A New Year's Reveal
Plus next week's assignment, upcoming guest speakers and office hours, and Wine & Fries happy hour!
Happy New Year! I hope that 2023 will be a joyful and prosperous year for everyone. I personally have a good feeling about what’s to come.
I’ve been sitting on some fun news for a week and a half, but I thought the New Year would be the perfect time to unveil the surprise. This is my new logo! It was designed by Joanna Shin, whose work I learned about after she designed the logo for the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni — I loved her design and knew she’d come up with the perfect concept for The Freedom Academy. I hope you like it!
We’ll be resuming class this coming Wednesday, and since this assignment may take a little longer to complete, I wanted to post it in advance. (If you are just joining the course, you can easily jump in with this assignment — you can catch up on previous material at your leisure by going to the “Democracy in the (Dis)Information Age” tab on the home page.) It is a video lecture by KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov outlining Soviet subversion doctrine; you may remember Yuri as one of the KGB spies from the New York Times video we watched in Class 1. We’ll examine the ways this philosophy differs from the American intelligence approach, as well as how technology has made this strategy more effective.
Remember that the class syllabus is pinned on my home page. Please make a note of these upcoming events:
Zoom Office Hours, Tuesday, January 10, 5-6 p.m., EST (link will be sent to paid subscribers at noon that day)
Guest speaker John Sipher, Tuesday, January 17, 1-2 p.m. EST (link will be sent to paid subscribers at 9 a.m. that day)
Wine & Fries Club Happy Hour with special guest Emily Brandwin, January 29, 8 p.m. EST (link will be sent to Wine & Fries subscribers at noon that day)
I’ll save the discussion questions for this week’s assignment for Wednesday’s lecture. Instead, I want to share an exercise I do at the beginning of each year: Rather than come up with a bunch of forward-looking resolutions, I think back on what I feel were some of my greatest accomplishments in the past year. For me, on the professional front I am most excited about launching this Substack and creating this amazing community. Personally, I loved throwing my dad’s 80th birthday party in Cozumel Mexico last July, which included my kids, my parents, my sister’s entire family, and my boyfriend and his kids. My dad was in water sports and grandkid heaven.
What were your accomplishments in 2022 you are most proud of?
Happy New Year Professor and to my classmates......I must say the video lecture you assigned is eye opening to say the least.. The lecture from 1983 explains Q, alternative facts, lying, basically American society today.. As one commentator said, this lecture should be basic course work in high school and college. Many thanks for recommending this video to our class. Fred C.
Great logo, and happy new year. As a retiree, my accomplishments are perhaps less grand than they were when I was working. Looking back, 1) I remained married to the same lovely woman for over 42 years; 2) I learned how to make croissants from scratch; 3) I trained our cat to flip over when requested while brushing; and 4) I stuffed several hundred donor thank you notes in envelopes for a local land conservancy. There may be others, but this is what I can remember... :-)