The new issue of Jacobin will be out next week, just after Christmas, and it’s full of great stuff. You should subscribe if you haven’t already, or give someone else a gift subscription if you have. (You can place an order with the right shipping address, send an email to [email protected] with your gift announcement, and we’ll handle the rest.)

This issue’s cover is inspired by my lead editorial, which is both an appreciation and a critique of the Baffler, the small magazine that strongly influenced me and others associated with Jacobin back in its 1990’s heyday, and which was recently relaunched under new leadership. I’m sure people will enjoy the salacious catfight element of sniping at another publication, but I hope they also respond to my larger purpose, which is to explain why the Baffler was so important and appropriate to the time of its initial run, and why I think Jacobin is reacting to a qualitatively different historical moment.

While you’re waiting for the issue to appear, here are two things you should do. The first is to help defend University of Rhode Island professor and Lawyers, Guns, & Money blogger Erik Loomis. As explained in this statement at Crooked Timber, Loomis is the victim of an absurd rightist smear campaign, all because he used Twitter to metaphorically demand NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick” in the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting. I’ve had my strong disagreements with Loomis, but this is a moment to pull together in solidarity. As an untenured professor, Loomis’s job and career are at risk, and what’s happening to him is a risk that all of us run when we air radical ideas in public. Read the statement for more, or just go right ahead and contact the following administrators at URI: