Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Paul Schrodt's first truest.
We're pretty sure Ross Caputi has had a truest before. He's an Iraq War veteran and the founder of The Justice for Fallujah Project.
And hold on here while we do a PSA.
This is from Thursday's snapshot:
In yesterday's snapshot, we noted the development regarding burn pits. The Veterans Administration explains:
On Jan. 10, 2013, President Obama signed a new law
(218 KB, PDF) requiring VA to establish a burn pits registry for
Veterans who may have been exposed to burn pits in Iraq or Afghanistan.
VA will announce how to sign up once the registry is available.
The
new registry will enhance VA's ability to monitor the effects of
exposure and keep Veterans informed about studies and treatments.
Additionally, VA is conducting studies on possible health effects.
Stony
Brook University in Stony Brook, New York is gearing up to host a
symposium on the issue. This will be their second one, their 2nd Annual
Scientific Symposium on Lung Health after Deployment to Iraq &
Afghanistan. The symposium will take place March 4th which isn't that
far away. If you'd like to register to attend, you can click here for the registration info if you're doing it by mail or by fax as well as a registration link if you'd like to register online.
I (Jim) told C.I. I'd grab an illustration and do the post noting the above symposium. I forgot. We'll note it in its own entry next week but, for now, it's included in our note to the readers.
There were several choices that they could go with this week but Ava and C.I. decided the story was Crackle, how they had a great six-part series and how they dumped and buried it.
This editorial is now above the TV feature. Didn't realize we had the wrong time stamp on it until now. Barack promised transparency but he's not even appointing IG's to oversee departments. And hasn't for his first term. Where is the outrage? Hey, Ralph Nader, why don't you call that out?
"The Wives of Nouri al-Maliki" is a term C.I.'s coined for the paid protesters who show up to swear Nouri is great. My apologies to three readers -- two Iraqis in the US, one an Iraqi in Europe -- Ty just informed me that three had written in asking that we repost C.I.'s writing on those 'wives.' If I had known earlier, we would have. How about next week? This feature focuses on their American counterparts, people like radio deejay Scott Horton and historian Gareth Porter who have spent years covering for Nouri al-Maliki. It's going to get a little harder to do in the coming weeks. Toby Dodge's book is going to be very influential.
Ty's always argued for us highlighting Chris Hedges book regularly by just picking a paragraph or two at random and doing a post with just that in an attempt to interest people who may not have yet read the book.
This wasn't planned. What happened? The 'intro' is tacked on. I didn't say it. We were talking about the e-mails and suddenly Ava and C.I. started taking notes after about 2 minutes. They realized this was a feature and nodded to Dona who poked me so I'd see that they were taking notes. Roundtables? We hate them. We love them when they're done but just the idea of mounting one is enough to make us cringe.
Ava and C.I. on Eve Ensler who really, really cares about the issue of rape and assault . . . when she can use it to promote Democrats. No Socialist has ever worked harder for Barack Obama than the craven Eve Ensler who pursued Hillary as if she had some radical, passionate crush on her and then quickly turned on Hillary. Maybe she did have a crush on Hillary Clinton? Maybe Hillary told her she wasn't into fat brunettes? Maybe that explains the vicious attacks Eve launched on Hillary? And as for her health problems, Ty points out, "God don't like ugly."
If we'd started the mailbag earlier, you'd have heard me suggest we repost something C.I. wrote last week. She said no but said we had to ("we have to") repost Mike's piece on Fringe. We agreed. Great piece, Mike.
A repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
And that's what we got for the week. We're about to go out and grab something to eat so if you're expecting something to go up right away at The Common Ills, don't. C.I. will be posting tonight but right now we're all getting something to eat.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
