Channeling Wally's Bully Boy Press for a moment:
Sunday Condi Rice accepted the apology of Dave Lenihan's racial slur against her. Said Rice, "It didn't hurt at all. It might have if I were African-American but as a White woman, I frequently use racial slurs against those people as well."
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed to say they enjoyed Wally and my joint entry Friday. It was fun writing with Wally. The other thing I got e-mailed about (three) was what happened with The Third Estate Sunday Review to make it take so long for features to go up there? I can't answer that in full because I had to bail to get some sleep before church. I know from Dona and Ty that it was just a long, long session. While I was taking part, there was a lot of discussion. I think it was a case of feeling like the choices were too wide spread and wanting more of a focus. (Some wanting more of a focus.)
Dona said Jim feels really bad because C.I. and Ava were both wiped out. They wrote their TV review near the end of the morning ("TV Review: Joy Ride?") and they both fell asleep while they were writing it. (I'd already bailed at that point). So Jim feels bad about that and about the fact that C.I. still had to go and post at The Common Ills after that. Saturday/Sunday was like pulling teeth.
Jim may write about it and I'll leave it at that in case he does. But it was just a really long session and I wasn't there at the end so I have no idea how it went in the final hours. Ava and C.I. both agreed, while I was helping, to a piece that they really weren't too keen on and they did it because they wanted features on France (the protests) and on Puerto Rico (the way the FBI's targeting those who are part of the independence movement). They were both promised that if they participated on the feature they didn't want to, those features would be done. Then they didn't get done. There was no time, there was no energy. So Jim feels bad about that.
If you read it now, it's a strong edition. But if you were up Sunday morning and ready to read, you may have been disappointed. Jim said that there was only one thing up at 7:00 pm eastern time (one new thing, not highlights). You did get a strong edition. It just took some time for stuff to go up. And because everybody was working hard to smooth out what was completed, Ava and C.I. couldn't break away for their review. They wrote it and it went up.
Ava said she'd talked to C.I. and neither of them have any idea what they wrote but hope that they got the point across that Free Ride was a good show and that it revolved around the main character (Nate) and the environment (the city he lives in). I've read it and I told her it did. (It's a really strong review. I was impressed reading it. I was more impressed when I found out that they both fell asleep while they were writing it. And not the thing where you doze off and then jerk your head back up and wake up. Ava says they were both out for five minutes at least.) Ava said she'd take my word for it because she never wants to read that review.
That's always weird to me, that they don't go back and read their reviews, because I'll go back and read my stuff. I may think, "Wow that wasn't clear" or I might think I did an okay job, but I'll read it. But from what everyone says, it was just the longest, most never ending writing session and the editorial was taken from roughed out stage to completed at which point Ava and C.I. wrote their review. So I guess if it was me in that kind of process (and that's happened before) maybe I'd see it like torture and just be glad something was up (as long as I never had to read it).
If you missed the latest edition, here's what's up:
Danny Schechter speaks on Iraq and the media 7PM March 29th in NYC (open to the public, no charge for admission)
Will Interview With The Vampire become the new Catcher in the Rye?
NSA Hearings This Tuesday on PACIFICA RADIO
Editorial: Who's hiding in the shadows and who's waving their Feingold?
TV Review: Joy Ride?
The Washington Post leaves us still Waiting For Lefty
The 2008 Democratic primary is already over
Saturday's third hour goes to the arts on RadioNation with Laura Flanders
Why They Crawl
I did talk to C.I. today but mainly we talked about highlighting because C.I. wanted to know if I thought I was being highlighted enough at The Common Ills? I think C.I.'s done a wonderful job highlighting me. I appreciate the concern and the ability to always ask "Am I doing enough?" because a lot of people don't have that. (I'm not referring to anyone in the community.) But C.I.'s always doing that sort of self-examination.
Well not always. We talked mid-day Saturday on the phone and C.I. was pissed. You don't get to hear that side of C.I. too often. But this guy had written in slamming C.I. about Iran. "How dare you say ..." And if the person was disagreeing with what C.I. wrote, C.I. would have tossed it around and wondered whether it was fair or not. But this person was cricitizing C.I. for stuff that Margaret Kimberly wrote. That's the one thing C.I. hates. If you disagree, C.I. is more than willing to discuss it (and usually more than willing to take blame that shouldn't be grabbed, in my opinion). But if you're trashing C.I. for something C.I. wrote and C.I. didn't write it . . .
That's just an issue with C.I. Take apart anything written and fine, it's your opinion and you may be right is the attitude. But don't put words in C.I.'s mouth.
I'm going to repost that section from Friday so you can see how it read and it will let me note Magaret Kimberley who is a write I really enjoy:
The above is from Andrew C. Revkin's "Climate Data Hint at Irreversible Rise in Seas" in this morning's New York Times (Brad noted it). One of the few articles worth noting in what's a very "skimpy on news" newspaper today.
When the DN! entry was done yesterday, The Black Commentator's latest edition hadn't gone up yet. Now that it has, we'll note Margaret Kimberley's "Let Iran Have the Bomb" (Freedom Rider, The Black Commentator):
On August 6, 1945 the United States killed over 100,000 men, women and children at Hiroshima, Japan with the newly invented atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Some victims were incinerated into thin air, others fled in agony with their skin hanging from their bodies. Thousands more died in the weeks, months and years that followed.
The justification for this horror is the usual one for blood thirsty behavior. We killed people in order to help them, a convenient explanation for the perpetrators.
In fact, large numbers of civilian casualties were not an incentive for the Japanese to surrender. The napalm fire bombing of Tokyo and other cities created similar numbers of casualties but the Japanese didn't surrender after those human catastrophes. More than likely the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan motivated the raising of the white flag. The mass murder of thousands served only as a test for a new weapon, a horrific experiment in mass murder.
The United States is still the only nation to use an atomic weapon on human beings. Keep that fact in mind when we are whipped into a frenzy of fear regarding the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
Every impartial observer of Iran's nuclear program agrees that it is at least five to ten years away from attaining a nuclear weapons capability. You wouldn't know it to hear members of Congress, the lapdog press and the Israeli government.
Keesha, Lewis and Carl all noted Kimberley's latest in their e-mails.
From Iran to Iraq, Denise notes Matthew Rothschild's "Press Conference Confessions" (This Just In, The Progressive):
OK, Bush finally fessed up: U.S. troops are going to be in Iraq after he's out of the Oval Office, a day that can’t come soon enough.
So you read it. Did C.I. write about Iran? No. "Every impartial observer of Iran's" was the thing that ticked the guy off. He wrote C.I. asking something like, "How dare you write that! You don't know what you're talking about! People who don't know about Iran shouldn't write about it." And the guy didn't say where the thing appeared, C.I. just knew that it wasn't written by C.I.
But how bad a reader do you have to be to read that and miss Margaret Kimberley's name? Or "Keesha, Lewis and Carl all noted"? Pretty bad.
I liked Kimberley's column. I always do. She's a really good writer.
I'm just blabbering on tonight because I'm tired. I'm almost took the night off but decided to post something, anything. Do yourself a favor and check out C.I.'s commentary on the NSA hearing today with an emphasis on Miss Priss Instant Cuckoo.
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