THE NEW YORKER

The Style Issue - September 14, 2009

I still get a thrill when I open my mail box and find my copy of The New Yorker. One of the world's great magazines, every issue laden with interesting writing, great cartoons, book reviews and coverage of the US scene.

After enjoying the cover art I then check the list of contents, on to the list of contributors, read the latters to the editor, skim through looking at all the cartoons, and then return to the beginning and read frm front to back.

I got a great surprise this week to find the lead letter to the editor is from Auckland, NZ-based writer Gordon McLauchlan. I can't recall ever seeing a NZ letter before. McLauchlan, and the three other US-based letter writers, were all responding to an article ,(Party of One, Aug 3), about Michael Savage and his controversial, apparently racist and bigoted radio show.

I like this sentence from McLauchlan's letter - "Calling him a 'political idealist' is like calling Osama bin Laden a construction engineer".