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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Tournier on Desmond Ford
- The Borrowed Robe: How Antisemitism Dresses in Each Age’s Virtue
- The Fence and the Blessing: How Jews Have Thought About Gentiles
- A Place For You
- Tournier on Luke Ford
- Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid
- An Alliance Theory of Antisemitism
- Tournier on Cinema Paradiso and Desmond Ford
- The Self-Hating Jew
- The Alliance Theory in the Academy
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: San Francisco
The Priesthoods of the Bay: High-Status Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026
San Francisco in 2026 holds a strange position among American cities. It generates capital on a scale no metropolitan economy of its size has matched, and it also generates theories of the future faster than it generates housing. The city … Continue reading
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The Homeless Services Industrial Complex: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Billions in the San Francisco Bay Area
PLayers in the San Francisco Bay Area’s homelessness response do not compete for authority by saying they want control over the region’s multi-billion-dollar annual spending on services, housing, and nonprofit contracts. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their … Continue reading
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for the San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area’s high-status actors do not compete for power by openly claiming it. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their authority as necessary for innovation, equity, sustainability, or safety. This is the central insight of … Continue reading
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Decoding San Francisco Orthodox Jewry
Per Alliance Theory: San Francisco Orthodoxy functions as a high-stakes “resilience lab” where the primary product is the survival of the signal itself. In Alliance Theory terms, the city is a hostile market that imposes a heavy “observance tax” on … Continue reading
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Decoding Sephardic Synagogue – Congregation Anshey Sfard (SF)
Per Alliance Theory: Congregation Anshey Sfard in San Francisco functions as a “Sephardic cultural incubator,” leveraging its minority status to create a high-value “particularist alliance.” While Ashkenazi institutions in the city often focus on general religious rigor or communal scale, … Continue reading
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Decoding Congregation Chevra Thilim (SF)
Per Alliance Theory: Congregation Chevra Thilim serves as the “historical bedrock” of the San Francisco alliance. As the oldest Orthodox congregation in the city, founded in 1892, its power lies in temporal seniority. While other institutions may be more demographically … Continue reading
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Decoding Rabbi Yosef Langer (SF)
Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Yosef Langer functions as the “Human Infrastructure” of the San Francisco alliance. In a city where the “Status Anxieties” focus on demographic fragility, his leadership style is a direct response to the “transience barrier.” Alliance Theory … Continue reading
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Congregation Adath Israel (SF)
Per Alliance Theory: Adath Israel in San Francisco serves as a “high-friction” alliance where the primary signal is presence over prestige. In a city where the cost of living and a dominant secular culture reward exit, the decision to stay … Continue reading
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The Folk vs The Experts
The Washington Post reports: An injured NFL team, a power substation and a theory that won’t fade – A viral online theory for the San Francisco 49ers’ injuries is disputed by scientists but has some players’ attention. …But not all … Continue reading
Posted in Football, Health, San Francisco
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The Lifestyle
Chuck Johnson wrote April 5 about Bob Lee’s murder: “Lee liked drugs. Lee bought drugs. Lee also liked orgies.” Johnson was way ahead of the curve on this story. May 14, 2023, the Wall Street Journal catches up: Before His … Continue reading
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