The Weekly, December 27, 2023
Hi all,
Abbreviated email this week due to the holiday (and my birthday--I'm 36 today).
We've gone dark at Mere O this week as well. We would appreciate your continued prayer as we wrap up our EOY campaign.
Reading
Books
Not much new here—still reading Patrick O'Brian, still reading Ben Smith, finishing Senkbeil today or tomorrow, and then on to a fairly focused, dedicated time with the Princeton Civic Republicans, I hope.
Of that lot, the Ben Smith is sneaky good. It's kind of trashy because it can't not be trashy when its subjects are Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post, Gawker, Peter Thiel, Andrew Breitbart, and so on. That said, if you work in media I think it's a worthwhile read because of the way Smith lays out the history of how we got the internet we have today.
It was somewhat bizarre to be reading the chapter on the first year of the arch-feminist site Jezebel and find myself thinking of how much the characters reminded me of some far right Christian nationalist types today. But as Smith himself notes, the "traffic" playbook that figures like Jonah Peretti and Nick Denton created is really nothing more than a method. It's utterly agnostic about its ends, if we can speak of it that way. So in that sense perhaps the value of Traffic is that it gives media producers who care about truth, integrity, and virtue an example of what they can't do.
Articles
Former NYT Opinion editor James Bennet on what happened to the New York Times
Patricia Snow on D. H. Lawrence
Cardinal Muller on Fiducia Supplicans
Grace Olmstead on "Christmas time"
I might have shared this one already, but this Matt Walther essay on why people go to Mass has lingered with me.
Elsewhere
If you're looking for a way to mix up your winter cocktails, some of these eggnogs sound super fun. For a special meal that will be perfect during the winter months, try this leg of lamb.
Also, if you're looking for book recommendations for the new year, we have you covered at Mere O.
Under the Mercy,
~Jake