Third in my series of Brilliant Friends, you can find the first two installments at the bottom of this newsletter!
Jamison Foser: I’ve known Jamison since the late 1990s when we were opposition researchers working in a windowless office tracking hypocritical and dangerous things that Republicans said and did. Jamison has a keen eye for a lot of things, but for me, his eye for hypocrisy - of the media and republicans in particular - is particularly valuable. He has a clear voice (one that I can still hear in my head as if we were still sitting next to each other at the office). Check out his Finding Gravity newsletter!
“So, why does this latest New York Times guest essay exist? It’s a badly-written and myopic complaint by a college student who claims to be oppressed even while he’s being handed the a byline in the world’s most prestigious news outlet; it recycles not only his own previously-published complaints but those the Times has previously published; and it is the kind of dog-bites-man attack by a partisan on his political opponents that rarely gets a second look from editors.
It has essentially nothing going for it.
Except this: It tells a story the New York Times wants to tell about oppressive liberals and heroic, intellectually brave conservatives. That’s story the New York Times keeps telling, over and over, as if desperate to speak a backlash against liberalism into existence.” - Finding Gravity, A New York Times guest essay exposes the Times' own biases
Jung Yun: I got to know Jung in college, and she is a talented writer and educator, currently an Associate Professor of English at George Washington University. Her two novels, Shelter and O Beautiful are favorites of mine. In particular, O Beautiful has one of the best opening lines that has stuck with me since I first read them - because I related to it so much!
Parts 1 and 2 of My Brilliant Friends