Some words of thanks.(Notes & comments: June 2006)

In a recent issue of the London Telegraph, the journalist Harry Mount described The New Criterion as "America's leading review of the arts and intellectual life" Many people reading this will agree, though perhaps not all will be happy about it. For the truth is that The New Criterion, now completing its twenty-fourth year, is as pugnacious and polemical as it is informative. We take that bit about "the correction of taste," quoted above, as seriously as we do the bit about elucidating works of art. Any publication that intervenes forthrightly in matters of cultural controversy is bound to garner a certain amount of enmity. That comes with the territory. And besides, enemies are important: their ire helps to certify the rightness of one's own position. But no publication like The New Criterion--conservative, dedicated to the vocation of criticism--can survive without friends as well as enemies. Since its inception nearly a quarter-century ago, The New Criterion has been blessed with dedicated friends. As has been our custom for the last few years in our June issue, we are pleased to acknowledge in this space the dedication and generosity of these friends: without their support The New Criterion simply could not continue. We are grateful to the John M. Olin Foundation and its director, James Piereson. The Olin Foundation closed its doors last ...