the name of the journal is "raritan." i did not bring my copy. this is very important to me. it is one reason that i did take on the job. i did view the journal as an instrument and a vehicle for intervention in public discourse in the largest sense of the word. that includes literature in the arts as well as politics. we do have the problem that steve alluded to which is that we are a quarterly. i can write a topical editor's note or toby jones can write a piece about saudi arabia and the arab spring. and two months later, it will be taken over by events and we have to get on the phone and say, sweetheart, get me a rewrite. you can't always get rewrite in time. the pace of change is sometimes outruns the quarterly. nevertheless, i think there is a place for quarterlies or dissent comes more often. is it quarterly? it is reflection. that is what i like to talk about. reflection. stepping back a little. just as there is a place for magazines like my friend joel "in these times" which is published right here in chicago and appears more often than quarterly and is astonishing to