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Hi everyone, Thanks for your patience last week when I had to skip the newsletter to record my audiobook. Here I am, pretending to be a pop star in the booth. Onto the links! This week on the internet… The NYT goes deep on the internet famous Crumbl cookies Crumbl cookies, the Utah cookie start-up that has exploded due to going viral on TikTok and Instagram, has gotten the New York Times feature treatment.

Throughout his exploits Hu Fei (Qin Junjie) reminds me of two other Jin Yong male protagonists — Guo Jing from Legend of the Condor Heroes and Zhang Wuji from Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre. He has their best qualities as well as their worst. In fact he comes across as something of a composite between the two. A naive good-hearted orphan with righteous fervour burning in his belly with an unerring propensity to be a busybody.

Two recent movies had me thinking about 1988’s Running on Empty, one of the most overlooked movies of Sidney Lumet’s career and arguably one of the best. The first is the Oscar-winning CODA, which remakes the 2014 French coming-of-age drama La Famille Béiler, but mirrors the central conflict of Lumet’s film so uncannily that it feels like a remake of that, too. Both are about high school music prodigies with the talent to place in top academies—Julliard in one, Berklee College in the other—but a unique and essential responsibility to their families that ties them to home.

“Men just show love differently.” “Men just grieve differently.” “Have you learned about his love language?” This is the kind of bullshit women are met with when they seek help for bad or abusive treatment by their male partners. You’ve just had a miscarriage and your partner screams at you to quit whining, or demands that you make him food, or continues to be the lazy and worthless piece of shit he was before you lost your baby?

SMF fights to protect America's constitution and theological foundation through education, advocacy, and litigation efforts. By From Silent Majority Foundation's Substack · Over 5,000 subscribersNo thank you“SMF is doing important work in the legal realm in support of medical freedom. This includes lawsuits against government agencies and officials, as well as taking action in the administrative rulemaking process.” “Silent Majority Foundation is one of 'We are WA State's patriots that's working to fight for and protect the rights of everyone in Washington state.

Today is Simcoe Day in Toronto. So I thought it would be a good time to share the story of the man who our August long weekend is named after — and of his strange and complicated relationship to slavery, since he was an avowed abolitionist who once fought a war to preserve it. John Graves Simcoe was the founder of Toronto. He was a British soldier who’d made his name fighting against the American revolutionaries during the War of Independence.

The Daily Letter By Simon Ateba Founded by Simon Ateba, the Daily Letter is a new alternative to the mainstream fake news. We offer objective reporting of important facts and developments, as well as compelling opinion content informed by the principles that have made America great. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbS1zKilmqyVl64%3D

When Lilly and I decided to start this newsletter, I was eager to jump in. Everything about it made sense: I had been wanting to write more often, and we have been editing each other’s personal work for years. Our friendship is and has always been a special kind of creative refuge, in that we wholly trust each other’s literary judgment and collaborate easily. It has been so rewarding working on This Is Why!

Hello! How’s your week going? Today, we’re excited to feature journalist Simone Kitchens, who lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband, Aaron, and one-year-old daughter, Ramona. “Finding things on the internet is a specialty of mine,” says Simone, a senior editor at New York. “I co-write the newsletter Secret Strategist about rabbit holes we’ll go down. We include a mix of high and low. I wrote about these new-but-look-vintage Wranglers five years ago, and I still hear from people telling me they love these jeans.