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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
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- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
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- 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
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- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
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- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
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- * 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: Humor
The Evolutionary Mystery Of Humor
David Pinsof writes in his new paper (and Substack column): * Human social life is filled with coordination problems: passing each other in a hallway, taking turns talking and listening, differentiating the meanings of “hook up with” and “meet up … Continue reading
Posted in David Pinsof, Humor
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When Is It OK To Mock People’s Looks?
The New Yorker mocks looks maxxers. Becca Rothfeld performs a familiar ritual: she identifies a foreign cultural practice, names it as derangement, and signals to her readers that these people sit outside the circle of respectable discourse. The phrase “captivating … Continue reading
Posted in Humor
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Jews in Hollywood
Written with AI: Joel Stein wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times on December 19, 2008, titled Who runs Hollywood? C’mon. In the piece, Stein responds to an Anti-Defamation League poll showing that only 22% of Americans believe Jews … Continue reading
Decoding Funny
Something is funny when it reveals a sudden mismatch between expectation and reality in a way that feels safe. The mind predicts one social or logical pattern. The punchline snaps that pattern without threatening status or survival. Laughter is the … Continue reading
Posted in Affirmative Action, Humor
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Why can’t Euro elites laugh about Trump’s Greenland fetish?
I can laugh about almost anything but my survival. It is easy for me to laugh about the grim struggles of other people, particularly if they don’t affect me and the ones I love, particularly if they are part of … Continue reading
Tucker Carlson – Hilarious Demagogue
Tucker is the American right’s best speaker. When Tucker was doing his nightly monologues, I found him a “hilarious demagogue.” Since he went out on his own, I find him less funny. Sometimes restriction makes you funnier and freedom reduces … Continue reading
Posted in Humor, Tucker Carlson
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No Joke: Making Jewish Humor
Ruth Wisse writes in her 2014 book: * The young man was most disagreeably surprised when the proposed bride was introduced to him, and drew aside the shadkhen — the marriage broker — to whisper his objections: “Why have you … Continue reading
Jews, Judaism & Humor
I heard that Jews weren’t known for being funny until they became secular starting in the 18th Century. I don’t find much support for the value of humor in traditional Jewish text. Is the pursuit of the comedic a secular … Continue reading
I find almost everything amusing. Does this make make me a nihilist?
Grok says: Finding almost everything amusing doesn’t automatically make you a nihilist—it might just mean you’ve got a sharp eye for life’s absurdities. Nihilism’s more about believing nothing matters, that there’s no meaning or value anywhere. Laughing at it all … Continue reading
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Humor & Morality
From The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology (2022): * when one is engaged humorously one adopts a certain static ‘state of mind, a way of seeing and being, a special mental ‘set’ towards the world and one’s actions in it’ … Continue reading
Posted in Humor
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