I am raring to weigh in on that turbaned-Barack Obama-Michele-in-the-Afro-fist-jab New Yorker cover. Is it satire? Is it a slag?

Beats me. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive.

Yoo hoo, magazine publishers. California -- part of the United States since 1850! Now served by the U.S. Postal Service, reputedly faster than the Pony Express! 

So why is it that every issue of every magazine I subscribe to arrives so late that even the optimistic push-date on the cover [the October issue is printed in August] looks out-of-date? So late that sometimes I can't make the deadline for the New Yorker cartoon caption contest? Is it just my ZIP code, or a California thing?

I feel doubly cheated when a particular magazine story hits the water-cooler circuit: not only am I not able to turn the pages to read what everybody's already talking about in some time zone with prompt mail service, but I'm having to pay for not being able to read what everybody's talking about.

The upshot, as I said, is that I still don't have my copy of the New Yorker to study the cover and stroke my chin and hem and haw. Online images just don't give the same ruminative vibe, and anyway, here's the complication of my favorite reading venue. When they invent a bath-oil-proof laptop, let me know. But please, not in a magazine article.