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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: Charity
The Anti-Bureaucrat: MacKenzie Scott and the Reinvention of Elite Giving
MacKenzie Scott (b. 1970) built a decentralized model of elite wealth redistribution marked by speed, institutional minimalism, unrestricted grants, and a willingness to surrender control over capital once it left her hands. This model broke from the centralized foundation, the … Continue reading
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The Warren Buffett Social Set
Warren Buffett (b. 1930) runs a world that prizes one thing above all: being right slowly. The set around him, the Omaha circle, the value-investing faithful, the shareholders who fly in each May, treats patience as the highest virtue and … Continue reading
The Michael Bloomberg Social Set
Michael Bloomberg (b. 1942) sits at the center of a world that runs on competence and money, in that order, though the money makes the competence visible. The set is global, but its capital is Manhattan. Its members come from … Continue reading
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The Consensus-Builder: Melinda French Gates and Elite-Network Power
Melinda French Gates (b. 1964) stands among the central architects of twenty-first-century technocratic philanthropy and gender-centered governance reform in the United States. Across three decades she helped turn philanthropy from a charitable enterprise into an integrated system of political influence, … Continue reading
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Capital Without Command: The Institutional Career of Laurene Powell Jobs
Laurene Powell Jobs (b. 1963) exercises influence through a coordinated network of philanthropy, investment, media ownership, education reform, and advocacy. The public often frames her through her marriage to Steve Jobs (1955–2011), the Apple cofounder. She was born Laurene Powell … Continue reading
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Power at the Ford Foundation
Program officers, strategy leads, and senior executives at the Ford Foundation do not compete for authority by saying they want power. They compete by invoking languages of Reducing Inequality, Justice-Centered Philanthropy, Building Power for the Marginalized, and Equity-First Grantmaking. Those … Continue reading
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Power at the Open Society Foundation
Program officers, strategy leads, and senior executives at the Open Society Foundations do not compete for authority by saying they want power. They compete by invoking languages of Open Society Values, Rights and Dignity, Democratic Practice, Equity in Governance, and … Continue reading
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Power at the Rockefeller Foundation
Program officers, strategy leads, and senior executives at the Rockefeller Foundation do not compete for authority by saying they want power. They compete by invoking languages of Systems Change Philanthropy, Resilient and Equitable Systems, Opportunity Universal, Climate Justice and Resilience, … Continue reading
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News: ‘3 weeks after damning report leaked, FIDF chair and CEO step down’
Judah Ari Gross writes: Under mounting pressure following the leak of an internal investigation alleging internal dysfunction, inappropriate spending and a toxic work environment at the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the group’s embattled chair and CEO have resigned, … Continue reading
Posted in Charity
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Jewish Charity Scandals
ChatGPT says: 1. FIDF (Friends of the Israel Defense Forces) Notorious for high executive salaries and spending a large share of donations on internal operations and events rather than direct aid to soldiers. CEO salaries in the past have exceeded … Continue reading
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