{"id":907,"date":"2006-04-13T06:44:40","date_gmt":"2006-04-13T11:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-passed-over-the-elite\/"},"modified":"2006-04-13T06:44:40","modified_gmt":"2006-04-13T11:44:40","slug":"the-passed-over-the-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-passed-over-the-elite","title":{"rendered":"The Passed Over & the Elite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greeted Passover on a flight home from Chicago. I haven’t held or been to a seder in a few years. The last one was the time I ended up meeting the Zionist Conspiracy To Get Me Married To A Nice Jewish Girl. It’s nice to see that the Jewish lobby isn’t as effective as Drs. Mearshimer and Walt think it is<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But I made it in safe and sound, with a little in-flight bumpiness and traffic delay. Just about finished Geek Love<\/a>, which I’m enjoying a bunch. I sorta disagree with Dunn’s use of an X-Men-like character in the midst of an otherwise believable world of a really demented sideshow freak family.<\/p>\n

The BIO conference went well; I had some good interviews and got a lot of good anecdotes & bits of intel about various aspects of the industry. I also got to meet several people with whom I’ve been in work-e-mail contact for years. That usually helps facilitate the working relationship, except when one of the two parties doesn’t remember having met the other face-to-face at a previous conference.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the conference was described to me as “a singles club for CEOs and VCs,” and it’s true that a lot of the conversation was about funding, in-licensing developmental products (as in, a big company looking to buy the rights to a smaller company’s drug that’s currently in clinical trials). The conference is also filled with regional economic development councils for various states or countries (like that Malaysia group I mentioned a while back<\/a>). They work hard to get companies to choose their regions for R&D or manufacturing facilities, and I like hearing them explain their virtues. The Maine pavilion had a slogan on one of its displays that read (paraphrasing): “Bangor: more metropolitan than you think!”<\/p>\n

Well, duh.<\/p>\n

Anyway, one of the funnier moments of the last day occurred as we were getting ready to board the plane back to Newark. It was one of the first Continental flights after show’s end, and the gate area was filled. The clerk called for all Elite Access passengers to board. None of us stepped back to make room. Turns out, when you have a conference that’s as money-centric as BIO, with so many attendees who constantly travel, everyone<\/em> has Elite status.<\/p>\n

Except my associate editor, who felt that her non-Elite status was a badge of honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greeted Passover on a flight home from Chicago. I haven’t held or been to a seder in a few years. The last one was the time I ended up meeting the Zionist Conspiracy To Get Me Married To A Nice Jewish Girl. It’s nice to see that the Jewish lobby isn’t as effective as Drs. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Passed Over & the Elite”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pharmaceuticals","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-eD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":423,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-laid-plans-etc","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":0},"title":"Best-Laid Plans, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"December 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Holiday plans got scuttled, after the official VM girlfriend came down with food poisoning Wednesday night. We had to cancel our Thursday flight to visit her family in Louisiana for the holidays, as she was in no shape to board a plane, and the person I spoke to at Continental\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-laid-plans-etc#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2109,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-62308","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 6\/23\/08","author":"Gil","date":"June 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: I finished Endless Things, by John Crowley, this weekend, but I have so much work to do on my Top Companies issue that I'm probably only going to be reading 10-Ks and annual reports for the next week or so. Oh, and some more Cromartie High School.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-62308#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00140IU9I","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5343,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/you-sir-are-bad-ass-23-hours-a-day","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":2},"title":"You, Sir, Are Bad-Ass: 23 Hours A Day","author":"Gil","date":"May 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"For a nice Jewish boy (just kidding), Thomas Silverstein has done a ton of bad things in this world, warranting 27 years \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and counting \u00e2\u20ac\u201d of solitary confinement. Maybe he's rehabilitated himself, but when you can say, \"They built the Supermax Prison because of me,\" then you may as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "You Sir Are Bad-Ass"","block_context":{"text":"You Sir Are Bad-Ass","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/you-sir-are-bad-ass"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1055,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dog-hair-etc","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":3},"title":"Dog, hair, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"July 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Surprise, dear readers! Amy & I are down in Louisiana, having surprised the official VM mother-in-law for her brithday yesterday! While we did keep it a secret from almost everyone, I'm starting to think we could've told them all we were coming, since no one would believe that people would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4748,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-122809","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":4},"title":"What It Is: 12\/28\/09","author":"Gil","date":"December 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: As is my wont, I did plenty of reading while visiting my in-laws for the holidays. I read Hadji Murat from Pevear and Volokhonsky's new translation of Tolstoy's stories, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Everyman, and started Winesburg, Ohio (Note: these were all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307268810","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11912,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-297-shachar-pinsker","url_meta":{"origin":907,"position":5},"title":"Episode 297 – Shachar Pinsker","author":"Gil","date":"November 25, 2018","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 297: Shachar Pinsker \"This is the story of Jewish migration through the lens of coffeehouses.\" Jews have a long tradition with coffee (I can attest!). In A Rich Brew: How Caf\u00e9s Created Modern Jewish Culture (NYU Press), Professor Shachar Pinsker explores the intersection of modernistic Hebrew literature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coffee"","block_context":{"text":"Coffee","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/coffee"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0825.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0825.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0825.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0825.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0825.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}