A friend of mine worked for a billionaire.
Luke: “Is he Jewish?”
Friend: “What do you think? I’d work for a goy?”
Comment: There’s a new Showtime series called Billions, about hedge funds in New York, which is debuting Sunday. The series is co-created by Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times, who also wrote the book about the financial crisis that was turned into the HBO movie. If you click that link, you’ll see a description of the main characters, none of who appear to be Jewish.
Not that I’d expect all of the characters, or even most of them, to be Jewish, obviously, but none of them being Jewish seemed a little odd. So I asked Sorkin about it, via Twitter, after he said he’d be happy to talk about the show. No response.
@andrewrsorkin @mashbusiness Are any of the characters Jewish?
— David Pinsen (@dpinsen) January 13, 2016
* He wasn’t sure the name Pinsen was Jewish therefore couldn’t confide in you.
* Maybe it’s a thinly-veiled fictional exposé of Buddy Fletcher.
* Who owns Showtime?
CBS.
Who runs CBS?
Les Moonves and Sumner Redstone, nee Rothstein. I am sure they weren’t very interested in the development of a show that would take on the titans of high finance in their hometown of New York City, written by a star young reporter from the New York Times.
Mere coincidence, I am sure. Nothing to see here, please stop noticing all the WASPs who still run Harvard too.
* It’s a thinly-veiled expose of Steven A. Cohen (who the government is now settling with, incidentally) and a love note to Preet Bhahara.
* This is the kind of world I want to live in – an orderly world where, in a sense, success and wealth are “spread around”, not by the force or arbitrariness of government, but by cooperation among individuals who share a common sense of purpose, community, and cooperation.
* My son and I spent this fall attending presentation sessions by out of state colleges. The Harvard/Yale/Princeton/UVA (why UVA joined that group is beyond me) admissions presenters were: a Hispanic lesbian (Princeton), gay Asian male (Yale), Indian guy (Harvard), and black male (UVA). White boys need not apply – message received loud and clear. Coincidentally, or maybe not, it was the least informative of the nearly dozen presentations we’ve attended. They had a great time cracking each other up on stage, though. I took the opportunity to slam them in the feedback email.
* Steve – did you read about Rahm’s use of HUD rules to move Chicago black people to random midwestern cities?
* This college video practically says “white males not welcome” The contrast between the evil old white men (even marching like soldiers) in the first 25 seconds and the amazing vibrant diversity in the rest is stunning.
Uploaded on Feb 23, 2010: The University of Houston is uniquely positioned among other Texas universities to provide a different kind of college experience. UH is unified and defined by its diversity, and it gets its identity from its students, faculty, staff, alumni and its community. This video explains UH’s position, and the reasoning behind the “You are the Pride” branding message.
* I was hiking in northern Maine and the trail promotional materials had black kids! When was the last time you saw a black kid hiking in northern Maine?
* The (elderly) owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News (the only 2 local dailies), just donated the company to a non-profit foundation. You could look at this a number of ways: he says it is to ensure quality journalism forever. Another angle is that his investment is worth zero anyway so there was no way he could sell it anyway (the papers continue to bleed money despite cut after cut). A third angle is that this is to permanently keep the paper out of the hands of non-liberals and safely in the hands of the Cathedral (the paper takes a conventional liberal line). And in case you are wondering, Lenfest is not a Joo.
