ublications are much like people. They have their own personal character, they hold opinions, and they all make mistakes -- hopefully on a limited basis.

Last month, The Foreigner made a cardinal error in the way it published one of the stories sent by a volunteer writer.

NOTB by Alastair Logan is the story of a man who continues to hear a little voice in his head nicknamed NOTB. In the story, NOTB is eventually dispatched much in the same way a computer tech gets rid of an annoying virus.

The story had been sent to us via snail mail, as Alastair was unable to get an email through to us for some still-unknown reason. That meant it had to be manually re-typed into the system, and then checked over by a second and third pair of eyes for copy-editing purposes.

Unfortunately, the story went online without that second and third line of defense and was riddled with a number of amateurish typos that should never have seen the light of day. When Alastair noticed the problem, it was rightly brought to our attention and it was corrected as soon as possible. Thankfully it is not a common error. In fact in the four years we have been publishing, I don't ever recall an error of this magnitude. But that doesn't excuse the lapse.

The mistake was entirely ours, and we will endeavour to make sure it doesn't happen again. Too bad there aren't little pills to help us do that, unless of course you count the large dose of reality we were forced to swallow.

But there is a silver lining. The two most recent articles published on the front page of The Foreigner look to be two of our best - and as far as I can tell, without error.

Matt Goerzen
Managing Editor