As it is an ancestral curse, suffered for generations by this editor’s forefathers unto the present, never to send a magazine to print in a timely manner; to make little quips about the heat of summer only to have the thing hit mailboxes quite after the first frost; to stuff articles with ham, drench ’em in mulled wine, top them with holly, and lovingly present them to a reading public that they might taste our tidings of comfort, etc., all while the daffodils laugh; as, I say, as the printers of the Ohio Valley have the disposition to keel over dead at the prospect of printing; as, I also say, as our writers take “edit” to mean “an opportunity to write another essay on a related topic”; and as your editor is—and I mean this with all etymological sincerity available—retarded, every day retarded, even in the earliest mornings, full of willpower and black coffee, still, retarded; well, because of all this New Polity is instituting a New Policy: no references to Events that cannot be assured to stick around for more than six months. I’ll circulate the following memo intra-office for efficiency, and extra- for accountability: We may refer to The War, safely presuming that, the economy being what it is, there will be A War of Some Sort. We may also refer to The Lay Catholic Speakers’ Circuit, as that does drag on a bit. We may never write about the introduction, rise, or fall of new cryptocurrencies. The weather, of course, is out. So too public sentiment. We may, with some caution, refer to the American president as being alive. We may refer, more confidently, to “the reaction of the press to the recent plane interview given by Pope Francis.” We may refer, very confidently, to our need for money.
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Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, and so here’s one thing I’m grateful for: I am grateful for the mercy of bells. Let me explain. My family is lucky enough …
