A few quick hits from The Nation‘s orbit this week:

For a 144-year old magazine, we’ve tried hard to get up to speed onTwitter, Facebook and social networking. We were interested to see that our most read piece of the month so far is "Deadline Poet" Calvin Trillin’s poem. The source of the traffic is as new as it gets: Tens of thousands of tweets, retweets and Facebook posts, with an assist from some great blogs like Jezebel and Feministing. Calvin is a treasure and we’re luckyto have him each week; we’re glad our twitter and facebook fans think so too.

The Nation is also trying its hand at slideshows, aiming to provide a more intimate view of critical issues. This week our latest slideshow looks at the advances made by the gay rights movement so far this year.

One great highlight from our video offerings is Wednesday’s Grit TV segment with journalist Sharon Lerner and Congressman Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. In this conversation about what’s next for healthcare reform, Lerner explains an egregious loop hole in the Senate Finance Committee’s bill that could leave pregnant women without healthcare:

In awards news, three new honors came over the transom:

•Four Nation contributors were part of a fantastic Utne Reader feature, "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." Sports Correspondent Dave Zirin, and frequent contributors Raj Patel, David Bacon and Jeff Chang all made the cut.

•Frequent Nation contributor Greg Grandin was nominated for a National Book Award for his epic history of Henry Ford’s 1920’s South American development experiment, Fordlandia.

•Columnist Gary Younge won the prestigious James Cameron Prize in England for his on-the-ground reporting for The Guardian during therunup to the 2008 Election. The award is given each year to a journalist judged to have "combined moral vision and professional integrity" and is given in memory of the renowned British foreign correspondent James Cameron.

Congratulations to all!

Finally, I hope you saw our package this week on the evolving relationship between American Jews and Israel, and on the evolving views of a former head of AIPAC. Both are a good primer for a panel I’m moderating on the 26th in Washington, DC at J-Street’s "DrivingChange, Securing Peace" conference. The panel is a good one – "American Progressives and Israel: Friends, Enemies, or ‘It’s Complicated’?" with Michelle Goldberg, J.J. Goldberg and Ezra Klein. If you’re in DC I hope you can make it to the panel and the whole conference.

Thanks for reading. This Thursday in a special issue of the magazine we’re looking at Afghanistan-Pakistan: The choices President Obama faces, the right way out, and the ongoing conditions for Afghan women.