At the two major newsweeklies, casual essays mix with sterner stuff. Time's line-up is more varied, and includes the always potable Barbara Ehrenreich. Buckley is readable, but his pieces are starting to sound like disjointed memos faxed in from Mr. Jenkins, that taped-together smoothie from Tanqueray's print ads. My favorites, though, are often the back pages that don't try too hard. Of course, at online magazines like this one, it's almost impossible to build a back page into the edifice.
Readers click in, and click out, almost at random.
So it goes.