with articles or points here but I've understood the nature of the disagreement and taken it in stride. That is not the case with Ava and C.I.'s 'TV: Cable Nation's New Model' which I am furious with or, more to the point, I am furious with this note added last Friday --

It was actually added Thursday and here's the note:

[Ty note: 4-12-2012, since Ava and C.I. wrote this article, The Miami Herald has advised that they have corrected the error several times; however, some computer glitch keeps losing the correction. Frances Robles and the paper are aware of the error and have done their part to correct it. The problem's on the technical side. Ava, C.I. and I note our sympathy for Ms. Robles and the newspaper and hope technical issues are resolved so that they are not blamed for an error that they have tried to correct repeatedly. Our attitude here is that anyone can make a mistake -- and we often do -- but you should attempt to correct it when you do. The Miami Herald has repeatedly attempted to correct the error.]

Back to Loraine, "It does not belong in Ava and C.I.'s article. I appreciate that Ty, Ava and C.I. are trying to be kind to a stupid whore named Frances Robles. But Ava and C.I. reported on the Trayvon Martin coverage, Ava and C.I. did the work required, they got the 9-11 logs and reported from them. Obviously Whore Robles did not or she would not have falsely 'reported' that G. Zimmerman called 9/11 46 times since the start of January 2011. Ava and C.I.'s report stands. I want that awful note excusing a stupid media whore pulled from the article."

KeShawn agrees insisting, "So another non-Black tries to s**t stir in our community with her sloppy and ugly reporting and not only is there a note added to Ava and C.I.'s accurately reported article but Betty is nice enough to write a note at the top of an old post excusing Frances The Bitch Rubles [Robles] idiot and sloppy journalistic malpractice but the Bitch just can't sit her ass down and shut her damn mouth up. Maybe if she'd stopped sticking her non-Black nose into a racial powder keg, the country would be a lot better off. In the future, on stories like this, I want rational reporters. Frances Rubles is anything but rational. Take her away from computers and give her a coloring book. She might be able to handle that."

Lewis also was offended by the note and by "all the crap so-called 'professional journalist' Frances Robles is flinging our way. How the hell dare she try to trash Betty. I love Betty. We count on Betty because she keeps it real. Something cheap trash 'reporters' don't know how to do. Frances Robles is a public menace as far as I'm concerned and I want that note to Ava and C.I.'s report removed!"

Dorothy Ann G. e-mailed to inform, "I don't make threats often but if that note added to excuse the idiot Frances Robles and her dumb ass 'reporting' is not removed from Ava and C.I.'s article immediately, I will not only lose all respect for your site, I won't read it anymore. I count on this site for reality and to speak the truths others won't. Something like Ava and C.I.'s
'TV: The perverts still drool over Shirley Temple' could only appear at this site. You risk your reputation when you do stupid thinks like post that note."

Eric writes, "There's a word for Frances Robles but I don't think you'd let me say it at your site."

Latrice writes, "So the uppity bitch from Miami Herald thinks she can push around the colored girl? Well ain't it always the story, ain't it always. Someone needs to let the little bitch know that we don't take kindly to outsiders who get facts wrong in the Trayvon Martin story. Especially when the lack of a correction means everyone's repeating the lie. I understand the bitch 'reported' from Columbia. Figures. CIA whore most likely. There's not been real reporting on what takes place in Columbia from the corporate media. Whether it's Juan Forero or some other two bit whore, they're all liars who lie to advance their careers. Someone needs to make it damn clear that we're not standing for this crap anymore. It's bad enough we've got Al Sharpton embarrassing the community with his 'facts,' we don't need an outsider making us look stupid as well."

Jill weighed in with this, "Time has proven Betty to be one of the most careful of bloggers. We know she thinks very carefully about racial issues before weighing in and that she does this because her father long ago taught her when something blows up on the Black community, it's not the White 'helpers' who take the fall, it's the Black community. I pride the work Betty has done and the care she has taken. When I read a post like Friday's and Betty is tossing around the word 'bitch' -- Betty is tossing it around -- I know that Frances Rubles [Robles] has crossed a serious line. My heart goes out to Betty who does so much and I hope that Rubles rots in hell. I doubt this is the only attack that woman has launched and I'm sure Judgment Day will not be pretty for her. For that I am thankful."

Brady e-mailed, "What the f**k just happened? I'm reading Betty's site and she's cursing; our Betty's cursing! And some idiot is e-mailing Third Estate to trash Betty and Ty's explained that he knows Betty, that he lives with Betty and the idiots still e-mailing and still trashing Betty? What the f**k? As I understand it from Betty's post, some idiot piece of trash lied in print and, a month later, the lie still stood. Ava and C.I. reported on the idiot getting it wrong. Betty, a week later, noted that the idiot still had it wrong and was now offering one-sided snark passed off as reporting, and the crazy bitch comes after Betty? What the hell? And what kind standards do they have at The Miami Herald that this reporter thought she could e-mail non-stop e-mails attacking someone who had written a very kind note about her before she learned that the crazy bitch had been attacking her? That reporter needs to be fired. She needs to be examined in a mental institution [be]cause she is f**king nuts. Betty, I got your back."

Alex observes, "The Third Estate Sunday Review is a free site. I know that. I know that I don't pay a penny to read it and that the site belongs to Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. I know that and I respect it. But I'm making a very serious request: Please remove the note that was added to Ava and C.I.'s report by Ty. Ava and C.I. reported accurately. It's a 'note' and not a 'correction.' So it doesn't belong in that article. And it upsets the flow of the piece. Ava and C.I. work very hard at the rhythm of their writing. Once you crack their rhythm (I had help by getting the audio Hilda's Mix), you can read the pieces as they intended to be and just enjoy the flow. The flow is upset by Ty's note and Ty's note doesn't belong. It's great of Ty and Ava and C.I. to have tried to be nice. But clearly they were nice to someone who didn't deserve it and I am begging you to please, please remove the note. I've been reading since May of 2005. The first thing that hooked me was Ava and C.I.'s 'TV: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey Reporting for Two Hours of Self-Love' and I have never, in all that time, in all my e-mails asked for anything. I making a request now. Thank you."

Brandon Charles Long wants to know, "Who the f**k decided it was okay to go into Ava and C.I.'s writing and add a note? Which one of you f**kers thought it was okay to go into Ava and C.I.'s writing and add a note in the middle of their piece? If a note was needed, it should have been at the end. Like a great many of your readers, I visit this site just to read Ava and C.I. And I do not appreciate you dicking around with their writing. They have a unique voice and are among the top ten writers online. Don't f**k with their writing. Whichever one of you f**kers thought it was okay to dick them and the readers around better check yourself. [. . .] P.S. Ava and C.I.'s 'TV: 4 Days in 7th Hell' still cracks me up."


Kaywin keeps it brief, "Lose the note Ty added to Ava and C.I.'s masterpiece. Now."

And those eleven e-mails are representative of the 82 that came in over the last 24 hours. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. And we have listened, we have heard. We were already discussing the note before these e-mails came in. C.I. learned Friday night from Betty that she had been trashed. At which point she told Ava and they were both of the opinion that the note being included in their article needed to be rethought. The note was added when Robles was e-mailing constantly and Ty thought she'd stop trashing Betty when she read what Betty wrote. After the trashing continued, leading Ty to ignore several of the e-mails, Ty began to regret the note himself. It's decided, the note leaves Ava and C.I.'s article. It remains in this Mailbag so everyone can know what so enraged readers. But our readers are correct, that note is not a correction and no correction was needed for Ava and C.I.'s accurate article. That note was done as a courtesy and when that idiot 'reporter' continued to trash Betty to Ty -- after Betty had written a nice note about the woman, after Ty had explained he lives with Betty -- when that piece of trash kept trying to start s**t, our desire to show any courtesy flew out the window. The note is now gone from Ava and C.I.'s article.

The automated response

Until we had to upgrade Yahoo Mail recently (we prefer Yahoo Classic), those who e-mailed this site received the following:

We appreciate that you took the time to let us know what you think. All e-mails to this site are considered letters to the editor and we may or may not quote from them or note them in full. If your e-mail is a letter, we'll consider running it. A story suggestion will be discussed. And any personal notes we'll gladly read. However, due to our own personal demands of life, jobs, kids, politics, etc., we are unable to personally respond to every e-mail. With limited time, we believe it's better to focus on making sure that each Sunday you have the best Third Estate Sunday Review we can put together. Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.


We have figured out how to again automate that message.

We did that because a journalist appears to think that she can trash Betty to us -- and repeatedly trash Betty to us -- and we're really getting sick of it. More of this is covered in this edition's "Jim's World."

But to be clear, this is the policy, it has always been the policy. It's noted here in multiple features.

If you want an exception to the policy, you should e-mail to ask if you can have one and not assume that you can e-mail us declaring you have an exception and that we'll agree based on your say so.

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

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Montana Field Hearing

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chair is Senator Patty Murray, Senator Richard Burr is the Ranking Member. The Committee notes:

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

United States Senate

112th Congress, Second Session

Hearing Schedule

Update: April 12, 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

10:30 am MST

2465 Grant Road

Billings, Montana

Field Hearing: Improving Access to Quality Health Care for Rural Veterans

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

10 am EST

Senate Dirksen Office Building Room 138

VA Mental Health Care: Evaluating Access and Accessing Care

Matthew T. Lawrence

Chief Clerk/System Administrator

Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs

202-224-9126

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, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.


"Iraq snapshot" -- the most requested highlight by readers of this site and Mike's going to give you the back story. Mike: This wasn't what C.I. planned for the snapshot. She was going to talk about the dinar -- Iraqi currency -- and the Iraqi central bank and what Parliament had told Nouri -- hands off -- on that score. She talked about that in the remarks she made to our Iraq study group. But she had just started to dictate the snapshot when Kat told her Betty was on the phone and really upset. So C.I. grabbed the phone and talked to Betty for about 40 minutes. When they got off the phone she had to dictate the snapshot which was very late and she said, "Screw it, we'll just focus on the political process." It's a great snapshot.

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Ms. Troll Goes Shopping" -- Isaiah's latest explains "The Barack."

"Kat's Korner: Why a very good album isn't great" -- Kat knows there's pain . . . pain . . . pain. Why do you lock yourself up in these chains? Kat reviews the new release from Wilson Phillips.

"Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot" -- C.I. reports on the United Nations Security Council meeting on the status of Iraq.


"I Hate The War," "Iraq snapshot," "Stuffed Cabbage Rolls in the Kitchen," "The controversy,"
"Rosen did create a division," "6 men, 1 woman," "4 men, 3 women," "thanks for the word choice, maeve reston," "Well listen to the sexist pig prattle on," "Go, Debbie!," "The day," "No, USA Today, they aren't the same thing," "Body of Proof?," "Ann Romney," "Sushi and more" and "THIS JUST IN! THE DAILY WHAT WHAT?" & "He embraces his enemies to get his sexism on" -- C.I., Trina, Betty, Ann, Rebecca, Ruth, Kat, Marcia, Stan, Elaine, Mike and Wally and Cedric weigh in on the sexist remarks by Hilary Rosen and those who tried to cover them up.

"My stalker in the press" -- Betty's big post.

"community," "Ringer and Unforgettable," "Body of Proof?," "In every episode, there is Ellis,"
"The worst episode of Fringe ever," "Ringer and other things," "revenge goes back to 2003," "Cougar Town," "The Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner," "revenge," "Smash," "Being Human" and "Nikita" -- Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Elaine, Mike, Betty and Ruth cover TV.



"Getting caught" -- Mike shares a 'hang up.'

"Bonnie Raitt, Laura Nyro" -- Kat writes about music.

"Planet Terror" -- Stan goes to the movies.

"Bitchy Tina Fey" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.

"Baby Clooney loves him" and "THIS JUST IN! HE'LL ALWAYS HAVE CLOONEY!" -- Cedric and Wally on Clooney's new hostess dress.