a lot of grumbles about "nothing's up on the weekends" have resulted in me attempting, this week and next, to blog on the weekend. i'm not really into it. i like my downtime. and i'm already working with the third estate sunday review for a lot of hours on the weekend so i'm not really into coming up with more thoughts for my own site.
i also don't buy the 'there's nothing up on the weekends' argument. the third estate sunday review posts on sunday and there are always entries there. ruth has postponed her ruth's morning edition report until saturdays both due to her own schedule and also due to the fact that it does result in 1 more saturday entry for the community. maria's thing usually goes up on saturday. and sometimes francisco or miguel do that instead of maria but it is usually maria. c.i. usually does a post on laura flanders and two on the new york times. today there are three on the new york times. kat always blogs on saturday. on sunday you have at least one entry in the morning at the common ills and also two sunday evening.
so i really don't see that the community is silent on the weekends.
but i'll try to pull something together today and next weekend, probably sunday next weekend, just to sample how that day feels. that's not 6 days a week. i'll still do just 5.
so i go to buzzflash and scan their headlines for a feel of what's going on because honestly i'm not in the mood today for the newspaper and c.i's already covered the new york times with 3 entries this morning. 1 headline reads 'hillary clinton accuses bush of mismanaging the war' or something like that. i clicked on the link.
i yawned.
am i supposed to say 'go hillary!'
i don't think so.
hillary's so brave to use something john kerry hammered bully boy on a year ago.
i'm so sick of her and her nonsense and her inability to state reality.
she wants more troops over and she wants the war fought her way.
the thought of her in the white house is truly frightening.
i don't know if she had a late life transformation or if she just has the war lust or if she just wants to prove her national security bonafides but it's disgusting.
it was disgusting to me when ms. profiled madeline albright, another war hawk, and it's disgusting to me when hillary starts trying to prove her cock is as big as any boy's by singing her war songs.
i don't think she's getting the nomination if she runs. i think she'll crash and burn in the primaries in a way that resembles what happened to joe lieberman. in fact, she seems like joe lieberman in female drag more and more.
as now proclaims on their site 'peace is a feminist value.'
i keep waiting for ms. to do something similar. i've been waiting for some time.
i don't know what's going on these days but i'll tell you this, i love ms. though i do, i don't need another celebrity cover of charlize theron or desperate houswives at a time when 2 wars are waging. i need some strong stances.
there's a pbs show 'about women, by women and for women' as sctv would say. last week they had a conservative prig from the chamber of commerce (where she probably has a lot of fellow prigs as friends). prig was saying 'oh feminists don't really support women they only support women who agree with them.'
prig's right. i don't support ann coulter. i don't support the war hawks with vaginas.
i support a woman's right to determine their own lives but that doesn't mean i endorse their choices.
and prig doesn't endorse mine as she made abundantly clear.
if you don't support equality, you're not helping the movement and we shouldn't shed any tears over the fact that we can't get behind you.
i think we're too focused on getting someone through whatever glass ceiling that we're at risk, feminists, of losing what we stand for.
which is why when i visit now's website, it always cheers me up. whether it's an action alert or kim gandy's biweekly column, or just the 'peace is a feminist value' i see now fighting and standing up.
i'm not trying to slag on ms. i'm glad it's around. i read every issue. but i'm not hearing from ms. what i need to lately. i'm getting rah-rah articles on a queen or a madeline albright or some celebrity. when they did the bullshit cover, and sorry that is what it was, on desperate housewives, i almost blogged on that but c.i. said that there was a shake up about to happen and that things were changing.
i love ms. and a month later there was a shake up.
but ms. needs to be more than it is today.
and the website needs to provide new content regularly.
christine provided new content daily or almost daily. eleanor smeal is a personal hero but this blog once in november (it may have been twice) ain't cutting it.
and reproductive rights are huge issues to me but they aren't the only feminist issues. it's past time that ms. started weighing in loudly on this war.
they've had time for a cover story on first ladies. that might have been strong writing. i don't know. i threw that issue into the trash to be honest. without reading it.
i don't know if it was the move to california and away from nyc but ms. seems a lot more laid back these days.
i get e-mails about seth's site, seth in the city, asking why he only posted twice in november? i have no idea. i've never spoken to him. anytime the third estate has tried to bring him in on anything, he's been busy. people have e-mailed asking 'do you guys hate seth?' because in the past every new site has resulted in a blog spotlight and an interview or article on the new blogger. are we supposed to spotlight his entry last week where he said he was back to blogging and apologized for not blogging? that was the whole entry. it wasn't about anything else. and it never had a follow up. it's over a week later and there's still not another entry up.
i'm not calling seth stupid but that's no way to run a site.
i'm not calling ms. stupid but not having new content up regularly is no way to run a web site.
(i will hear from c.i. for my comments on ms. and for my comments on seth. that's cool and i understand c.i.'s point of view on both. i can even hear c.i.'s comments in my head right now. but i'm not going to play nice here or pretty it up.)
the nation and the progressive have both increased circulation by strong commentary. people are hungry for it. cover stories on tv shows and movie stars isn't going to convince anyone that ms. is serious.
we went through this before in the 80s and it nearly killed ms.
c.i. was convinced that the shake up was going to change things. i waited for it to happen. it's happened. i'm not seeing that big of a difference.
it's coming off like a polite magazine the way good housekeeping was decades ago.
that's not ms. and if i'm the only 1 who will say it, then i'm the only 1 who will say it.
i love ms. but it needs to be more. in print and online. it needs to stop the celebrity profiles immediately and return to the issues that matter. 1st among them is the war.
it's glossier these days. the print doesn't get on your hands. but it's also about as hard hitting as a pbs talk show. that's not feminism. people respond to strong voices and ms. needs to find it's strong voice.
i say that out of respect for what it has been in the past.
i also say it because if you no longer need christine at your website then you need someone else regularly putting up new content.
sherry's e-mailed me complaining about the lack of new content.
sherry, i hope you're visiting pop politics because christine (and bernie, and jaclyn and others) are posting there.
eleanor smeal's got a new post (december 1st) and c.i. hasn't noted it. which means no 1's passed it on to c.i. because c.i. will note anything from ms. but once a month isn't going to bring to traffic to ms.'s site.
mike's motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
