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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:
- 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)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
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: Football
Joe Buck & Troy Aikman
Joe Buck (b. 1969) carries the inheritance of his father Jack Buck. He works in a controlled mid-range tenor, clean and unhurried. He paces a broadcast like a man who knows the camera will wait for him. On routine plays … Continue reading
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What can Alliance Theory tell me about the Super Bowl and why are NFL games about the only things that we all watch at once?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory gives the Super Bowl’s massive, unified audience a clear structural explanation. It is one of the few coalition-level rituals that still genuinely unites a large society in real time. Here’s how to understand it in Alliance … Continue reading
The Future Of Football
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory treats football as an alliance maintenance system first and a sport second. National Football League survives because it binds together owners, broadcasters, advertisers, municipalities, gambling platforms, and a large male audience into a single high trust … Continue reading
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Decoding Bill Belichick
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory read. Bill Belichick not being first ballot Hall of Famer is an alliance judgment, not a football one. Belichick maximized control and minimized social capital. He built a ruthless performance machine that treated players, media, and … Continue reading
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Decoding Bill Walsh
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory read. Bill Walsh was an alliance innovator who solved the problem of legitimacy under constraint. Walsh inherited weak coalitions. Losing teams. Limited talent. Low prestige. AT says leaders in that position cannot rely on hierarchy or … Continue reading
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Decoding Tom Landry
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory read. Tom Landry was an alliance architect, not just a football coach. Landry’s genius was institutional discipline. He replaced charisma and intimidation with system, roles, and predictability. That matters in AT terms because large coalitions scale … Continue reading
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Decoding American Football’s CTE Crisis
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory read. This is a conflict between profit-maximizing spectacle and coalition liability management. American football functioned as a national alliance ritual. It produced shared identity, masculine status ladders, regional loyalty, and massive economic rents. The NFL sat … 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 Worst College Football Team In The Nation On Saturday Beat One Of The Best
Until Saturday’s game against Penn State, UCLA appeared to be about the worst Division One team in the nation. Then they pulled off a stunner. The Los Angeles Times reported: A team in need of a savior found one in … Continue reading
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The Kingdom
I’m enjoying the ESPN documentary series on the Kansas Chiefs – The Kingdom. The Chiefs are coached by Andy Reid, who’s long had clock-management issues. I remember watching Super Bowl XXXIX (February 6, 2005) and the Eagles, then coached by … Continue reading
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