An interesting article on the degree to which your parents’ professions influence your own. These two were sort of outliers, though, in the sense that there is much less demand for the “services” than there is “talent” for it:

Some fields are particularly dynastic, like Hollywood acting or politics.

You don’t say. I’d go beyond “dynastic,” and say nepotistic.

I have a theory that one of the reasons that Hollywood types tend to be “liberal” is guilt over the knowledge that, though there can be a lot of perseverance involved, their success was largely due to dumb luck, or choosing the right parents, and that there are many other people who were just as, or more capable and/or attractive than them. On the politics side, I hope we’ve finally broken the Kennedy, Bush and Clinton dynasties, but the threat of George P. and Chelsea are still out there.

[Early-afternoon update]

Sorry about the missing link; I had a long dentist appointment this morning right after I posted that. Fixed now.