Welcome to a special 7th anniversary birthday issue of The Cud!

Yet another year has gone by and our thoughts turn back to November of 2004. It was then, along with co-founder Oliver Pennington that we launched The Cud at the Hotel Hollywood in Sydney's Surry Hills with a goal to produce a monthly online magazine that could consistently offer 'free-form articles and opinion pieces on subjects from across the spectrum' and engage our readers with the challenge to 'Entertain A New Perspective: Chew The Cud.'

I'd like to think that we've continued to fulfill that goal. As we do each and every year, we asked you, our readers, to vote for your favorite articles of the past twelve months. Your choices have compiled an issue that reflects exactly the kind of diversity of thought, writing and subject matter that we envisioned when first launching the magazine.

From December of 2010 you selected Chris Muncy's account of the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Lourve Museum in Paris. From our annual 'all-lit' issue of January 2011 you enjoyed Ewan Kane's brutal poetic dig at American diets, and from February you chose Sam Statham's engaging discussion about GM foods in Australia. That same month Shannara Gillman discussed the toxicity of political 'attack' advertising, while in March, Brian Swartz took The Cud on a history trip back to the Spanish Civil War. This type of variety and breadth of subject matter continued on throughout the year.

In 2011 we introduced three new columnists to The Cud which have all been warmly received by our readers, as indicated by your inclusion of some of their work in this issue as well: David M. Fitzpatrick's 'Cud Flashes In The Pan', Caitlin Cunningham's 'CC Photo Files', and Mahesh Markus' musical 'Random Gems'. Elsewhere for our birthday edition you've drawn on work by some of our most regular contributors and, indeed, some of our most popular, including Cameron O'Neill, whose insightful 'Towards A Resources End Game' essay was published in June, Wilfred Finn, author of 'Cycling The Danube' published in July, and the ever-lively Andrew Coorey, making yet another appearance in a Cud 'best of' issue, this time with his poem 'The Meeting', from July.

Tony Smith and Tom Chesson were both new contributors to The Cud in 2011, and both published engaging pieces this year that prompted a flurry of letters and promoted healthy discourse. Tony's article from August, 'Time To End Our Gun Dependence?' and Tom's piece from August 'Live Exports Keeping Top End Australian Families Fed' made your list of favorites.

All these articles are, of course, but a small fraction of an entire year's worth of material from a great many contributors, bringing together a body of annual work that strives to remain current, put out good, new work, and keep our readers interested. Our thanks go to all of our generous, talented writers as well as to those responsible for maintaining and promoting our website from issue to issue.

Above all, however, our thanks to you, our readers, for keeping us going. Each month we read your feedback and letters with great interest, always hoping to improve and meet your expectations, and we're excited to see that our audience has branched out from humble beginnings in Australia to a readership now primarily based in the United States and yet continuing to grow beyond, throughout the globe. We can't do this without you and hope to keep on going for a great many more years yet...

Thanks, ye Cudlings! Methinks it's time for these happy cows to enjoy some birthday cake...

Evan Kanarakis
Editor, The Cud