And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

-Abraham Lincoln

Welcome to a special 13th birthday issue of The Cud!

And now thirteen years have passed... Thirteen years since November of 2004 when, along with co-founder Oliver Pennington we launched The Cud back in Sydney, Australia. Our stated goal at the time was to produce a monthly online magazine of 'free-form articles and opinion pieces on subjects from across the spectrum' and to engage our readers with the challenge to 'Entertain A New Perspective: Chew The Cud.'

So much has happened in those thirteen years, not just for The Cud as a magazine, but for the entire Cud team as well, whether professionally or personally. From those arguably ambitious initial goals (concocted over beers at the Hollywood Hotel in Surry Hills), we'e managed to not just survive but, dare I say it, thrive in a crowded field of online magazines and media that has increasingly come under threat in a challenged economic and political climate. Of course we're not a mammoth website on par with major news organizations or blog sites like Huffington Post or Drudge Report, but we have eked out a small space online with a dedicated, loyal audience of readers that have only continued to grow from year to year.

As we do every twelve months, we asked you, our readers, to vote for your favorite articles of the past year. 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, and thanks must go to all of our generous, talented writers as well as to those responsible for maintaining and promoting our website from issue to issue. In particular, regular contributors like Tony Smith, Tom Chesson and, of course, author David M. Fitzpatrick (Cud Flashes In The Pan) have continued to expand upon their considerable body of good work in partnership with this publication.

Above all, however, my thanks to you, our readers, for keeping us going. As touched on earlier, it hasn't been an easy time of late for the media, whether struggling with changed financial realities and readerships, or increasingly under fire for alleged 'fake news' by a U.S President who would happily control the message on his own. 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!

Evan Kanarakis
Editor, The Cud