10/31/2005

about 'the daily...'

C.I.: That is a very important point. Thank you, Elaine and Mike. Scooter Libby indicted for a number of counts -- perjury, false testimony, etc. -- in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson who went public to expose Bully Boy's 16 word lie in the 2003 State of the Union address regarding "British intelligence has recently learned that Sadaam Hussein sought" yellow cake from Niger. Also, quickly, Eric Schmitt's "An Influential Bush Insider Who Is Used to Challenges" rightly pointed out that Scooter Libby is not just Cheney's chief of staff. Scooter was "assistant to the president, chief of staff to the vice president and Mr. Cheney's national security advisor." Now we go to Rebecca, of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, offers us a look at the news from the world of science. Rebecca?

Rebecca: C.I., Steve Connor notes in the UK's Independent that last week Prince Charles of England declared "climate change was one of the greatest problems" facing the world. As England experiences a surprisingly warm October, Connor reminds that "[t] exceptionally hot, dry summer of 2003 is estimated to have resulted in about 35,000 extra deaths in Western Europe." Are any guys drinking hard this Halloween weekend? If so, you might want to know that a recent study in India found it can effect sperm and increase difficulties in having children as well as in getting erections. Erectile dysfunction? In this day and age of Viagra? The consumer organization Public Citizen is asking the FDA "to add warnings to the labels of Viagra and other impotence drugs, noting that some users have gone blind." Is Tony Blair politically impotent? Marie Woolf reports in "Blair caved in after secret royal memo on badger culling" that a snap of the royal fingers by Prince Charles, or in this case a letter, and Tony Blair goes into lapdog mode, panting with a frenzy he usually reserves solely for the Bully Boy. A leaked memo results in the latest embarrassment for Blair. Prince Charles wrote Blair that a thinning of the badger population would meet with his approval due to his belief that this would reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis from badgers to cattle.

C.I.: Thank you, Rebecca. Now for a report from Flordia, we go to Wally of The Daily Jot.


that's from the third estate sunday review news review.

wally didn't post today so i called him to check up. he's fine but they were low on gas for the generator so he left early and it was a long, long wait. he said about 3 hours. so when he got back, he was hot and tired and just not in the mood for the daily jot. he was going to call c.i. to pass it on but then was reading the common ills and saw that c.i. was feeling really sick so he didn't want to be another phone call c.i. would either have to dodge or put on a happy face for.

i'm amazed by how little is being done to help the people in florida and by how little the national press seems to care.

are we suffering compassion damage? we gave all we had as a nation to the victims of hurricane katrina and now we just don't want to be bothered?

i think it's far more likely that we're suffering from a lack of saturation coverage on this topic. the news media seems to all be gearing up for their own vacations (the senate starts their vacation shortly) and they feel like they covered katrina so now they can be lazy again.

that would explain their shoddy coverage of the scooter libby indictment which they treat like 'oh well.' they should be out digging for information and instead they just wait for it to come to them.

sunday, we worked on 'the daily.' if you haven't read it, you should.

i already had e-mails about the topic so i told everyone going in that i would write about the process on that piece. hope i'm not stepping on any toes.

that took forever. it was supposed to be a parody and we handled that pretty well (ava, c.i. and betty were the comic chefs but wally and mike and jess also had some strong stuff in there as well and ty had some serious contributions that were just amazing). then it was time to add the stuff surrounding the parodies.

most people know c.i. but i don't think they really know . . . by that i mean, if it's a process, and this was a process, anything can get tossed out and because it's people brainstorming, fine. but when it's time for the piece to be finalized, not so.

(c.i. tells a story about ann wilson, or used to, and the process she and nancy wilson - the rock group heart - go through to write a song which is toss it out there and just keep pressing on and then at the end refine.)

some of the commentary around the parodies was rather 'tart' (kat's word) and kat and c.i. were especially concerned about that. c.i. wanted to know if we were doing a parody or an expose?

and i think it's a good question. c.i. likes bob somerby and feels bob somerby has not been as forthcoming as he should be but felt the parodies had addressed that and that the other stuff was belaboring a point and also not as funny.

the 'old man' line was 1 that kat questioned but since it was supposed to be funny, she went along with that.

there was a conclusion to the piece and c.i. said 'take my name off of this if that's in there.'

c.i. felt is was 'lacerating' to somerby and also that it sunk the piece. that was the c.i.'s biggest criticism about the commentary throughout. c.i. said the jokes are structured in such a way that if you do more between them than joke, you're blowing the jokes and turning a sitcom into a dramedy. so the inbetween's were reworked (and elaine got in 2 funny jokes during that!).

jim wanted the introduction and the conclusion in but dona, as we reworked the commentaries, saw c.i.'s point and argued that we didn't need both. so jim went with the opening.

i don't know. on sunday morning, i was agreeing with jim but i called him today and offered that i thought the parodies nailed it and that the commentary at the start kind of made it more difficult to get the laughs rolling in the first parody. jim agreed with me.

he said he was thinking with a 'news man's cap' and what ava and c.i. do is social commentary that's entertaining and makes it easier to swallow. he thinks their might be too much of a 'news' attempt in that piece. i asked if he and dona had talked about it and he said not yet becuase it was obvious to him that dona was right and he'd tell her that tonight but was in no hurry to start the day with 'honey, you were right.'

the piece does work. but jim and i both think it would work more if we'd followed c.i. and ava's suggestions. and probably if betty hadn't had to bail, she goes to church sunday mornings, we would have had another voice that could have persuaded us. (betty participated in the writing, just not in the editing.)


it's funny and the e-mails i've gotten on it demonstrate that people are laughing but when we do the piece for next week (which is already planned) we'll go more for jokes that make you laugh and make a comment and leave it to that.

that's really what we did with 'watchdog daily' and that worked very well. here, it's almost like, 'okay let's explain everything for you so that when the jokes come, you'll get them.'


so those are our thoughts now. jim thinks in terms of news and i just wanted to get it all out, to be honest. i'm tired of it.


as most people have surmised, this isn't a case for c.i. or for me where we disagree with a view that's been expressed at bob somerby's site. we often do. this runs a little deeper than that. (and the parodies convey that judging from the e-mails - in fact sherry and lila have guessed it and they both got it from 1 of the parodies so the commentary at the beginning wasn't needed.)

i want to quote cedric's things on rosa parks but i'll do it tomorrow because i've felt tired all day and probably the smart thing to do is to turn in.









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