Responding to Beslan

One of the challenges of publishing this magazine is figuring out how to respond to current events. Like Beslan. Like President Putin’s proposal to roll back direct elections for governors.

There is almost a month between the time we put an issue “to bed” and the time it arrives in your mailbox. It is not a schedule conducive to reporting news. Stories are prepared months in advance of their publication, so, for the most part, we try to keep focused on more long-term issues.

Where possible, however, we try to focus current events through the prism of larger issues. Thus, our Post Script this issue steps back to consider how – if ever – Russia can cut the Gordian knot that is Chechnya, from which the horror of Beslan sprung.