Community Jot

Mike talks to new community member "Kansas" (identified as Ryan but it's not the community's Ryan to be clear) here and Rebecca speaks with community members Martha and Maria here.

I'm still working on the correction to my first jot and appreciate the e-mails with suggestions on that. I'll try to have it posted later today.

Kat offers her take here (her take so far).

Elaine tells me on the phone that she's just so disappointed by the whole thing she was too disappointed to write yesterday. She says she'll have something up today.

Betty's working it into a new chapter and says to put in, "These things take days for me to finish. I'm thinking Friday is the soonest I'll be done with it and it can go up."

Cedric says he's writing right after church tonight and had practice last night so wasn't able to get in to pull the link last night. He says it will be pulled tonight.

Ty says he, Jim, Jess and Dona wrote a "mammoth" note to the readers. Dona says it needs to be cut in half and have more focus. Jim wants the points made more clear. Ty advises that it will be up but probably at two or three Thursday morning.

Seth says he never linked to the site because he didn't see any value in their work. He's wiped out from school and work and says the fact that he never endorsed the site to begin with means he's not rushing to note it now.

Jess says to post his e-mail he sent yesterday:

"The problem," _____, is that Ava didn't attack you.
She's been professional in both e-mails she sent you and taken input from her aunt on what to leave in and what to take out before sending.
Ava's aunt told her no personal contact with you, professional only.
That's what Ava did.
Jim phoned & asked, "Did Eddie mail C.I.?"
He did. Same message he mailed us at Third that Jim was looking at.
You've delinked from C.I. in the midst of your olive branch offer?
We will be delinking from your site. Community wide.
You had no problem writing repeatedly but somehow you forgot to mention that detail.
While supposedly offering a "sincere request for peace" you delink C.I.?
You've called your desire for peace into question.
We won't be left holding an olive branch with thorns.
J

"The problem" is using the phrase from ___'s snippy reply where she gripes at Ava.

I'll have my corrected post up sometime this evening or tonight.

I've already delinked but since the first post deals with that site it does need a correction.

"Stop the Jot!" hollers Jim

"Stop The Jot!" Jim screams.

Actually, I'm bringing in stuff from the trunk of the car because I took my grandfather Christmas shopping and Mom's yelling that I've got a phone call.

Grandpa went to town and then some. It's like he bought a town. I'm trying to grab as much as I can carry and make as few trips as I can.

I holler, "Mom, who ever it is, tell them I call them back."

"No, Wally," my mom yells back, "you need to take this call!"

I hurry up the drive, drop the sacks on the porch and take the phone from Mom.

"Hello?"

"Stop The Jot!"

It's Jim.

Mike's got some stuff for tonight. They're going with Mike because it's more his style and also because C.I. won't get mad at him. Everybody likes Mike!

See, everyone closed ranks and was willing to try a peace deal even though it put us all out big time. That's because C.I. thought the woman was being genuine.

In the last two days of this supposed peace deal, she's dogged on Kat while supposedly wanting peace, gotten snippy with Ava, and . . . Well, just wait for Mike tonight.

And you know, as Mom said - you kkkkkknnnnnnnnoooooooowwwwww, Rebecca will be a must read tonight. So be sure and check in with her.

Me? I gotta figure out how to do a correction to my first post ever.

But Mom says she'll help out.

I told Jim to tell Mike to break me off a piece of that and I'll post some of it here because us newbies are like C.I.'s kids and C.I. won't get mad at me. The most C.I. will probably say is, "That's between you and her."

But this sort of nonsense is the reason Mike started blogging in the first place. I remember that because I was one of the people e-mailing him and going, "Mike, it's not a big deal." He'll tell you I was one of the ones saying, "Start your own site and you'll see it doesn't matter."

But that was one thing. There was no offer of peace in the conflict that had Mike pissed off.

This time, there was an offer of peace but somehow peace still included snapping at Ava who did not get personal with this woman because her aunt told her not to. Her aunt goes, "That woman will burn you." Sunday night, we were all on the phone with Ava's aunt who told C.I., "I love you, you're the sweetest, most trusting yadda yadda yadda, but this woman does not want peace."

C.I. is sweet and trusting. I think all of us respond to that.

But there's peace and there's pretend peace and if you tell us you want peace and then don't, the rest of us aren't as nice as C.I.

So Ava's aunt gave some advice and we all followed it.

I'm glad we did. If we didn't, we couldn't say we tried. Well, we tried.

Jim'll have a note up tonight but let me tell you to look forward to the next edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. Pieces that didn't get posted online? They may get up there. Or we may just make an effort to write even more strong.

And check out Kat because Jim hadn't talked to her but I bet Kat will have something to say on all of this.

Quick Jot!

A Jot delayed is not a jot in vain!

I'm taking my grandfather Christmas shopping so the Jot will be delayed this morning. Check this afternoon or this evening.

Happy Holidays.

Quick jot

Quick jot this morning. Be sure to check out "Editorial: What Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma tells us." We're all really pleased with that and it's the favorite of my grandfather.

That edition was a pain to put out and Jim's probably going to put up a note addressing the why of that so look for that.

And check out C.I. this morning about Plamegate.

Hope we all get this week off to a great start.

Don't miss the special programming

Early Jot. Early to post, late to going to bed. Everyone's wiped out from doing the special pieces at The Third Estate Sunday Review. I think everyone really pulled together and it was great to see how the editorial started as three different bits and became whole. Jess and C.I. both said "All we are saying is just take a stand!" and that was used to piece the different pieces together in different spots.

It's called "War Got Your Tongue" and Dona and Jim both looked at the clock and said, "We either take what we have and turn it into one finished piece or we'll be working on the three individual ones until mid-day tomorrow." So that's what we did.

There was a real sense of closeness as we were putting this one together. I'm really proud of it. Mom said to call her and wake her when the last thing was up so I did. She read it and said, "Needing saying and well said. I'm going back to sleep now."

Read the roundtable because that's the other special programming. It was called that because it was going to pre-empt individual sites tonight. But Rebecca did post her thing she'd already written and if you missed it move your mouse here and click.

Have a great weekend.

And copying and pasting to note credit on the special programming pieces:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz and Wally of The Daily Jot.

What's going on

I'm not in a jotting mood. Community members will know why.

Kat does an outstanding job and is an incredible person. For someone to distort what she's written pisses me off. That it happened at a site that I've recommended bothers me as much as it does Gina, Krista, Brenda, Brad and Kyle who've been circulating the e-mail on this.

Mike hadn't checked his inbox. He called this morning to ask if I was going to post and to ask if C.I. was posting. C.I. posted but posted late. Mike didn't call C.I. because he thought C.I. might not be posting to actually get some much needed sleep.

That's not the deal. The deal isn't even that someone disagrees with Kat. The deal is that someone's distorted Kat's words.

I asked Mike if he'd spoken to Rebecca and he hadn't. I told him she didn't post last night because her entry was about some of this nonsense including an e-mail telling Kat to correct her opinion. Rebecca called me and read it to me. She said she wanted to do that before she read it to C.I. because she thought C.I. would be pissed at her. I didn't think there was anything wrong with her post. I've called her this morning and she said C.I. told her to post it and didn't see anything wrong with it either.

If you see something up here that's my opinion, you're free to disagree. You're free to e-mail and say you disagree. You're not free to demand a correction to my opinion.

Kat's been distorted and the person distorting her wants her to correct her opinion. There's no fact to correct because her facts are correct.

I don't stand behind that. Rebecca's post is about how some men think they can boss women around. That's how I see what's going on. A man thinks he can make Kat correct her opinion just because he disagrees with her.

He also hasn't had the decency to reply to Kat after dumping his issues on her.

So I'm not in a jotting mood this morning.

I spoke to Mom before posting this morning. I told her I wasn't into jotting today because I'd write about this and everyone's hoping the man will either apologize or back off with a forget it e-mail. Mom said the man was wrong to alter Kat's words and that I should say so.

I agree with that.

Mom sounded like Rebecca this morning talking about how some men think they can tell a woman what to think and she said she hopes Kat doesn't "correct" her opinion. She said for me to put that in when I posted.

In the end, there are people who will stand against the war and there are people who will stay silent. Kat's never stayed silent on the war. Apparently some men don't have the same guts and character that Kat has. So it's okay for them to drop words from what she's written and make it sound like she wrote something she didn't.

It's not cool in my book.

If it's not fixed, I will be saying more. C.I.'s hoping that it's a misunderstanding that can be cleared up. I want to believe that too. If it's not, the community will move on and the community will stand behind Kat.

Swiping from C.I. (The Common Ills posts are up now):

Remember the scheduled topic for today's Democracy Now! (thanks to Rod):

* On the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon we discuss his life and politics with historian Jon Wiener, the author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files."

From page 168 of Phil Strongman and Alan Parker's John Lennon & The FBI Files:

The renegade M15 spy David Shayler gave his employers a nudge by revealing the fact that there were British files on Lennon -- over his support for left-wing parties -- as well as on two '60s students who were now members of the new cabinet (these were former student union leader Jack Straw and one-time anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain).Weeks later M15 began to shread over 120,000 of the files it had held on UK subjects -- including one John Winston Ono Lennon. Rather than fight this outrageous action, the government actually seemed to encourage it -- perhaps grateful that the youthful excesses of its senior and junior ministers would now never be made public. Those who'd been less successful in life than high-ranking government members -- those who might have had their careers slowed or destroyed by secret action -- were the losers. They would not be able to claim compensation without proof. And that proof was rapidly being turned into pulp besides the south bank of the Thames.
But the US copies of the M15 Lennon files -- or at least those that were sent to the FBI --- did still exist. And after much prompting from Wiener and his civil-liberties legal team, the FBI agreed to ask for British permission to finally release the last ten Lennon documents -- those FBI files that had originated in, contained information from -- or were copied to -- Military Intelligence 5 and 6.
Yet, despite all their freedom of information pledges, Blair's regime hesitated for a few days, and then said "no." [. . . ]

The discussion on Democracy Now! should be quite interesting. And the Wiener noted in the excerpt is Jon Wiener, Goodman's guest for today's show.

Check out the show. John Lennon stood for peace. So does Bright Eyes and "When A President Talks To God" isn't "trite, crudely so, and certainly unenlightening" unless sitting on the fence about the war has given you splinters in the brain.

I'll close by quoting David Zirin, a writer Mike and I have tremendous respect for, and I won't alter his quote but will leave that to fence sitters on the war who think it's okay to alter Kat's quote and feel that citations of The New Republic are, I'm guessing, 'neat':

The New Republic magazine - a pro-war Democratic Party rag - thought it would be provocative to muse about killing and torturing anti-war activists. New Republic writer T.A. Frank found it cheeky to sit in and mock an anti-war panel sponsored by the DC Anti-War Network, the DC ISO and others. He thought it would make his colleagues chuckle to wish for "John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation." The New Republic thought they would score points with their puffy beltway buddies by printing a call for someone to "take a bunker buster to [internationally known anti-war author] Arundhati Roy." The New Republic also thought they'd get away with it. They were wrong.
On Friday, about fifty-plus anti-war and global justice activists picketed their shabby Washington DC offices [tough times for TNR]. We were loud and proud demanding both print-space to rebut Frank's psychotic rant as well as a formal apology. As we chanted gems like "Stop the Threats, Stop the Lies; New Republic Apologize" and "New Republic YOU can go Kill and Die for Texaco," their quivering editorial team remained holed upstairs, refusing to address our demands, defend Frank's rant, or even leave the office. While their staff shook in the newly christened "New Republic Panic Room," we handed out hundreds of leaflets to passers-by outlining their nasty dirge.
Our "Fight the New Republic[ans]" campaign began when we posted a response to Frank on the Counterpunch website. The reaction was staggering with TNR receiving hundreds of e-mails and phone calls. It was incredible, as letters poured in from around the world, from anti-war vets to unionists in India. Despite the diversity of responders, the message was quite unified: if you want to get to Arundhati Roy, you have to go through us first.

That's from "Fighting the New Republic[ans]." As NOW notes, "Peace is a feminist issue." Mom wanted that in and also said I should note that distorting a woman or trying to make her correct her opinion are not feminist issues. Mom said too that I needed to add NOW to my links so I'll do that right after I post this.

Florida, Florida Florida

C.I. spotlights me Monday and by Tuesday I've got more e-mail than I ever have all saying stuff like "I had no idea" or "Thank you for writing about Florida."

That's so cool that so many people were even interested. To be honest, it really does seem like outside of Florida, no one cares too much.

I always enjoy Ruth's stuff but I really enjoyed her last Ruth's Morning Edition Report because she found a show that was talking about Florida:

Of all the programs I listened to this week, the one that I felt delivered day after day was KPFA's The Morning Show. Let's take two issues that were cited as worth more attention in the poll in the latest gina & krista round-robin.
Wally addressed what was going on in Florida at The Daily Jot this week. As Andre Lewis noted, this is an issue that "doesn't seem to be getting attention." Her guest was Sushma Sheth, of the The Miami Workers Center, who raised issues that really have not been getting out in the mainstream media.
As Wally pointed out November 2nd, the first heavy rains were when the effects of Hurricane Wilma were more noticeable as roofs collapsed. Ms. Sheth pointed out that the official response was "basically every family for themselves." She discussed how "buildings that had not been kept up to code . . . caved." The collapses and the fact that other buildings were not up to code has led to mass evictions in Liberty City and Miami Beach. Some people have been forcibly evicted in the early morning hours.
Ms. Sheth also pointed out that issues of relief supplies were confusing such as attempting to determine "who had at ice at what time where?" There was a lack of leadership in all areas from the government's response on all levels. While this inadequate response was ongoing you also had people losing wages due to businesses being closed and this especially hit hard persons living pay check to pay check. Also harshly effected were immigrants who not only suffered from poor housing and lost wages but also found, when attempting to get relief, that they had to produce documents before receiving relief from governmental institutions.
The Miami Workers Center is calling for:
1) A halt to economic evictions.
2) An halt to foreclosures on homes.
3) A halt to threat of losing utilities due to loss of payments.
The economic impact from Hurricane Wilma is very real and the threat of evictions, foreclosures, lack of service is a very real concern. Another concern is that some of the same mistakes may be made again if the planning for future responses relies upon the same voices.
Public transportation was not a concern to those planning responses to the aftermath. There was no attempt made to waive the requirement for bus passes nor was there apparently any thought that relief supplies need to be better distributed and better publicized for those who rely on public transportation since a good portion of the day can be spent traveling from one area to another.

I'll add two more things to that and call it a jot.

First from the Sun-Sentinel, Sharon Robb's "Against the wind:"


Joey Pedraza wanted to salvage his high school season. The Pine Crest junior missed more than 20 days of training because of Hurricane Wilma and wasn't sure whether he would be able to recover in time to challenge for another state title.
The state champion in the 500-yard freestyle last year for St. Thomas Aquinas, Pedraza wanted to win at least one title for his new team at the state meet.

That's for George who wondered how it effected school athletics. If you use the link this is a pretty long story that you'll enjoy reading.

Second, also from the Sun-Sentinel, David Fleshler's "Legislative hearings to be held in S. Florida on coping with hurricanes:"

A state Senate committee will have hearings next month in South Florida on how to improve the way the state deals with hurricanes.
The Senate Domestic Security Committee will schedule five hearings in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties to discuss power outages, gasoline shortages and other hardships that came with Hurricane Wilma. Times and dates have not been set.
The public will have the chance to speak, and senators also expect to hear from power companies, police, fire departments and others involved in dealing with hurricanes, said Kathy Mears, spokeswoman for Senate President Tom Lee. The hearings are intended to produce ideas that can be implemented in the coming session of the state Legislature.

If everyone talking about showing up for these hearings shows up, it's going to be something. Maybe that will get on the news.

Thanks for the e-mails and thanks too to KPFA's The Morning Show and Andrea Lewis for talking about it when not many seem to care. If you don't know KPFA, it's a Pacifica Radio station in California.

My aunt called yesterday to ask about Ava & C.I. She'd just read their "TV Review: Kenny & Faith let their hair down" Tuesday morning and then went back through their other TV reviews. She thinks they're the funniest TV reviewers around. Agreed.

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.

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Paicifica Radio Archives All-Day Fundraising Special

First off, special event today that Ruth noted:

Pacifica Radio Archives All-Day Fundraising Special
18-hour natl. simulcast of programming from Pacifica's 50-plus-year history. Focuses: civil rights movement, live music, and the 1970 live reading on WBAI of Tolstoy's War and Peace. On December 6 the entire Pacifica network will pre-empt its regular schedule for an 18-hour simulcast of programming drawn from Pacifica's 50-plus-year history. This will be a fundraiser for the Pacifica Radio Archives that preserves the network's audio treasures. This year we're focusing on three major subject areas: the civil rights movement recordings, live music, and the 1970 live reading on WBAI of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

That sounds like it will be really interesting. If you don't have a Pacifica Radio in your area, visit online and you can listen to one of the stations or one of their affiliates.

Second, thank you to C.I. for posting my entry at The Common Ills. C.I. feels bad because it was supposed to go up at The Third Estate Sunday Review but didn't because everyone forgot. I was helping on that edition and I know it was crazy so no apologies or feeling bad necessary.

Jotting from that entry, I got to wonder, is anyone going to make a big deal about the fact that military can spy on us?

And I'm glad Howard Dean's remembered that the war is wrong but after months of so-little to nothing from him on this topic, I'm wondering if this is just all part of the "raise money for the 2006 elections!" plan.

Sorry to feel that way. Dean was a voice against the war in the primaries. But I'm really disappointed about how little he's said on this issue since becoming head of the DNC. If this is a sign of more to come, I might open my wallet. But if this is just a p.r. move to raise money, I'm not interested.

And Seth's posted an entry Sunday so make a point to read it. I think I started a week after Seth but I may have started a week before him. We're the newest bloggers in The Common Ills community. Hope everyone's checking Seth's site.

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Bully Boy's lips were flapping but he was rapping an old track

Comic above is Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts. I love his comics. Besides appearing at The Common Ills, we also used it for "Editorial: Bully With No Plan, Just More Lip." It's a pretty good editorial, so check it out. I think of last week's speech as "Bully Boy's lips were flapping but he was rapping an old track." We heard it all before.

Mom wanted me to note something. Saturday night, she turns on the local news. She hears something like, "When we come back, an attack in Iraq and what are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt planning?" She couldn't believe it. (They're either planning marriage or about to adopt a baby and then get married or something. It doesn't matter to anyone but them and their family and friends but some news genius thought it was equal to news from Iraq.)

C.I. forwarded me an Associated Press story that was up at the New York Times:

President Bush's motorcade had a minor accident on Sunday when the ambulance that routinely trails the president in case of an emergency crashed into a support vehicle on the way back from Camp David.

Course that ambulance might trail for another reason. Was that thing on Bully Boy's back in the debate with John Kerry a device to feed him lines to say or was it some sort of health thing for his heart? Press never told you and still acts like it didn't happen.

In fact, the New York Times killed their own story on Bully Boy's "bulge." You can check out this from FAIR if that's news to you.

It's Monday. Usual start of the week blahs. Let's hope it's a good week.

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.

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Repubes and Race

That's one of my favorites of Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts.


I never get tired of that comic. Partly because it's so true. Turn over a rock and you'll find a swarm of elected Republicans.

If you missed C.I.'s "Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" click and read it to find out the latest attack by the Republicans.

I've got an e-mail from C.I. this morning about "Help Make Thursday, December 1st 'Blog Against Racism Day.'" which is something Leah wrote for Corrente.

When I think of racism, remember I live in Florida, the first thing that comes to mind is the 2000 election. Tubby Tim Russert couldn't stop saying, "Florida, Florida, Florida." And the media swarmed down here like a bunch of Republicans. And of course Republicans swarmed down here to pose as Floridians and try to shut down the recount (and succeeded on that).

There were media reports on the half hour. But the story they didn't want to cover was the disenfranchisement of African-American voters.

Think about all the jawing on Florida, all the cameras, all the coverage and think about how little attention was paid to African-Americans being dropped from the voting rolls.

I think that goes to racism. If it happens to whites, it's news for everyone. If it happens to non-whites, the media decides it's not all that important.

We saw it in the coverage of Florida's 2000 election, we saw it again in Ohio in 2004.

Some issues matter more to the media than others and too often it seems like skin color is what they base that decision on.

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Stanley Tookie Williams & Lori Berenson on Democracy Now today

E-mail from C.I. giving me a heads up on something I want to give you a heads up on:


Tune in to Democracy Now! on Wednesday 11/30 for interviews with Stanley Tookie Williams and Lori Berenson
See Democracy Now! for full audio, video and transcripts
A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie WilliamsTwo weeks from the date of his scheduled execution, Williams speaks from death row with Democracy Now! about his case, his life and his redemption. Williams helped start the Crips street gang. But behind bars he has become a leading advocate for the end of gang violence. He has written nine books and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is scheduled to die on Dec. 13.
Lori Berenson Commentary from Prison Marks 10th Anniversary of her Arrest
On the 10th anniversary of the arrest of U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, her father, Mark Berenson, reads a commentary she released from prison. She was convicted in 1995 in Peru by hooded military judges of collaborating with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. She is scheduled for release in November 2015.
To find a station near you that broadcasts Democracy Now!, see:http://democracynow.org/stations.shtml
ABOUT DEMOCRACY NOW!
Democracy Now! airs on over 350 radio and TV stations, including Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite TV stations (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); on the WorldRadio Network's European Service and on the Community Broacasting Association of Australia service; as a "podcast", automatically downloaded to your computer or portable audio player; and streams live M-F at 8am EST at Democracy Now!
Now real-time CLOSED CAPTIONED on TV!
You can also view/listen/read all Democracy Now! shows online:
To bring Democracy Now! to your community, go to:http://www.democracynow.org/bringDNtoyou.html

C.I.'s posted it too and notes in the e-mail (and at The Common Ills) that Rod passed on the information. (He's signed up for daily e-mails from Democracy Now!). So check it out. Sounds like an outstanding show today.

Florida edition

The Daily Jot isn't a morning blog. I like to get it out of the way but there are times when it's not possible. Like this morning. The agreement to get my grandfather to come to my mom's was that when he was ready to go back home, no one would try to talk him out of it and I'd just drive him back.

I'm still rubbing my eyes when he says this morning he's ready to go back.

So I took him and guess what, some homes still don't have electricity. Let me repeat that: Some homes still don't have electricty. Maybe you forgot, national media hasn't been interested, but Florida Power & Light swore that by November 22nd power would be back on. They missed that deadline.

So this is the Florida edition of The Daily Jot where I'm going to tell you what the national media hasn't because they don't care.

People who lost their housing are still waiting. They may be in a shelter temporarily. That's the lucky ones.

Car sales and home sales are down for the month. Some say the market in southern Florida has "cooled" due to the hurricane.

Here's a story on something you probably didn't see in the "nation's paper" (New York Times),
Joel Hood "S. Florida's funeral homes coped creatively with Wilma's power outages:"

In the frantic first days after Hurricane Wilma, funeral homes in Broward and Palm Beach counties were forced to come up with creative ways to deal with power outages.
Without electricity to power crematoriums, some funeral homes stacked bodies in dressing rooms. Some shipped bodies to refrigerated holding rooms at county medical examiner's offices. Others embalmed bodies whether families wanted it or not.
Industry officials estimate funeral homes lost millions in the aftermath of Wilma on Oct. 24. Also, some now say restoring power to funeral homes should receive the same priority given to hospitals, supermarkets, and fire and police departments after a natural disaster.
"If we're unable to properly store bodies in a refrigerated facility or do embalming, there immediately starts to be a health issue," said Daniel Perrin, vice president of the Florida Funeral Directors Association, which represents 700 funeral homes.

That's from yesterday's Sun-Sentinel.

Remember when I told you that it was the rains that came through after the hurricane that hurt? Here's a story about today, "20 to 50 residents displaced after building roof collapse in Oakland Park:"

Heavy rains on Tuesday afternoon left about 20 to 50 building occupants out on the street after a roof collapse in Oakland Park.
The building located at 4061 N. Dixie Highway was determined to be unsafe by a building official and was red tagged. The building had suffered previous roof damage from Hurricane Wilma.
The displaced residents are making arrangements to relocate on their own.

Diane C. Lade's "Gas costs hurting volunteers who help disabled, elderly:"

An AARP survey of 568 people age 50 and older, released in October, found 62 percent limited their daily driving because of gas prices after Hurricane Katrina drove up fuel costs. And 41 percent said they cut spending in other areas to pay for gas.

For effects on the high end, check out Douglas Hanks III's "THE EFFECTS OF HURRICANE WILMA CONTINUE TO BE FELT, EVEN AT THIS YEAR'S WHITE PARTY AT MIAMI'S VIZCAYA MUSEUM:"

For a stylish measure of Hurricane Wilma's economic impact, don your best apparel and head out this evening to the White Party.
Half of the restaurants signed up to cater the gala at Miami's Vizcaya Museum have pulled out of the event, saying they lost too much money in the Oct. 24 storm to justify donations to the AIDS fundraiser, organizers said.
''After the storm many called and said, `We've been out of power for 10 days, we lost all our food, we were in trouble anyway. And we won't be able to help you,''' said Rick Siclari, executive director of Care Resource, the AIDS charity that puts on White Party.

Here's the Associated Press's "Wilma highlights plight of Florida's migrant farmworkers:"

Ernesto and Carmen Vasquez intend to celebrate the holidays at home despite the SUV-sized hole in their living-room ceiling -- a calling card left by Hurricane Wilma -- and the red "X" on their door marking the trailer as condemned.
It's been one month since Wilma whipped through their Everglades mobile home park in western Palm Beach County, flattening many of their neighbors' homes, but the couple have yet to receive a visit from aid workers or local officials. Shelters here are scarce, so they plan to remain in their two-bedroom trailer with their two children -- if the rest of the roof doesn't cave in.
"We still have a house, so I suppose we are among the lucky ones," Carmen Vasquez said, as she looked up at the ceiling boards, sagging above photos of her children.
The Vasquez family is among thousands of Florida's uninsured farmworkers, some still without electricity, who are awaiting help in the wake of the Oct. 24 storm that thrashed South Florida at the end of the nation's worst hurricane season on record. Farmworker advocates say the situation is bad, but worse is the fact that it is looking like a repeat of last year, with migrant workers' flimsy housing rebuilt just in time for the next season's storms.

Maybe you needed aid? How's that going? This is from "Food Stamps Yet To Arrive For 50,000 Wilma Victims:"

Almost 3 million people filed for emergency food stamps in one of Florida's biggest disasters -- Hurricane Wilma.
On Tuesday, one Boynton Beach woman said it's taken so long to get the food stamps, she's had to take out a cash advance and skip Thanksgiving.
Ketty Jules is just one of about 50,000 people who are still waiting for that emergency help.
Jules is a working single mom who, like many, lives from paycheck to paycheck.
When hurricane Wilma roared thru last month, Ketty lost her electricity and a week's paycheck.
"Because of everything defrosting, I threw away everything in the fridge and went to John Prince Park and waited for almost four hours," she said. "They told me food stamp cards would get here in 7 to 10 days, and nothing ever did."

Well at least the rent stayed the same. Who wants to move to the area now? But believe it or not, rent's have risen. This is from Robin Benedick's "South Florida landlords blame rising taxes, insurance costs for rent surge:"

Landlords in South Florida say skyrocketing taxes and insurance costs are forcing them to sell their units or raise rents -- in some cases by several hundred dollars a month.
Rental property doesn't qualify for Florida's Save Our Homes property tax break, which limits annual property tax increases on homes to 3 percent.

I could go on and on. There are millions of stories. Too bad the national media doesn't seem to give a damn.

So that's it for the Florida Edition of The Daily Jot today.

Bully Boy

Illustration above from Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts.

4 aid workers kidnapped, at least 30 killed by a bomb outside of a hospital, Sunnis saying they're being targeted by the U.S. and Shia, go down the list.

And the U.S. military fatality toll for the month stands at 79 and has reached 2108 total.

Bully Boy lied us into war and now he's content to keep playing in his bloodbox while people keep dying.

Headlines

The Daily Jot doesn't have to be up in the morning first thing. Today I slept in, got out of bed in time to catch some football and was a lump on the couch for most of the morning and afternoon.
C.I. called and asked if I wanted to take part in something. Democracy Now! did a special on the guy who wrote the lyrics to The Wizard of Oz music and other songs. It's a really good special and you should check it out.

But since there were no headlines today, the thought was that those who wanted to could participate in coming up with the headlines. So that's what we did. It was like one of The Third Estate Sunday Review's "News Reviews" only shorter. Mom's always wondering how that process works and today she got to see. We were on the phone for about two hours. I think Mike's going to go over the process at his site so I'll leave that for him.

Besides providing the community with some headlines, C.I. and Elaine also thought it would help in terms of getting us together to work on something before Saturday night. Mom always wonders how those things go when we're all working together so she was right there listening to me on the phone.

C.I. and Elaine also thought it would help with us all being in holiday spirit and maybe not wanting to do long entries.

So here's some news you might not know about. We're all going to be posting it because we all worked on it.

We've composed the following twelve headlines dealing with Iraq, peace, global warming, reproductive rights, Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, prisons, the Patriot Act, the media, fatalities and other topics.

1) From Dahr Jamail's MidEast Wire (Iraq Dispatches):
Monday in Iraq, US troops fired on a car in Ba'qubah, killing five, two adults and three children. The US military states that they feared the car "booby-trapped." The family had been returning from visiting relatives when a US convoy approached. The car was fired on from the front and the back. One Iraqi was quoted as saying, "The ones who brought in the Americans are at fault. Those who support them are at fault. All of them are at fault. Look at these. They are all children. All of them of are children. They killed them. They killed my entire family."

2) In the United States the Associated Press reports that Cindy Sheehan returned to Crawford, Texas Thursday and joined what some estimates say were 100 protestors and other estimates say as many as 200.Cindy Sheehan stated, "I feel happy to be back here with all my friends ... but I'm heartbroken that we have to be here again," said Sheehan, who hoped to arrive earlier in the week, but was delayed by a family emergency. "We will keep pressing and we won't give up until our troops are brought home."

3) Since Sheehan and others last gathered at Camp Casey I and Camp Casey II, laws have been passed to prevent further gatherings in Crawford -- "local bans on roadside camping and parking." As protestors returned this week, they were advised they could be arrested. Among those arrested Wednesday were Daniel Ellsberg and US diplomat Ann Wright. Democratic Underground has a report from Carl who was also arrested Wendesday. Carl reports that "The entire [arrest & booking] process took 3.5 hours." Carl advises that the vigils will also take place on Christmas and New Year's Eve as well as that "Donations to the Crawford Veterans For Peace can be mailed to P. O. Box 252, Crawford, Texas, 76638-9998."

4) As the participation of psychologists and psychiatrists in the "BISQUIT" program and other 'interrogation' work raises ethical and professional questions today, CounterPunch is reporting that in WWII, United States anthropologists participated with the Office of Strategic Services in attempts to determine means to destroy the Japanese. David Price reports, in what is a clear betrayal of the profession, anthropologists were instructed "to try to conceive ways that any detectable differences could be used in the development of weapons, but they were cautioned to consider this issue 'in a-moral and non-ethical terms'." Price notes "Ralph Linton and Harry Shapiro, objected to even considering the OSS' request ­ but they were the exceptions."

5) In legal news, as the prison industry has switched to a profit making business, prisoners have found themselves located far from relatives. The distance has proved profitable for long distance companies. The Center for Constitutional Rights argued in court Monday on behalf of "New York family members who pay a grossly inflated rate to receive a phone call from their loved ones in state prisons." CCR notes:

The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS and MCI, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the State. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over regular consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them. Judge George Ceresia of the Supreme Court of New York, Albany County, dismissed the suit last fall, citing issues of timeliness.

6) In other legal news, Cynthia L. Cooper reports for Women's enews that November 30th the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. At issue in this case, is whether or not bans on reproductive freedom enacted by state legislatures must take effect before they can be legally challenged or whether they can be challenged as soon as they are passed. The standard up to now has been that laws can be challenged as soon as they are passed. Cooper notes:

By changing the legal standard for when an abortion restriction can be challenged in court, anti-abortion laws could quickly entangle women across the country, without directly overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that held that states could not criminalize abortion in all circumstances.

7) The Guardian of London reports on a Rutgers University study that has found "[g]lobal warming is doubling the rate of sea level rise around the world, but attempts to stop it by cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be futile." Professor Kenneth Miller tells The Guardian's Ashraf Khalil, "This is going to cause more beach erosion. Beaches are going to move back and houses will be destroyed." This comes as the Climate Conference is gearing up to take place in Montreal from November 28th to December 9th. United for Peace and Justiceis issuing a call for action:

This fall let's mobilize a nationwide, grassroots education and action campaign leading up to mass demonstrations in Montreal and throughout the U.S. on Saturday, December 3rd. Help gather signatures for the Peoples Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/www.kyotoandbeyond.org), which will be presented in Montreal. Join Climate Crisis: USA Join the World! (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/www.climatecrisis.us) as we call for:
USA Join the World by Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
Support and Export Clean, Safe, Non-Nuclear Energy Alternatives
End Government Subsidies for Oil and Coal Corporations
Dramatically Strengthen Energy Conservation and Fuel Efficiency Standards
A Just Transition for Workers, Indigenous and Other Communities Affected by a Change to Clean Energy
Defend the World's Forests; Support Community-Run Tree Planting Campaigns

8) With Congress out of session due to the holidays, a number of organizations are attempting to inform the public of pending legislation. The Bill of Rights Defense Center warns to "[e]xpect a vote [on the renewal of the Patriot Act]after Congress returns on December 12th." Of the bill, Lisa Graves of the ACLU states:

The Patriot Act was bad in 2001, and despite bipartisan calls for reform, it's still bad in 2005. Instead of addressing the real concerns that millions of Americans have about the Patriot Act, the Republican majority in Congress buckled to White House pressure, stripping the bill of modest yet meaningful reforms. Congress must reject this bill.

Both the ACLU and the Bill of Rights of Defense Center are calling for grass roots action.

Also asking for action is NOW. Congress failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. You can make your voice heard via NOW's take action page. On their page, you have the option of e-mailing your representatives and/or signing a petition that NOW will present to Congress on December 5th.

9) Meanwhile, as November winds down, American military fatalities have reached 76 for the month, with the Department of Defense reporting 50 Americans wounded thus far this month. The total number of American military killed in Iraq, official count, has reached 2105. Scripps Howard News Service reports that, "U.S. commanders on the ground have already launched plans to close bases and withdraw troops in the coming year, according to two congressmen who returned from Iraq this week." The two congress members are John Kline and Mark Kennedy (Republicans, Minn.).

10) In other Congressional news, Ari Berman reports for The Nation that John McCain is in the midst of makeover. Meeting with The Arizona Republican Assembly in August, McCain slapped some new war paint on as McCain supported the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" side by side with evolution, the state's "ban on gay marriage that denies government benefits to any unmarried couple," hailed Ronald Reagan as "my hero" and was observed "strenuously defending . . . Bush's Iraq policy."

For those who have forgotten, McCain attended Mark Bingham's funeral. Bingham was one of the passengers of Flight 93 on 9/11 in immediate media reports. As the days wore on, Bingham appeared to disappear from many reports. Mark Bingham was gay. Whether that resulted in a "downgrading" by some in the media has been a source of speculation for some time.

11) Focusing on the media, at The Black Commentator, Margaret Kimberly addresses the issue of Bob Woodward, tying him and his editor to the journalistic behaviors of Judith Miller and her editors:

Miller, Sulzberger, Woodward and Bradlee are at the top of the corporate media food chain, and their behavior tells us why Americans aren't being told anything they ought to be told. Woodward uses his access to make a fortune writing about the Supreme Court or various presidential administrations. If a journalist's priority is writing best selling books based on the amount of access gained with the powerful, then truth telling goes out the window.

12) Also addressing the very similar behaviors of Miller and Woodward are Steven C. Day at Pop Politics, Ron Brynaert at Why Are We Back In Iraq?, and Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post. Though still vocal on Judith Miller and weighing in with the "latest," CJR Daily still can't find a connection between the "journalistic" styles of Judith Miller and Bob Woodward. In their most recent 'Judy report', CJR Daily ponders the question of why did Miller go to jail when Scooter Libby and his people maintain that they released her from confidentiality claims. Covering old news and working themselves into another lather over Miller, CJR Daily wonders"Why did Ms. Miller go to jail?" and maintains the question "has never been fully answered." The question has indeed been answered.

Whether CJR Daily approves of or believes the argument of Miller, Floyd Abrams, et al, is beside the point. For the record, the answer has been given many times. The argument was that Miller needed more than a form signed possibly under duress. Abrams and others have long been on the record explaining that they sought a release other than the form. In the front page report, Sunday October 16, 2005, Don Van Natta Jr., Adam Liptak and Clifford J. Levy reported:

She said she began thinking about whether she should reach out
to Mr. Libby for "a personal, voluntary waiver."
[. . .]
While she mulled over over her options, Mr. Bennett was urging her to allow him to approach Mr. Tate, Mr. Libby's lawyer, to try to negotiate a deal that would get her out of jail. Mr. Bennet wanted to revive the question of the waivers that Mr. Libby and other administration officials signed the previous year authorizing reporters to disclose their confidential discussions.
The other reporters subpoenaed in the case said such waivers were coerced. They said administration officials signed them only because they feared retribution from the prosecutor or the White House. Reporters for at least three news organizations had then gone back to their sources and obtained additional assurances that convinced them the waivers were genunie.
But Ms. Miller said she had not gotten an assurance that she felt would allow her to testify.

Again, from the front page New York Times story on . . . October 16, 2005. Though this was not the first reporting on Miller's position, this front page story of the Times was commented in great detail including at CJR Daily here and here. The latter time by the same writer who now wonders "Why did Ms. Miller go to jail?" Repeatedly hitting the designated pinata with articles focusing on her conduct while reducing the conduct of Bob Woodward to asides (whispered asides?) doesn't appear to make for brave "watchdoggery."

Democracy Now! has a special presentation today. The headlines above were composed by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Betty Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, Wally of The Daily Jot and Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix. Thanks to Dallas for his help with links and tags.

Hope that had something of interest to you. Don't forget 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.

Happy Thanksgiving

Mom asked me, "Why haven't you run the photo of Kayla's son?" That's Common Ills community member Kayla's son Brian. He was born last week.

Why haven't I run the picture? C.I. was going to wait and run it on Thanksgiving and I figured I'd wait and run it the day after. Rebecca ran it Sunday morning when C.I. couldn't get it to post at The Common Ills. To post pictures not online, Rebecca, C.I. and Third Estate Sunday Review use this program called Hello. That's how C.I. posts Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts.

The Third Estate Sunday Review ran an article and wanted the photo in it, not above it or below it. To have it in an entry, you need to be using a photo already online. C.I. kept getting error messages from Hello (which is why Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts didn't go up until Monday morning). So Rebecca tried and after a few error messages, finally got it up at her site. Then it was able to be put inside the article The Third Estate Sunday Review ran.

Elaine ran the photo in a post at her site on Monday and Rebecca reran it then too.

Mom wasn't concerned about C.I. She figured it would go up at The Common Ills and that the Ted Koppel thing had C.I. running behind as well as the holidays. But in terms of me and Mike and Cedric, I heard about it.

Mom said, "What is with you three guys? You're too 'manly' to post a photo of a baby?"

I laughed and pointed out that Kat and Betty hadn't posted it either.

But so Mom won't think that I think I'm too "manly" to run a photo of a baby, there it is.

Cedric posted yesterday and he did a great post but I think he was just trying to get it up and be done with it and sometimes you try to put a photo in these things and it's nothing but problems.
Like in the article for The Third Estate Sunday Review, Brian's photo runs three times in a row.
They only inserted it once. Sometimes you can play with inserting a photo over and over before you can get it to show up.

What's the point of all this?

Well a lot of times when I'd read The Common Ills and the other community sites, I'd see something and wonder about it. Like when Isaiah's comic didn't go up Sunday, if I wasn't there helping with Third Estate Sunday Review, I might have thought, "Is Isaiah sick?" or "Did Isaiah do a comic that's been censored?" or "Is something wrong with my computer?"

Or maybe I also wouldn't get why a typo wouldn't be corrected. C.I. will correct a name that's spelled wrong but otherwise doesn't care. Beth's offered her opinion in her columns that she thinks C.I. makes a typo or two intentionally to keep that "do-it-yourself flavor."

I don't care about typos as long as I can understand what someone's saying.

But doing The Daily Jot I really get that time is limited. And like Jim always says about typos at The Third Estate Sunday Review, if we make a mistake, we do a correction, if we make a typo tough crap. He feels that way because you don't see a newspaper running corrections on typos and they make them too.

But doing The Daily Jot, I'm a seasoned pro now with a month under my belt ha ha, I see that you have to think about what you're going to say, then you have to write it and then you have to make sure you like it. All of that is probably obvious. Then comes hitting the "publish post" button. And sometimes Blogger, the program we all use, takes the post right away. Sometimes it takes a few minutes. You're not done then though. You need to "republish index" and "republish blog" which are two more buttons you have to click on. If you don't do both, your latest post might not show up when people pull up your site.

I usually go fairly quick. But to "republish blog" for C.I. takes around ten minutes.

Rebecca's asked everyone to do tags. Technorati doesn't read my tags or my site but I keep tagging. It doesn't take me too much time. I usually cheat and copy the tags from a post by C.I. or Mike or Kat. But if you've got a lot of stuff in, like C.I. usually does, it takes awhile to get those tags in.

And like yesterday morning, C.I. posted the thing on Ted Koppel. That was tagged. But it didn't show up at Technorati searches. So C.I. had to keep "republishing blog" over and over and estimates it probably took an hour of time to keep doing that throughout the day.

So my point is that if you do several posts a day and go through all that crap (Jim calls tagging crap), there's not all this time some people might think there is.

And there's a bigger point that I'm getting too. I got an e-mail about my blogging yesterday. The guy was nice and I won't name him because I disagree with his e-mail. He said he was afraid I was getting lazy like some other bloggers that don't blog regular. It's a lot of work sometimes. Like if Rebecca's doing an entry with a lot of links, she has to hunt down everyone of those and that takes a great deal of time.

I do a "jot." This is my entry for today and tomorrow so it's longer and consider it my holiday entry to so it's probably going to be the longest thing I'll do at my blog.

I'm the newest of the community bloggers so I wanted to talk about what I've learned. Mike and everyone else is good about helping me out when I don't know how to do something and talking me though the technical aspect. But I know sometimes they have to think about it because it's something they've been doing so long that they've forgotten the mechanics of it because it's natural to them now.

So if someone in the community or outside is thinking about starting a site, I feel like I might have something to say there.

Here's my list of things I've learned.

1) Typos won't be avoided. That's true even if you use the spell check. If you mean "too" but type "to" the spell check won't catch it. Accept that typos will happen (and Jim would point out that they happen in newspapers all the time).

2) You want perfection. That's fine if you're going to do one entry a month. If you're going to try to blog regularly, you need to remember Kat's motto: "It is what it is." Depending upon your level of perfectionism, you may never be satisfied. If you have people reading, they're waiting for new content.

If you subscribe to a paper, Mom subscribes to three, think about it like that. You've got your coffee brewing and you're waiting for the paper. You don't want to wait and wait. You want it to be there. You can obsess on your end but on the other end, people are waiting. So if you're a big perfectionist, you may never be pleased.

Ava and C.I. aren't perfectionists in terms of spelling. They could care less. And Ava points to studies where people recognize the word if it has the letters or most of them in it. But they would love to have more time to do their TV reviews. Not for spelling but to make their points and to polish. They usually have about 20 minutes to write those reviews. They're great reviews. (And check out their latest review which is on Commander-in-Chief.) But they don't go back and reread them.

I can't believe that because the reviews are so damn funny. If I have time to play on the net, at least once a week, I'll read one of their reviews. "Make Room For Bully" and "Threshold" and "Prison Break" are probably my three favorites.

But it's true. They loathe those reviews. They can tell you the points they're making but they can't quote from the reviews. Now everybody else can and will when we're all working on The Third Estate Sunday Review. But they get those things done and just want to never look at them again.

Betty is that plus spelling. She is as much a perfectionist about how she says it but she also cares about spelling. And Betty has about thirty minutes to an hour most nights after she gets her kids to bed that she can work on her posts. She works on the same post over and over trying to make it say just what she wants. And she does one post a week. She wishes she did more and is trying to figure out some sort of a balance. Today she'll be blogging with an entry that she's going to try to spend no more than an hour on.

So you need to think about what level of perfectionism you want.

3) Why are you blogging?

C.I. turns down interview requests. And there was one that Jess was talking about, but wouldn't name, that came in Friday and Jess saw it when he was helping with the mail. (Jess and Ava both help C.I. with the e-mails.)

Not everyone would turn down interview requests.

If you're doing it to get famous or make money, chances are it won't happen.

The internet has already developed their star systems and few will probably break through. (C.I.'s broken through - Jim, Dona and my opinion and I'll talk about that on another thing.)
If you're looking for fame and riches, you're probably going to be blogging in vain.

The smartest thing to do is figure out what you want to do before you start.

If you're just trying to have a conversation with people who might be interested, you're probably going to be happier than you would be doing it for any other reason.

4) There are no rules.

A supposed still indymedia-er angered the indymedia community with a trashing indymedia article that ran in LiP magazine and then got distributed online by a non-indymedia organization.

You'll read a lot of people telling you what to do. Don't listen.

Write what you want, the way you want, and make it true to you.

That's how it will reach anyone (even if it's just one person). A lot of people forget that and you go to their sites and just yawn.

They're all trying to copy the big dogs and trying to cover the same hot topic and they've got nothing to offer that you can't find somewhere else.

Rebecca's stayed true to herself and built up quite a following. If I go to any of the community sites, I get a unique voice. They're all of the left because it's a community for the left. But they'll look at something in their own way. You can see that with Elaine and Mike's posts where they'l work out which two headlines from Democracy Now! to note each day and they'll both have a left opinion but they'll both notice something different in their comments.

Jim's had a hard time accepting that C.I.'s going to do things the way C.I. wants. Gina and Krista argue that C.I.'s style at The Common Ills is "a private convesation taking place in public." That means C.I. may be noting something to members instead of working on the "big lead" at the top of an entry. Members love that. Jim's always wanting more recognition for The Common Ills and will argue that an entry should have started four paragraphs down, without comments that are to members.

But as interview requests have come in and Ava and Jess have seen them and as people on Jim's campus have stopped him, people he doesn't really know, to talk about something up at The Common Ills, Jim's grown to realize that the community feel C.I.'s created is more important than journalism rules.

On my campus, I see it too with people who read The Common Ills. They aren't even members but they read it and feel like they've had a conversation. It's casual and it can be funny or pointed but it's not, "Oh no! I had to read the New York Times" or whatever stiff, lifeless thing you might think of.

Stephen Hadley is now in the news re: Plamegate. C.I. wrote a thing this summer that was talking about Hadley's role. There wasn't a lot of attention on that from the "news community" online. But in it, while C.I. was talking you through it, C.I. provided examples. One was using Matt Damon. That led to people seeing it that wouldn't normally. (Mike got e-mails on that and ended up with a reader specifically because the woman came across C.I.'s post as a result of the Matt Damon ref.)

If C.I. was trying to take on that "serious" attitude, many of the people in the community would never have noticed The Common Ills.

When C.I. was on the phone with me helping me set up this site, I kept asking about "the rules" and C.I. said there are none.

I think if you approach it that way, you're better off.

If you're a copy of someone else, you're just a copy. Be you and that's something different.

4) I want to talk about something but no one's talking about it.

Probably somewhere, someone is. They may or may not be talking about it online.

But if it matters to you and you think you can say something about it, do so.

Rebecca's found a huge audience by talking about stuff other people wouldn't think to or wouldn't talk about if they did think about it. C.I.'s led the charge against Dexter Filkins.
Dexter Filkins is becoming a joke. When C.I. first addressed it, C.I. was a lonely voice. For moths after, C.I. was still the only one questioning Dexter's rah-rah Falluja reporting. That's less the case today.

You can be one more person trashing Judy Miller today. To me that's a bit like bringing green bean casserole to a Thanksgiving lunch. Usually you have four to five people bringing that same dish. Everyone playing safe and bringing the same thing.

You don't stand out doing that. You don't look brave doing that.

You look like you're going for the easiest thing.

And now that I'm back at Mom's and catching up with friends, that's one thing I'm hearing over and over. A lot of laughter at the bloggers going after Judy Miller, after she's left the paper. A lot of laughter at the fact that these "brave" voices think she was a solo writer on every piece. My buddy Tomas laughs at four bloggers who are trying to be "big" by joining in the dogpile on Miller but don't know their facts.

5) Are you a blogger or are you trying to be an official voice for the Democratic Party? (If you're a Republican reading this, substitute "Republican Party.")

One of the other big laughs these days is in watching the war cheerleaders on the left try to rewrite history and act like they haven't been advocating "stay the course" nonsense. There's one in particular that's a joke on Mike's campus, on Third's campus and on my campus who lied about Cindy Sheehan when she was camped outside Bully Boy's "ranch" and tried to argue that Cindy Sheehan wasn't for bringing the troops home. The blogger looked like a fool.

The blogger looks like a bigger fool now writing things that try to imply she's always wanted the troops pulled out. She hasn't. She's been the unofficial voice of the Democratic Party. She's followed the party line of "we have to stay!" She kept doing that long after the public wanted the troops home. She only changed her party line when the party started to a little.

Now she's putting up posts acting like she was for this all along.

She wasn't. She was wrapping herself in the flag and insulting people who wanted the troops home now. She was a tool for the party and she's now a joke on campuses.

If you're going to parrot whatever your political party says, you probably don't need to do a blog. Political parties have their own sites.

If you're going to ask the questions that need to be asked and raise the issues that need to be raised, you should probably do a blog.

But if you exist to celebrate your politicians, call it a "fan club" and not a "blog" so people know what to expect.

6) Drop the "I live above it all" tone.

If you're angry, be angry.

Quit trying to prove your maturity. Mature adults are not robots. They have feelings. They may be sad, they may be happy, they may be angry, they may be inspired.

There's a dork who trashed C.I. for writing "Focus on the Fool" in January. That was a post ridiculing the idiot James Dobson. This dork, on the "left", said we had to be fair and welcoming of Dobson. The idiot didn't know what he was talking about. I doubt he'd write the defense of Dobson today.

But back when it was all about pushing the lie of "values voters" dork needed to prove he was with the program. Dork is a dork. Dork will always be a dork.

Dork may as well put on a long dress to go with his school marm "style."

Dork thinks he looks rational and mature. He just reads bo-ring!

Elaine noted she was really depressed on the anniversary of the slaughter of Falluja. She got more response from that than anything else she'd put up prior. Adults have emotions.

People respond to emotions. They don't respond to robotics.

Dork is a robatic.

If you're going to hide your own emotions, don't expect anyone to relate to you or to respond to your writing.

7) When something feels important to you, go with it. Listen to yourself.

When I kept asking for the "rules" from C.I. that first night, C.I. told me a story about how there was an assignment in an English class C.I. took. The person C.I. was living with ripped C.I. off.
"What are you going to write about?" C.I. told. Then the night before the paper is due, the person announces, "I wrote it." C.I.'s response was anger and then to note, "Fine, but it happened to me, not you. I'm writing about it and mine will be better because it happened to me." The person was trying to copy C.I. C.I. ended up with the A and the copy cat ended up with a C.

No one can talk about your life as well as you can because it means something to you. Be yourself and listen to yourself.

That's how C.I. has broken through. That's why Jess and Ava keep reading the interview requests in the e-mails.

Nobody is ever going to e-mail the Dork I talked about earlier and ask for his opinion. That's because you find it at 50 sites with bigger audiences. You be you and you will be noticed in some way. Maybe you'll break through the way C.I. has, maybe you won't. But you will be noticed by some people.

Dork never will. He's a copy of a copy of a big dog net star.

Originals stand out. Copies just make you think of the people they're copying.

So tomorrow's Thanksgiving and I hope everyone who reads this has something to be thankful for.

I'm thankful that despite Hurricane Wilma coming through, we've survived. I'm personally thankful that my family is okay. I'm thankful that we'll be getting together tomorrow for some fantastic food and sharing. I'm thankful that I do have memories of my dad. A lot of people lose a parent much younger than I did and are left with no memories. I can remember Dad and my family's been real good about talking about him and helping to keep him alive. I'm thankful that I lived through the car accident and that my mom did too. I'm thankful that the country has caught on to the Bully Boy even if the big media hasn't. I'm thankful that I have friends who are there for me. I'm thankful that I'm part of a wonderful community that's supportive and really cares.

I'll end with 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.

How long did this entry take? About an hour to write. The links I have above? About an hour and 26 minutes. Now I'll swipe tags from Kat. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'll jot on Friday.

the common ills
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
like maria said paz
the third estate sunday review
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
the daily jot
kats korner
thomas friedman is a great man

Grab bag

Had to start with Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts. "Deep discussions."

I always love The World Today Just Nuts but when Bully Boy's playing cowboy, it's always extra funny.

As Mike said:

The community is important and the community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the community.

I'll be jotting today (obviously) and tomorrow and probably on Friday but don't expect anything Thursday. I can't promise you a certain time. I like to get it out of the way in the morning but that doesn't always happen.

This morning, we were cracking wallnuts for a bread my mom's making and pecans for some pies she's making. That was me and my grandfather. We also took the turkey out of the freezer to defrost and we just bought it yesterday so that didn't make a lot of sense. Why put it in the freezer in the first place?

We didn't put the ham in there?

Is it bird flu? Something else?

I don't know. I don't cook.

But Mom does and she's a great cook. She's working half a day tomorrow and then coming in to get started.

I don't cook but I do odds and ends. I'll peel potatoes and mash them when she tells me to. Or I'll stir for her. But I have no idea how to cook anything except scrambled eggs unless you count throwing something in the microwave.

Another gasbag bites the dust.

Tonight Ted Koppel leaves Nightline. If your eyes are welling up, make a point to read C.I.'s "The end of a (bad) era" and Rebecca's ""ted koppel go away already."

And don't miss Rebecca's "makeout music" entry. I'm not sure what I'd pick if I had to pick just one. Maybe Dave Matthews Band "Crash"?

That's a pretty sexy song. Way the music rolls around like waves and all. Check out what Rebecca's readers picked.


ted koppel
nightline
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
the common ills
the daily jot
mikey likes it