stop the next war now, the new book by code pink

ava, jim, ty, jess, dona, betty, kat, c.i. and myself are all working to turn out the latest third estate sunday review. as usual on a saturday. but we took a break and c.i. had mentioned a post that would be going up at the common ills of a list that member dallas had compiled. when i heard about it, i thought it was important enough to post here as well. as does the third estate sunday review.

hopefully, it will help to get the word out on a very important topic. here is the post from the common ills.

Book: Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism

Alice Walker
Medea Benjamin
Jodie Evans
Arundhati Roy
Camilo Mejia
Nancy Lessin
Cindy Sheehan
Carly Sheehan
Marti Hiken
MaryAnn Wright
Kit Gage
Patricia Foulkrod
Eve Ensler
Terry Tempest Williams
Rose Kabuye
Elise Boulding
Riane Eisler
Joan Almon
Catherine Ingram
Susan Griffin
Phyllis Bennis
Leslie Cagan
Fridea Berrigan
Eisha Mason
Rebecca Solnit
Diane Wilson
Marti Hiken
Becky Bond
Barbara Ehrenreich
Beth Osnes
Julia Ward Howe
Laura Flanders
Starhawk
Sonali Kolhatkar
Kavita N. Ramdas
Neela Marikkar
Sumaya Farhat-Naser
Gila Svirsky
Shirin Ebadi
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Rabia Roberts
Jasmina Tesanovic
Pramila Jayapal
Mary Robinson
Helen Thomas
Gael Murphy
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Amy Goodman
Janine Jackson
Andrea Buffa
Nina Rothschild Utne
Tad Bartimus
Patricia Scott Schroeder
Doris "Granny D" Haddock
Chellie Pingree
Lynn Woolsey
Barbara Lee
Jody Williams
Noeleen Heyzer
Helen Caldicott
Randall Forsberg
Joseph Gerson
Gar Smith
Arianna Huffington
Julia Butterfly Hill
Jennifer Krill
Naomi Klein
Benazir Bhutto
Wangari Maathai
Aya de Leon
Alli Chagi-Starr
Holly Near
Juana Alicia
Kathryn Blume
Cynthia McKinney
Adrienne Maree Brwon
Sharon Salzberg

What is the above? A list of the people contributing to Stop the Next War Now which Dallas compiled and e-mailed in hoping it might interest some members in the book. Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism is a book attempting to increase our understanding of possible solutions and responses.
As we noted on Wednesday:
Code Pink has a book out entitled How to Stop the Next War Now. For more information, see Code Pink or BuzzFlash. The book contains contributions from a number of women this community has noted and highlighted. Among the contributors: Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, Barbara Lee, Naomi Klein, Eve Ensler, Janeane Garofalo and Arianna Huffington.
Dallas ordered the book via BuzzFlash and he e-mailed this afternoon to pass on the list of contributors thinking it might raise interest in the book. I agree this is an important book. I hadn't thought of purchasing it online from Code Pink or BuzzFlash when I saw it in my local independent bookstore -- I don't think BuzzFlash had offered it yet as a premium because the first I knew of the book was when the cover caught my eye. Whether you purchase the book from an independent bookstore, Code Pink, BuzzFlash, or wherever you usually purchase your books, I'd urge you to consider purchasing it. And for those on limited funds, check your local libraries and utilize their inter or intra library loan programs.
There are responses other than drop bombs and starve off a population (of food or medical supplies). Our current administration knows only war. Which is why so many of us flinch when someone starts saying "We have to do something about ___" -- fill in the blank. In five years our world view has been dangerously warped and our options reduced to one: war.
Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism is an attempt to raise our understanding and provide us with other tools. If it's not your "bag," that's fine. But, like Dallas, I feel strongly about the issue. As does Rebecca and The Third Estate Sunday Review which is why, with Dallas' permission, this entry will be posted at both of their sites as well.

just got off the phone with ruth

members of the common ills know member ruth who files the morning edition report. this afternoon, my cell phone starts buzzing and it's jim of the third estate sunday review. do i have ruth's phone number? why, yes, why? (a palindrome!)

common ills community member isaiah was supposed to be profiled in this sunday's edition of the third estate sunday review. but he was begging off. he would do it if they couldn't fill the slot but he felt this was ruth's week to shine.

jim explained ruth had gotten linked by buzzflash today. isaiah saw that and asked jim if he could fall back a week and if we could let 'ruth shine because this should be her week.' what a sweet guy (and he will be profiled next week for anyone wondering).

so i call up ruth and do the hello-how-are-you dance before getting to the point. ruth quickly agreed and said she was touched by the third estate sunday review's interest and by isaiah's chivalry.

she had already heard about the buzzflash link but hadn't been able to log on because she keeps her grandson and he was already finished with his afternoon nap when the calls started coming in from her family.

i have so much i could say about ruth and about what we talked about but i don't want to spoil the upcoming profile so i'll just say ruth you earned it and everyone is proud of you.

gina and krista were just getting ready to distribute their gina & krista round-robin today when they learned the news and quickly wrote up a nice thing on ruth saluting her. so look for the profile this sunday (ruth will be interviewed saturday afternoon).

i want to quickly highlight some common ills community members. i'd said all week that i'd highlight the third estate sunday review. i did highlight 4 stories but i want to highlight 1 more (if i had the time, i'd highlight more than 1 more).

readers here know that i saw the e-mails sent to c.i. from 'paul' and 'dopey.' before i saw them, i had been read them because c.i. is the supreme 'in fairness' and will always assume the problem is within and not with someone else. so i heard them. then i saw them. and of course they were seen by the third estate sunday review before they wrote their send up of paul and dopey.

it is hilarious and it is true. (and i'm tribeca!) so read the send up and appreciate the kind of crap c.i. had to put up with. and note that c.i. did not work on that entry before 'paul' gets his panties in a wad.

i want to now note blog betty who has posted another entry and seems to be back in the swing of things. it is called 'Thomas Friedman is a one-man Sylvian Learning Institute' and it so funny. i loved picturing friedman in his jelly stained shortie robe zoning out in front of saved by the bell:

As I continued squeezing the prunes, he entertained me with tall tales of a florist downtown that had told him today that he was "the most incredible columnist in the world." Then he told of a baker who informed him that he was "the most incredible columnist in the world." As he was telling me of a cabbie, I interrupted to say, "Let me guess, he said you were the most incredible columnist in the world!"
Thomas Friedman looked so mad and so hurt. But he has worn that shortie robe all morning. Even after his grape jelly slid off his piece of toast while he watched his DVD of That Darn Cat! and I begged him to change it so I could clean the stain before it set.

also returning to the blog world this week was folding star and we really missed you folding star.
there's a lot of misinformation out there about the elections in england including that the country was voting for tony blair. that's not how their system works. if you're confused, get yourself on over to a winding road and read 'A Look at the British Election.' we missed you folding star, welcome back.

and let me close this entry down by noting the best, funniest, critique of elisabeth bumiller, c.i.'s
'Elite Fluff Patrol Squad Leader Elisabeth Bumiller reports for duty.' this is hilarious and you have to read it if you enjoy laughing:

Why this ham-fisted Wallace Boys tale? Maybe Bumillie felt Laura's "funnies" had emasculated her poster boy and his administration?
Maybe she was afraid Condi would pimp slap her?
Who knows why Bumillie ever does what she does? But did the Times really think this action/adventure yarn passed for reporting? Did no one wonder if Bumillie might need to tone it down? (Or is it that when you're the Elite Fluff Patrol squad leader, you don't take orders, you "damn" well give them!)
Purple prose straining for Mike Hammer but, with Bummiler's arrested development, only achieving the level of "young adult reader," this is truly bad "reporting."
If this is what access brings, someone cut her off, she's had more than enough. Can we get a designated driver?

fair wants you to help pbs and npr, i will 1 more time read on to find out why

an action alert from fair is what we will open with:

As a private, non-profit institution, the CPB is tasked by Congress to distribute funds to public broadcasters with a view toward balance. Although it was intended to shield public broadcasting from political influence, the CPB has long since become a mechanism for transmitting Congress' ideological desires to public broadcasters.
Tomlinson says the CPB is only trying to rectify liberal bias in public television-- a dubious role for an official tasked with shielding public broadcasters from prevailing political winds. But Tomlinson has presented little evidence of any pervasive left-wing bias in public broadcasting; infact, his only specific criticisms seem to be aimed at the program Now, which was, until recently, hosted by Bill Moyers.
Tomlinson was instrumental in the development and funding of the Journal Editorial Report, a program that features the Wall Street Journal's hard-right editorial board and was supposed to be a "balance" to Now (although unlike the Editorial Report, Now frequently had guests whose views differed from those of the show's producers). The CPB's ideological influence has grown as it has become increasingly staffed by White House-friendly board members and officials. In addition to Tomlinson, major Republican Party donors Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines were added to the board in 2003.
Earlier this year Ken Ferree, a former aide to FCC chair Michael Powell, was made both chief operating officer and interim president of the CPB.

where am i on pbs? i tend to agree with c.i. about pbs. there are many ways you can respond to an attack (and haven't we all learned a lot about attacks in the last week?). my response is to meet it head on. c.i.'s response is to let it roll down the back and try to take the high road as long as that's possible. but what pbs has done is nothing like either option.

they have repeatedly responded to attacks. hey, i'm all for response. but their response has been to cower and say 'we'll do more right wing programming!'

time and again, they don't take my approach and fight back publicly. they don't take c.i.'s approach and try to blow it off. they instead respond each time by going more and more right.

think about gays and lesbians and transgendereds for a moment. where are they on tv?

don't give me will & grace or that ellen has a talk show.

there are how many hetro couples on tv? fictional or real. (though let me tell you, as some 1 who worked in p.r. some of the 'real' are indeed fictional.)

or take african-americans. where are they on abc, nbc, and cbs?

people diahann carroll made news in the 60s by starring in her own sitcom.

the point is that for all the fretting and whining, tv has gotten whiter, straighter and entire groups in this country, people who are a part of this country too, are not represented on tv.

public television is supposed to represent those people. it is supposed to give voice to groups that would not be able to be heard otherwise.

and yet pbs cowers and freaks over a segment of arthur called 'postcards for buster.' if you've never seen it, it's a brief little segment, live action, that rounds out the cartoon. buster goes and visits some kids and meets their parents. so buster meeting a kid who had 2 mommies was just too much for pbs?

pbs could have pulled a me and said 'fuck you margaret spelling we're showing this episode and all our viewers we need your support on this! the right wing is attacking us nonstop.' or pbs could have pulled a c.i. and not commented on spelling at all but aired the program. instead, most stations killed it and the 1s that showed it tended to show it late night, not exactly a thriving hour for kiddie tv but i imagine there must be a few insomniac children who were pleased. they also publicly backed down all but falling to their knees and begging for forgiveness.

as the third estate sunday review pointed out early on when they interviewed a college student (straight, not that it matters) who had two mothers, that college student is an american too. his life experience, his family, is just as valid and just as important as any other americans.

pbs caved. as it has done repeatedly. so it's easy for me to understand why people feel like what is the point for fighting for pbs when they'll only turn around and stab the left in the back again?
we're supposed to drop everything and once again rally to the defense of pbs which each year gets more and more right wing and less and less real (forget left, they aren't even real).

there are serious issues to address.

and as many have noted, democracy now does more news and more reality on a tiny fraction of the budget that goes into pbs's newshour. so i mean, what if we took this energy and poured it into something useful like democracy now?

as common ills community member ruth pointed out on npr (not pbs) diane rehm did address the topic. i listend to the show via the link ruth provided. it was an objective and informative discussion and, sadly, about all we can expect from pbs or npr. that's not meant to blow off diane rehm. that is to note that she is a brave lioness of npr and 1 of the few who will have serious discussions. renee and steve on morning edition want to giggle and laugh and tell their little jokes in a manner that reminds me of the david hartman days of good morning america. now if bob edwards were still on npr instead of renee and steve (some sort of move to get the o.c. crowd, i'd guess), we could probably count on him to address the topic as well. but all we've got is diane. i mean thank the lord, buddah and anyone else for diane.

i'll take part in fair's action alert and i'll do it for 2 reasons. i support fair and i appreciate that diane rehm didn't cower like the rest of the pbs and npr crowd. hey terry gross, where are you?
seriously. do you tape your shows that far in advance that you can't address this topic? did the slap down from jeffrey dvorkin last year leave a scar?

yawn-fest cokie roberts, from ruth i've learned that although you act as the rona barrett of pbs, your actual title is 'political analyst.' are you going to leave the whispers and chatters and conventional wisdom safety zone long enough to offer an analysis of the politics of the attack on pbs and npr?

i doubt it. thank god for diane. for diane and for fair, i'll participate. if any of you don't want to, that's your business and i won't fault you for it. but, if like me, you're thankful that there is 1 brave voice left at npr, then consider doing it for diane.

if you listen to the show (go to ruth's post for the link), you'll hear this idiot call in with a thick southern accent claiming to like diane's show but she 'and that terry gross' are way, way left of him. diane handled the call with her usual professionalism and let him have his say. (no 'shut up!' screams a la o'lielly.) but the fact that he thinks diane or terry is a flaming lefty shows how badly npr and pbs have handled this from day 1. only by moving right could centerists trying to be objective be considered flaming lefties.

pbs and npr created their own mess. i'll help them out 1 more time because of diane rehm. if you feel like you can do it for diane, then please go to fair and participate. if you can't, i won't blame you.

pbs and npr are like women trapped in a bad, abusive marriage that keep showing up at your home after midnight bloodied and bruised. you take them in, you offer them a place to stay. then you come home a few days later to find a note that says 'i'm going back to him, i really think i can make it work because he's changed.' after awhile, you grow weary of opening your home to some 1 who refuses to change or take control of your life. you feel for the plight they are in but you realize you have to focus elsewhere.

but sometimes, a woman needs several attempts to finally leave. so maybe this is pbs and npr's wake up call? i doubt it. but diane rehm realizes what it is and she's addressed it on her show.
terry gross and the others will gladly go back saying 'just don't hit me so hard, pretty please.' there may be no hope for them. but for diane, i will support fair in their action. if you can't, i understand.

blog betty and articles from the recent 3rd estate sunday review spotlighted

yesterday i highlighted folding star's book review of jane fonda's my life so far and this evening i'm going to highlight other community members of the common ills.

in really great news, blog betty is blogging again at thomas friedman is a great man. as my readers and those who get the gina & krista round-robin or those who read the third estate sunday review know, betty was very bothered by the events/attacks of last week. betty wasn't sure she even wanted to blog anymore.

i got the inside scoop from betty today. she wrote up the 'drama kind of' in her entry 'back from my days of wine and roses.' it worked out because, for those not paying attention of who may have missed the blog, betty writes a humorous blog. the basic story is bettina lives with thomas friedman. bettina doesn't remember much about her previous life. she has fleeting memories from time to time when she's not being pumped with 'vitamins' or when she is on new 'vitamins.'
and recently, she became the writer of thomas friedman's op-eds. he was happy to farm out the work so that he could go around hawking his new book (which didn't make it to number 1 - nah nah nah) (jane fonda's my life so far has had 2 weeks at number 1).

so in last night's installment, something's happened but bettina can't remember what. she knows thomas friedman and nicky k (nicholas kristof) are trying to force her to write what they want her to write. sound familiar?

It was getting very ugly but I just took my vitamins and watched. It was like I was floating and not in the room. Thomas Friedman walked over to Nicky K. and struck him. Nicky K. cried and squealed, "How dare you!" Thomas Friedman said, "You keep whining like a little bitch and I will treat you like one."
Nicky K. whimpered and groveled and Thomas Friedman forgave him. By that time, I had taken half the bottle of pills.
I have to get to work on Thomas Friedman's column. Thomas Friedman tells me I must have done in less than an hour because it must make tomorrow's paper.Hearing that, I swallowed the rest of the pills in the bottle and said, "All gone-gone."
For some reason that was so funny to me. I laughed and laughed.
Then I licked my finger and used it to swipe any residue of vitamins left in the bottle.

so please visit betty's blog if you haven't already. she's a great voice and i'm glad she's not going to be silenced due to a couple of assholes.

now i'm going to turn to the third estate sunday review.

i want to note 3 things from it tonight.

first, as you should know, jane fonda's monster-in-law opens may 13th. in the lead up to the release of jane fonda's first film in 15 years, and her first comedy comedy in 25 years, the third estate sunday review has been reviewing some of her previous comedies.

this sunday, cat ballou was reviewed. i helped with that review and think it turned out pretty good:

Fonda's up for the challenge. As the anchor holding the film together, she provides both the gravity and the light touch and drives the film. Fonda had been the film lead in American films before, in "sex comedies." In the time period, that largely meant you were interested in romance and more but you strongly guarded your virginity. A lot of actresses were capable of that, a lot of actresses weren't capable of more than that. Given her chance to drive a film as the lead, not the female lead, Fonda proves she's to what it takes. (Marvin won his Oscar for best supporting actor.)
Being a 1965 film, sadly, she has to guard that maidenhead but thankfully, Cat Ballou has other things on her mind. Avenging the death of her father being chief among them. She's also got to keep the rag tag band that makes up her "posse" together. But again, her physcality has to be noted. The tension she brings to her body in a potential love scene on the train, the way she's jerkily extending herself only to pull back, prepares the audience for the moment early on when Cat will have to make a choice. It's the body movements as much as the lines they keep you from being shocked when school marm Cat suddenly turns into outlaw of the west. Near the end of the picture, there's a slow walk to a knoose that could go overboard into Joan of Arc-ness but, even then, Fonda had the steady touch and knew how to hold her head and carry herself so that you root for her instead of giving up hope and thinking, "They're going to kill that girl!"

ava and c.i. reviewed the jane fonda and robert redford film the electric horseman:

Don't miss the scene where Hallie's pressed to reveal her source. Fonda plays it perfectly. Hallie realizes where it's going and she's not backing down. Think about Judith Miller's various public pleas, The Charlie Rose Show for one, where she tries to manage the grit and sweetness combo that Sally Field can toss off without breaking a sweat. If Miller didn't veer between that extreme and her infamous bravado ("I was proved fucking right!"), if she showed some of the spirit Fonda's Hallie does, she might make you give a damn about her plight.
Hallie's not playing it modest, but her argument is for a free press. With Miller's public announcements, it never veers from the personal, the I-Judith! (And no matter how she strives for gamine, the fact is Miller's not very likeable and she has her own reporting to blame for that.)We tried to picture how a remake of this film might play out today. (Fonda's Fun With Dick and Jane is being remade.) Brad Pitt would artfully put a straw in his mouth and attempt to look grave while being shot as though Bruce Weber was the cinematographer. Julia Roberts (she's still the only true female star/ leading lady Hollywood's produced in the last two decades -- shh!, don't tell Reese Witherspoon!) would scrunch her brow and try to look serious before breaking out into the smile she's famous for. (Or maybe she'd go the "character route" she went for when she did team with Pitt in The Mexican -- and come off as a dull nag.)

i love ava & c.i.'s writing. they can find something in a film (or tv show) that others might not notice and they can put it into perspective in a fun and educational way that is completely the opposite of the 'cold, historical' approach of so many reviewers. (that's a quote from kat who loves their reviews as much as i do and notes how their reviews are always political and from a feminist perspective).

the third thing i wanted to highlight was the article on gina and krista. if you read their round-robin, you know how great they are. but if you don't, or if you do but want more, check out this article:

From those two, it continued to grow. Currently on Fridays, it goes out to 512 members.
"Krista and I e-mail back and forth all week. On Fridays, we pick what we think were our best discussions and grab some of that. It's another way to look at the issues. And we include inside gossip like Ruth's son's getting married Saturday morning. Or KeShawn's new baby. It's a way for members to get another view about each other."
"And The Apprentice!" Krista adds laughing.
"It's such trash," Gina picks up, "but we are obsessed with that show. Our headline for our two paragraph review of the episode this week was 'nbc to bully boy, you're fired!' So it's just our back and forth. And currently we're arguing over who's going to win."Each round-robin ends with resources for issues and activism. That's as much "footnoting" as they intend to do "because this is just us talking."
They also do sneak peaks of upcoming items. Rebecca might explain what her upcoming themes will probably be for the next week. Betty will answer questions about the outline she's working from. We'll usually let them know what we'll be reviewing here.

i'm a little tired today and, honestly, a little depressed. monday and tuesday, reading the new york times, i saw that polio was on the march again. we've never found a cure for cancer or aids or most diseases. but i thought we'd stamped out polio. now it just seems like we did in developed countries only. once again, it's all about them that's got shall get, them that's not . . .

folding star reviews jane fonda's my life so far

so c.i. e-mails me yesterday to ask if i'd known that folding star had reviewed jane fonda's my life so far? i had no idea.

we're both going to try to highlight it.

folding star's book chats come late (for me anyway) saturdays. usually i'm either finishing a 'date' or else already helping the third estate sunday review with their latest edition in any way i can.

after an all nighter with that, i don't even turn on the computer on sunday unless i get on to blog.
when it's time to check up on what i've missed it's usually late monday night or early tuesday morning. and i don't usually go backwards unless i've got an e-mail asking me what i thought about something written.

so honestly, i often miss folding star's book chats. i love them. if they posted earlier on saturday, i'd read them all the time.

but i missed the review of jane fonda's book. so here it is:

The other great book I read since my last Book Chat was Jane Fonda's autobiography, My Life So Far.
I got so caught up in this book that hours would slip by unnoticed. I had several nights of little sleep because I'd pick it up to read in bed, just for a little while, and the next thing I'd know it would be close to four a.m.!
It's the most incredibly forthright autobiography I've ever read. Fonda opens herself up to the reader in very honest ways, exploring her difficult relationship with her father, her reaction to her mother's suicide, her three marriages, her film career, her struggles with bulima and low self esteem, and her actions during the Vietnam War in intimate detail.
The ultimate portrait is one of a human being who's made plenty of mistakes but who has come to know herself and believe in herself at last, not to mention someone who has the courage of her convictions and works to make this world a better place.
I picked up the book feeling I knew Fonda well enough. I'd liked her from the time I was a small kid, when 9 to 5 was one of my favorite movies. I didn't consciously get the very powerful message of the film at the time, of course, but I couldn't get enough of the movie itself. The humor of the movie appealed to me, even though, looking back, I realize how much of it was over my young head.
But after reading the book, I realized how little I'd known about this amazing woman, about her commitments to making a difference in the world, about her own personal struggles to know and love herself that are all too relatable to many of us and that I never would have imagined that someone like Jane Fonda had to deal with.
Every aspect of her story is told to help those who may be dealing with similar feelings and circumstances. Even in the telling of her life story, Fonda is reaching out to others, trying to help.
Her chapters on the Vietnam war and in particular the US Government's actions against her during that time are not to be missed, either, for anyone who may not be aware of that part of our country's history. It will also read as all too familiar a picture when compared to the current situation our country finds itself in.
I honestly think that, whatever your feelings for Fonda may be, if you give this book a chance you'll be shocked at what you take away from it.

that's from folding star who does the blog a winding road.

for those who don't know, jane fonda's book has been number 1 on the new york times book list 2 weeks in a row now. if you haven't checked it out yet, you should.

also, for those who don't know, folding star's had some bad news all around. the attacks on c.i.
came at the wrong time and fs really isn't into blogging of late. i know we all handled it in our own way and i'm hopeful that folding star and betty (thomas friedman is a great man) will both begin blogging again soon.

isaiah the common ills new cartoonist

as readers of the gina & krista round robin already knew, the common ills was getting it's own cartoonist. community member isaiah will be contributing editorial cartoons from time to time.

when i spoke with isaiah, i asked him to tell me something he hadn't told gina and krista because i didn't want to blow their round-robin.

so isaiah told me that first off, he's working in ergo soft staedtler water color pencils for his editorial cartoon. it will be called 'the world today: just nuts.'

he said he's nervous about whether or not the community will enjoy it. i assured him that all contributions are appreciated and since no one's doing anything visual at the common ills currently, he'll be setting the pace for members. (any of the member who does a visual there after will judged based on what isaiah's contributed.)

isaiah said that no 1 had asked him what he felt his strengths were. so i asked, 'what are you strengths' because i can take a hint!

isaiah said foregrounds will always be stronger than backgrounds.

the 1st cartoon is based on condi rice's statements and attitude towards latin america which made her a 'bully to do the bully boy proud' isaiah notes. the cartoon was done on friday and sent in on saturday but delayed as c.i. attempted to figure out which program would work with blogger (not a lot will). the hope was to have it up on sunday but there wasn't time to do some training (i was c.i.'s teacher so blame me for any errors or mistakes).

i asked isaiah if he'd ever be willing to do anything for me (like ... a really hot drawing of christian parenti or dahr jamail!) and he said to give him some time and he would try it but his cartoons are 'cartoony' and probably wouldn't be what i was looking for.

i think they're great. (i've seen two others that may go up at the common ills. may because isaiah just sent those in to share with c.i. and hadn't intended that they be posted.)

i asked isaiah what his inspiration was and he said the news for the subject and in terms of arts 'tons of comic books and mad magazines when i was a kid.'

i hope every 1 will make a point to check out what isaiah will be doing over at the common ills. gina & krista's round-robin will contain the first cartoon as an attachment you can download so look for that in your inboxes friday.

problems problems

well i was going to do a quick post on folding star and the common ills but now i can't.

is anyone else having problems with firefox? i even tried explorer. nothing works. i'm in the only screen that will work which is the dopey one provided by the internet company i pay for net service.

i may post later tonight but i think i need to get on the phone and figure out what's going on here.

hopefully, this will be fixable and i can do an entry later tonight.

2 items from fair and a little more to the story the round-robin tipped you off to friday

tonight, i'm going to draw your attention to this from fair "ACTION ALERT:Did MSNBC Know Liddy's History? Host Once Advocated Killing Government Agents."

from fair's action alert:

In an April 27 debate about extreme talk radio rhetoric, MSNBC's Scarborough Country turned to an unusual guest: right-wing talker G.Gordon Liddy, who ten years ago called for the killing of federal agents.
The purpose of the MSNBC segment was to discuss a skit from Air America's Randi Rhodes Show (4/25/05). The pre-recorded segment, about an "AmericanAssociation of Armed Retired People," included the sound of gunfire as the "answer" to Bush's Social Security plans. Both Rhodes and Air America quickly apologized for the skit. "Our normal vetting process failed....and we regret it," Air America president of programming Jon Sinton told the New York Post (2/28/05).
On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough turned to Liddy for his response to this incident, asking: "G. Gordon Liddy, are conservatives guilty of similar hate speech on their shows?"
Liddy's response: "Well, if they are, I certainly haven't heard of it."
That would mean that Liddy has not listened to his own program. On August26, 1994, Liddy told his radio listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests."
Liddy's advice that day was explicit: "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

also from fair, i want to steer you to norman solomon's "Beyond the Media Coverage of Marla Ruzicka:"

This spring, before and after her death, Ruzicka's work was instrumental in exposing the fact that -- contrary to Washington's longtime claims -- the U.S. military has been quietly documenting many of the Iraqi civilian deaths caused by the Pentagon's forces. Is the emergence of this information a step in the right direction? Yes. But at the same time, media spin promotes the illusion that the U.S. war effort in Iraq is becoming evermore compassionate and life-affirming. Such story lines are good public relations for a massive U.S. military operation that continues to injure and kill more Iraqi people.

for those who read the round-robin, i can tell you that the new addition to the common ills that's been discussed there are impressive. i don't know when they'll go up. c.i. was pretty tired while i was going over how to use a software program. and with the heads up to a possible lack of 'around the globe' posts, i wouldn't be surprised if c.i. just ends up playing with the software tonight for a few hours to test it out. i do think that software will do what's needed.

i've seen two of things spoken of in the round-robin and i will say, i'm very, very excited. i think i'm only the third to see them, the member responsible, c.i. and myself.

if the software doesn't work, i'm sure the uk computer gurus will know what's needed. but since i've used it here, i think it should work. i thought it was exciting before tonight but now i'm really excited.

once it goes up (which will be at some point in the next 7 days), i'll have some comments from that member but i think third estate sunday review has already asked for (and been promised) an interview. so i'll be doing something on a smaller scale. i'd like to have something ready for when it is up.

i hope everyone's had a great weekend and that they've all checked out the third estate sunday review. i'll highlight some articles from there throughout the week.

i got me a new fan

well color me proud, i got me a new fan. and this little boy is just drooling over me constantly judging by his e-mail. fucking appears to be the only thing on his mind judging by the number of times he uses that word.

so we're talking about adam. the thrust of the e-mail can be boiled down to 'you're fucking stupid and c.i. is a liar.' adam has offered his opinions, so here are my opinions of adam.

adam is fucking stupid. someone, enroll him in a literacy course so he can learn to read.

unlike the e-mails to c.i., which non-careful reader adam doesn't realize i'd read at the 1st of this week, adam doesn't try to be sweet.

he starts off all bluster and passion and ... like most men of his kind, he shoots his load quickly.

he's declaring war on me.

isn't that just like a man trying to overcompensate?

what a dick.

he sat down at the computer, pulled his little noodle out, and juked all over the keyboard.

was it good for you, little boy?

i had to laugh, i know you're not supposed to laugh at men when they can't keep it up, because i've never gone to his site (does anyone?) but he comes to my site.

remember that adam, you read me, i don't read you.

that makes you my fan or stalker.

rage away adam. scream and yell and type 'fuck" this or whatever.

i love my power, adam.

i was talking to kat about this (among other people, we all enjoyed your e-mail) and she slid me the thing she wrote wednesday night. she'd just finished her kat's korner, there was supposed to be a second 1, when ava asked her to read what c.i. had just finished.

c.i. had managed to just let it go. and rise above it.

adam can't do that. are we suprised he can't rise? i mean, limp noodle and all.

but kat said she decided not to post her piece on limp noodles because she felt c.i. had really achieved something and that the kat's korner would be a set back. she told me to use anything i wanted from it. so thank you, kat. bless you, kat. you are always supremely gifted and wise and in a world with an adam in it, that's even more important.

we need our strong voices and our wise ones. or else we'll be left to the adam boys of the world. god help us all if that day comes.

the only thing any of us learned from adam's e-mail (it was heavily circulated today, especially to my female bloggers) was that indeed adam was apparently trying to mock c.i.'s health.

what a big strong man!

ladies, is he taken?

i'm sure he is and my heart goes out to the woman.

abusive and rude, adam thinks i care about his opinion.

let me repeat adam, and hold onto little adam cause he's about to shrink even smaller, i don't read you. i've never visited your site.

never would.

never linked to it.

never will.

but i'm touched that you come to my site. maybe you'll learn something here?

probably not because you need to enroll in adult literacy course 1st.

reading and comprehension isn't adam's strong suit.

but what is? besides screaming and yelling?

no wonder, as sherry noted, 'no 1 even knows who he is.' no, they don't. and sherry, they never will.

as kat wrote in her hilarious never posted entry (which may go up in full here) he's a little fish trying to play it like a big 1. kat has this whole hysterical thing about men who stand like boys in the locker room, if you get my point, and it's about little limp noodle adam.

'you try so hard to be like the big boys.'

poor adam.

adam apparently wants to fuck me judging by his constant use of the word. well, adam, keep dreaming. not going to happen, but i've often been the fantasy and it's fine that i'm your new pin up.

why don't you buy a strap on and start wearing that so you can get an idea of what the big boys pack?

and maybe at some point, you can deal with my mind?

probably not. boys like you are so angry at women that it's impossible for you to see us as anything other than slaves to order around.

adam, i ain't your slave. i ain't your whore. and you ain't going to score.

so keep jerking off on your keyboard like the nasty little boy you are.

sherry asked me if i was going to quote adam and of course not.

he's a nothing. you don't quote a nothing.

remember how he tried to marshall his "fans" to bombard c.i. with e-mails? no 1 did. days later, c.i. gets a copy and paste of adam's plea for activism from community member dallas and is shocked because adam hadn't acted that way in e-mails. how was c.i. to know? no 1 reads adam.

apparently he thought i'd give him a strong write up and maybe send some readers his way.

adam i care about my readers, i would never inflict harm on them by sending them to you.

kat had a funny line about how he's a madonna ballad gone wrong. that was so true, kat.

i also love adam's attempts at spelling and how he never seems to know which word he's trying to use.

okay, let me stop laughing because adult illiteracy is a serious concern.

and reading adam's e-mail it was as though he was robert de niro running up to the bus and screaming to jane fonda, 'teach me to read!'

i don't know where adam lives, where the rock he crawls out from under each morning is. but in my general area we have the adult literacy resource and i strongly support their work. so maybe adam can go there? or maybe he can find something in whatever circle of hell he occupies?

i don't know. but he's a joke. he's a nasty, mean spirited, little boy of a joke, but a joke none the less.

and if he thinks he can bully me around, he's also a stupid joke.

women are getting tired of this and adam should realize his act is tired and old.

if he has something to say, he can blog on at his site. now granted, no 1 will ever see it, but he does have his own site.

he's just a hateful little thing. kat compared him to a little sharpie barking and growling until a medium size dog came along, then adam runs off, tail between legs - the largest thing ever hanging between those legs probably - whimpering.

adam appears to think that he's going to p.r. his hate speech into a career.

oh adam, you are so very laughable. and this time, you didn't have to drop your pants before the laughs started!

attack me all you want adam. i won't cower. i won't even blink. i will laugh at you.

you and your little dick don't impress me.

somewhere, someone told you that when you didn't get your way, the answer was to scream and yell. that doesn't let you get your way. it just makes you a screamer with a little dick.

as readers who can comprehend (and my normal readers can) know, i don't take this shit from you guys (and why is it allways the guys?). i don't play it.

i'm no damsel in distress, little adam. plan your attack strategy. i don't give a shit.

declare war all you want. as kat pointed out in her piece, nixon had to bomb cambodia to get it up. apparently you have to beat up on female bloggers.

i don't do 'high road' so adam is going to be even more frustrated than he normally is on a friday night.

unless his thing is a 'ball buster special.' some guys are actually into it. usually they can't be honest with their wives so they go to a prostitute or sex worker, but they really seem to get off on it.

one hand down his pee-stained fruit of the looms, the other at the keyboard, imagine the damage he could do! why he might ... piss himself?

i don't know what he thinks i'm going to cower.

but it's past time that these men who think they can scream abuse at women got called on it.

and, as one female blogger told me on the phone today, 'rebecca, you are our cat woman!' you know it.

trash me on your site, adam. maybe someone looking for information on a cartoon character will accidentally stumble across your site? if so, they'll learn about the woman who didn't back down to you. who won't back down to you.

adam thinks he knows everything. don't men like that always think that? i'm told by shirley (who's never been to his site either but heard this from c.i. who heard it from ron - getting the idea that he's about as popular as a show airing on the pax network?) that he has an issue he works on but his 'work' doesn't compare with krista's on the same subject. see, even passionate, adam peters out.

ain't that the way, ladies? the biggest mouths are always the most disappointing in the sack. i know i've blogged on that before but it bears repeating.

adam, keep e-mailing. i can always use a good chuckle.

and when you dream about me tonight, and you will, remember it's only in your dreams.

in real life, not only would i not sleep with you, i'd throw a drink in your face.

now adam probably would see that as a sign that he was 'in.' you know how those guys are. ladies, you feel me on this?

adam, i'm so above anything you're even qualified to dream about.

i made the mistake of telling my ex about it. i thought he'd find it funny. he didn't. he offered to kick your ass. i told him you weren't worth it and that your nasty little e-mail full of anger and rage didn't effect me in the least. but keep writing. maybe you'll manage to get it up and cross the line? if so, my ex is 6ft 3 inches. how big are you, little one?

no, not there. we all know you've got an inch and half there. we all know your mind is blown and your mouth drooling as you picture my ex. 'over 6 feet! he must be hung!' penis envy is such a sad trait especially from little boys who fancy themselves the blog equivalent of a cute little cartoon.

i wonder if he has the cartoon character on his p.j.s?

sexual analysis: adam it the little boy who couldn't score throughout high school and was overly keen and friendly in the locker room. ron, don't drop the soap!

sexual analysis: adam is frustrated. he questions his own manhood. he knows he comes up short so he bullies women and, when not doing that, wonders if just maybe he should consider being with men but lacks the guts to.

if adam continues to e-mail, i'll offer a more detailed analysis. i can do that. these are my opinions, adam. now go to your blog and write for yourself (because you're probably the only 1 reading it) what you think of me. i don't shy from controversy, adam.

give me all the publicity you can muster (which won't be much because boys like you can't muster much).

but he'll need time to compose his reply because my guess is that on some level he was looking for a ball buster special. he was looking to be called on his actions and put in his place. mommy issues. on the 1 hand, he can't deal with women due to mommy, on the other, he still wants a woman to play mommy and let the little boy feel safe and diapered.

now adam will probably feel i have said awful things about him.

i can do that. i can offer my opinions on any thing i want. he brought it on himself by e-mailing me and trying to intimidate me. keep writing adam, i'll keep commenting.

this actually goes to the theme i've been dealing with. abusive men who want to scream and yell and bully women. tonight we focused on little adam. he'll determine how often we continue to focus on him. and honestly, he probably loves the attention.

don't go to his site. not even to find out his response to me.

little boys always think a pissing match will get them attention. that was a concern 5 women bloggers had. that he was getting attention and his behaviors were attention seeking.

but see, i love all my fans. even the stupid 1s.

besides circulating his e-mail, i also printed it put it in the notebook i keep that i call 'stupid men who can't get it up.'

adam is a nothing. he's a nobody. he wants to ride a feud into fame. so readers, continue to avoid him. i won't call him a fucking liar only because i think he's stupid. he claims c.i. lied and i've read all of adam's e-mails to c.i. c.i. didn't lie. did adam? i think adam has a functional literacy problem.

that's why he thinks he said something that he never said.

i want to thank sherry who's encouraged me to share adam's e-mail. she's right that it is important that women see what he is really like. if he'd written me this months ago i could have shared it with c.i. and prevented c.i. from taking the high road.

as readers here know, i know c.i. we have a mutual friend. she's a psychologist. i passed adam's e-mail on to her and she told me that he was 'nuts.' that's the technical term? we both laughed.
'becky, he's seeing things that aren't written, he's like a sociopath.'

just my luck to get a nut job for a fan!

but we need to be nice to the nut jobs. they're one climb away from a clock tower at any given second.

any time you can get it up long enough to rage at me, adam, please do so because your e-mail is just too funny. we've all laughed about you today, every 1 i've shared the e-mail with. send more! please!

i won't always be able to read them because i do have a lot of readers who write (sorry, didn't mean to bring up a sore subject with you there, adam, honest, wasn't trying to put you into another size competition you could only lose). that's why i didn't read your e-mail until late in the morning.

except for elaine who thinks you're nuts (and is trained to recognize nuts) and my ex who really, really wants to kick your ass (don't wet yourself adam - too late? - i told him to leave you alone), the rest of us just registered shock at how stupid you were, how threatening you were and how sad you were. while laughing, granted. but women, and any man who's been next to you in a locker room, have no doubt been laughing at you for years.

so juke on your keyboard the next time little adam goes rigid (it does happen more than once a month, doesn't it? have you considered viagra?). and keep coming back to my site, you may learn something. even the stupidist man can learn something.

on blog betty, jane fonda, maureen dowd and yes, guys, you should read this too

no, you aren't missing anything. there wasn't another post last night. i had gone to the e-mail to write shirley and after i sent that, i found an e-mail from betty.

there was no entry at thomas friedman is a good man yesterday. betty's really upset.

for those of you who don't know, besides working full time, betty has 3 kids. so there are a lot of times when i wouldn't think twice of e-mailing c.i, or folding star, or jim or ty or dona or jess or ava, or kat but i know on my end i don't pick up the phone to call betty unless it's a friday night (and of course we talk on saturday).

so the end result was that this whole thing caught betty by surprise. she'd been in the circle this weekend but this started breaking on sunday. she knew most people's opinion of ron but c.i. was taking the high road and betty had no idea how bad it was.

she read about it on the common ills and here and she got some e-mails from community members. she is just disgusted that when 2 people (ron and tas) knew c.i. was ill they would conduct themselves in this way.

betty said if thomas friedman announced tomorrow that he was ill, she'd stop her site with a note for him to get well. she really wonders about the integrity and character of some people online because 'they claim to be left and yet they go out of their way to hurt and mock and bully some 1 who is ill.'

she had a post from herself that she kept almost posting. but she's not 'broken character' on the site and felt that it would throw a lot of people. 'but,' she said, 'i just don't feel like being light and funny right now because i am so angry.'

i don't blame betty for feeling the way she did. it is disgusting what those 2 did to c.i.

a part of me wants to ask 'how were they raised?' but another part of me realizes that a certain age, you're responsible for your own actions.

i'm not dismissing child abuse or rape or any thing like that. but in terms of what is just basic common decency, at a certain age, even if you weren't taught it as a child, you either teach yourself or you take the blame.

ron and tas are adults and it's really saying a lot about them that they pulled this nonsense.

i told betty that most people aren't like that. i get a lot of e-mails from really great people. some of them are regular readers. some of them are other bloggers. and i get a lot of support from female bloggers which i really apprecite.

there's a woman who is just so smart and so amazing and runs this really great site. it's not political but she'll make a comment every now and then and you'll know she's smart when it comes to politics as well.

and i've been telling her that if she wants to write about politics in detail she should because she's e-mailed to say 'way to go' and how she wanted to address some issues. she e-mailed today to say that this shit thrown at c.i. is exactly why she has focused on other topics.

she did a post on the patriot act 2 years ago and 2 bloggers who are on the left (i'd never heard of them but i don't jump blog to blog) started e-mailing her telling her 'nice but here is what you should have written.'

and she couldn't believe it because they had their own sites. she did a post that had a lot about the patriot act in it because she cared about it. when she replied, 1 ignored her reply and kept telling her what she needed to go back and write instead. now she wasn't wrong with what she said, i've read her post, but what she emphasized wasn't what this dick felt she should emphasize. so for 2 weeks she got daily e-mails from her telling her what she needed to write and that was from the 1 dick.

she replied to the other guy and he wrote back this nasty little thing about how 'if you can't take constructive criticism, you bitch, write about cats and the wb!'

i told her she should go public with it. or give me permission to. but she just didn't want to deal with it. i understand that.

i also understand that a lot of male bloggers (believe me, i understand this!) get off on arguing.
and they really have this 'last word' attitude.

i've heard from some very nice male bloggers in e-mails. not every male blogger is a dick.
but there's not a week that goes by where some male bloggers aren't strutting up to my inbox, pulling out their dicks and wanting to take a piss.

i wonder if they do that with other males?

i doubt it. i mean ron will go postal on a male and then real quick back down. he'll do that to atrios or some other guy and then back down real quick.

but there is something that makes some guys think they can do that.

they're usually little bloggers in a small pond, judging by my e-mails.

and it's so shocking to me that male bloggers on the right can write and disagree with me strongly but not tell me 'you wrote that wrong!'

like the social security post i did. i got 6 little bloggers screaming at me over that. 'you are stupid!' was the basic opening. then they'd tell me that i was an idiot for not explaining the numbers.

if you're a common ills member, you probably remember when former member frank in orlando went off on columnist ellen goodman saying 'how dare she write that!'

she was writing about social security and sticking up for the program but she didn't pull out the charts and statistics.

i don't know if it's the sports mentality or what, but the little boys really love their numbers. even though i often get the impression they don't understand them. but they've memorized them and they spit them out and if you don't do the same they think they can tear into you.

some man taking a piss of anger and rage thinks he's just letting it all hang out ('all' ain't that much from my experience with real life bullies). a woman who's using her blog to share and talk about what she's thinking and what matters to her, reads that hateful e-mail and may think, 'i'll just shut up.'

that's not the case for everyone. and i talked to betty about this on the phone last night. my advice is don't ever high road it. c.i. tried that and ron just bullied and bullied more and then his boy blunder (to use kat's phrase) joins him with some sort of 'see ron, i got balls too' attitude.

i've been asked by kenny from time to time why i touch on this topic so much? i do write about men who try to bully a lot.

it's an important topic.

but it needs to be talked about. will it change the way some men behave? no, it won't.

they'll go being dicks.

but it is an important topic to women bloggers judging by e-mails. and i know from the high school females who read my stuff that they appreciate it as well and take it out and apply it to their own lives.

maureen dowd offered that women didn't do as many op-eds and needed to be mentored by men. that's why maureen dowd can attack jane fonda like she did in the book review.

women love jane fonda. you've got some crazy right winging gals who don't. but if you're a woman and you're left or completely non political, you look at what jane fonda's been through in her life and what she's done with her life and you just think, 'way to go.'

if dowd had gotten some female mentoring or just some sound boarding from a female peer group (or even from men who aren't total dicks), she wouldn't have the need to trash jane fonda to please all those idiotic men. she'd have more self-respect. she'd also address issues like reproductive rights which she doesn't.

dowd's often funny. she usually does a good pop-cultural blend in her columns. but she's not a feminist and it shows in column after column.

she's the type of woman who will always try to win male approval.

now for most of us, that's probably a given and let's not kid. (i'm speaking to the women here, guys.) if you're a lesbian that may not effect you. (though there are 2 readers who've shared that even though they have no desire to sleep with men, they often find themselves seeking male approval.)

i don't buy into biology arguments. by that i'm saying that i don't believe for a moment that there's some genetic need for a woman to 'please daddy.' i do think that we're raised in a world where men were held in higher esteem. we grew up seeing that. it's cultural.

which means it's a pattern and we can address it. it may take a lifetime for some of us, for others, we may be able to deal with immediately.

but the answer isn't turning into maureen dowd and always trying to prove to the boys that you can think just like them. or get that 'you think like a man' bullshit.

i think women who fought battles when i was a child and before did so much to change the world.
and i think there's still a great deal to do.

i hear from some young girls that they don't get feminism because aren't we all equal now?
i don't mock them because they are asking serious questions and they are young. no, we aren't all equal. you can see that when you compare the pay of women. and you can see it on the op-ed pages, as susan estrich pointed out. you can see it on tv where you can be fat and overweight and not funny and get to be a star in a tv show. you can see it all around you.

are things better for me because an alice walker or jane fonda or gloria steinem or robin morgan or sandra cisneros exists and blazed trails? hell yes. but none of those women are saying the field is equal. things are damn better because of the women who have fought. but we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't continue to speak out and apply actions to our lives.

just because you can walk down the street with your ass hanging out of your jeans doesn't mean we reached equality. think about it, a second. women should be able to dress any way that you like. but in this country, most straight men aren't whining about it. they're happy to check out any skin you want to flash. don't mistake that for equality and the end of the struggle.

they'll let you display your body. they don't seem to want you to display your mind, but they'll let you display your body. they don't want you to control it.

that's why you get rape and date rape and attempts to tell you that you have no privacy rights.
the battle for choice and the battle for access to birth control is about them deciding on your bodies. don't forget that.

and don't forget that if you mimick them in your statements they'll love you. but if you write in your own voice, they'll rush on over to tell you that it was an attempt but what you should have said was ...

i'm really impressed with my young female readers because no matter where they are starting at when they 1st write me, they do start seeing connections once you give them some information.

betty was so disgusted by two men attacking c.i. that she just couldn't get unblocked enough to write in character. i told her, don't force it. take your time and then it will come. now if i was 1 of those men maureen dowd wants to assign all us gals as mentors, i might have told betty that but more likely i would have said, 'well they're right.'

we need mentors, all of us, male and female. we need role models. but we don't need bad 1s. and we don't need them to be a certain sex. in the review of jane fonda's my life so far, maureen dowd called jane fonda a broken doll. if she's broken, what is maureen?

maybe maureen doesn't give a damn about reproductive rights? she might not for all i know. but maybe she also doesn't seriously address this topic because of the fact that she knows she got into the boys club on a pass and that playing the reproductive rights card would lead to flack? if that's the case, it blows her 'we need men to mentor us!' plea right out of the water.
who's the broken doll? i don't think it's jane fonda who is a woman who never stops exploring and questioning. i think it's the woman who silences herself so that she can stay in the boys club.
i'm going to keep coming back to this topic because it's important.

i copyrighted lower case so hand over your damn money!

this is the post i wrote last night and saved when c.i. pulled the addendum to give tas a chance to respond. tas is fast loose and with the truth (my opinion!). he's got a lot to say on his blog but he's not telling the truth. c.i. says an entry is in the works at the request of members who want to deal with tas (who my readers call a 'nobody' and i'd agree with that opinion! opinion! i can have any opinion i want! here's my post from last night. enjoy. i intend to post again tonight.)

no, i didn't copyright lower case and i'll get to that in a moment.

c.i. is responding to the attack on the common ills community tonight. c.i.'s been working on that post. i stated i would wait until that post went up to blog tonight.

the post almost went up some time ago. it was delayed when community member dallas found out that the common ills had been slammed by someone else besides ron.

i'll get to that in a moment.

so what c.i. is doing now (and i've said, don't do it) is waiting to give the person c.i. just found out slammed the site a chance to respond. c.i.'s willing to not note the reality on that 1 person if they'll make their statements to the community.

i think it's bullshit but c.i.'s far nicer than i am.

as you all know ron attacked the common ills community in his now deleted and infamous post 'how do you sleep' or whatever he was flaming on about that time.

what you do not know is how sick c.i. is. c.i.'s dealing with that in the post. ron knew it. i had told ron. ron also knew c.i. had been in the hospital the day ron attacked the community.

sweet guy, huh?

aren't some men just so fucking sweet?

and guess what 2 men love to do best, why get together and gossip about me!

i'm so flattered, except when i consider the 2 men and then i'm just repulsed.

tas and ron, like the courtship of eddie's father. 'people let me tell you about my best friend'
walking hand and hand as they scheme and plot. what big tough guys.

well when the 2 yentas get together, let me tell you the fur does fly.

see tas attacked the common ills in a post. he didn't have his facts straight but is that really a surprise?

and some 1 responded. tas is convinced it was me. tas, i didn't even know your damn name until today. i certainly haven't been to your site. does any 1 even check ron's? why would we want to check out ron junior?

any of my readers know that i'm more apt to pick up the phone or write about something in a magazine then surf the net. i'm sorry they confused me for 1 of their followers.

well little boys need their fantasies, how else do you explain pamela anderson's latest attempt at a tv show?

so the little boys are convinced it's me. why? in the round table i used the term 'high road' which is a term that the poster uses. okay, i coined that and copyrighted it! people start paying up. (any 1 who's ever listened to the al franken show has heard that term over and over and since i supposedly coined it, i want my money!)

also the post is in lower case. it's not the way i would write it, but it's in lower case and 'high road' is used. i'm not even sure i'm the only 1 who used it. i know elaine and c.i. used it on the phone before the roundtable because i had been talking to her and she wanted to talk to c.i. i'd told her of the call earlier that day to c.i. that said stop taking the 'high road.' better sue the woman that said that too because she owes me money!

pay up, everyone. now!

as bad as it is that the 2 little boys want to spread rumors, tas also posted an attack on his site (thanks community member dallas!) (i asked c.i. for a copy of it but don't have it yet, so i e-mailed dallas who i know is always copy and pasting things in e-mail and he sent it to me right away). pillow talk, pillow talk, talk-talk-talk.

phone!

it was c.i. the post is going up. tas was given time to respond. 30 minutes. tas said quote him. c.i. went into detail about health issues by the way. tas already knew c.i. was sick. that doesn't stop big brave men from attacking people.

c.i's my friend. i make no apologies for defending. but when you read c.i.'s post, i think you'll agree that ron and tas went way too far.

both knew c.i. was sick. both have been less than honest.

c.i. would say maybe tas doesn't know the full story. did you e-mail tas that? yes. did tas bother to reply? no.

and guys and gals, c.i. e-mailed tas early this morning and tas didn't bother to reply until over 10 hours later. (i'm sure c.i. will have the exact hour, i'm going by what c.i. e-mailed me this morning which was at 7 am.)

let's talk about tas since he likes to beat up on sick people with lies. he claims at his site that he took the time to outline his problems with c.i. and ask for clarification. because none was given, c.i. is a liar!

a liar!

c.i. read me both of the e-mails that came in from tas and they didn't ask for any such thing. they moaned and bitched about how every body tracks. and tas says 'get better' or some such shit in 1.

tas's concern about c.i.'s health is so touching, no?

concerned on the 13th, calling some 1 a liar on the 18th. when you never asked for a correction or clarification. get real tas, you stupid dummy. you bitched and moaned about how other people track and' i'm not a big corporation so why don't people trust me?'

why don't they trust you? because you call sick people liars because they don't post something from you that you never wrote or asked to be posted.

when some 1 writes you to say that they are sick and were in the hospital all day being poked and prodded and can't really follow your e-mail you then turn around and call them a liar?

am i protective of c.i.? damn fucking straight.

read the post when it goes up, you'll realize what some of us have known for some time. what i warned ron about a week before he slammed the community. they'll probably try to whine 'i didn't know it was that bad.' yeah, you did quit being such little bitches.

so that's your sweet blogsphere kiddos, 2 big bully men who want to beat up on the sick. aren't they tough guys. aren't they swell?

don't you wish there were more like them in the world?

i'll have more to say when c.i.'s post is up. i haven't read it. i've heard the addendum. the addenedum was written at the last minute after dallas e-mailed the post from tas to c.i.
at this point, c.i. knew nothing of it and had just written a post that goes over what went down and in what order.

we've all told c.i. quit taking up for ron, quit defending him. c.i. can be too kind hearted. hearing the voice on the phone though, tas may not get any slack cut for him. i hope that's the case.

i've shared here many times that men think they can bully and push around. i don't stand for it.
i don't put up with that shit and i don't think any 1 else should.

2 little merry maids have gossiped about me and want to play big tough guys, hey bitches, bring it to me if you're so brave and tough.

oh wait, you know i'm not sick. you know i'll call you on your shit.

it's more fun for you 2 to beat up on someone who's seriously ill.

what sick fucks are you?

ronno, let me toss your stolen question from john lennon back to you: how do you sleep?

phone!

tas wants time to reply. tas isn't going to reply. he'll say tomorrow 'just quote what i put on my blog' and that will be that. mark my words on this people, mark my words.

c.i.'s too damn trustworthy and wants to see good in people. if you're reading this tomorrow it's because my save to draft for when tas stabbed c.i. in the back was right.

no post, go to the common ills

i just finished a post and was about to publish when c.i. phoned.

i've saved to draft and depending on the way things go, i will either post it tomorrow or do a new entry.

when you read c.i.'s post, you will realize that c.i. is ill. i'm very upset about that. and i've made clear that i will not allow any 1 to trash c.i. and get away with it. (you may have to scroll around to find it. it will be the long thing and it will talk about the attack on the community.)

the post i had for tonight went after those who attacked c.i. i will post it tomorrow depending on the behavior of 1 of 2 men. (isn't it always men?)

c.i. has taken the 'high road' (a phrase i apparently coined, but we'll go into that tomorrow -- in the meantime, pay up if you're using it because there's a delicious rumor going around about me, don't worry, i'm not shy about dishing).

the result has been that ron of why are we back in iraq has been bullying and abusive.

i don't stand for that. i don't give bully men (whether they beat up on the sick or just the well) a pass. and what ron did with the slam against the common ills community was disgusting. when you realize that he knew c.i. was ill, it's even more disgusting.

when you know that c.i.'s been bullied repeatedly in e-mails by ron on sunday and monday you know what kind of person you're dealing with.

c.i. hasn't let me read the post. i'm sure c.i. will have the oprah moments and every thing else in the post. but you're going to hear from c.i. on what went down.

and it wasn't pretty and ron can rewrite anything he wants but i'll be damned if i'll shut my mouth and take the high road.

high road, high road, high road! go spread some more rumors, ron.

there is a 2nd person involved in this. c.i. feels that the 2nd person doesn't know the facts. i think c.i.'s going to get screwed over for not going with everything all at once. i hope i'm wrong.

c.i. spent all night on that post. i know because i was asked to hold my posts until that was going up. (and i'm happy to do it and would do anything for c.i. except look the other way when some bully's attacking.)

at the last minute, information was passed on by community member dallas and c.i. attempted an addendum to deal with that. 'in fairness,' it's going up without it. c.i. was trashed by this person. i say ditch the 'in fairness' and go for the jugular. but that's me.

me, i wouldn't give some 1 a chance to reply when they've already replied with things that i will call, generously, half-truths. but i'm out for blood. maybe the person was misinformed by ron.

and maybe i'll be surprised by the 2nd person's actions. i hope i'm surprised.

clarification on e-mail that might have been a post and maureen dowd poses to go gunning for jane fonda

let me start off by saying that a story i told you last week has an addition to it. i told you of a blogger who has a tracker of some kind at his site. and how he'd told a tale of being able to read an e-mail that 1 visitor to his site was composing from either another screen or from when the visitor moved on from the guy's site.

the guy advised me that it might have not been an e-mail. he might have just been able to view the person composing a post to leave at another site.

it didn't matter to me. it still doesn't. i'm only including it here because i've spent an hour on the phone with a friend who said it was an issue with the guy.

so there it is. maybe he didn't see an e-mail. maybe he only saw a message that some 1 was composing -- as they composed it -- for another site.

that detail was added to the story after i posted my entry and it's a 'maybe.' i don't think it effects the story and i don't think it really matters.

we're a site that talks about sex from time to time. and i have readers who have some less than standard sexual techniques. (which i'm cool with, to each their own.) so would it matter 1 of you if you went to folding star's a winding road and either while there or after you left, you were composing a message on a site saying you were looking for some 1 interested in ___? does it make a difference to you if it's an e-mail or post? i don't think it does. (folding star does not have a tracker or a counter that fs has access to. i was using folding star as an example before every 1 e-mails asking if i was trying to offer a hint.)

it's a scary story. and i don't think it matters that after the fact the person wants to add to the story that maybe it wasn't an e-mail, maybe it was a post the person was leaving at another site.

do you want some 1 staring over your shoulder? i don't. i don't like it if, on the ferry, some 1's reading my paper or magazine over my shoulder.

but as a favor to the friend who called and asked that i put this up i am putting it up.

and to the guy involved, e-mail me. my address is sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com and i do check the e-mail. don't put my friend in a difficult position and don't assume that i'm against you when i've stated otherwise to you.

now we're going to move on to what i wanted to write about tonight, something that i got 16 e-mails on. i'm talking about maureen dowd's review of jane fonda's book my life so far.

you hate the review and i don't blame you. i made calls and spoke to many people about this.
c.i. is on the record as some 1 i spoke to about this yesterday. (c.i. said to put that in.)

we'll start with c.i. because that was the most moderate reaction and i'm going from my notes here. maureen dowd is not a liberal, she's a contrarian. she has to be funny. her way of being funny is to mock. people have mistakenly thought because she's ridiculing bully boy that she's a liberal. she directs that same attitude at whomever holds the office and always will. on the plus side, she read the book. it's not surprising that a hollywood actress would be criticized by maureen dowd who attempts to toss out her working class roots for sympathy and then to act as so many of her set by looking down on hollywood. it's doubtful she'd take a similar attitude with a man from hollywood, and surely not 1 she'd slept with.

now we're pulling from others. the thing, and even c.i. agreed here, that shocked the people i spoke to the most was dowd's little puritanical jab at a three some. maureen dowd hasn't lived a life in the nunnery. if some 1 were to write of maureen dowd's sexcapades, it would be quite interesting. i spoke to a woman who has slept with a man, we'll call him mr. famous, that dowd's been involved with (in the way, way back past). mr. famous standard's m.o. when in heat is apparently to tell the woman he's with at that moment (mo do knows whom i mean) 'you _____
better than ____' (the second blank is a name). he does that throughout listing many, many names. mr. famous has been with many, many women.

dowd may have drawn the veil in the last few years, but if she wants to strike a pose as puritan, she might have chosen some of her romances a little better. and here's a tip for mo do before she gets into another affair with a high profile man, if he's listing what you do better than previous women, when he's done with you, your name will make the list.

i don't give her the pass for being a contrarian. i've read the book. (and was read chapters of it before it came out from c.i.) if there's a broken doll, it may be mo do.

jane fonda is a survivor and she cops to what she did. dowd, in a nasty little review, wants to strike poses. that really wasn't honest, mo do. and again, you didn't spend the last decade in a nunnery.

c.i.'s going to take a pass on you because, unlike janet maslin, you read the book. c.i. feels that you're entitled to your opinion and only questioned your puritanical pose. the others i spoke with were far less nice (and far more forthcoming on the dish about mo do's 90s activities).

now maybe it's necessary for you to hate everything to write about it. when you wrote about organ donation, for instance, you had no voice at all. you cared about that and couldn't find a way to offer your usual pith when it was something you cared about. the column was flat and amateurish. so if you have to pull out the scorn, then that's what you have to do.

but don't kid youself that you offered a valid review.

the link for jane fonda's my life so far takes you to powell's books which, as noted on the laura flanders show, doesn't track what you're viewing and compile a mini-portfolio on you. there you can find reviews written without a need to scorn whatever topic 1 is writing about:

"To hold this book in your hands is to be astonished by how much living can be packed into 60-plus years..." Los Angeles Times

"My Life So Far is perhaps the most frank memoir by a seminal cultural figure in modern memory....[Fonda's] prose is refreshing and direct....Her honesty...is a force." Philadelphia Inquirer

don't miss the publisher's weekly review (which is quite lengthy). but you'll be able to find out what people who wanted to review a book had to say, as opposed to people who felt the need to strike a pose.

i will add 'in fairness' to dowd that the people dishing on her (c.i. didn't dish) were going by 'the talk' and possibly maureen dowd is a virgin and nasty wags just tag her with rumors. but at her age and with what she's seen, if not what she's allegedly lived, the puritan pose was a false note.

but, as 1 wag noted, 'she certainly made poppy proud.'

talking 'bout the third estate sunday review

yes, there is a post on sunday. yes, it is late. i just got off the phone with dona and she says even jim is exhausted for a change. usually jim's the one who most enjoys the marathon all night session that goes into the third estate sunday review. i think everyone was pushed to the limit this time.

a number of you have asked about the process and what goes on. so that will be the entry for tonight.

the third estate sunday review is a group of common ills community members. they are ava, ty, jess, jim and dona. they are college students and, as was revealed in the roundtable this week, jim and dona are an item.

they do a sunday blog only. it is a variety of stories that usually includes an editorial and TV review among other things.

common ills community members who blog frequently assist. this includes folding star of a winding road, betty of thomas friedman is a great man, kat of kat's korner (musical reviews at the common ills), c.i. of the common ills and myself.

the tv review is done by ava and c.i. that is there own little corner. initially, others would add input and work on various drafts but ava and c.i. do an incredible job on it and when others work on it as well, it tends to muck the whole thing up.

if you've never been to the third estate sunday review and are trying to get some fix on it from my description, think of it as a paper that only comes out on sunday.

they may cover a book, poetry, music or art. they may do a feature on an issue effecting college students. they have a great sense of humor and one feature is 'dear third estate sunday review' which is an advice column with smart ass answers.

this week, there was a humor feature on john cloud who wrote the cover story for time on ann coulter. it's based on post-its that might be found on his desk.

working on that were jim, ty, jess, dona and myself. betty had rightly bailed due to the late hour and ava and c.i. were working on their tv review and doing a joint entry over at the common ills covering this morning's new york times.

i think there are some funny jokes in that feature (we all do) but 1 thing we learned is that when we do a humorous piece without ava, c.i. and betty, we're really forcing it. which isn't to say that we aren't funny people. but there was some block, and it may have been the all nighter, that led to it feeling very hard to think of anything funny. ava and c.i. riff off each other and aren't afraid to toss out a joke that might bomb. if that happens, 1 of them picks up a piece of that joke and takes it somewhere else. i think our biggest problem on the post-its piece was that no 1 wanted to be the 1 bombing.

ava and c.i. are fearless there. that's why i said last week that they are creative people. they understand the process a great deal better than we do.

in the roundtable this go round, we addressed a number of issues and i think you'll enjoy reading it. after it was done, it turned out ty had a topic that hadn't been addressed. so in the next roundtable, it will be picked up. i think we all enjoy doing that.

the editorial has been the main reason/excuse for throwing it all together at the last minute. 1 time, a wonderful editorial had been written early in the week, probably no later than thursday, but by the time sunday rolled around, there were more pressing issues so it got tossed aside.

dona said on the phone that she's setting down a schedule for this week. starting tomorrow, a draft will be begun on jane fonda comedy film and it will circultate via e-mail all week (monster in law, starring jane fonda, jennifer lopez and the hottie michael vartan opens may 13th). dona wants tuesday to be devoted to 'dear third estate sunday review' and so on.

every 1 is wiped out from last night and so dona's taking the lead to make sure that at least this coming week, we're all done long before the sun's shining.

each edition, the third estate sunday review does a blog spotlight. this week it's c.i.'s entry on why ann coulter isn't a cover. i read that piece last night when ty said he thought it was the 1 he wanted to highlight. we were all in agreement with it (except c.i. who had 4 other posts, from other blogs to suggest).

i think it's an amazing piece. as some 1 who worked in public relations, i will say 'what c.i. said.'
the cover is the biggest decision for a magazine and it's not made lightly. time is a general interest magazine and when it does a celebrity cover, it is a big deal with a big discussion. c.i. goes over the general rules for celebrity covers, and is correct, so check it out and scratch your head as you try to figure out what time was thinking when it decided to break every rule by running ann coulter on the cover when she's not a cover of a general interest magazine.

do not miss the editorial which evaluates daniel okrent's take on the new york times' coverage of israel and palestine. after 17 months, goofy boy finally weighs in and he can't even get the basics, no surprise.

and don't miss ava and c.i.'s review of the simple life. it will make you laugh and you'll understand why the tv review has become the most consistently popular feature of each edition.

each edition has 'a note to our readers' and the skinny there is jim types it and fits in what people are shouting out or wanting tossed in. jim's the editor of the note to the readers.

how does something get written is the question most of the e-mail asks? well there's no 1 way. jess might write 3 paragraphs on something, ty might be next to work on piece and rearrange what jess just wrote or trash all of it but 1 sentence and add new things. then it's passed around and the process repeats. which is why it can take so long if the first drafts are starting saturday night and that's why dona's trying to get some things started long before this saturday.

hopefully, that gives you a look into the process as well as into the third estate sunday review.
i urge everyone to check it out. and i'll add this, though i can't imagine any of my readers doing this, if you don't like ava and c.i.'s take on a tv show, that's fine. you can rant, you can rage. but there are a lot of threatening e-mails coming in. specific threats of a violent nature. they don't deserve that. so i hope that no one who visits this site would ever feel the need to write such an e-mail. if you have, please stop.

listen to the rachel maddow show if you haven't already

if you're listening to the rachel maddow show, you're hearing some strong radio. if you're not, and it's on very early, consider listening to it via air america place.

this morning, i got up and got online early. read the common ills which, to be honest, is my must read in the morning. the new york times just lays out on the porch in it's little baggie.

here's what i read this morning at the common ills:

And let's give credit where it's due, Rachel Maddow stressed this story this morning on The Rachel Maddow Show. Remember, if the show is on too early for you, you can listen to it online at Air America Place. Also on this morning's show, you'll hear clips of Henry Hyde admitting that the impeachment of Bill Clinton was probably motivated by a need for 'payback' for the attempted impeachment of Richard Nixon.

i read that and my mouth just dropped. it's so petty, and so true to the nature of people like henry hyde. richard nixon was run out of office and for good reason but there they were planning and plotting their revenge. so a consensual sex affair and trying to bring down a president over it becomes 'payback.'

isn't it just typical of their petty mind set?

i rushed over to air america place to listen to rachel maddow's reporting on it and was really glad i did. and of course, now it's the talk of the web. but i wonder how many others bothered to give rachel maddow credit? that's 1 of the many things i love about the common ills, c.i. is no glory hog and is more than happy to credit others. you'd be surprised how rare that is online.

if you want to read about it, via buzzflash, go to abc7chicago. have to keep it short tonight due to company.