Goodbye Lewis, hello Ben

As a devoted reader of Harper's Magazine, I will sorely miss departing editor Lewis Lapham's "Notebook" essays. Consistently offering a delightful mix of erudition and wit, they were a refreshing tonic in this sound bite world. Fortunately, he isn't going far and will continue to write for the magazine.

His "Notebook" replacement, Literary Editor Ben Metcalf, is off to a strong start in the June issue, exuberantly writing about writing about strangling the president of the United States with his bare hands. (There are no typographical errors in that last sentence.) If you agree with him that, "George W. Bush is an ignorant, cruel, closed-minded, avaricious, sneaky, irresponsible, thieving, brain-damaged frat boy with a drinking problem and a taste for bloodshed" who has "earned confinement and conviction and perhaps even a request for that barbaric death penalty he so loudly supports," you might just want to give him a read.