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Entry: A Nation of Anti-Semites? Fech! Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/a_nation_of_anti_semites_really#10548 Post contents: Hey, Sidster/Andrew Crapper let me help you out. I have a few Jewish friends and know many other Jews either socially or thru business. One of my best Jewish friends is a fanatic baseball fan. He spends much of his downtime on fantasy baseball, and following what players his team will acquire in the off season. He also has gotten into the poker thing. He was a history major in college and is now a business executive. Another Jewish friend of mine also follows all major sports, except hockey. But this one plays the games as well, as he is more a fitness guy. This friend, we will call him “Jeff”, went to an Ivy League college, majoring in a business specialty, and then to law school. I’ve never known him to read a single serious book, outside of work related material (and not much there either). His other major hobby is chasing women, many of whom he catches and then releases after the initial “hook up.” Another example is “Steve” who majored in music, went to law school and mainly lifts weights, smokes dope and listens to the Grateful Dead. Steve doesn’t read serious books either, unless we count Howard Zinn in that category. Another Jewish guy I know, “Howard” is a Harvard trained physician. Now he does read more serious books, but nothing really good, just your usual best seller list stuff. He has become more conservative over time, more a main line Republican. “Howard” is a good guy, a straight shooter etc. But he spends most of his time watching sports on TV, when he isn’t working. It is either football, college and pro, or baseball or basketball etc. Howard was eager to get the new giant sized TV sets when they came out, so he went off and bought one and hauled it home without telling the wife. I got the call to come over and help unload it. I was afraid we were going to drop the thing and cost Howard a few thousand bucks. BTW, Howard’s wife wasn’t very happy about it. I could repeat this description several times over. In short, the only intellectual Jews I know personally are either paleo-cons or paleo-libertarians. While I was heading to work one day recently, I heard some older Jewish guys, who all work at law firms, complaining that the only interest the young lawyers have is fantasy sports, football or baseball, and that they young Jews who work for them aren’t interested in politics or higher intellectual pursuits. So, maybe it’s a generational thing, but it might be more than that. For myself, an old stock Wasp originally from upstate New York, in the last two months I’ve watched the Ken Burns WW2 documentary, History channel documentaries on WW2, the Civil War and the War of Independence along with some Cspan and other political coverage. I’ve watched some baseball playoffs, a couple of boring football games and two hockey games. I’ve watched a few old movies, Hamlet and As You Like It with Laurence Olivier and Othello by Orson Welles and his Citizen Kane and Magnificent Ambersons (the last based on the Booth Tarkington novel). I have enough information about sports that I can hold my own around the water cooler. But mostly, when I’m not talking about work or household projects or people I know, I’m talking about politics or history or the media and the degraded nature of contemporary culture. I know I’m not typical, but I sure do get the sense that your stereotypes are way off the mark. Sent at: 2008 05 11