A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday. The most difficult edition we've ever done.

First, thank you to Dallas for his work on this edition and the following also worked on it:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.



So what happened this edition?

The good news, Dona quit smoking. The time could have been better selected news was she decided to quit Saturday morning and it wasn't pretty Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Congratulations to Dona for sticking to it. When Ty learned Saturday morning about Dona's decision, he gave up sweets. We hope, like Bully Boy, he will go back on them because he was very, very tense. Ava and C.I. (who showed up late) walked in to say it was like being trapped in the epsiode of Kate & Allie.

Showed up late? They and Jess went to a party. The plan was they'd do their TV piece and actually have some time off. Didn't happen. I (Jim) will explain as we go through.


Truest statement of the week -- Joe Cannon and an easy pick.

"Truest statement of the week II" -- something worth pondering.

****Truest statement of the week III -- C.I. here butting into Jim's note. Mike's statement was supposed to be included as a truest. Ava, Jess and I were at a party in the early hours of the writing edition and it was said to be chaotic during that time so that's probably how Mike got overlooked. I've added it. 10-20-2008.***********


The Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-whore movement (Ava & C.I.) -- This is the editorial. We had no editorial. We had pretty much of nothing. Again, happy for Dona (please, I'm engaged to the woman) but not the best time to decide to stop smoking. Dona was climbing the walls and very little help at all. Jess proposed making the entire edition just this: "Dona's quit smoking. Have a good week." And maybe we should have? Ava and C.I. said, "We are not writing an editorial about Nader or McKinney or whatever, we're too damn tired." I said I'd gladly take whatever we could get. Thank you to Ava and C.I. for this piece.

TV: The fakes -- We raided Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary for another piece and weren't able to finish it. So we raided for no reason. Even so, what they have is a very strong commentary and probably the best thing in the entire edition.

Urban Guerilla warfare -- Short piece! One of the few that worked.

Movie quotes -- Jess, Mike and I came up with the idea for this. Pretty much everything was falling apart. This one worked.

Remember New Hampshire! -- Ava and C.I. got to work editing the three pieces we thought we'd written without them and Jess. We'd written two pieces. This one and . . .

We chose our side and we're sticking -- this one. C.I. and Jess argued this could be the editorial with minimal tweaking but Ava and I disagreed.

CBS try something different -- Ava and C.I. didn't work on this at all. Jess didn't. If you want a good idea of what the edition was like -- and why most pieces were beyond posting, read this. Were it not about The New Adventures of Old Christine (with a link!), it wouldn't go up.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Ruth, Betty, Rebecca, Marcia, Kat, Wally and Cedric worked on this and we thank them.

So that's the edition. I am very proud of Dona for making it through 26 hours without a cigarette. I do wish we'd chosen a better time to do it. Or that she and I had excused ourselves from the edition. If we'd planned ahead of time, Jess, Ava and C.I. could have steered. (Ty couldn't steer this weekend because, again, for solidarity, he gave up sugar this weekend.) I've never seen so much defocusing or time wasted. On the up, it showed that Dona's steady hand is always doing more than most of us realize. Hopefully, there's something you like this week.

If not, oh well.

See you next weekend. (Remember, Mike breaks down the editions on Monday as his site. You'll want to read his take on the madness of this writing edition.)

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