EDITORIAL

We are indebted to Shirley A. Hargraves Berl for her unstinting assistance and advice, during a very difficult time, to ensure the publication of the 1999 issue of the Journal. We also are indebted to Daphne Vom Baur, one of the newer members and a well-known artist, for her artistic cover rendering of the Cosmos Club’s evolving membership and interests.

The COSMOS Journal has been described generally as an academic and scholarly annual publication. It consists of articles by Club members who have accomplished meritorious original work in science, literature, or the arts, or are known to be cultivated or distinguished in a learned profession or public service. We are a private social club, not a professional organization with an interest in publishing works of innovative genius in a peer-reviewed journal. Nor is it our intent to be a newsy and folksy house organ. COSMOS is a journal addressing emerging issues entertainingly and, we hope, provocatively. Indeed, there are articles in the present issue which are even provocatively speculative in certain respects.

We assume our members have the capacity for instructive and even sophisticated conversation in a relaxed ambience. Enlightened dialogue one might hope to find in a drawing room setting after a delightful dinner, where brandy, liqueurs, cappuccino, or tea might be shared while listening to one or more fellow members hold forth on a particular subject. And perhaps, just perhaps, the conversation would avoid the taint of a lecture; one that would induce, if not challenge, the listener to extract an emerging issue; issues of importance or a novel idea at the heart of the conversation. That is what this Editor is striving to establish: a readable Journal that offers various forms of scholarly interest and intellectual comfort for all Cosmos Club members.

Hopefully, COSMOS will be a medium in which all members feel comfortable publishing, with a variety of writing styles, insights, ideas, and reasonably erudite reflections of personal interests. No footnotes and non-discriminating bibliographies. A few suggested additional readings, but only where fitting. The Journal ought even to be fun, both for readers and authors.

In this issue, the Editor’s imprimatur is characterized by the initial struggle to create a sociable ambience in which fellow Club members can begin to know through the Journal more fellow members in the context of their respective professions and intellectual interests. After all, there are over 3,000 of us, and the number grows steadily. And so, this issue is intended to be an eclectic presentation of just such articles and essays. In succeeding issues, perhaps we can sharpen the focus by injecting certain themes.

Finally, let this issue of the COSMOS Journal be a call to all members to offer contributions for publication. Let your fellow Club members see your manuscripts representing all areas of sophisticated, pressing, and curiously interesting thoughts, including the visual and literary arts, side-by-side and amidst the heretofore traditional subjects.

George S. Robinson, Editor

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