Congrats to Jonathan Rauch, Super-Columnist, and Other Award-Winning Friends of Reason

I want to give a huge congrats to Reason contributor Jonathan Rauch, whose National Journal columns are archived at Reason Online here.

Jon, who has written more than a few memorable pieces for Reason over the years (check out this one on Hayek and gay marriage and this one on "the buff revolution," and this cover story from 1994 about loathsome DC lobbyists), took home the prize in the "columns and commentary" category at this year's National Magazine Awards, the industry's top honor.

The only thing mitigating the huzzah for Jon's award? That he beat out another friend of Reason, Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the foreword to our anthology Choice, in the same category. (Btw, note that the awards are technically given to the editors of publications.)

While I'm at it, let me give a shout-out to Wired's Chris Anderson, a blurber of Choice, who took home a very well-deserved prize in the General Excellence category (circulation 500,000 to 1,000,000).

And to Elaine Lafferty, the recently cashiered editor of Ms. , who won in the Essays category for "Between a Woman and Her Doctor," by Martha Mendoza–a piece that showed how vital a mag Ms. could have become had Elaine been given more editorial leeway.

Read the whole list of winners and finalists here, along with links to the prize-winning work.

Update: Ooops. Ms. didn't win in the Essays category. National Geographic did. Still a great piece worth reading.