We're not on "holiday" as some members worried in e-mails. There will be posts tomorrow. (And our usual Sunday posts are now up.) I did take time this evening to do replies to members e-mails like I usually attempt on holiday weekends. I know (from the gina & krista round-robin) that members understood why it's impossible to do personal replies to e-mails but I will still say I'm sorry.
Another reason for the delay was attempting to help Jim and Ty get the posts up over at The Third Estate Sunday Review. All posts are now up except for a roundtable that's lost for good and a piece Ava and I did that we'll try to find time to redo (maybe next weekend). That piece wasn't the TV review. We did lose that this morning in posting but we redid it. Ava and I aren't crazy about it but, as Jim's noted before, we rarely are when they go up. Maybe our opinion will change when we're not remembering just wanting to get some sleep but having to recreate a review? Who knows.
Tomorrow we are not on holiday. We will, however, be starting late. So consider that a head's up.
Ruth's Morning Edition Report from Saturday will not be reprinted tomorrow. It will be reprinted Tuesday. Pru, in her e-mail today, pointed out that members in the US are probably on vacations and they'll miss it on Monday but will catch it on Tuesday. Pru's correct (the majority of the e-mails coming in this weekend were from members outside the US) and we'll follow her advice. (Thank you, Pru.)
One Sunday night, I attempted to make a point for a visitor in an entry but the entry got lost and it was one of those "outside the US . . ." lengthy posts so I didn't even bother to attempt to recreate it in the entry that went up. However, I'll go ahead and note it here.
We're looking at articles that appear outside the US mainstream. If you found an article from The Nation, for instance by Naomi Klein, in a non US periodical, we would highlight it if you mailed it in. If you find a New York Times article carried somewhere else, we're really not interested in that. With AP, you may have a version of it that differs from the one being published in the US so feel free to send something from them in. We can also cover non-mainstream US news orgs.
There is always the risk of an article being noted here that's not true. That's true of any journalism. However, in terms of domestic members of the United States, you should be aware that stories planted by our government overseas can "drift back."
The visitor had a problem with the fact that we weren't noting anything from The Economist. He alleged that we never did. That's not true. We've noted them before even though politically I disagree with the majority of articles they print. (I know we noted an article a member, probably Gareth, e-mailed about the greenhouse effect from The Economist.) When that visitor wrote in, I did ask Gareth to check from time if he had time and see if there was anything we might find useful. His summaries over the last weeks have included that the weekly ran a story slamming the voting rights and other "assorted poison soaked goodies."
We'll take a pass on those, thank you.
If you feel that you're not being noted, that's due to the fact that we have a number of highlights and there's not room for everyone to go up. If it happens with you repeatedly, please note that at the top of your e-mail and I'll be sure to include something because there's no attempt to ignore your selections. I am trying to pull the ones that make a strong point or won't be noted elsewhere. And if you include a link, it's better. If you pick your own pull quote, even better.
As Ava pointed out the night she helped me and we tried to track down an article that a member felt was very important (I think on Afghanistan, but I may be remembering wrong now), there's really not time for that. We went to every source that I could think of that we'd ever highlighted in the Sunday entries and couldn't find the Afghanistan article.
The more information you include, the more likely it will go up. This go round, three things didn't get posted (the smallest number). One was a piece from Canada that was about Ann Rice's op-ed in the New York Times. It's the Times. It's an op-ed. We're not going to note it.
(We will highlight a member noting an op-ed in the Times so anytime someone wants one noted, they just have to write something -- a two sentence paragraph -- about it.) The second thing not noted was also an op-ed. If it was humorous, I missed it. The third thing was an article that was a month old on a topic that we'd noted prior. Any of those items might have been noted if the person involved (all were visitors) had included some comments of their own (and noted that they could be quoted here).
Normally, the things highlighted are coming from members and members have the non-public e-mail address. Since things are a little slower, I did check the public address as well. (Which is where the three that didn't make it were e-mailed.)
Some members have e-mailed items in and noted that Murdoch owned (or might own) the paper. That's not a concern here for the Sunday evening areas. Murdoch owns quite a many things across the globe. It's not required that you research the stockholders of a paper or magazine before suggesting a highlight. If it's something you think is worth noting, send it in.
Hope that helps. And thank you to the international members who participated in Gina & Krista's poll. Following the results, I have taken a day off from posting at the mirror site. I know that it was suggested the entire weekend be taken off from cross posting but I did cross post Saturday and I'll probably do something over there at some point tomorrow. (Ideally, that would include an original post.)
Also, I'm helping Cedric with a computer issue tomorrow so posts will not only be delayed but may be erratic. (And how is that different from anything else about this site? It's not.)
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
