Rowan writes: Having discovered your work via the mordant essay of Dr E Michael Jones on "Culture Wars" (which is certainly, as the phrase has it, 'anti-Semitic',
but not necessarily incorrect), I have watched your new site since with a mixture of amusement and horror. I still can't make up my mind whether Chaim Amalek really exists or is just an animus projection on your part.
I read "XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul" in more or less one sitting. It's well written.
Anyway, I think I understand the logic behind your strange career. Whether
consciously or not, I think you have been trying to hold the Jewish people to account for their extraordinary double standards regarding among other things, sex. I think many of them realise that this is your underlying purpose, and that is why they regard you with some concern, to put it mildly.
The mechanism of this double standard is that the Jewish right wing fiercely
defends Jewish exclusivism and tradition, while the Jewish left wing endevours to destroy the values of exclusivism and tradition among all other (non-Jewish) cultures, while never paying more than lip-service to the idea of destroying it among Jews themselves. Described in this way the mechanism can be seen to be identical in the State of Israel to what it is in the Diaspora.
Mike Jones does manage to accurately describe this double standard, which is easy to spot from the point of view of traditional Catholicism (and for that matter traditional Islam, but not traditional Protestantism because there is no such thing). The effect of the double standard is also quite well described from another theoretical standpoint, that of evolutionary psychology, by Kevin Macdonald in his three books, one of which is on the web as a free e-text at a rather nasty white power site.
Let me mention one curious thing. The polemics between Christianity and Judaism almost always fail to grasp an important point, two important points in fact, about the period in which Christianity was created.
One point is that it seems to me quite probable circumstantially that Jesus was really something like a proto-Karaite, simply condemning the post-Exilic development of what eventually became halachah, and asking for a return to what he considered to be the primal Judaism of Moses. Modern scholars regard that also as a product of the post-Exilic period, but that's another story.
The other is that early Christianity was very little concerned with the real ideas of Jesus, whatever they may have been, but was much more concerned with the false idea that he preached the abrogation of Jewish law and the merging of the Jewish people into the peoples of the world to create a truly universal faith.
The letters of Paul are particularly confusing in this respect because they contain Marcionite ideas ("who shall deliver me from this body of death?" - this is a proto-gnostic idea, related to the belief that the God of the Jews is a mere demiurge, and that Jesus was sent by the real supreme God, who was neither the God of the Jews nor the creator of this world, to testify against this demiurge) but that these Marcionite or gnostic ideas have been adulterated by the pro-Jewish Christians of Rome with something which in today's terms we would call proto-Dispensationalism, which accords the Jews a higher prestige and reaffirms the idea that the God of both religions is one and the same.
Mike Jones, therefore, in trying to extricate Catholicism from its submission to Judaism, is attempting the impossible.
I think the reason Judaism seems so much more sex-positive than Christianity, by the way, is that Judaism provides a utilitarian justification for sex : the population war between Jews and everybody else. One see this very clearly in Israeli culture, for instance in the constant jokes about 'natural population growth' in the settlements. An amusing story in this vein is on my own blog, at:
http://spookspot.blogspot.com/2004/09/is-nothing-sacred_28.html
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I Like Hanging Out With Guys Like Me - Bears
Those of you who have seen me of late know that more and more, I look like a bear. I'm building up some much needed bulk (though not necessarily where I'd like it to go), and my face is getting broader, too. And thanks to certain legal lifestyle drugs that I take, my body is becoming more hirsute. In short, I'm looking more and more like a bear.
We bears need hugs, hugs that I find difficult to come by in a conventional Jewish setting. (Although to be fair, my new friend Tom from Finland likes giving me lots of hugs after prayer services.) I am, therefore, considering starting an informal Jewish prayer group of my own for Jewish Bears like me. Luke's Dovening Den, I may call it. If you live in the LA area and are interested, just drop me a note.
We bears need hugs, hugs that I find difficult to come by in a conventional Jewish setting. (Although to be fair, my new friend Tom from Finland likes giving me lots of hugs after prayer services.) I am, therefore, considering starting an informal Jewish prayer group of my own for Jewish Bears like me. Luke's Dovening Den, I may call it. If you live in the LA area and are interested, just drop me a note.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
When Do We Eat?
I'm hearing good things about the $4 million movie When Do We Eat?:
Plot Outline: A family's Passover gets screwy after the patriarch unknowingly ingests a hit of Ecstasy.
Source says: The film was even better than what was written there. It is something made for a jewish audience, but he didn't make it too religious so that it could go mainstream without leaving people out. I am not sure how they could market it properly to actually pull in non-jews, but it should be done as it is a great film and is for almost everyone.
I am just impressed with how they tie so much together. the rabbi (Mordecai Finley) who introduced it said something about how this film has everything his favorite book has; family, religion, sex, incest, drugs, love, humor, etc....just like the bible.
Plot Outline: A family's Passover gets screwy after the patriarch unknowingly ingests a hit of Ecstasy.
Source says: The film was even better than what was written there. It is something made for a jewish audience, but he didn't make it too religious so that it could go mainstream without leaving people out. I am not sure how they could market it properly to actually pull in non-jews, but it should be done as it is a great film and is for almost everyone.
I am just impressed with how they tie so much together. the rabbi (Mordecai Finley) who introduced it said something about how this film has everything his favorite book has; family, religion, sex, incest, drugs, love, humor, etc....just like the bible.
Bestselling author Dan Brown's plagiarism cloud
LONDON: The author of a thriller that has sold more than 12 million copies is to be sued for plagiarising two books published more than 20 years ago.
Dan Brown, whose The Da Vinci Code is claimed by the publisher to have become the best-selling hardback adult novel ever, is expected to face legal action by the authors of a 1982 non-fiction bestseller and a 1983 novel.
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, whose The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was condemned by the Catholic Church but continues to draw readers and disciples, are said to be preparing to sue him for alleged breach of copyright of ideas and research.
Another author, Lewis Perdue, is threatening to sue Brown for alleged plagiarism, claiming that he borrowed heavily from Perdue's novel The Da Vinci Legacy.
The authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail claimed to have found evidence that the Priory of Sion - a secret society founded in the late 11th century linked to the Knights Templar, and whose grand masters supposedly included Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Isaac Newton - guarded documents that challenged orthodox Christian tenets and history.
.............
Author Lewis Perdue writes Luke: Thank God (by whatever name you know Him/Her) for Aussies ... The Australian runs with a real story while while the rest of the mainstream media are content to let Random House and its multi-billion-dollar German parent, Bertlesmann try and nail my gluteus maximus to a tree in New York District Court ... all because I had the nerve to stand up for the Da Vinci Code's plagiarism of my work. Anyway, glad there are still cojones down in Oz.
Dan Brown, whose The Da Vinci Code is claimed by the publisher to have become the best-selling hardback adult novel ever, is expected to face legal action by the authors of a 1982 non-fiction bestseller and a 1983 novel.
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, whose The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was condemned by the Catholic Church but continues to draw readers and disciples, are said to be preparing to sue him for alleged breach of copyright of ideas and research.
Another author, Lewis Perdue, is threatening to sue Brown for alleged plagiarism, claiming that he borrowed heavily from Perdue's novel The Da Vinci Legacy.
The authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail claimed to have found evidence that the Priory of Sion - a secret society founded in the late 11th century linked to the Knights Templar, and whose grand masters supposedly included Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Isaac Newton - guarded documents that challenged orthodox Christian tenets and history.
.............
Author Lewis Perdue writes Luke: Thank God (by whatever name you know Him/Her) for Aussies ... The Australian runs with a real story while while the rest of the mainstream media are content to let Random House and its multi-billion-dollar German parent, Bertlesmann try and nail my gluteus maximus to a tree in New York District Court ... all because I had the nerve to stand up for the Da Vinci Code's plagiarism of my work. Anyway, glad there are still cojones down in Oz.
What Does Luke Ford Do All Day?
Chaim Amalek writes: Have you turned in your book on JJournalists? What are you currently working on? (I now think you should listen to your inner bad boy and write a finger wagging book about the Hilton video phenomena.) Of all the ideas you have kicked around, this has the best prospect of paying the bill for being a Jew and
putting food on the table.
Speaking of which, given the state of your health through the years, why not admit the obvious - that God/nature/Darwin made us omnivores who are meant to eat a very broad range of foods, including fish, chicken and beef - and cut that final string to your 7th Day Adventist upbringing? What is the case for you to keep at this? A good friend of mine, after getting progressively sicker on her bizarre vegan diet
of many years, very quickly became stronger and healthier by returning to a proper omnivorous diet.
Luke says: I could not eat meat if I wanted to. The thought repulses me.
Yes, I've turned in my Jewish journalism book. Out in a month. Working on another one.
What keeps me occupied is studying and observing the Torah and writing in a way that glorifies that which is holy and attacks that which is unholy.
She now has the strength to become the success that
she was meant to be but which she could never be on
her ridiculous vegan diet. There is nothing Jewish in
being vegan.
putting food on the table.
Speaking of which, given the state of your health through the years, why not admit the obvious - that God/nature/Darwin made us omnivores who are meant to eat a very broad range of foods, including fish, chicken and beef - and cut that final string to your 7th Day Adventist upbringing? What is the case for you to keep at this? A good friend of mine, after getting progressively sicker on her bizarre vegan diet
of many years, very quickly became stronger and healthier by returning to a proper omnivorous diet.
Luke says: I could not eat meat if I wanted to. The thought repulses me.
Yes, I've turned in my Jewish journalism book. Out in a month. Working on another one.
What keeps me occupied is studying and observing the Torah and writing in a way that glorifies that which is holy and attacks that which is unholy.
She now has the strength to become the success that
she was meant to be but which she could never be on
her ridiculous vegan diet. There is nothing Jewish in
being vegan.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Trust in God but take your lithium
I like to think of myself as a moralist, but I must admit that the shape of a young woman's midot (character traits) can have a profound affect on me.
Lainie Speiser writes: "You're a strange man Mr. Ford. You Australians just love to stir the pot, its like an orgasmic experience for you guys, and thats why you make the best tabloid journalists. Thank christ my parents don't even own a computer."
Lainie Speiser writes: "You're a strange man Mr. Ford. You Australians just love to stir the pot, its like an orgasmic experience for you guys, and thats why you make the best tabloid journalists. Thank christ my parents don't even own a computer."
Lainie Speiser Posts To Protocols
Lainie posts: Yes as someone who still goes to an orthodox shul it is indeed very sexual exciting when the men and women are separated. In my temple the men are on the ground floor and the women are on a balcony above. And there is a whole lot of men checking us out from above, but of course most of the men that look me over are married with several children.
And yes the mystery might make it sexy for the men but what of the women? Again this is totally a man's sexuality nothing that benefits a woman.
Yes I do think G-d does approve of me and what I do because I'm honest first of all, and second of all I believe the most important commandment, Do unto others as you'd have done unto you. There is a Rabbi who said you could sum up the entire Torah on one foot with that one line.
Live and let live I say. as long as its positive and good and human.
But hypocrisy, well as someone who lived in Williamsburg for awhile it never ceased to amaze me about how many satmars would load into a beat up old station wagon looking for crack hos to perform five dollar BJ's.
Yes I'm a porn peddler and have met many many orthodox people who are huge porn fans. I was at an S&M event, The Black and Blue ball are met many orthodox men and hasids there. Also, three orhodox men started a porno site with me a few years ago. Of course no one in their temple knew of this.
I believe in god and feel him within me all the time because I have an open mind, heart and soul. Thats all thats needed.
And yes the mystery might make it sexy for the men but what of the women? Again this is totally a man's sexuality nothing that benefits a woman.
Yes I do think G-d does approve of me and what I do because I'm honest first of all, and second of all I believe the most important commandment, Do unto others as you'd have done unto you. There is a Rabbi who said you could sum up the entire Torah on one foot with that one line.
Live and let live I say. as long as its positive and good and human.
But hypocrisy, well as someone who lived in Williamsburg for awhile it never ceased to amaze me about how many satmars would load into a beat up old station wagon looking for crack hos to perform five dollar BJ's.
Yes I'm a porn peddler and have met many many orthodox people who are huge porn fans. I was at an S&M event, The Black and Blue ball are met many orthodox men and hasids there. Also, three orhodox men started a porno site with me a few years ago. Of course no one in their temple knew of this.
I believe in god and feel him within me all the time because I have an open mind, heart and soul. Thats all thats needed.
The Best Of Lainie Speiser, Yeshiva Girl Turned ---- Publicist
Because I got such a large response the first time I published some comments from Lainie Speiser [picture of her sandwiched between Linn Thomas on the left, and Dr. Victoria Zdrok on the right, pic is glatt kosher], publicist of Penthouse, here are some more of her emails to be (published with her permission):
Orthodox!? Hell no! I did suffer a horrible eight years at Yeshiva of Hudson County from ages five through 13. But try as I may I cannot get any of those song-prayers out of my head, I remember all my blessings and if you put a sider in front of me I probably could still read the blasted thing. My Mom drags me to Temple once a year during High Holy Days and last year I took a novel (with the cover off) and it was so much more pleasant for me.
I believe in god believe it or not, but in all religions, well they're all bunk to me, and encourage seperatist behavior. I'm very spiritual and try to be the best person I can be, but I don't need to go to a building or read the words someone else wrote to prove it.
This business (behind the scenes) is all Catholics 'n Jews.
I grew up a sephardic jew first generation American (Mom is from Tangiers, Dad is from Argentina), and while my Mom did keep a kosher home we ate whatever we wanted outside of the home. I don't keep kosher now in or outside my house. That's another ridiculous rule. All these things need to be updated. Dietary restrictions were made during the "bible days" because of lack of refridgeration etc. Now its silly, although I agree, pork is not good for anyone. But I love lobster and crab and all that other shellfish.
I remember a song they taught us as little kids in Yeshiva, it went, "...all the animals that we eat must chew their cud and have split feet..." My older sister keeps kosher, although not religious and married a Southern Blond Goy (my sister and I love our men vanilla). I don't know why she does, I've tried to get her to try lobster but she won't do it.
Yom Tovin? Whats that? I know what Yom Tov, but what's Yom Tovin?
What made you want to convert to Judiasm? Are you orthodox?
My Dad is an atheist, but yet has always been really into being a jew because of the history and politics, and although he shacked up with a fair shair of shiksas, mainly of the Latina variety, he told me in his heart it didn't feel right, that he knew he would only marry a jewish girl.
I've been on TV a few times because of my job, and my Mom is mortified when her fellow Temple Beth Abraham brothers and sisters say they saw me on TV. But they're
cool about it for the most part.
Whats "shaygetzes?"
I guess it is divine compared to other religions. I mean I like the fact that we don't pray to false idols for instance. But I don't like the orthodox way towards women --- covering your hair because its only for your husband and not being able to sing in public.... I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a while ago, we lived walking distance to the Satmars, and although they wouldn't put money in my hand when giving me change back (they owned the best bakery), they had know problem piling into their beat up old station wagon trolling for crack ho's. I just really really hate the hypocrisy.
Which brings me to my next question ... how is it an orthodox jew peddles and/or pushes ----? Or are you some kinda "modern" orthodox? Do you go to temple every saturday? Do you pray every morning? Do you keep Sabbath?
I guess you can say I've only dated non jews. Recently tho' I hooked up with a
real jewish cutie, not a boyfriend/girlfriend thing, more of a casual thing, and I think it was cool with me because he's from Tennessee. Other than that I've been on a date here and a date there, nothing really came of it, one guy had an anxiety attack on the date. NYC jews should lighten up I think.
Well Luke, y'know you have a name in adult entertainment, no? I don't dig p---
myself. I think of myself as a drug dealer who doesn't do the drugs, which is
how I've been able to stay in it so long. But I don't think it should be
abolished, and anyway, it could never be. P---, like prostitution, will never
fade. I like the business of it though, obviously I've chosen to remain in it.
And you know with all this FCC hassle going on, lately it makes me proud to be
in this business. Enjoying freedoms isn't just about what each individual likes, but most importantly even what you don't like. Of course I wouldn't support say a Nazi magazine, but it is their right to publish it.
Get out of town, you are shomer negiya? I can't imagine a man whose shomer
negiya asking me how Jim Goad knows about the size of my breasts (he's met me
in person by the way, thats how he knows, we've know each other for awhile now,
distantly obviously, but stayed in good contact. He's one of the coolest,
smartest I've ever met). What kind of shomer negiya are you ... no touching at
all or no sex? I've seen many varieties.
The Stamars did try to get action off me, you know, anyone who isn't one of
them might as well be a crack ho.
Hey I guess I sound pretty Jew harsh, obviously this has brought much good into
your life and thats great. Maybe if you'd have had my religious background you'd think differently, but maybe not.
I'm not religious or political. I'm in the business of the politics of people. People are what interest me the most. But of course most of my family is Republican because they're pro Isreal. For me, well I just don't want to be told how to live, whether its about abortion or religion or smoking or p---.
One of my henchmen emailed me a link to your Looking for a Wife site. I got a big kick out of it.
I do know of two very marriage minded Jewesses who would love to settle down and have babies and go to Temple and make latkas. One has a very good job working for the DA's office in Queens (and she shares your politics). The other doesn't have as great a career but is highly educated and hasn't had intercourse in so long I'd say
she's a born again virgin. And they are both attractive too (the woman who works for the DA's office has very very shiny chestnut colored hair and green eyes).
But alas your age requirements I feel are too stiff. They are older than me, in their late 30s (they are close friends of my older sister). But Luke, its very common for women to pop our children in their late 30s and early 40s. My Mother had me well into middle age and had no problem getting preggo at all, in fact with both her pregnancies she got knocked up right away, my sister was conceived on the Honeymoon and I was conceived on their anniversary four years later.
So although I found all your requirements extremely reasonable, I think you could bend on the age thang. After all sir, you are no spring chicken, how do we know your sperm is still vital?
Actually I thought all the other requirements were fine, and you weren't too physically picky either (and I totally agree about the hip to waist ratio that is the most important part of the female form in my opinion). It was just the age. Because younger women aren't necessarily so marriage and children minded, but then again, we are talking JEWS aren't we?
I'd love to hook you up with my friends. Meryl and Sandi... it don't get much more Jewy than that. And I even think they'd be willing to uproot themselves for you. More so Sandi, because her career isn't the big deal that Meryl's is, tho' I feel Meryl would be the better match in verbal matters.
See I didn't throw my marital hat in the ring because although I do have long hair and a good waist to hip ratio and am jewish and smart, I'm too much of a bad girl for you, I smoke cigarettes and weed and enjoy cocktails and I wouldn't join you in temple every week and then there is the p---- peddler job that I very much enjoy. Too bad my Mother would have adored you.
Well then Mr. Ford, if a lot is tongue and cheek, may I take the liberty to ask
about your oral views as expressed on the site? Because ---- --- - mutually -
is one of the greatest pleasures in the world, and I feel it IS safe ---
actually. And I would never perform oral on anyone if they were wearing a condom - GROSS! Are you that germaphobic or just a man that really isn't into performing it but doesn't want to flat out say it? I hope that was part of the joke, because I could never in good faith recommend a man who is uptight in these areas.
Well sir, that is a pity. And that isn't fair either. You'd probably get a lot
more ----, and more importantly enthusiastic ----, if you acquired a taste for
it. But that's an Aussie thing isn't it? I haven't had relations with any Australians, but I got this report from a close friend of mine long ago.
Luke I think Hashem is very dissapointed in you and perhaps that is why you
haven't had the naches to meet the right lady yet. Don't you know you'd be
performing a great mitzvah by putting your selfish views aside and giving? I
think you must have experienced some nasty hairy hygenically challenged girl in
Australia and it turned you off for good.
Ha, if Torah gave me orgasms I wouldn't have left Yeshiva for good at the age
of 13! But it is chock full of dirty stories, this is true.
Now I'm going to be a nice jewish girl and not relay this to Victoria [Zdrok]. She
would be very disenchanted with you if she heard that.
Orthodox!? Hell no! I did suffer a horrible eight years at Yeshiva of Hudson County from ages five through 13. But try as I may I cannot get any of those song-prayers out of my head, I remember all my blessings and if you put a sider in front of me I probably could still read the blasted thing. My Mom drags me to Temple once a year during High Holy Days and last year I took a novel (with the cover off) and it was so much more pleasant for me.
I believe in god believe it or not, but in all religions, well they're all bunk to me, and encourage seperatist behavior. I'm very spiritual and try to be the best person I can be, but I don't need to go to a building or read the words someone else wrote to prove it.
This business (behind the scenes) is all Catholics 'n Jews.
I grew up a sephardic jew first generation American (Mom is from Tangiers, Dad is from Argentina), and while my Mom did keep a kosher home we ate whatever we wanted outside of the home. I don't keep kosher now in or outside my house. That's another ridiculous rule. All these things need to be updated. Dietary restrictions were made during the "bible days" because of lack of refridgeration etc. Now its silly, although I agree, pork is not good for anyone. But I love lobster and crab and all that other shellfish.
I remember a song they taught us as little kids in Yeshiva, it went, "...all the animals that we eat must chew their cud and have split feet..." My older sister keeps kosher, although not religious and married a Southern Blond Goy (my sister and I love our men vanilla). I don't know why she does, I've tried to get her to try lobster but she won't do it.
Yom Tovin? Whats that? I know what Yom Tov, but what's Yom Tovin?
What made you want to convert to Judiasm? Are you orthodox?
My Dad is an atheist, but yet has always been really into being a jew because of the history and politics, and although he shacked up with a fair shair of shiksas, mainly of the Latina variety, he told me in his heart it didn't feel right, that he knew he would only marry a jewish girl.
I've been on TV a few times because of my job, and my Mom is mortified when her fellow Temple Beth Abraham brothers and sisters say they saw me on TV. But they're
cool about it for the most part.
Whats "shaygetzes?"
I guess it is divine compared to other religions. I mean I like the fact that we don't pray to false idols for instance. But I don't like the orthodox way towards women --- covering your hair because its only for your husband and not being able to sing in public.... I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a while ago, we lived walking distance to the Satmars, and although they wouldn't put money in my hand when giving me change back (they owned the best bakery), they had know problem piling into their beat up old station wagon trolling for crack ho's. I just really really hate the hypocrisy.
Which brings me to my next question ... how is it an orthodox jew peddles and/or pushes ----? Or are you some kinda "modern" orthodox? Do you go to temple every saturday? Do you pray every morning? Do you keep Sabbath?
I guess you can say I've only dated non jews. Recently tho' I hooked up with a
real jewish cutie, not a boyfriend/girlfriend thing, more of a casual thing, and I think it was cool with me because he's from Tennessee. Other than that I've been on a date here and a date there, nothing really came of it, one guy had an anxiety attack on the date. NYC jews should lighten up I think.
Well Luke, y'know you have a name in adult entertainment, no? I don't dig p---
myself. I think of myself as a drug dealer who doesn't do the drugs, which is
how I've been able to stay in it so long. But I don't think it should be
abolished, and anyway, it could never be. P---, like prostitution, will never
fade. I like the business of it though, obviously I've chosen to remain in it.
And you know with all this FCC hassle going on, lately it makes me proud to be
in this business. Enjoying freedoms isn't just about what each individual likes, but most importantly even what you don't like. Of course I wouldn't support say a Nazi magazine, but it is their right to publish it.
Get out of town, you are shomer negiya? I can't imagine a man whose shomer
negiya asking me how Jim Goad knows about the size of my breasts (he's met me
in person by the way, thats how he knows, we've know each other for awhile now,
distantly obviously, but stayed in good contact. He's one of the coolest,
smartest I've ever met). What kind of shomer negiya are you ... no touching at
all or no sex? I've seen many varieties.
The Stamars did try to get action off me, you know, anyone who isn't one of
them might as well be a crack ho.
Hey I guess I sound pretty Jew harsh, obviously this has brought much good into
your life and thats great. Maybe if you'd have had my religious background you'd think differently, but maybe not.
I'm not religious or political. I'm in the business of the politics of people. People are what interest me the most. But of course most of my family is Republican because they're pro Isreal. For me, well I just don't want to be told how to live, whether its about abortion or religion or smoking or p---.
One of my henchmen emailed me a link to your Looking for a Wife site. I got a big kick out of it.
I do know of two very marriage minded Jewesses who would love to settle down and have babies and go to Temple and make latkas. One has a very good job working for the DA's office in Queens (and she shares your politics). The other doesn't have as great a career but is highly educated and hasn't had intercourse in so long I'd say
she's a born again virgin. And they are both attractive too (the woman who works for the DA's office has very very shiny chestnut colored hair and green eyes).
But alas your age requirements I feel are too stiff. They are older than me, in their late 30s (they are close friends of my older sister). But Luke, its very common for women to pop our children in their late 30s and early 40s. My Mother had me well into middle age and had no problem getting preggo at all, in fact with both her pregnancies she got knocked up right away, my sister was conceived on the Honeymoon and I was conceived on their anniversary four years later.
So although I found all your requirements extremely reasonable, I think you could bend on the age thang. After all sir, you are no spring chicken, how do we know your sperm is still vital?
Actually I thought all the other requirements were fine, and you weren't too physically picky either (and I totally agree about the hip to waist ratio that is the most important part of the female form in my opinion). It was just the age. Because younger women aren't necessarily so marriage and children minded, but then again, we are talking JEWS aren't we?
I'd love to hook you up with my friends. Meryl and Sandi... it don't get much more Jewy than that. And I even think they'd be willing to uproot themselves for you. More so Sandi, because her career isn't the big deal that Meryl's is, tho' I feel Meryl would be the better match in verbal matters.
See I didn't throw my marital hat in the ring because although I do have long hair and a good waist to hip ratio and am jewish and smart, I'm too much of a bad girl for you, I smoke cigarettes and weed and enjoy cocktails and I wouldn't join you in temple every week and then there is the p---- peddler job that I very much enjoy. Too bad my Mother would have adored you.
Well then Mr. Ford, if a lot is tongue and cheek, may I take the liberty to ask
about your oral views as expressed on the site? Because ---- --- - mutually -
is one of the greatest pleasures in the world, and I feel it IS safe ---
actually. And I would never perform oral on anyone if they were wearing a condom - GROSS! Are you that germaphobic or just a man that really isn't into performing it but doesn't want to flat out say it? I hope that was part of the joke, because I could never in good faith recommend a man who is uptight in these areas.
Well sir, that is a pity. And that isn't fair either. You'd probably get a lot
more ----, and more importantly enthusiastic ----, if you acquired a taste for
it. But that's an Aussie thing isn't it? I haven't had relations with any Australians, but I got this report from a close friend of mine long ago.
Luke I think Hashem is very dissapointed in you and perhaps that is why you
haven't had the naches to meet the right lady yet. Don't you know you'd be
performing a great mitzvah by putting your selfish views aside and giving? I
think you must have experienced some nasty hairy hygenically challenged girl in
Australia and it turned you off for good.
Ha, if Torah gave me orgasms I wouldn't have left Yeshiva for good at the age
of 13! But it is chock full of dirty stories, this is true.
Now I'm going to be a nice jewish girl and not relay this to Victoria [Zdrok]. She
would be very disenchanted with you if she heard that.
Evacuation In Miami - Orthodox Stand Firm
Dennis Prager was in Miami this past weekend to lecture at a non-Orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur. He spoke Friday night to 650 people. Saturday the temple heeded the city's hurricane warning (even though there was no evidence to believe the hurricane was headed towards Miami, it only drizzled) and closed down. Prager's hotel closed down. Virtually every non-Orthodox synagogoue in the city's low-lying areas closed down (because its members watch TV and got hysterical over the hurriance passing hundreds of miles to the north). All the Orthodox synagogues in Miami stayed open on Saturday (because its members don't watch TV on holy days).
Prager noted that his Trump hotel said it was evacuating because of liability concerns. Out of fear of lawsuits. That is the same reason that propelled the city to urge its citizens in low-lying areas to evacuate even though there was no evidence of threat and there was only a light drizzle.
Prager noted that his Trump hotel said it was evacuating because of liability concerns. Out of fear of lawsuits. That is the same reason that propelled the city to urge its citizens in low-lying areas to evacuate even though there was no evidence of threat and there was only a light drizzle.
Orthodox and Sexual?
Lainie Speiser, publicist for Penthouse, writes me: As a survivor of 9 years at Yeshiva of Hudson County in Union City, NJ I can tell you, no woman can be possibly sexual AND orthodox at the same time. The rules of orthodoxy don't allow it
because it doesn't allow a woman to shine in any way shape or form whether it be showing her hair or singing in public.
Last week at my gym, I noticed an orthodox woman (I go to an all girls gym) watching me work out. I knew she was orthodox from her wig and the fact that she was wearing an oversize dowdy floor length skirt. Anyway, she came by to ask me about some arm exercises I was doing, I gave her some advice and she walked away. I wanted to ask
her why the hell she was wearing her wig and skirt in the company of other women, it is after all an women's only gym.
I felt sorry for this woman, really, really sorry.
I spent Yom Kippur at my mothers house. I struck a deal with her -- that I'd go to evening services Friday night and closing evening services on Saturday night. While my father, mother and sister were at the day services on Saturday I smoked pot like a teenager, with my body halfway out of the window, I napped, and I read a great book
by a great pulp fiction writer. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, but you see Luke I contemplate my existance every single damn day, I scold myself for any bad behavior every single damn day, and I try to be the best person I can be every damn day.
Hashem knows this very well about me, and I think he would've approved at how I spent Yom Kippur. And more than anything I made my family happy by being there.
Der Nister writes on Protocols:
To each his own, Lainie, to each his own. The more you suppress sexuality, the more sexual desire morphs to accomodate the suppression. Wrap a woman in a sheitl or a burka, then the wisp of hair that escapes becomes intensely erotic. Send the hemlines to the floor, and the glimpse of stocking is something shocking.
You can even argue, using the "don't think of elephants test," that all this suppression only intensifies the erotic atmosphere. Go to a typical Reform Friday night service, where women and men sit side by side and anything goes dress-wise, and you'd find more of a sexual buzz at the Motor Vehicles Bureau. Head to a hasidische shul and note all the sweating, the tight-packed bodies, the swaying and moaning, the peeks over the mehitza (in both directions). You can tell me Orthodoxy has channeled sexual energy, but they have far from eliminated it.
because it doesn't allow a woman to shine in any way shape or form whether it be showing her hair or singing in public.
Last week at my gym, I noticed an orthodox woman (I go to an all girls gym) watching me work out. I knew she was orthodox from her wig and the fact that she was wearing an oversize dowdy floor length skirt. Anyway, she came by to ask me about some arm exercises I was doing, I gave her some advice and she walked away. I wanted to ask
her why the hell she was wearing her wig and skirt in the company of other women, it is after all an women's only gym.
I felt sorry for this woman, really, really sorry.
I spent Yom Kippur at my mothers house. I struck a deal with her -- that I'd go to evening services Friday night and closing evening services on Saturday night. While my father, mother and sister were at the day services on Saturday I smoked pot like a teenager, with my body halfway out of the window, I napped, and I read a great book
by a great pulp fiction writer. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, but you see Luke I contemplate my existance every single damn day, I scold myself for any bad behavior every single damn day, and I try to be the best person I can be every damn day.
Hashem knows this very well about me, and I think he would've approved at how I spent Yom Kippur. And more than anything I made my family happy by being there.
Der Nister writes on Protocols:
To each his own, Lainie, to each his own. The more you suppress sexuality, the more sexual desire morphs to accomodate the suppression. Wrap a woman in a sheitl or a burka, then the wisp of hair that escapes becomes intensely erotic. Send the hemlines to the floor, and the glimpse of stocking is something shocking.
You can even argue, using the "don't think of elephants test," that all this suppression only intensifies the erotic atmosphere. Go to a typical Reform Friday night service, where women and men sit side by side and anything goes dress-wise, and you'd find more of a sexual buzz at the Motor Vehicles Bureau. Head to a hasidische shul and note all the sweating, the tight-packed bodies, the swaying and moaning, the peeks over the mehitza (in both directions). You can tell me Orthodoxy has channeled sexual energy, but they have far from eliminated it.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Blogosphere Reacts To NYT Sunday Mag Blogger Article
Cathy Seipp writes on the Matthew Klam NYT blogger article.
Charles Johnson of LGF writes: Matthew Klam, with whom I spoke on the phone for 43 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back, writes a story for the New York Times Magazine about political blogs.
And in a 10-page article, covers only the left wing blogs, including the worst, most virulent centers of lunacy.
In glowing terms.
Featuring a photo of Markos Zuniga, the owner of Daily Kos.
There is not one word about the anti-idiotarian blogosphere. No LGF. No Roger L. Simon. No Michael Totten. No Allah. No Belmont Club. No Power Line. No INDC Journal. No Command Post. No Michele. No Cox & Forkum. No Rantburg.
Nobody but Atrios, Josh Marshall, Daily Kos, Wonkette, and the other New York Times-approved left-wing drones.
Not one word. Ten pages.
The New York Times, with help from Matthew Klam, is trying to make us all disappear.
I don’t trust myself to write what I really feel about Klam’s outrageously slanted piece. Read it for yourself: Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail.
The mainstream media’s shameful, arrogant bias, up there for all to see.
.............
Ace writes: Well, after two weeks in which conservative bloggers and conservative posters on conservative for a like FreeRepublic disprove a major media fraud and nearly bring down a sitting anchorman (and when I say "nearly," I just mean we're not done yet), the New York Times decides to write a big Sunday Magazine article about bloggers.
About FreeRepublic, that started the ball rolling?
About PowerLine, that greatly advanced the story in those first hours?
About LGF, who proved the documents to be forgeries within hours of seeing them by just posting an MS Word copy of the text on his site?
Oh, no.
You might think that those might be the bloggers the NYTimes would talk to -- you know, the ones actually making news.
But you'd be wrong.
In the first clear victory for the blogosphere over the legacy media, the New York Times decides to spend ten pages talking about...
Daily Kos, Josh Marshall, and Wonkette.
Gee, PowerLine LGF refuted a 60 Minutes story and put the entire CBS News organization in a state of crisis, and Wonkette tells dick-jokes (bad ones, actually). Who's more newsworthy?
Charles Johnson of LGF writes: Matthew Klam, with whom I spoke on the phone for 43 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back, writes a story for the New York Times Magazine about political blogs.
And in a 10-page article, covers only the left wing blogs, including the worst, most virulent centers of lunacy.
In glowing terms.
Featuring a photo of Markos Zuniga, the owner of Daily Kos.
There is not one word about the anti-idiotarian blogosphere. No LGF. No Roger L. Simon. No Michael Totten. No Allah. No Belmont Club. No Power Line. No INDC Journal. No Command Post. No Michele. No Cox & Forkum. No Rantburg.
Nobody but Atrios, Josh Marshall, Daily Kos, Wonkette, and the other New York Times-approved left-wing drones.
Not one word. Ten pages.
The New York Times, with help from Matthew Klam, is trying to make us all disappear.
I don’t trust myself to write what I really feel about Klam’s outrageously slanted piece. Read it for yourself: Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail.
The mainstream media’s shameful, arrogant bias, up there for all to see.
.............
Ace writes: Well, after two weeks in which conservative bloggers and conservative posters on conservative for a like FreeRepublic disprove a major media fraud and nearly bring down a sitting anchorman (and when I say "nearly," I just mean we're not done yet), the New York Times decides to write a big Sunday Magazine article about bloggers.
About FreeRepublic, that started the ball rolling?
About PowerLine, that greatly advanced the story in those first hours?
About LGF, who proved the documents to be forgeries within hours of seeing them by just posting an MS Word copy of the text on his site?
Oh, no.
You might think that those might be the bloggers the NYTimes would talk to -- you know, the ones actually making news.
But you'd be wrong.
In the first clear victory for the blogosphere over the legacy media, the New York Times decides to spend ten pages talking about...
Daily Kos, Josh Marshall, and Wonkette.
Gee, PowerLine LGF refuted a 60 Minutes story and put the entire CBS News organization in a state of crisis, and Wonkette tells dick-jokes (bad ones, actually). Who's more newsworthy?
Luke Ford Fan Blog Updates
LF Fan Blog: Our Moral Leader has a new book coming out, his third in four months. Amazing! This is Luke's fourth book. Impressive! (Although he's 619 behind Dame Barbara.) It's called Yesterday's News Tomorrow. Witty! It's about Jewish journalism. Fascinating! Luke has given me a copy to review for my website. Thanks! He'll have to wait, however, as I'm no genius. Duh! In fact, I'm really quite stupid. Really! It will take a week or two (or three) for me to read the book and write a review. Sorry!
LF Fan Blog: To celebrate my good fortune, I decided, using Luke Ford as my role model, to start hanging out with hookers, strippers, and elderly p___ stars. Big mistake. You see these women are very, um, materialistical, and it didn't take them long to go through all my funds, what with all the diamonds, furs, and trips to Capri -- not to mention booze and drugs -- I was buying. Then, much to my surprise and disappointment, all my girlfriends left me! Bummer.
LF Fan Blog: To celebrate my good fortune, I decided, using Luke Ford as my role model, to start hanging out with hookers, strippers, and elderly p___ stars. Big mistake. You see these women are very, um, materialistical, and it didn't take them long to go through all my funds, what with all the diamonds, furs, and trips to Capri -- not to mention booze and drugs -- I was buying. Then, much to my surprise and disappointment, all my girlfriends left me! Bummer.
Yom Kippur Book Reviews
What Your Moral Leader is reading:
John Grisham, The Summons: B
Saul Bellow, Herzog: C-
Laurence Roth: Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories: C
Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex: B+
Murder is no Mitzvah: Short Mysteries About Jewish Occasions: B+
John Grisham, The Summons: B
Saul Bellow, Herzog: C-
Laurence Roth: Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories: C
Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex: B+
Murder is no Mitzvah: Short Mysteries About Jewish Occasions: B+
All About Me and MY Feelings
Yesterday, as the Shabbos Queen and the Yom Kippur King danced with each other inside my head and empty stomach, I had an epiphany. I suddenly knew what my next book would be about. It would not be a tell all book about Gabais or a history of the UCLA economics department (not even one as told by their janitors - sorry, Chaim). Instead, it would be about my favorite topic: me. I've decided to do chapter after chapter about the people in my life, and talk about how good or bad they've been to me. If the former, they should not object; if the latter, they really should have asked me for forgiveness by now (no one ever does). No matter. In this book, I will set the record straight, and thanks to the mechanism of self-publishing, I don't have to worry about pansy lawyers making a capon of me in print.
(All thanks to Cathy for inadvertently suggesting the title.)
(All thanks to Cathy for inadvertently suggesting the title.)
Friday, September 24, 2004
The Real Robert George?
Evan Gahr writes: New York Post Editorial page staffer Robert George, perhaps the page's only black writer ever, is refusing to condemn his boss, Bob "Edith Bunker" McManus for racist humor far more serious than the bigoted and inane comments which he and other putative conservatives seized upon to drive Trent Lott out of office.
McManus, who Eric Breindel has described as having "a pea for a brain", pleasures himself immensely by likening black businessmen to criminals.
McManus has said with a huge smile on his big fat Irish Catholic face that the 100 Black Businessmen is really 100 Black Men with their parole officer. Anybody laughing? Humor is serious. To poke fun or even make crass jokes about the disproportionate number of blacks involved in criminal activity is one thing; you're dealing with a fact and then responding in kind. But what does it say about McManus that he equates black businessmen with criminals? What does that say about his mindset in general? His attitude towards blacks?
McManus also enjoys surfing the internet on company time. Back in 1996 hit pay dirt on his little fishing expedition when he came across a mock inner-city math quiz, which he printed out and gave to the junior member of his predecessor's staff. It had stuff like "if the bitch steals five grams of coke from Rufus and he started with ten how much is left?"
Again how much time did he spend finding this stuff?
Who else did he give it to?
Why?
When?
Ugly stuff, but mum's the word from his staff when questioned yesterday. Marc Cunningham and Adam Brodsky hung up when the caller identified himself. Robert George was even more abrupt.
Any problem with Bob's racist humor?
"Click."
When David Brock published his confessional memoir, Jill Abramson, the elitist pc snob who answers her own phone, asked if Brock lied previously why should we believe him now.
Similarly, if Robert George refuses to disassociate himself from his own boss's disgusting why should anybody take him seriously if he takes issue with liberals
association with unseemly characters, such as Al Sharpton?
Moreover, doesn't this render his glorification by the New York Times, which
quoted him trashing Trent Lott, for supposedly breaking ranks, outdated and in need of correction?
Did he really break ranks or simply join the lynch mob that was determined to crucify Trent Lott to attone for the original sin by such conservatives as William Buckley for opposing the landmark civil rights act?
Taking Lott to the woodshed was a calculated political move by players who
risked nothing, contrary to the NYTimes depiction of the low-tech lynching as
some kind of moment of great soul searching.
Robert George would do well to try the genuine kind and ask himself whether he's nothing but Bob's bitch and just a sorry excuse for a man, journalist and black man when he countenances the kind of ugly bigotry for which many liberals, such as John Lewis, risked their personal safety to defeat.
McManus, who Eric Breindel has described as having "a pea for a brain", pleasures himself immensely by likening black businessmen to criminals.
McManus has said with a huge smile on his big fat Irish Catholic face that the 100 Black Businessmen is really 100 Black Men with their parole officer. Anybody laughing? Humor is serious. To poke fun or even make crass jokes about the disproportionate number of blacks involved in criminal activity is one thing; you're dealing with a fact and then responding in kind. But what does it say about McManus that he equates black businessmen with criminals? What does that say about his mindset in general? His attitude towards blacks?
McManus also enjoys surfing the internet on company time. Back in 1996 hit pay dirt on his little fishing expedition when he came across a mock inner-city math quiz, which he printed out and gave to the junior member of his predecessor's staff. It had stuff like "if the bitch steals five grams of coke from Rufus and he started with ten how much is left?"
Again how much time did he spend finding this stuff?
Who else did he give it to?
Why?
When?
Ugly stuff, but mum's the word from his staff when questioned yesterday. Marc Cunningham and Adam Brodsky hung up when the caller identified himself. Robert George was even more abrupt.
Any problem with Bob's racist humor?
"Click."
When David Brock published his confessional memoir, Jill Abramson, the elitist pc snob who answers her own phone, asked if Brock lied previously why should we believe him now.
Similarly, if Robert George refuses to disassociate himself from his own boss's disgusting why should anybody take him seriously if he takes issue with liberals
association with unseemly characters, such as Al Sharpton?
Moreover, doesn't this render his glorification by the New York Times, which
quoted him trashing Trent Lott, for supposedly breaking ranks, outdated and in need of correction?
Did he really break ranks or simply join the lynch mob that was determined to crucify Trent Lott to attone for the original sin by such conservatives as William Buckley for opposing the landmark civil rights act?
Taking Lott to the woodshed was a calculated political move by players who
risked nothing, contrary to the NYTimes depiction of the low-tech lynching as
some kind of moment of great soul searching.
Robert George would do well to try the genuine kind and ask himself whether he's nothing but Bob's bitch and just a sorry excuse for a man, journalist and black man when he countenances the kind of ugly bigotry for which many liberals, such as John Lewis, risked their personal safety to defeat.
Press Critic Jack Shafer Calls Bill O'Reilly A 'Self Appointed Populist'
I write Jack Shafer: Who is an appointed populist? "[S]elf-appointed populist" is a snotty remark signifying nothing. Riley is no more a "self-appointed populist" than you are a self-appointed press critic. Sure, Slate employs you, as Fox employs Riley, and readers of my self-published web sites and books read and elect me.
I don't recall the term "self-appointed" ever imparting meaning.
I'd say that a person like Riley who creates himself may be more worthy of admiration than those who are placed in their positions by large bureaucracies such as CBS News.
PS Yes, "self-appointed" gets used on me all the time and I'm sick of it.
I don't recall the term "self-appointed" ever imparting meaning.
I'd say that a person like Riley who creates himself may be more worthy of admiration than those who are placed in their positions by large bureaucracies such as CBS News.
PS Yes, "self-appointed" gets used on me all the time and I'm sick of it.
Don't Steal From Tiffany Stone's Blog - Her Entourage Is Highly Resistant To Flow
From TiffanyAStone.com: "Note: Stealing from here is a very bad idea. My entourage is viscous."
Link to dictionary.com inserted by me.
Link to dictionary.com inserted by me.
Rabbi Wolpe On Shawn Green
Rabbi David Wolpe writes: In order to answer why Shawn Green should not play, I have to go back to Leroy Kelley.
As some may remember, Leroy Kelley was an outstanding running back for the Cleveland Browns, and is deservedly in the hall of fame. I am not sure he is well remembered today. He was not as great as the running back he replaced, the legendary Jim Brown. But for me, he was greater than almost any athlete in the world.
In grade school I was obsessed by sports. Like many young men I pasted pictures of players up on my wall (in those primitive days, pages ripped from sports magazines affixed by scotch tape). I wrote to teams for autographed pictures. I received scores of autographed pictures. Most had simple signatures. Some carried gnomic utterances, such as Roman Gabriel's picture which read "Always 110%, Roman Gabriel" which was either an exhortation to effort, or an astonishing egotism. But only one wrote a letter worth reading.
Leroy Kelley, number 44, wrote a letter that I remember. It was not fancy, a mimeograph on yellow paper. It said that as happy as he was to provide the autograph, I should remember that football was not as important as studying and making something of oneself. Here was a player preaching values beyond football. I never forgot it.
Now we come to Shawn Green and the manic interest in his decision to play one of two games on Yom Kippur. It is hard not to feel sorry for him as he contemplates this decision, made awesome by the intense focus. There is a lot of blather about his obligation to his team and his promise to be part of the sport, and the amount of money he is being played. Although Mr. Green is not himself in a society which would educate him to this decision, I regret that he did not say no.
"Of course not!" should have been his first, final and simple answer. "There are values above baseball, above money, above work. What self-respecting Jew would play on Yom Kippur?" Oh, what he might have done with that simple declaration.
First he would have honored the Giver above the gift. God gave him great gifts, but they do not override reverence. His ability has been honed, but it has not been earned. None of us earns his or her natural endowments. "I am grateful to God for my strong arm and my keen eye. I think I will take this day to express my thanks."
Now Mr. Green has said that he is not a religious man, so perhaps this is too extravagant an expectation. Fair enough. If we cannot appeal in terms of gratitude, then let us appeal in terms of self-respect.
Shawn Green was a Jew before he was a baseball player. He was a Jew before he was a public figure. To take who you are seriously means to honor it even when others think that it is less important, or unimportant. Koufax's decision not to pitch on Yom Kippur in the world series is honored not because he was a religious man but because he paid tribute to who he was.
Koufax has been quoted as saying that Green's decision is tougher because he, Koufax, could be shifted in the rotation whereas Green is an everyday player. But honoring who you are is not a piecemeal decision. Twenty years from now, Green's decision might have stood as a signal example of principle among people who will never remember who won the pennant in 2004.
Finally, to those who say he must play because he is being so well paid: that is another, powerful reason why he should not play. Is there no room in this society to make a statement that says "money does not override everything?" In an age when athletes shift cities the way they change socks, and fans 'know' it is all about money, wouldn't it be great if someone said, in clear, ringing tones, it is actually not about money? It is not even about my teammates expectations? It is about the expectations of a tradition that is about 3,000 years older than the Dodgers and a
community that was here long before, and will be here long after, the game of baseball.
Does anyone remember the story of Eli Herring, offensive tackle for Brigham Young? He is a devout Mormon who turned down a multi-million dollar deal with a professional football team because he won't play on his holy day, Sunday. Instead he teaches high school math for $25,000 a year. A reporter questioned his decision; wouldn't he be a role model to more kids as a famous football player?
I wish someone has mentioned to Shawn Green what this faithful Mormon said to the reporter. Quoting the old hymn, Eli Herring answered "You can't be a beacon if your light don't shine." It was a lesson I heard from Leroy Kelley when I was a child. I wish the children of America had heard that lesson from Shawn Green today.
As some may remember, Leroy Kelley was an outstanding running back for the Cleveland Browns, and is deservedly in the hall of fame. I am not sure he is well remembered today. He was not as great as the running back he replaced, the legendary Jim Brown. But for me, he was greater than almost any athlete in the world.
In grade school I was obsessed by sports. Like many young men I pasted pictures of players up on my wall (in those primitive days, pages ripped from sports magazines affixed by scotch tape). I wrote to teams for autographed pictures. I received scores of autographed pictures. Most had simple signatures. Some carried gnomic utterances, such as Roman Gabriel's picture which read "Always 110%, Roman Gabriel" which was either an exhortation to effort, or an astonishing egotism. But only one wrote a letter worth reading.
Leroy Kelley, number 44, wrote a letter that I remember. It was not fancy, a mimeograph on yellow paper. It said that as happy as he was to provide the autograph, I should remember that football was not as important as studying and making something of oneself. Here was a player preaching values beyond football. I never forgot it.
Now we come to Shawn Green and the manic interest in his decision to play one of two games on Yom Kippur. It is hard not to feel sorry for him as he contemplates this decision, made awesome by the intense focus. There is a lot of blather about his obligation to his team and his promise to be part of the sport, and the amount of money he is being played. Although Mr. Green is not himself in a society which would educate him to this decision, I regret that he did not say no.
"Of course not!" should have been his first, final and simple answer. "There are values above baseball, above money, above work. What self-respecting Jew would play on Yom Kippur?" Oh, what he might have done with that simple declaration.
First he would have honored the Giver above the gift. God gave him great gifts, but they do not override reverence. His ability has been honed, but it has not been earned. None of us earns his or her natural endowments. "I am grateful to God for my strong arm and my keen eye. I think I will take this day to express my thanks."
Now Mr. Green has said that he is not a religious man, so perhaps this is too extravagant an expectation. Fair enough. If we cannot appeal in terms of gratitude, then let us appeal in terms of self-respect.
Shawn Green was a Jew before he was a baseball player. He was a Jew before he was a public figure. To take who you are seriously means to honor it even when others think that it is less important, or unimportant. Koufax's decision not to pitch on Yom Kippur in the world series is honored not because he was a religious man but because he paid tribute to who he was.
Koufax has been quoted as saying that Green's decision is tougher because he, Koufax, could be shifted in the rotation whereas Green is an everyday player. But honoring who you are is not a piecemeal decision. Twenty years from now, Green's decision might have stood as a signal example of principle among people who will never remember who won the pennant in 2004.
Finally, to those who say he must play because he is being so well paid: that is another, powerful reason why he should not play. Is there no room in this society to make a statement that says "money does not override everything?" In an age when athletes shift cities the way they change socks, and fans 'know' it is all about money, wouldn't it be great if someone said, in clear, ringing tones, it is actually not about money? It is not even about my teammates expectations? It is about the expectations of a tradition that is about 3,000 years older than the Dodgers and a
community that was here long before, and will be here long after, the game of baseball.
Does anyone remember the story of Eli Herring, offensive tackle for Brigham Young? He is a devout Mormon who turned down a multi-million dollar deal with a professional football team because he won't play on his holy day, Sunday. Instead he teaches high school math for $25,000 a year. A reporter questioned his decision; wouldn't he be a role model to more kids as a famous football player?
I wish someone has mentioned to Shawn Green what this faithful Mormon said to the reporter. Quoting the old hymn, Eli Herring answered "You can't be a beacon if your light don't shine." It was a lesson I heard from Leroy Kelley when I was a child. I wish the children of America had heard that lesson from Shawn Green today.
Seeking Forgiveness Before Yom Kippur
It has been about five years since I've gone to somebody in the days before Yom Kippur and sought forgiveness for my specific sins against them. I've never experienced the healing and reconciliation this can bring.
I'm skeptical of seeking of forgiveness unless it meets these criteria:
* It is for something specific where one can take practical steps to mitigate the harm one has caused.
* The seeking of forgiveness can do some good and lead to a reconciliation. Most of the relationships that have ruptured in my life have been irreparable, not so much because of the hugeness of the sin, but because we've been going in different directions, and our differences in direction are irreconcilable.
My best friend in Los Angeles had bad credit. I gave him a credit card in my name (I was responsible for paying for it). He was usually late paying me. Finally, I cut off his card. He refused to pay me the approximately $400 he owed me. We've never been able to discuss the matter. I've tried a few times (pushed by my therapist) but he would never talk about it. He has no money. I can't forgive him because he hasn't asked for forgiveness. Every time I hear his voice on the phone (I decided to keep him as a friend because I can't afford to keep chucking people out of my life), I remember how he didn't repay me. Our friendship limps along.
I remember once (in 1990) I sought the advice of a rabbi on the day before Yom Kippur about my long distance telephone-and-letter relationship with a non-Jewish ex-girlfriend. He told me to cut it off. I knew he was right. I did. It caused pointless misery for both of us. She'd already moved on to another relationship and she just wanted to stay in touch with me because I was so sick, lonely, and isolated.
Most every time I pushed myself to act extra-moral, I only increase my isolation. Plenty of my immoral acts have also furthered my isolation. On balance, my immorality has hurt me more than my putatively moral acts.
Cathy Seipp and I have exchanged numerous barbs over the length of our friendship, many of which have hurt the other. But it would feel pro-forma to me to go to her and ask for general forgiveness. If I ask it for specific wrongs, that would only increase the hurt. So forget it.
Most of the hurtful things I say, and that people say to me, are true, and much of the time they impart needed truths. Hurting somebody is not always wrong. Hurting somebody needlessly, for no good reason, is wrong.
I've often done the 'please forgive me for anything I've done against you in the past year,' which, without specifics, feels pro-forma to me (but I always reciprocate it if somebody offers it to me). I normally try to apologize as soon as I realize I have done wrong against somebody (when I think the apology will do some good).
In my experience, most apologizing is pro-forma and rarely does any good. Not apologizing for needlessly hurting somebody, however, is a horrible thing.
Most of my sins over the past year have been careless remarks which have wounded feelings and tasteless writing on my Web sites. So, dear reader, please forgive me for the awkwardness, shock, horror and disgust your reading of me has brought you, your family and your community (I know you can not forgive on behalf of others).
I'm skeptical of seeking of forgiveness unless it meets these criteria:
* It is for something specific where one can take practical steps to mitigate the harm one has caused.
* The seeking of forgiveness can do some good and lead to a reconciliation. Most of the relationships that have ruptured in my life have been irreparable, not so much because of the hugeness of the sin, but because we've been going in different directions, and our differences in direction are irreconcilable.
My best friend in Los Angeles had bad credit. I gave him a credit card in my name (I was responsible for paying for it). He was usually late paying me. Finally, I cut off his card. He refused to pay me the approximately $400 he owed me. We've never been able to discuss the matter. I've tried a few times (pushed by my therapist) but he would never talk about it. He has no money. I can't forgive him because he hasn't asked for forgiveness. Every time I hear his voice on the phone (I decided to keep him as a friend because I can't afford to keep chucking people out of my life), I remember how he didn't repay me. Our friendship limps along.
I remember once (in 1990) I sought the advice of a rabbi on the day before Yom Kippur about my long distance telephone-and-letter relationship with a non-Jewish ex-girlfriend. He told me to cut it off. I knew he was right. I did. It caused pointless misery for both of us. She'd already moved on to another relationship and she just wanted to stay in touch with me because I was so sick, lonely, and isolated.
Most every time I pushed myself to act extra-moral, I only increase my isolation. Plenty of my immoral acts have also furthered my isolation. On balance, my immorality has hurt me more than my putatively moral acts.
Cathy Seipp and I have exchanged numerous barbs over the length of our friendship, many of which have hurt the other. But it would feel pro-forma to me to go to her and ask for general forgiveness. If I ask it for specific wrongs, that would only increase the hurt. So forget it.
Most of the hurtful things I say, and that people say to me, are true, and much of the time they impart needed truths. Hurting somebody is not always wrong. Hurting somebody needlessly, for no good reason, is wrong.
I've often done the 'please forgive me for anything I've done against you in the past year,' which, without specifics, feels pro-forma to me (but I always reciprocate it if somebody offers it to me). I normally try to apologize as soon as I realize I have done wrong against somebody (when I think the apology will do some good).
In my experience, most apologizing is pro-forma and rarely does any good. Not apologizing for needlessly hurting somebody, however, is a horrible thing.
Most of my sins over the past year have been careless remarks which have wounded feelings and tasteless writing on my Web sites. So, dear reader, please forgive me for the awkwardness, shock, horror and disgust your reading of me has brought you, your family and your community (I know you can not forgive on behalf of others).
My July Book Sales Are In
I sold 60 copies of my memoir, XXX-Communicated, and 39 of my producers book.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Immanuel Kant Died A Virgin
I won't. I am his better.
Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant. Heidegger, Heidegger, was very rarely stable. Or was that Schlegel?
I drink therefore I am.
Hegel. Heidegger. Kant. These Aryans don't impress me.
Terri, who has a masters degree in the classics, writes:
Alright, now you've gone too far.
But not farther than Kant. Did you also know that he never in his life traveled more than 50 miles from his hometown, Konigsburg? But he was still the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment (yeah, philosophers are always a century or so behind the times).
And Martin Heidegger was a Nazi stooge - but he was also one of the most poetic and (therefore) profound thinkers of the last half century.
Wittgenstein was simply the greatest philosopher of the 20th Century.
I think you'd find them to be more profitable reading than Bill Bennett - or Hayek or Rand or Strauss or whomever the Young Republicans are reading these days.
Officially yours, Terri
P.S. Hey, if you want to start a dropouts' philosophical reading salon, let me know. We can start with the Pre-Socratics and work our way forward.
Luke says: Terri, you think like a goy. The greatest philosopher of the 20th Century was a longshoreman - Eric Hoffer.
Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant. Heidegger, Heidegger, was very rarely stable. Or was that Schlegel?
I drink therefore I am.
Hegel. Heidegger. Kant. These Aryans don't impress me.
Terri, who has a masters degree in the classics, writes:
Alright, now you've gone too far.
But not farther than Kant. Did you also know that he never in his life traveled more than 50 miles from his hometown, Konigsburg? But he was still the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment (yeah, philosophers are always a century or so behind the times).
And Martin Heidegger was a Nazi stooge - but he was also one of the most poetic and (therefore) profound thinkers of the last half century.
Wittgenstein was simply the greatest philosopher of the 20th Century.
I think you'd find them to be more profitable reading than Bill Bennett - or Hayek or Rand or Strauss or whomever the Young Republicans are reading these days.
Officially yours, Terri
P.S. Hey, if you want to start a dropouts' philosophical reading salon, let me know. We can start with the Pre-Socratics and work our way forward.
Luke says: Terri, you think like a goy. The greatest philosopher of the 20th Century was a longshoreman - Eric Hoffer.
Malcolm in the Middle
G. writes: Luke, Heard that Malcolm Hoenlein went into a meeting today with a European minister in New York for the UN GA and tried to explain to the minister why the Sharon plan for disengagement was bad for Israel.
Is this proper? Do you know if that is the policy of the Conference of Presidents? Why is he criticizing the Israeli government to other governments?
Luke says: I wonder if Malcolm told the European minister that if he didn't go along with what he was saying, Mr. Hoenlein would ---- him for the rest of his life.
Is this proper? Do you know if that is the policy of the Conference of Presidents? Why is he criticizing the Israeli government to other governments?
Luke says: I wonder if Malcolm told the European minister that if he didn't go along with what he was saying, Mr. Hoenlein would ---- him for the rest of his life.
My Mind-Body Problem aka Better Living Through Medication
I've been wanting to penetrate the keen taut mind of Alana Newhouse, Arts & Culture editor of the Forward, for some months now. So I started reading one of her favorite books and am falling in love with it - The Mind Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein. It's about an Orthodox woman's sexual awakening at college.
I wonder what about it speaks so powerfully to Alana the HAFTR (yeshiva) girl? She told me in our interview: "I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and I went to Orthodox day schools. I went to Hebrew Academy of Five Towns in Rockaways. I'm a Long Island JAP. When I went to Barnard, the whole world opened up for me."
Here's an excerpt of Goldstein's book that spoke to me: "There's been so much serious discussion devoted to the profound question of the vaginal vs. the clitoral orgasm. Why doesn't anyone speak about the mental orgasm? It's what's going on in your head that can make the difference, not which and how many of your nerve endings are being rubbed."
Nothing impure or smutty should be imputed to my writing of this post. My interests here are of the mind. They float on an airy intellectual plane far above the baser interests of lesser mortals in dear Alana.
My intentions, by contrast, are rigorous, professional, journalistic, mathematical, philosophical, and most of all, Jewish. They are imbued with my deep passion for releasing women from the bondage of secularistic feminism and setting them free to become the halakhic princesses they most want to be.
Err, excuse me. I'll be right back. I have to take my meds.
I wonder what about it speaks so powerfully to Alana the HAFTR (yeshiva) girl? She told me in our interview: "I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and I went to Orthodox day schools. I went to Hebrew Academy of Five Towns in Rockaways. I'm a Long Island JAP. When I went to Barnard, the whole world opened up for me."
Here's an excerpt of Goldstein's book that spoke to me: "There's been so much serious discussion devoted to the profound question of the vaginal vs. the clitoral orgasm. Why doesn't anyone speak about the mental orgasm? It's what's going on in your head that can make the difference, not which and how many of your nerve endings are being rubbed."
Nothing impure or smutty should be imputed to my writing of this post. My interests here are of the mind. They float on an airy intellectual plane far above the baser interests of lesser mortals in dear Alana.
My intentions, by contrast, are rigorous, professional, journalistic, mathematical, philosophical, and most of all, Jewish. They are imbued with my deep passion for releasing women from the bondage of secularistic feminism and setting them free to become the halakhic princesses they most want to be.
Err, excuse me. I'll be right back. I have to take my meds.
Throw The Jew Down The Well
Has everybody seen Borat (from the TV show AliG) sing his song about throwing the Jew down the well? http://students.ou.edu/H/Geoff.D.Hansen-1/
You must download the file as a JPG and then rename it to a WMV file for it to work. (Note: Right click on the link. "Save target as". Once downloaded rename the jpg to a wmv file.)
ThrowtheJewdownthewell.com
Though I only saw Ali G for the first time Sunday night on DVD, I've become a huge fan. It would've been tempting to use some of his techniques in my interviews.
You must download the file as a JPG and then rename it to a WMV file for it to work. (Note: Right click on the link. "Save target as". Once downloaded rename the jpg to a wmv file.)
ThrowtheJewdownthewell.com
Though I only saw Ali G for the first time Sunday night on DVD, I've become a huge fan. It would've been tempting to use some of his techniques in my interviews.
Ron Jeremy Won't F--- On Yom Kippur
WHEN Ron Jeremy made his decision three years ago, it was only half as difficult as the one he has to make now.
In 2001, Jeremy opted not to f--- on Yom Kippur in the movie Gang Bang In The Fat Lane. Due to its low budget status, the decision only cost Filmco a few dollars to reschedule.
Now Ron Jeremy is slated to star in the epic Barnacle Bill the sailor. The movie's key orgy scene takes place on Yom Kippur and tens of thousands of dollars are riding on its success.
Ron says he might f--- on Friday night, the beginning of Yom Kippur, but he will only do girl-girl on Saturday, Judaism's most solemn day. In observance of the Jewish fast, he will limit himself to two meals and no more than 3,000 calories worth of the most strictly kosher offerings.
In 2001, when Jeremy walked into shul in the middle of prayers, the entire synagogue rose and applauded.
"It was the proudest moment of my life," a sheepish Ron recalled months later. "That and when I first performed fellatio on myself."
Jewish actors not f---ing on Yom Kippur has a rich and proud history. Though they are not generally religious people, folks such as Nina Hartley, Raylene, Traci Lords and Jamie Gillis have often chosen to continue the traditions of their ancestors rather than earn a quick paycheck performing meaningless sex on the holiest day of the year.
In 2001, Jeremy opted not to f--- on Yom Kippur in the movie Gang Bang In The Fat Lane. Due to its low budget status, the decision only cost Filmco a few dollars to reschedule.
Now Ron Jeremy is slated to star in the epic Barnacle Bill the sailor. The movie's key orgy scene takes place on Yom Kippur and tens of thousands of dollars are riding on its success.
Ron says he might f--- on Friday night, the beginning of Yom Kippur, but he will only do girl-girl on Saturday, Judaism's most solemn day. In observance of the Jewish fast, he will limit himself to two meals and no more than 3,000 calories worth of the most strictly kosher offerings.
In 2001, when Jeremy walked into shul in the middle of prayers, the entire synagogue rose and applauded.
"It was the proudest moment of my life," a sheepish Ron recalled months later. "That and when I first performed fellatio on myself."
Jewish actors not f---ing on Yom Kippur has a rich and proud history. Though they are not generally religious people, folks such as Nina Hartley, Raylene, Traci Lords and Jamie Gillis have often chosen to continue the traditions of their ancestors rather than earn a quick paycheck performing meaningless sex on the holiest day of the year.
I Go To A Bible Study And It Turns Into A Peep Show
A Muslim friend invited me to an ecumenical Bible study Wednesday night in Studio City with believers from all three of the monotheistic religions.
Imagine my surprise when I found it was being held at a nightclub and there were a lot of scantily clad, not particularly religious, young women.
We didn't get much studying done last night but we all did get to know each other better and learn to appreciate our differences.
As I started to press the flesh, the dancing girls transmogrified in my mind into Orthodox rabbis. They stared into my soul. Though they say not a word, I could hear their thoughts:
- You're an insincere convert.
- You said you weren't doing this anymore.
- I stuck my neck out for you and you betrayed me. You went back on your word.
- I introduced you to my family.
- We can't have this in our community.
- Two people came over to me during Rosh Hashanah davening to tell me about you.
- I taught you Torah for two years, and now you do this?
- I vouched for you. I never heard of Luke Ford. I only knew you as Chaim Amalek. We're returning your $600 donation. Thank you very much, but we don't want your filthy tainted money.
- I think it is clear that this is not the place you should pray.
- You want to touch someone? Touch me. Feel my tzitzit. Feel the wrath of God.
- Time to pack you off to Pure Life Ministry in Kentucky.
Imagine my surprise when I found it was being held at a nightclub and there were a lot of scantily clad, not particularly religious, young women.
We didn't get much studying done last night but we all did get to know each other better and learn to appreciate our differences.
As I started to press the flesh, the dancing girls transmogrified in my mind into Orthodox rabbis. They stared into my soul. Though they say not a word, I could hear their thoughts:
- You're an insincere convert.
- You said you weren't doing this anymore.
- I stuck my neck out for you and you betrayed me. You went back on your word.
- I introduced you to my family.
- We can't have this in our community.
- Two people came over to me during Rosh Hashanah davening to tell me about you.
- I taught you Torah for two years, and now you do this?
- I vouched for you. I never heard of Luke Ford. I only knew you as Chaim Amalek. We're returning your $600 donation. Thank you very much, but we don't want your filthy tainted money.
- I think it is clear that this is not the place you should pray.
- You want to touch someone? Touch me. Feel my tzitzit. Feel the wrath of God.
- Time to pack you off to Pure Life Ministry in Kentucky.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Dr. Luke
A friend is in love with a girl. She took a week to return his last call. I told him that he needs to wait at least a week and add 50% to make it ten days to return her call. If he does not do this, she will think him a wimp.
To make some extra money, I'm renting out my hovel and van by the hour to my friend Robert and giving him lessons in the Australian accent.
I'm also dressing up in a clown suit and driving up and down my neighborhood in my van selling icecream to children. "G-day, would you like a Red Rocket?"
Friend writes: Luke -- what I should have said, by way of dissenting against your advice, is that not returning her call untill 10 days from now is apt to cause her retaliation -- to retaliate in similar fashion. Such "little games" only end up being mutually reinforcing, one side "one-upping" the other. I think it would only weaken both of our interests in each other; i.e. a mutally reinforcing ratchet effect.
Why do I want to give her the impression that my feelings were hurt as a result of her not calling (which is what my not calling her would indicate?), hmm? I don't think that playing games -- which really is what this is which you recommend -- redounds to anyone's benefit in these situations. Again, I think she'll just read my abstention as just calculating behavior and would belie only in vain the fact of my being hurt that she didn't return my call while she was away on vacation.
To make some extra money, I'm renting out my hovel and van by the hour to my friend Robert and giving him lessons in the Australian accent.
I'm also dressing up in a clown suit and driving up and down my neighborhood in my van selling icecream to children. "G-day, would you like a Red Rocket?"
Friend writes: Luke -- what I should have said, by way of dissenting against your advice, is that not returning her call untill 10 days from now is apt to cause her retaliation -- to retaliate in similar fashion. Such "little games" only end up being mutually reinforcing, one side "one-upping" the other. I think it would only weaken both of our interests in each other; i.e. a mutally reinforcing ratchet effect.
Why do I want to give her the impression that my feelings were hurt as a result of her not calling (which is what my not calling her would indicate?), hmm? I don't think that playing games -- which really is what this is which you recommend -- redounds to anyone's benefit in these situations. Again, I think she'll just read my abstention as just calculating behavior and would belie only in vain the fact of my being hurt that she didn't return my call while she was away on vacation.
Luke Ford - God's Gift To Women
Allison Kaplan Sommer writes: Do Palestinians or Mexicans have Luke Fords who are searching for the non-existent sexy Orthodox fertile 22-year-old willing to wed an obsessive blogger living in a hovel? Nope, they grab the girl next door, whoever she may be -- deal with her imperfections -- and start having babies, and lots of them.
Ariella writes: Rabbi "Gadol" who I suspect is actually quite Katan... may you spend your whole life with a woman who treats you like the trash your ideas are. And Luke... I love, love{!!} that you are so condescending. Who wants a woman like us? We think we are such a prize? That's funny, because ultimately you converted so that you'd specifically end up with a Jewish woman. If you want Maria or Jahmillah to propegate your family of 15, cut out and fast {and spare the rest of us who may actidentally date you - thank god for 48 states in between}. And correct me if I am wrong but are you not whoring yourself out on the internet?? Have you not set up a site specifically touting your own horn and included black and white "arty" photos to land yourself a what?? oh yes, a Jewess, who you seem prepared to despise. As if marrying a stuck up, shallow, convert is such a blessing that no woman could pass up.
Male Repellant writes: Why do women think it's the men's fault? Because it is. I've seen the girls frum guys choose and they're nothing to write home about. Plenty of them have don't even raise their own kids-like the Palestinans you so admire. I, and many of my friends, can easilly find goyim to ask us out, but Jewish guys reject us for girls who are nothing. And-think of singles events or marrried couples-don't you often see these great girls being suggested for/marrying/hit on by losers? We have every right to resent this.
Ariella writes: Rabbi "Gadol" who I suspect is actually quite Katan... may you spend your whole life with a woman who treats you like the trash your ideas are. And Luke... I love, love{!!} that you are so condescending. Who wants a woman like us? We think we are such a prize? That's funny, because ultimately you converted so that you'd specifically end up with a Jewish woman. If you want Maria or Jahmillah to propegate your family of 15, cut out and fast {and spare the rest of us who may actidentally date you - thank god for 48 states in between}. And correct me if I am wrong but are you not whoring yourself out on the internet?? Have you not set up a site specifically touting your own horn and included black and white "arty" photos to land yourself a what?? oh yes, a Jewess, who you seem prepared to despise. As if marrying a stuck up, shallow, convert is such a blessing that no woman could pass up.
Male Repellant writes: Why do women think it's the men's fault? Because it is. I've seen the girls frum guys choose and they're nothing to write home about. Plenty of them have don't even raise their own kids-like the Palestinans you so admire. I, and many of my friends, can easilly find goyim to ask us out, but Jewish guys reject us for girls who are nothing. And-think of singles events or marrried couples-don't you often see these great girls being suggested for/marrying/hit on by losers? We have every right to resent this.
Just A Gigalo
I was reading Jewsweek.com and came across this: "Benyamin Cohen is the editor of Jewsweek Magazine and is currently authoring a book tentatively titled How to Find a Wife in 100 Dates."
Doesn't the word "authoring" strike you as pretentious? I think it should be "writing."
When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I'm a freelance journalist or writer. I would never say "I'm an author." Perhaps, "I'm a self-published author, on the web and in print." That should impress them!
Anon writes: Benyamin Cohen has been "writing" this book for years now. It must take that long to get 100 dates.
I know you could do better, Luke. Perhaps "How to Get Married in 99 Dates" - which is a snappier title anyway. Or how about a book on J-Dating or online dating in general as your next book? In depth, of course.
Luke says: I've done way too much dating. I've also done much of it while being stone broke. In other words, I've lived off women. I had one who would do my housework so I could work on my autobiography. I've been a big of a gigalo. I should write about that, only it is so humiliating and non-Torahdic.
Doesn't the word "authoring" strike you as pretentious? I think it should be "writing."
When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I'm a freelance journalist or writer. I would never say "I'm an author." Perhaps, "I'm a self-published author, on the web and in print." That should impress them!
Anon writes: Benyamin Cohen has been "writing" this book for years now. It must take that long to get 100 dates.
I know you could do better, Luke. Perhaps "How to Get Married in 99 Dates" - which is a snappier title anyway. Or how about a book on J-Dating or online dating in general as your next book? In depth, of course.
Luke says: I've done way too much dating. I've also done much of it while being stone broke. In other words, I've lived off women. I had one who would do my housework so I could work on my autobiography. I've been a big of a gigalo. I should write about that, only it is so humiliating and non-Torahdic.
Ye Gods
Andrew Silow-Carroll praises Jonathan Kirsch's new book, God against the Gods.
"Kirsch is a writer of gently iconoclastic religious books, including studies of biblical sex and a biography of King David."
I have read all of Kirsch’s (who is the Jewish Journal’s pro bono lawyer for defamation) books but this one.
Kirsch's iconoclasticism only runs in one direction - towards debunking Orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity. Kirsch popularizes current academic research and shapes it into making his arguments against religion which believes in itself. Kirsch has a fundamental hatred of Western religion as it has historically understood itself.
I enjoy his writings but I understand his clear polemical position (something that seems to completely escape Andy, who most likely shares Kirsch's views).
I understand why the Jonathan Kirsches of the world want to deny belief in the one true God who holds people accountable for their actions. This way, the Kirsches of the world can do what they like. There is no universal moral code, no objective system of right and wrong, in Kirsch's worldview. He, and those who view the world as he does, are free to do whatever they can get away with. I don't trust them.
"Kirsch is a writer of gently iconoclastic religious books, including studies of biblical sex and a biography of King David."
I have read all of Kirsch’s (who is the Jewish Journal’s pro bono lawyer for defamation) books but this one.
Kirsch's iconoclasticism only runs in one direction - towards debunking Orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity. Kirsch popularizes current academic research and shapes it into making his arguments against religion which believes in itself. Kirsch has a fundamental hatred of Western religion as it has historically understood itself.
I enjoy his writings but I understand his clear polemical position (something that seems to completely escape Andy, who most likely shares Kirsch's views).
I understand why the Jonathan Kirsches of the world want to deny belief in the one true God who holds people accountable for their actions. This way, the Kirsches of the world can do what they like. There is no universal moral code, no objective system of right and wrong, in Kirsch's worldview. He, and those who view the world as he does, are free to do whatever they can get away with. I don't trust them.
VULNERABLE AND SECURE
By Rabbi Avi Shafran
If only the world made sense.
If it did, Kofi Annan's recent declaration that Sudan's leaders bear responsibility for not reining in the Arab murderers of villagers in Darfur would raise hopes that the U.N. Secretary General might apply a similar judgment to Yassir Arafat for (at best) making no effort to impede the murder of Israeli civilians.
If only the world made sense, Palestinian writers like columnist Hassan al-Batal, who decried the Chechen terrorist carnage in Beslan as "inhuman horror and the height of barbarism" for which "there are no mitigating circumstances," would express similar sentiment for the horror and barbarism their fellow Palestinians visit upon innocent Israelis.
And if only the world made sense, the European Union's member states would feel sufficiently freighted by sanity, not to mention their own histories, to concede that a physical barrier is a most reasonable way for a population to keep at bay crazed killers bent on its destruction.
But, alas, the world makes no sense. Which is why Iraq remains a wild shooting gallery instead of a civilized and prosperous free nation; why the mullahcracy in Iran is not being prevented from developing nuclear weapons; and why the dementocracy in North Korea was not prevented from doing so.
For Jews in particular, the craziness of contemporary geopolitics is of profound concern. Some of the most unstable and irrational players on the world scene today are also some of those most incensed by the existence of Jewish organizations, of a Jewish State, of Jews. It is not a situation that offers much comfort or hope.
What does, though, is Sukkot.
If they haven't appeared already, impermanent structures of varied materials, shapes and sizes will soon enough be sprouting like post-rain mushrooms across Israel and throughout Jewish neighborhoods around the world.
The holiday of Sukkot takes its name from those structures, which Jews are enjoined by the Torah to inhabit for a week each year. The walls of sukkahs can be made of any material. But, in fulfillment of Jewish tradition's insistence that the dwellings be "temporary" in nature, their roofs must consist of pieces of unprocessed wood or vegetation, and they may not be fastened in place.
At first glance, living in sukkahs - by definition decidedly vulnerable to wind, rain and pests - would seem only to compound any innate Jewish proclivity to worry. The delicate dwellings would be expected to intensify Jewish anxiety. And yet, at least for Jews who appreciate the holiday's deeper import, just the opposite is true.
For Jewish tradition considers the sukkah symbolic of the divine "clouds of glory" that protected the ancestors of today's Jews as they wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. The miraculous clouds destroyed whatever obstacles or noxious creatures stood in the people's path.
Thus, the sukkah represents a deep Jewish truth: Security is not a function of fortresses; it is a gift granted from above.
The Yiddish poem by Avraham Reisen (1876-1953) sung in countless sukkahs well captures the idea. It paints the picture of a Jewish father sitting in his sukkah, as a storm rages. His anguished daughter tries to convince him that the sukkah is about to fall. He responds (rendered from the Yiddish):
Dear daughter, don't fret;
It hasn't fallen yet.
The sukkah's fine; banish your fright.
There have been many such fears,
For nigh two thousand years;
Yet the little sukkah still stands upright.
Sukkahs, of course, have in fact succumbed to storms. Jews, too, have fallen at the hands of ancient and modern murderers alike. But, as Reisen's metaphor so poignantly reminds us, there is timeless meaning in the fact that the Jewish people has survived.
The meaning lies in what the sukkah's fragility implies - that true security, in the end, comes from only one place.
So all the world's craziness and evil, all the unreason and hatred and violence, cannot shake the serenity of the sukkah. We have, if only we merit it, an impenetrable fortress.
Beginning a month before Rosh Hashana, Psalm 27 is added to Jewish prayer services; it is recited twice a day, until the very end of the holiday when Jews live in sukkahs. A verse in the Psalm, as it happens, refers to one:
"For He will hide me in His sukkah," King David sings confidently about the Creator, "on the day of evil."
© AM ECHAD RESOURCES
[Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.]
If only the world made sense.
If it did, Kofi Annan's recent declaration that Sudan's leaders bear responsibility for not reining in the Arab murderers of villagers in Darfur would raise hopes that the U.N. Secretary General might apply a similar judgment to Yassir Arafat for (at best) making no effort to impede the murder of Israeli civilians.
If only the world made sense, Palestinian writers like columnist Hassan al-Batal, who decried the Chechen terrorist carnage in Beslan as "inhuman horror and the height of barbarism" for which "there are no mitigating circumstances," would express similar sentiment for the horror and barbarism their fellow Palestinians visit upon innocent Israelis.
And if only the world made sense, the European Union's member states would feel sufficiently freighted by sanity, not to mention their own histories, to concede that a physical barrier is a most reasonable way for a population to keep at bay crazed killers bent on its destruction.
But, alas, the world makes no sense. Which is why Iraq remains a wild shooting gallery instead of a civilized and prosperous free nation; why the mullahcracy in Iran is not being prevented from developing nuclear weapons; and why the dementocracy in North Korea was not prevented from doing so.
For Jews in particular, the craziness of contemporary geopolitics is of profound concern. Some of the most unstable and irrational players on the world scene today are also some of those most incensed by the existence of Jewish organizations, of a Jewish State, of Jews. It is not a situation that offers much comfort or hope.
What does, though, is Sukkot.
If they haven't appeared already, impermanent structures of varied materials, shapes and sizes will soon enough be sprouting like post-rain mushrooms across Israel and throughout Jewish neighborhoods around the world.
The holiday of Sukkot takes its name from those structures, which Jews are enjoined by the Torah to inhabit for a week each year. The walls of sukkahs can be made of any material. But, in fulfillment of Jewish tradition's insistence that the dwellings be "temporary" in nature, their roofs must consist of pieces of unprocessed wood or vegetation, and they may not be fastened in place.
At first glance, living in sukkahs - by definition decidedly vulnerable to wind, rain and pests - would seem only to compound any innate Jewish proclivity to worry. The delicate dwellings would be expected to intensify Jewish anxiety. And yet, at least for Jews who appreciate the holiday's deeper import, just the opposite is true.
For Jewish tradition considers the sukkah symbolic of the divine "clouds of glory" that protected the ancestors of today's Jews as they wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. The miraculous clouds destroyed whatever obstacles or noxious creatures stood in the people's path.
Thus, the sukkah represents a deep Jewish truth: Security is not a function of fortresses; it is a gift granted from above.
The Yiddish poem by Avraham Reisen (1876-1953) sung in countless sukkahs well captures the idea. It paints the picture of a Jewish father sitting in his sukkah, as a storm rages. His anguished daughter tries to convince him that the sukkah is about to fall. He responds (rendered from the Yiddish):
Dear daughter, don't fret;
It hasn't fallen yet.
The sukkah's fine; banish your fright.
There have been many such fears,
For nigh two thousand years;
Yet the little sukkah still stands upright.
Sukkahs, of course, have in fact succumbed to storms. Jews, too, have fallen at the hands of ancient and modern murderers alike. But, as Reisen's metaphor so poignantly reminds us, there is timeless meaning in the fact that the Jewish people has survived.
The meaning lies in what the sukkah's fragility implies - that true security, in the end, comes from only one place.
So all the world's craziness and evil, all the unreason and hatred and violence, cannot shake the serenity of the sukkah. We have, if only we merit it, an impenetrable fortress.
Beginning a month before Rosh Hashana, Psalm 27 is added to Jewish prayer services; it is recited twice a day, until the very end of the holiday when Jews live in sukkahs. A verse in the Psalm, as it happens, refers to one:
"For He will hide me in His sukkah," King David sings confidently about the Creator, "on the day of evil."
© AM ECHAD RESOURCES
[Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.]
Monday, September 20, 2004
'Mommy and Daddy Don't Love Jesus Anymore'
Robert writes Luke: How about writing a children's book? If Madonna and Jamie Lee Curtis can do it, then you're certainly qualified. Aim your books at the offspring of new converts to Judaism? That's got more mass appeal than a stupid producers interview book. Sample title: "Mommy and Daddy Don't Love Jesus Anymore."
Also when is the book on tape version of XXX-Communicated coming out? Your story could really be inspirational to the blind and illiterate.
Also when is the book on tape version of XXX-Communicated coming out? Your story could really be inspirational to the blind and illiterate.
My Contributions To Literature
I was interviewed for three hours Sunday morning by three journalists from a Croatian literary magazine. The topic? My life and my contributions to elevating our national and communal conversation.
I was honored by how well they knew my work (even my anonymous magnum opus on the Rambam's Mishna Torah). They asked me such good questions I've been on a high eversince.
I was describing this to a wise old friend Monday. He asked me for some examples of their searching questions. I gave him some. He wasn't impressed. He thinks the flutterings of my heart have more to do with the beauty of one of my interviewers than the depth of their perceptions.
It is sad to see my friends grow so cynical.
I was honored by how well they knew my work (even my anonymous magnum opus on the Rambam's Mishna Torah). They asked me such good questions I've been on a high eversince.
I was describing this to a wise old friend Monday. He asked me for some examples of their searching questions. I gave him some. He wasn't impressed. He thinks the flutterings of my heart have more to do with the beauty of one of my interviewers than the depth of their perceptions.
It is sad to see my friends grow so cynical.
Returning To The Bosom That Once Suckled Me
I'm trying to decide on my next book. I think I'm going to write a book on the SDA church. Should be big money and prestige there and the subject interests me. Return
to the bosom that once suckled me, this time as a journalist rather than as a child.
Robert writes: "You are going to go broke self publishing all these asinine books. Why don't you take some of this inexhaustible cash of yours and print up some maps to the Jewish movie stars homes and set up a booth on Fairfax? Do some honest work for a change. Sheesh."
Chaim writes: "After reading "your" homily on Protocols, I suggest that you instead write a book about the deeply closeted Children of Amalek who dwell here in the
United States and just want to be left to live the American Dream, but who are being hunted by fanatical Torah Jews who take the bible literally."
to the bosom that once suckled me, this time as a journalist rather than as a child.
Robert writes: "You are going to go broke self publishing all these asinine books. Why don't you take some of this inexhaustible cash of yours and print up some maps to the Jewish movie stars homes and set up a booth on Fairfax? Do some honest work for a change. Sheesh."
Chaim writes: "After reading "your" homily on Protocols, I suggest that you instead write a book about the deeply closeted Children of Amalek who dwell here in the
United States and just want to be left to live the American Dream, but who are being hunted by fanatical Torah Jews who take the bible literally."
Will Dodger Shawn Green Play On Yom Kippur?
Email: Has Los Angeles Dodger Shawn Green ever joined a local shul or has a special rabbi? Know any bookies who might be taking bets as to whether he plays Friday or not?
Manic power: Robert Lowell and his circle
I'm reading this terrific book: Manic power: Robert Lowell and his circle
It reminds me of a friend in San Diego.
Lyra writes: How could a writer have any good material without going threw turmoil. If your life was perfect I guess your stories would be boring just like your life. I
thought you'd appreciate some madness but I guess it's over your head. I didn't know you were so perfect and close minded. Why did it take you two days for your judgmental constructive criticism any how. K.B. may suck your synagogue ---- for obvious social reasons but I find you average and predictable like every other conceded writer with boring socially acceptable material that you can barley get published! That must be why you as old as you are and still single. Mabey
God can help you get laid! Happy Shabas. I ate pork today just for you..
It reminds me of a friend in San Diego.
Lyra writes: How could a writer have any good material without going threw turmoil. If your life was perfect I guess your stories would be boring just like your life. I
thought you'd appreciate some madness but I guess it's over your head. I didn't know you were so perfect and close minded. Why did it take you two days for your judgmental constructive criticism any how. K.B. may suck your synagogue ---- for obvious social reasons but I find you average and predictable like every other conceded writer with boring socially acceptable material that you can barley get published! That must be why you as old as you are and still single. Mabey
God can help you get laid! Happy Shabas. I ate pork today just for you..
What Do You Say To Parent Who Has Lost A Child? Thank You Dennis Prager
Dennis said on his radio show today that he asked a priest, minister, rabbi Sunday in a public panel discussion what do you say to a parent who has lost a child... He said a couple of parents who had lost children came over to him in tears of gratitude...
Dennis didn't bother to say what he or the clergy recommended you say to a parent who has lost a child.
Dennis wondered where else you could get such uplift for two hours for only $33, yet DP said many people would've considered it expensive.
Dennis didn't bother to say what he or the clergy recommended you say to a parent who has lost a child.
Dennis wondered where else you could get such uplift for two hours for only $33, yet DP said many people would've considered it expensive.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Luke's Bible Lecture & S-M Video In One
Tom Thumb writes: I'm not into reading lectures, but I'd pay to get weekly videos of you preaching from the bible. I'd also pay for a series of videos in which you write
some essay and turn it in to Cathy S. for her to look over. She gets VERY upset with you and, while wearing some nice leather outfit, beats some editorial sense
into your sorry scrawny ass, before correcting your work and posting it on the web with all the changes indicated so that all can witness your humiliation.
some essay and turn it in to Cathy S. for her to look over. She gets VERY upset with you and, while wearing some nice leather outfit, beats some editorial sense
into your sorry scrawny ass, before correcting your work and posting it on the web with all the changes indicated so that all can witness your humiliation.
A Weekly Homily From Your Moral Leader
Due to popular demand, I am adding a weekly homily to my Internet publishing. Here's my first.
My Dark Humor
Email: "Luke, whatever caused sadness for you on Rosh Hashanah, I feel for you."
Luke replies: "It was only dark humor."
Email: "I don't get that side of you."
Luke replies: "It was only dark humor."
Email: "I don't get that side of you."
Let Luke Prep You For Your Bar/Bat Mitzvah
I've decided to begin augmenting my paltry income by offering my time to teach adult learners all about the Torah, and prepare them for bar/bat mitzvah as an adult. Contact me and I'm sure we can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Luke's Heart of Darkness
Sometimes it takes an outsider to enable another outsider to see why he is the way he is. This Rosh Hashonah (the second day, which is the one my friend Chaim churlishly asserts is a testament to rabbinic ignorance of calendar technology) I was walking home from temple with my new friend Tom who, like me, is a convert and foreign born. (Tom is from Finland.) I was discussing my brief sojourn amongst the Abo of the outback, a time for which I have retained curiously few memories. Tom found this suspicious, and began to challenge me on my recollection of those days. Before long, the memories began flooding back, and soon I could recall the central horror of my life then: I was reduced to being some primitive abo's catamite, much like Golan Cipel was reduced to being New Jersey Governor McGreevey's catamite.
More than this I shall not say for now, as the memories trigger feelings so extreme that they are not conducive to this period of the Jewish calendar. But they are a part of me, so if you meet me later on today or at some time in the future, please do not ask me anything about my years amongst the dark skinned aboriginal people of Australia. The memories simply are too painful. Instead, I ask that you give me a hug (but only if you are female and fertile), and maybe say something nice about me.
More than this I shall not say for now, as the memories trigger feelings so extreme that they are not conducive to this period of the Jewish calendar. But they are a part of me, so if you meet me later on today or at some time in the future, please do not ask me anything about my years amongst the dark skinned aboriginal people of Australia. The memories simply are too painful. Instead, I ask that you give me a hug (but only if you are female and fertile), and maybe say something nice about me.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Luke Ford's Book Club
For those who want the communal experience of going to shul, but go out of their mind reciting the prayers:
God in All Moments: B
Jews & Gentiles: A Historical Sociology of Their Relations: F
The Divine Symphony: The Bible's Many Voice, by Israel Knohl: B+
Rape: A Love Story, by Joyce Carol Oates: B+
Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century: F
An Introduction to Jewish Ethics by Louis E. Newman: B+
Heschel, Hasidism and Halakha by Samuel H. Dresner: A
This is Burning Man by Brian Doherty: B
The Anti-Chomsky Reader: B+
Sam Spiegel: D
Manic Power by Jeffrey Meyers: A
God in All Moments: B
Jews & Gentiles: A Historical Sociology of Their Relations: F
The Divine Symphony: The Bible's Many Voice, by Israel Knohl: B+
Rape: A Love Story, by Joyce Carol Oates: B+
Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century: F
An Introduction to Jewish Ethics by Louis E. Newman: B+
Heschel, Hasidism and Halakha by Samuel H. Dresner: A
This is Burning Man by Brian Doherty: B
The Anti-Chomsky Reader: B+
Sam Spiegel: D
Manic Power by Jeffrey Meyers: A
I Got Put On Time-Out
I was warming up over my Rosh Hashanah dinner, about 9:30 pm, entertaining the table with tales of my marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama so blacks could have the right to vote, and my harrowing days kidnapped by Aborginees in the Australian outback...
After warning me about 40 times to shut up, the hosts got sick of my shtick and put me on a time-out, sending me into the living room to play with the kids.
After warning me about 40 times to shut up, the hosts got sick of my shtick and put me on a time-out, sending me into the living room to play with the kids.
Praise For My Books
Dawn writes: I think you particularly did a great job making "XXX-Communicated" more accessible to readers not already familiar with your work, by getting the excellent forewords and afterword, the glossary, and the guide to the names.
"The Producers" is a great bathroom book, something no one else has ever done about people in that field. Someone writing a textbook for college students going into TV and film production should license material from that book.
"The Producers" is a great bathroom book, something no one else has ever done about people in that field. Someone writing a textbook for college students going into TV and film production should license material from that book.
Which Ramone/Rabbi Was Your Favorite?
I am considering doing a book about the Punk Rock scene - not the music or the groups, but their fans. If you were a fan of the Ramones, which one's demise affected your mood the most? With which Ramone, living or dead, did you identify with the most?
In addition to this project, I am considering doing a book about the Torah scene of the mid-20th century - not the rabbenim or their commentaries, but their acolytes. If you were a follower of a particular Tzadik, which one and why?
In addition to this project, I am considering doing a book about the Torah scene of the mid-20th century - not the rabbenim or their commentaries, but their acolytes. If you were a follower of a particular Tzadik, which one and why?
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Those Who Would Be Luke
JMT writes Luke: "It seems to me that the privilege of writing under your name has to be worth something. If you were to start charging Those Who Would Be Luke a modest licensing fee, it might provide enough of an income stream to enable you to date more, or date better. Give it some thought."
I Get A Relationship Coach
Khunrum writes: You don't need a coach. With your personality and financial assets you should have no trouble finding a wife.
My take is that you are simply fishing in the wrong stream. Try the personal adds in Tijuana and Manila. Don't forget to show a picture of the van so they'll know there is lots of room when extended family drop by......(also good for hiding members of her clan who have just waded across the Rio Grande)
Dr Janice writes to Jewlicious.com:
Does Luke Ford have any idea how narcissistic he is? I don’t think so, and that’s why he isn’t married. He has absolutely no awareness of how his words could be received by women, let alone how his actions affect them, even when women tell him directly.
I can’t tell if he’s actually going out on dates. But he sure talks a lot about what HE wants and what HE thinks about women, relationships, religion, whining and (of course) sex. B - o- r- i- n- g ! ! !
The main I have question is this – What does Luke Ford actually have to offer a woman in a relationship?? What can he contribute to make his marriage more than just gratifying Luke Ford?
...........
That was a fun post. It certainly got my narcissistic attention.
I am a huge believer in psychology, therapy and having coaches. All my life I've looked to mentors for help.
I got the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from a shrink in Australia in March 2000.
To quote from the report:
Luke is very dependent upon other people for his identity as a person.
He has poor identity integration and poor self esteem. Accordingly, Luke is always looking for mirroring - it's called "narcissistic supply." That is to say that Luke is always looking for external validation of himself as a person (i.e., he needs other people to tell him who he is). However, because it is not possible for people to mirror him all the time, he gets disappointed and this can turn to envy. Luke may not be conscious of the fact that he is very envious of his family as they seem to have things he would like to have but does not have. This leads to him fluctuating between, on the one hand, devaluing people such as the family (putting them down) and on the other, idealisation of people - such as Dennis Prager.
...........
A few points:
* It may be that I have written not a word of the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog. Or it may not...
* I sold LF.com in August 2001.
* I have had several relationships that have lasted about a year and I have many friendships that go back more than 25 years to childhood. I am on good terms with almost all my ex's. So that says something about my ability to relate to people. I am more gentle in my relationships than in part of my blogging.
* I've had an active dating life. Financial problems inhibit that now. I don't write that much about my dating, as I don't about my shul and my sacred relationships because these areas of my life are sacred and are not generally for blogging. If I blog it, it generally means it is not sacred to me. If I were looking for advice on dating or other personal matters, I would turn to friends, clergy, psycho-therapists etc all who are accessible to me. I would not turn to my blog-reading audience unless it was for humor.
* A great deal of what I write is number one, not written by me, including stuff in my name on my blog YML and elsewhere, and two, written primarily for humorous affect.
* The parts of my life that are most precious to me, and such precious persons, are the ones least likely to show up in my writing in any form. Most of the persons who had been in my personal life who I wrote about in my memoir are persons who've written me off. Therefore, I was not sacrificing their friendship when I wrote about them. I didn't burn any active friendships in that book or in my blogging.
* I don't like promoting myself. I am not going to make the case on my blog, or probably not in real life either, for why someone should have a relationship with me. It lacks dignity to make these claims. I have self-evident worth. I don't need to package or market myself. I do the work believing I will be rewarded for the good I do and punished for the bad, if not in this life, then in the world to come.
* I got a shrink who said many of the manifestations of my NPD could be blunted with proper medication. I've been much happier and easier to be with since getting on lithium (mood stabilizer), clonazepam (anti-anxiety) and clonidine (anti-ADD). But as anyone who reads me know, pharmacology is an inexact science.
* Many people think I have designs on women I blog about, such as Chayyei Sarah. If I had serious intentions towards a woman, I don't think I'd blog about her. Blogging is for fun!
...........
Janice responds:
Luke – have you thought that it is duplicitous to be passing off posts written by others as your own? Do you realize that the people, especially the women, that you’ve directed your whining about, will actually think that you’re a misogynist, rather than just someone suffering from a mental illness? This lack of honesty is only going to further impede your efforts to get married, IMHO.
I respect that you find your dates and feelings private and “sacred,” however I think that this is just a rationalization to protect you from taking a real, objective look at yourself, your behavior, and the effects of your behaviors on others. Because if you did (look at yourself), then you might be able to make the changes that would help you create and maintain the kind of relationship that you really want. You may still be friends with your exes, but is that really your goal?
I suggest that you stop hiding behind your ghost-written posts and start posting honest accounts of your life. That’s the best way to get the help you say you want, especially from your readers (and me too, if you so desire) to find a magnanimous Jewish woman to settle down with.
Luke replies:
* Blogging is not primarily about therapy for me. It is about the thing in itself. I have written with excruciating honesty about myself at times. I don't think there's a lack of rigorous self analysis in my work, particularly my memoir.
* One man's duplicity is another's humor. It's not my fault that many Americans have an irony deficiency. If a woman does not find the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog funny, and my work funny, and the work of people inspired by me funny, then she is not for me.
* The primary goal of my writing and blogging is not marriage. It is to do good work in the faith that good things will result from that. Most of the funniest comedians do work that many would find racist, misanthropic etc, but what counts is, is it funny? Is it insightful? Does it evoke interesting and profound responses? Those are the criteria I write by.
* Friendships with exes is not my main goal, and I never claimed it was. It is simply better to be on cordial terms with exes, usually, than bitter terms.
* I would say that marriage is my main goal in my life now, along with the quality of my work, the development of non-romantic relationships (primarily with other guys), the practice of my religion and the growth of my character.
My take is that you are simply fishing in the wrong stream. Try the personal adds in Tijuana and Manila. Don't forget to show a picture of the van so they'll know there is lots of room when extended family drop by......(also good for hiding members of her clan who have just waded across the Rio Grande)
Dr Janice writes to Jewlicious.com:
Does Luke Ford have any idea how narcissistic he is? I don’t think so, and that’s why he isn’t married. He has absolutely no awareness of how his words could be received by women, let alone how his actions affect them, even when women tell him directly.
I can’t tell if he’s actually going out on dates. But he sure talks a lot about what HE wants and what HE thinks about women, relationships, religion, whining and (of course) sex. B - o- r- i- n- g ! ! !
The main I have question is this – What does Luke Ford actually have to offer a woman in a relationship?? What can he contribute to make his marriage more than just gratifying Luke Ford?
...........
That was a fun post. It certainly got my narcissistic attention.
I am a huge believer in psychology, therapy and having coaches. All my life I've looked to mentors for help.
I got the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from a shrink in Australia in March 2000.
To quote from the report:
Luke is very dependent upon other people for his identity as a person.
He has poor identity integration and poor self esteem. Accordingly, Luke is always looking for mirroring - it's called "narcissistic supply." That is to say that Luke is always looking for external validation of himself as a person (i.e., he needs other people to tell him who he is). However, because it is not possible for people to mirror him all the time, he gets disappointed and this can turn to envy. Luke may not be conscious of the fact that he is very envious of his family as they seem to have things he would like to have but does not have. This leads to him fluctuating between, on the one hand, devaluing people such as the family (putting them down) and on the other, idealisation of people - such as Dennis Prager.
...........
A few points:
* It may be that I have written not a word of the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog. Or it may not...
* I sold LF.com in August 2001.
* I have had several relationships that have lasted about a year and I have many friendships that go back more than 25 years to childhood. I am on good terms with almost all my ex's. So that says something about my ability to relate to people. I am more gentle in my relationships than in part of my blogging.
* I've had an active dating life. Financial problems inhibit that now. I don't write that much about my dating, as I don't about my shul and my sacred relationships because these areas of my life are sacred and are not generally for blogging. If I blog it, it generally means it is not sacred to me. If I were looking for advice on dating or other personal matters, I would turn to friends, clergy, psycho-therapists etc all who are accessible to me. I would not turn to my blog-reading audience unless it was for humor.
* A great deal of what I write is number one, not written by me, including stuff in my name on my blog YML and elsewhere, and two, written primarily for humorous affect.
* The parts of my life that are most precious to me, and such precious persons, are the ones least likely to show up in my writing in any form. Most of the persons who had been in my personal life who I wrote about in my memoir are persons who've written me off. Therefore, I was not sacrificing their friendship when I wrote about them. I didn't burn any active friendships in that book or in my blogging.
* I don't like promoting myself. I am not going to make the case on my blog, or probably not in real life either, for why someone should have a relationship with me. It lacks dignity to make these claims. I have self-evident worth. I don't need to package or market myself. I do the work believing I will be rewarded for the good I do and punished for the bad, if not in this life, then in the world to come.
* I got a shrink who said many of the manifestations of my NPD could be blunted with proper medication. I've been much happier and easier to be with since getting on lithium (mood stabilizer), clonazepam (anti-anxiety) and clonidine (anti-ADD). But as anyone who reads me know, pharmacology is an inexact science.
* Many people think I have designs on women I blog about, such as Chayyei Sarah. If I had serious intentions towards a woman, I don't think I'd blog about her. Blogging is for fun!
...........
Janice responds:
Luke – have you thought that it is duplicitous to be passing off posts written by others as your own? Do you realize that the people, especially the women, that you’ve directed your whining about, will actually think that you’re a misogynist, rather than just someone suffering from a mental illness? This lack of honesty is only going to further impede your efforts to get married, IMHO.
I respect that you find your dates and feelings private and “sacred,” however I think that this is just a rationalization to protect you from taking a real, objective look at yourself, your behavior, and the effects of your behaviors on others. Because if you did (look at yourself), then you might be able to make the changes that would help you create and maintain the kind of relationship that you really want. You may still be friends with your exes, but is that really your goal?
I suggest that you stop hiding behind your ghost-written posts and start posting honest accounts of your life. That’s the best way to get the help you say you want, especially from your readers (and me too, if you so desire) to find a magnanimous Jewish woman to settle down with.
Luke replies:
* Blogging is not primarily about therapy for me. It is about the thing in itself. I have written with excruciating honesty about myself at times. I don't think there's a lack of rigorous self analysis in my work, particularly my memoir.
* One man's duplicity is another's humor. It's not my fault that many Americans have an irony deficiency. If a woman does not find the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog funny, and my work funny, and the work of people inspired by me funny, then she is not for me.
* The primary goal of my writing and blogging is not marriage. It is to do good work in the faith that good things will result from that. Most of the funniest comedians do work that many would find racist, misanthropic etc, but what counts is, is it funny? Is it insightful? Does it evoke interesting and profound responses? Those are the criteria I write by.
* Friendships with exes is not my main goal, and I never claimed it was. It is simply better to be on cordial terms with exes, usually, than bitter terms.
* I would say that marriage is my main goal in my life now, along with the quality of my work, the development of non-romantic relationships (primarily with other guys), the practice of my religion and the growth of my character.
Muslim Sluts For Bush
A man at the Cato seminar today told me about his plan for a parade in Pasadena designed to offend everyone -- Muslim sluts for Bush. Islamic women dressed up in traditional burkas et al who parade around and then throw off their garb and prance about in bikinis and endorse President Bush... Umm, excuse me, I'll be right back.
Movie Rights Sold To Yesterday's News Tomorrow: Deep Inside American Jewish Journalism
I signed a deal today for my book with the most financially healthy studio in Los Angeles - Vivid. Rocco Siffredi will play me, Jenna Jameson will play Alana Newhouse, Ron Jeremy will play Chaim Amalek and Mike Horner will play Gary Rosenblatt. Coming soon to a theater near you.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Bushisms On DVD
Adrian writes: Dear Luke:
I'm writing because I think you and your other readers might be interested to know about our new BUSHISMS DVD.
I am one of the producers of the DVD based on the best-selling BUSHISMS series of books. The DVD is hosted by Comedy Central's BRIAN UNGER and features commentary from Slate.com editor JACOB WEISBERG and AL FRANKEN.
If you can let your readers know about our project and the website - www.bushism.net - we would be very grateful.
Also, our product is available by the case for fundraisers and as a donation premium. This is a terrific way to raise money for your organization.
I'm writing because I think you and your other readers might be interested to know about our new BUSHISMS DVD.
I am one of the producers of the DVD based on the best-selling BUSHISMS series of books. The DVD is hosted by Comedy Central's BRIAN UNGER and features commentary from Slate.com editor JACOB WEISBERG and AL FRANKEN.
If you can let your readers know about our project and the website - www.bushism.net - we would be very grateful.
Also, our product is available by the case for fundraisers and as a donation premium. This is a terrific way to raise money for your organization.
Thanks For Lunch, Dr Gillespie, But I Still Want To Believe You Bugger Little Boys
Cathy Seipp told me to be at the Beverly Hills Hilton at 11 a.m. sharp. So I drove up in my horrific van. I don't think the valets had ever seen a vehicle more hideous (it cost me $14, I could've bought two women in Brazil for that).
Matt Welch invited me to sit with him at one of the three ritzy tables that Reason magazine bought (with their ill gotten funds from child pornographers and drug dealers, I just made that up, I think it was witty).
I saw Amy Alkon talking to a tall man with long hair about atheism.
I introduced myself and shook hands with him. He said his name. I didn't get it. "Pat? Ted? Pet?"
"Penn!" he boomed. "Like Pennsylvania."
Turned out it was Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, the Las Vegas magicians.
Penn looked ok, so it must've been Teller who got bit by the lion.
"No, that's that gay couple, Siegried and Roy" said a friend. I have no evidence to back up the assertion that Siegfriend and Roy swing from the other side of the vines.
Libertarian gatherings seem to attract a lot of atheists and cosmopolitan fifth column types like Amy Alkon who deride belief in angels and eternal universal transcendent moral norms dictated by the One True God of Israel. I sure hope there's eternally burning hellfire for these infidels. The Taliban knew how to treat shameless hussies like Alkon.
Islam is the answer and in Islam there are no questions.
TOSSING CATO'S SALAD
After the First Amendment panel discussion, a group of distinguished persons including Cathy Seipp gathered around me to ask for my help defining such phrases as tossing someone's salad.
When, reluctantly, I defined the term, Cathy got a grossed out look on her face and said she was leaving.
I wasn't convinced. She put on the same act when she asked me to describe "double ----" a few months ago. It led to a lengthy discussion of changing social norms on our way to a party thrown by The Atlantic with Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis.
Cathy could not understand how "tossing salad" could derive from such an abhorrent practice and I was too embarrassed to try to defend the etymology.
Starting Wednesday night, Rosh Hashanah, I am swearing off salad tossing, no matter how much Cathy pleads with me to do it.
Cathy, Matt and Emmanuelle Richard arrived 30 minutes late to the show and didn't sit with me, which put me in a peevish mood until lunchtime when Cathy tossed my salad. I then ate it with my fingers and explained to the onlookers that I was raised by Aboriginees.
Through conversation with Matt, I worked out that I am libertarian in the way I live but conservative in my political philosophy and Orthodox in my religious ideals.
I ask Matt what he likes to think about while listening to Cato lectures, a question that is only funny when you know that the first thing I ever said to Matt, back in June 1998, was what did he like to think about while engaging in an activity similar to listening Cato lectures but more pleasurable.
Senator Tom McClintock gave a sterling address about fiscal responsibility. I got so excited (the one brand of libertarianism I subscribe to is Charles Murray's), I asked a question: "Why isn't somebody doing something about the flood of illegals into this state?"
I got all weak in the knees addressing Tom.
He said it was a good question.
I sent this note to the editor of Reason, Nick Gillespie, an icon in the gay community along with Tammy Faye Baker:
Dear Dr. Gillespie,
First, thank you for hosting me for a lovely time today at the Cato shindig. Cool lunch. Hope it was kosher.
Second. Matt talked about taking a position with Reason. I asked him if Reason provided benefits such as health care. He said it did.
SELL OUT! How can you in good conscience offer these things? Why not leave it up to your employees to acquire their own benefits in the beautiful free marketplace? You'll throw the poor on the street but those who happen to be able to write and to claim they hold with your principles, you lavish them in the lap of your own socialistic enterprise (funded not by your own labors but by donors).
Curiously,
Luke
PS Your publisher says you like to bugger little boys.
Matt Welch invited me to sit with him at one of the three ritzy tables that Reason magazine bought (with their ill gotten funds from child pornographers and drug dealers, I just made that up, I think it was witty).
I saw Amy Alkon talking to a tall man with long hair about atheism.
I introduced myself and shook hands with him. He said his name. I didn't get it. "Pat? Ted? Pet?"
"Penn!" he boomed. "Like Pennsylvania."
Turned out it was Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, the Las Vegas magicians.
Penn looked ok, so it must've been Teller who got bit by the lion.
"No, that's that gay couple, Siegried and Roy" said a friend. I have no evidence to back up the assertion that Siegfriend and Roy swing from the other side of the vines.
Libertarian gatherings seem to attract a lot of atheists and cosmopolitan fifth column types like Amy Alkon who deride belief in angels and eternal universal transcendent moral norms dictated by the One True God of Israel. I sure hope there's eternally burning hellfire for these infidels. The Taliban knew how to treat shameless hussies like Alkon.
Islam is the answer and in Islam there are no questions.
TOSSING CATO'S SALAD
After the First Amendment panel discussion, a group of distinguished persons including Cathy Seipp gathered around me to ask for my help defining such phrases as tossing someone's salad.
When, reluctantly, I defined the term, Cathy got a grossed out look on her face and said she was leaving.
I wasn't convinced. She put on the same act when she asked me to describe "double ----" a few months ago. It led to a lengthy discussion of changing social norms on our way to a party thrown by The Atlantic with Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis.
Cathy could not understand how "tossing salad" could derive from such an abhorrent practice and I was too embarrassed to try to defend the etymology.
Starting Wednesday night, Rosh Hashanah, I am swearing off salad tossing, no matter how much Cathy pleads with me to do it.
Cathy, Matt and Emmanuelle Richard arrived 30 minutes late to the show and didn't sit with me, which put me in a peevish mood until lunchtime when Cathy tossed my salad. I then ate it with my fingers and explained to the onlookers that I was raised by Aboriginees.
Through conversation with Matt, I worked out that I am libertarian in the way I live but conservative in my political philosophy and Orthodox in my religious ideals.
I ask Matt what he likes to think about while listening to Cato lectures, a question that is only funny when you know that the first thing I ever said to Matt, back in June 1998, was what did he like to think about while engaging in an activity similar to listening Cato lectures but more pleasurable.
Senator Tom McClintock gave a sterling address about fiscal responsibility. I got so excited (the one brand of libertarianism I subscribe to is Charles Murray's), I asked a question: "Why isn't somebody doing something about the flood of illegals into this state?"
I got all weak in the knees addressing Tom.
He said it was a good question.
I sent this note to the editor of Reason, Nick Gillespie, an icon in the gay community along with Tammy Faye Baker:
Dear Dr. Gillespie,
First, thank you for hosting me for a lovely time today at the Cato shindig. Cool lunch. Hope it was kosher.
Second. Matt talked about taking a position with Reason. I asked him if Reason provided benefits such as health care. He said it did.
SELL OUT! How can you in good conscience offer these things? Why not leave it up to your employees to acquire their own benefits in the beautiful free marketplace? You'll throw the poor on the street but those who happen to be able to write and to claim they hold with your principles, you lavish them in the lap of your own socialistic enterprise (funded not by your own labors but by donors).
Curiously,
Luke
PS Your publisher says you like to bugger little boys.
Yesterday's News Tomorrow
Here's the paperback cover
Hardcover
Robert L. writes: You da' man. If you were a chick, I'd want to bone you.
Luke,
Kelly and her beautiful female friend (a sorority sister of hers from college), Carrie, said they'd very much enjoy lunching with us sometime soon. But they'll only do so on the condition that you arrange to bring a female -----star along. They opined strongly a wish to meet none other than JANINE. (No, I'm not making this up). May you arrange this?
I'm a mere lackey in this matter, relaying their request -- from moi to toi. You're delusional if you think Ive any vested interest whatever.
Your moral debasement of my sweet, wonderful Kelly continues unabated. You are a moral degenerate.
Hardcover
Robert L. writes: You da' man. If you were a chick, I'd want to bone you.
Luke,
Kelly and her beautiful female friend (a sorority sister of hers from college), Carrie, said they'd very much enjoy lunching with us sometime soon. But they'll only do so on the condition that you arrange to bring a female -----star along. They opined strongly a wish to meet none other than JANINE. (No, I'm not making this up). May you arrange this?
I'm a mere lackey in this matter, relaying their request -- from moi to toi. You're delusional if you think Ive any vested interest whatever.
Your moral debasement of my sweet, wonderful Kelly continues unabated. You are a moral degenerate.
Luke Ford: Unimpeachable?
Dave Deutsch, humor editor for Heeb magazine, writes: Luke, I understand you were upset because 60 Minutes wouldn't let you read for that anchor slot. I can even understand you're crafting those fake memos in an effort to embarrass 60 Minutes when the forgeries were revealed (clumsy as they seem to have been, you were right to excise that line about how "Lt. Bush spends too much time chasing the sheilas..."). What I don't get, and never will, is how Dan Rather could refer to you as an "unimpeachable source..."
Monday, September 13, 2004
Luke Ford's Magical Mystery Jewish LA Tour
New Tour Explores L.A.'s Jewish Scene
(Wireless Flash) -- Los Angeles tourists who want to bone up on Orthodoxy will soon have their chance.
A journalist named Luke Ford is offering something called "Jewish Tours" -- tours of L.A.'s Torah landmarks.
Some of the landmarks on the tour include the spots where various rabbis kicked Luke to the curb.
Some tour groups may also visit actual synagogues, which Ford says "can be a turn-on for the first four times or so."
The Jewish LA Tours will officially begin June 25 and will cost $25 a pop.
Ford plans on giving the first tours himself, but, if successful, he hope to hire scantily clad tour guides as soon as possible.
Luke Ford's Magical Mystery Jewish Tour
Needing some extra dough to romance Hebrew Honeys, I've decided to start up a Luke's LA Tour.
Participants will pile into the back of my beaten van while I drive you around all the most important to Luke Jewish sites in Los Angeles.
Chaim Amalek writes: See, one of the benefits of dating a jewess is the motivation to become prosperous that it provides. To date the jewess is to spend lots of money, and if you are to come by that money honestly you will have to work smarter and harder, at least until you marry and impregnate her.
The tour is not such a bad idea. Kenny Kramer, the putative model for the character "Cosmo Kramer" of the jewish Seinfeld show made a mint for himself with his "Seinfeld Reality Tour" in Manhattan. You can do the same with rabbi-star tours in LA, but I suggest you charge more money for it. Tours should include aids clinics, the local bus depot where many a Torah star was discovered, etc. And each tour should end at the Museum of Tolerance. Tell folks that you will be waiting for them right behind the door labeled "tolerant" to give the unsatisfied among them refunds. I suspect that in no time at all, you will have to rent some large buses to handle the spurt in business. Time to prove that you really are worthy of Honey's Jewish genes by making this go.
Now, some of the rabbis will object to having their homes on the tour. Not surprising, as all big stars value their privacy - Hollywood or Valley, it's all the same, no? As for giving out their real names too, this is more troubling. On the other hand, if everyone thinking of going into Torah knew that you would quickly strip them of their false identities, perhaps fewer innocent young Christian girls would be defiled at the hands of swarthy, bagel-eating, greedy rabbis. Clearly there are good arguments on both sides, but I think I come down on the side of NOT divulging the christian names of these young women.
Lynne writes: Luke, I like your idea of a tour. So many of the kosher manufacturers have tried so hard to be discreet about their locations, and you could ruin that for them instantly. You could start in the West Valley and finish in Laurel Canyon at the site of the Wonderland Massacre. In between, I would suggest a stop at a distributor, because the sight of thousands of seferim piled on shelves is very impressive, and a stop at Aish HaTorah, where the fake wailing wall is very impressive. For an extra $5, your guests will receive a genuine Aish Ha Torah Polaroid of themselves in the nude (a great souvenir for the family photo album, don't you think?)
For another $5.00, the Deluxe Tour could include a visit to an actual minyan. You will have to kick back some of that money to the producer, but it would be welcomed. Many minyanim no longer have room in their budgets for condoms, so not only would you be exploiting the performers, but doing something really valuable at the same time, like keeping them alive.
Nice Jewish Girl says your driving is really atrocious, and, since you have few enough true fans as it is, I hesitate to consign them to the back of your van. Your van is more suited to smuggling illegal aliens who don't care about such niceties as seat belts, door handles or air conditioning. And you do not speak Japanese, so you will need an adorable Asian "I'm really a molecular biologist" cutie riding shotgun to interpret for you.
Arrange to stop at your favorite valley eating place and let your tour group purchase lunch. The restaurant will kick back a free lunch for you (although skipping lunch for a bit might not be a bad idea, Luke. There's not a big market for pudgy TV personalities.) Maybe they'll even name a sandwich after you. The Luke Ford special. The contents of that sandwich escape me, though -- does anyone have any ideas? After visiting Wonderland and leading the group in a moment of silent prayer, you can drop off your group at the Hollywood Greyhound Bus Depot, so they can get the true perspective on what it's like to step off the bus when future Torah stars arrive in Los Angeles to embark upon their new careers. Plus they can get home from there.
Mdl writes: Lox and schmaltz on a rye loaf -- open faced. Just think, you could arrange the shinny pink lox in an attractive shape and drizzle the schmaltz over the top. There could be variations:
The Luke Ford Sister - roast beef instead of the lox.
The Luke Ford Extreme - 1 side roast beef -- 1 side lox, with whole baby carrots inserted and globs of schmaltz instead of drizzles.
The Luke Ford Voyager - it's amazing what you can do with a pimento olive.
Helpful writes: Other possible interesting stops on Luke's Tour include:
The actual corner on Santa Monica Boulevard where Matt Ramsey was discovered. The front of the Larry Flynt building where Mike Albo mercilessly bitch slapped poor Luke (and with one hand tied behind his back too).
The scene of the infamous John Holmes "Four on the Floor" murders in Coldwater Canyon.
Dave Hardman's former residence where a distraught Lynne Lopatain was arrested for stalking him with a loaded hand gun in her purse.
Charlie Sheen's Malibu Manse where more newcomers hit the sheets than at Ed Powers couch!
The Altadena love palace where Max makes so many girls deepest, darkest fantasies come true.
The World Modeling agency where booking agent, Jim South and his horny associates make so many of their own deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The Slums of Beverly Hills Apartments where Luke Ford makes surprisingly few lucky young Jewish ladies' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The Los Angeles area Men's detention facility where Jack Hammer currently makes so many of his burly cellmates' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The AIM testing facility where members of Luke's Tour can socialize with the charming Sharon Mitchell and receive a free blood panel analysis.
The cardboard box behind the Hollywood Boulevard Stop-Go market where super-agent, Scotty Schwartz lives. Rob Spallone's shooting house. WARNING: Please no rummaging through the trash cans for Kendra Jade's discarded soiled panties. Luke has already done so and they are available for sale at the end of the tour.
The Doc Johnson Sex Toy manufacturing facility where for $29.95 tour members may have a lifelike mold of their genitalia formed in silicone.
NOTE: All silicone penises of tour members over 8 inches in length become the "intellectual property" of Doc Johnson, Inc.
The Gold's Gym in Venice where AVN bull-stud, Gene Ross, works out daily. CAUTION: Ladies please refrain from touching Gene during his work out. and finally . . .
The fiery gates of HELL ! ! Where all porners are destined to end up at.
Remember in June all topless tour members bust size D and above get 50% off admission!
Goddess writes: The Torahland tour sounds cool, but I'm wondering if you're gonna have any rides--ya know, like Disneyland?? Just curious, cause if you're gonna have a Gene Ross ride, I'm gonna be on that sucker all day... BTW, "Helpful," if I can't touch Gene while he's flexing and squating, what the hell is the point?!
Kaspar writes: Hey there - great idea about the bus tour. But you want to do it right! You need a bus and a driver for that bus. My cousin Hector is new here and does not know the language, but he can drive a bus, and I can get you a bus at a very good rate. Fully air conditioned, too, with a pa system so you can talk over the traffic, and new shocks. Needs a bit of work to pass inspection, but not a problem, we can take care of that. So how about it Amigo, ready to do some business?
Ben writes: HI Luke, Luke! Now this is a great idea. I phoned a few of my jewish friends, they just can't wait for you to start these tours.I would like to ask you IF? there was a Van full, could we have a group rate? Say $ 18.99.Plus, yes there are a few. Would you pick us up from LAX? You would spend not time at all picking us out, of a busy airport. We have Ski jackets on, and rubber boots on, and our faces very white, no tan at all. Now, about your apartment. Will it sleep 8 persons plus yourself? (We have to keep the cost down)
Kaspar: I spoke with my cousin Hector. First, he wants to know how many miles a day this will be. Also, he insists that you do not go to where the black people live. too dangerous. And do you really have the money to start this? Just because we are Mexican does not mean we are cheap. You get what you pay for.
George writes: Luke; That Tour sounds like a hell of an idea. My only problem is the $20 for the tour. At present I have only a single Canadian twenty in my wallet. Would that be OK?
I was also thinking that for the extra I might need, the NJG could come along and pay that, besides her own, and for that I would hold onto her and keep her safe because of your atrocious driving that she mentioned. Hell for that price I would even bring an extra pillow to put in front of her face.
That would be for just before you run into something so that she doesn't get her beautiful looks ruined before marrying some rich guy that is going to keep her in the lap of luxury that she is preparing herself for. If her gorgeous face was damaged all she could hope for is some ordinary working stiff like myself. Heaven forbid that should happen!
Lord Peter Luther Christian writes: Dear Mr. Ford:
Speaking from the Christian perspective, there is much in your new business venture that can be laudable, provided it is executed properly. Your tour could be used to educate tourists on the dangers of perdition that come with the sin of random fornication outside of Christian marriage.
Begin, as has been suggested by others, with the bus depot, the Gates to Hell where many a young girl has begun her descent to damnation. Continue to the Demon Flynt Building, where Satan first breaks many an innocent's spirit. Then continue on to the filth factories of the Valley, where the dehumanizing process proceeds apace. Be sure to visit some HIV treatment centers, and discuss the relationship between the moral diseases of pornography, feminism, sodomy, etc., and such physical diseases as HIV and hepatitis.
Next stop - an abortion clinic, where unborn children brought to life in this moral sewer are masticated by the whirring blades of the abortionist's cutting tools, to the beat of a hip-hop sound track. This should be followed by a visit to the graves of the damned - porn actresses whose lives were cut short as a result of their involvement with pornography.
This can be a very depressing experience, with little to commend repeat business. So you will want to end on a high note: a trip to a Christian church, where the good news of Christ everlasting, and the promise of forgiveness of even the pornographer's sin, is presented to the shocked attendees in word and song. Finally, offer baptism to all who wish it.
Victory in Christ!
Lord Peter Luther Christian, OBE
John Douglas writes: Dear Lukey, I hope you got my IM where I put in for a reservation for your tour. I see it referenced that the first outing is for the media and since we are often referred to as a very watered-down version of YourMoralLeader.com I assume that I qualify as media. So once again, I am claiming a seat. I shall bring the appropriate gear (including a cell phone should you decide to ditch us all in a gang-infested barrio of East Los Angeles - which is okay with me since I have relatives in those parts).
Confucy writes: You must contact the owners of Graveline Tours and pick their brains. They have one of the most popular tours on the Westside of L.A. Graveline use to make a potty stop at the park across the street from Aaron Spelling's mansion.
You could drive your van into the parking lot of West Hollywood's Pleasure Chest store so people could rush in and pick up one of the most popular vibrators of this century, "the mini- massager G2 Pocket Rocket!"
(Wireless Flash) -- Los Angeles tourists who want to bone up on Orthodoxy will soon have their chance.
A journalist named Luke Ford is offering something called "Jewish Tours" -- tours of L.A.'s Torah landmarks.
Some of the landmarks on the tour include the spots where various rabbis kicked Luke to the curb.
Some tour groups may also visit actual synagogues, which Ford says "can be a turn-on for the first four times or so."
The Jewish LA Tours will officially begin June 25 and will cost $25 a pop.
Ford plans on giving the first tours himself, but, if successful, he hope to hire scantily clad tour guides as soon as possible.
Luke Ford's Magical Mystery Jewish Tour
Needing some extra dough to romance Hebrew Honeys, I've decided to start up a Luke's LA Tour.
Participants will pile into the back of my beaten van while I drive you around all the most important to Luke Jewish sites in Los Angeles.
Chaim Amalek writes: See, one of the benefits of dating a jewess is the motivation to become prosperous that it provides. To date the jewess is to spend lots of money, and if you are to come by that money honestly you will have to work smarter and harder, at least until you marry and impregnate her.
The tour is not such a bad idea. Kenny Kramer, the putative model for the character "Cosmo Kramer" of the jewish Seinfeld show made a mint for himself with his "Seinfeld Reality Tour" in Manhattan. You can do the same with rabbi-star tours in LA, but I suggest you charge more money for it. Tours should include aids clinics, the local bus depot where many a Torah star was discovered, etc. And each tour should end at the Museum of Tolerance. Tell folks that you will be waiting for them right behind the door labeled "tolerant" to give the unsatisfied among them refunds. I suspect that in no time at all, you will have to rent some large buses to handle the spurt in business. Time to prove that you really are worthy of Honey's Jewish genes by making this go.
Now, some of the rabbis will object to having their homes on the tour. Not surprising, as all big stars value their privacy - Hollywood or Valley, it's all the same, no? As for giving out their real names too, this is more troubling. On the other hand, if everyone thinking of going into Torah knew that you would quickly strip them of their false identities, perhaps fewer innocent young Christian girls would be defiled at the hands of swarthy, bagel-eating, greedy rabbis. Clearly there are good arguments on both sides, but I think I come down on the side of NOT divulging the christian names of these young women.
Lynne writes: Luke, I like your idea of a tour. So many of the kosher manufacturers have tried so hard to be discreet about their locations, and you could ruin that for them instantly. You could start in the West Valley and finish in Laurel Canyon at the site of the Wonderland Massacre. In between, I would suggest a stop at a distributor, because the sight of thousands of seferim piled on shelves is very impressive, and a stop at Aish HaTorah, where the fake wailing wall is very impressive. For an extra $5, your guests will receive a genuine Aish Ha Torah Polaroid of themselves in the nude (a great souvenir for the family photo album, don't you think?)
For another $5.00, the Deluxe Tour could include a visit to an actual minyan. You will have to kick back some of that money to the producer, but it would be welcomed. Many minyanim no longer have room in their budgets for condoms, so not only would you be exploiting the performers, but doing something really valuable at the same time, like keeping them alive.
Nice Jewish Girl says your driving is really atrocious, and, since you have few enough true fans as it is, I hesitate to consign them to the back of your van. Your van is more suited to smuggling illegal aliens who don't care about such niceties as seat belts, door handles or air conditioning. And you do not speak Japanese, so you will need an adorable Asian "I'm really a molecular biologist" cutie riding shotgun to interpret for you.
Arrange to stop at your favorite valley eating place and let your tour group purchase lunch. The restaurant will kick back a free lunch for you (although skipping lunch for a bit might not be a bad idea, Luke. There's not a big market for pudgy TV personalities.) Maybe they'll even name a sandwich after you. The Luke Ford special. The contents of that sandwich escape me, though -- does anyone have any ideas? After visiting Wonderland and leading the group in a moment of silent prayer, you can drop off your group at the Hollywood Greyhound Bus Depot, so they can get the true perspective on what it's like to step off the bus when future Torah stars arrive in Los Angeles to embark upon their new careers. Plus they can get home from there.
Mdl writes: Lox and schmaltz on a rye loaf -- open faced. Just think, you could arrange the shinny pink lox in an attractive shape and drizzle the schmaltz over the top. There could be variations:
The Luke Ford Sister - roast beef instead of the lox.
The Luke Ford Extreme - 1 side roast beef -- 1 side lox, with whole baby carrots inserted and globs of schmaltz instead of drizzles.
The Luke Ford Voyager - it's amazing what you can do with a pimento olive.
Helpful writes: Other possible interesting stops on Luke's Tour include:
The actual corner on Santa Monica Boulevard where Matt Ramsey was discovered. The front of the Larry Flynt building where Mike Albo mercilessly bitch slapped poor Luke (and with one hand tied behind his back too).
The scene of the infamous John Holmes "Four on the Floor" murders in Coldwater Canyon.
Dave Hardman's former residence where a distraught Lynne Lopatain was arrested for stalking him with a loaded hand gun in her purse.
Charlie Sheen's Malibu Manse where more newcomers hit the sheets than at Ed Powers couch!
The Altadena love palace where Max makes so many girls deepest, darkest fantasies come true.
The World Modeling agency where booking agent, Jim South and his horny associates make so many of their own deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The Slums of Beverly Hills Apartments where Luke Ford makes surprisingly few lucky young Jewish ladies' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The Los Angeles area Men's detention facility where Jack Hammer currently makes so many of his burly cellmates' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.
The AIM testing facility where members of Luke's Tour can socialize with the charming Sharon Mitchell and receive a free blood panel analysis.
The cardboard box behind the Hollywood Boulevard Stop-Go market where super-agent, Scotty Schwartz lives. Rob Spallone's shooting house. WARNING: Please no rummaging through the trash cans for Kendra Jade's discarded soiled panties. Luke has already done so and they are available for sale at the end of the tour.
The Doc Johnson Sex Toy manufacturing facility where for $29.95 tour members may have a lifelike mold of their genitalia formed in silicone.
NOTE: All silicone penises of tour members over 8 inches in length become the "intellectual property" of Doc Johnson, Inc.
The Gold's Gym in Venice where AVN bull-stud, Gene Ross, works out daily. CAUTION: Ladies please refrain from touching Gene during his work out. and finally . . .
The fiery gates of HELL ! ! Where all porners are destined to end up at.
Remember in June all topless tour members bust size D and above get 50% off admission!
Goddess writes: The Torahland tour sounds cool, but I'm wondering if you're gonna have any rides--ya know, like Disneyland?? Just curious, cause if you're gonna have a Gene Ross ride, I'm gonna be on that sucker all day... BTW, "Helpful," if I can't touch Gene while he's flexing and squating, what the hell is the point?!
Kaspar writes: Hey there - great idea about the bus tour. But you want to do it right! You need a bus and a driver for that bus. My cousin Hector is new here and does not know the language, but he can drive a bus, and I can get you a bus at a very good rate. Fully air conditioned, too, with a pa system so you can talk over the traffic, and new shocks. Needs a bit of work to pass inspection, but not a problem, we can take care of that. So how about it Amigo, ready to do some business?
Ben writes: HI Luke, Luke! Now this is a great idea. I phoned a few of my jewish friends, they just can't wait for you to start these tours.I would like to ask you IF? there was a Van full, could we have a group rate? Say $ 18.99.Plus, yes there are a few. Would you pick us up from LAX? You would spend not time at all picking us out, of a busy airport. We have Ski jackets on, and rubber boots on, and our faces very white, no tan at all. Now, about your apartment. Will it sleep 8 persons plus yourself? (We have to keep the cost down)
Kaspar: I spoke with my cousin Hector. First, he wants to know how many miles a day this will be. Also, he insists that you do not go to where the black people live. too dangerous. And do you really have the money to start this? Just because we are Mexican does not mean we are cheap. You get what you pay for.
George writes: Luke; That Tour sounds like a hell of an idea. My only problem is the $20 for the tour. At present I have only a single Canadian twenty in my wallet. Would that be OK?
I was also thinking that for the extra I might need, the NJG could come along and pay that, besides her own, and for that I would hold onto her and keep her safe because of your atrocious driving that she mentioned. Hell for that price I would even bring an extra pillow to put in front of her face.
That would be for just before you run into something so that she doesn't get her beautiful looks ruined before marrying some rich guy that is going to keep her in the lap of luxury that she is preparing herself for. If her gorgeous face was damaged all she could hope for is some ordinary working stiff like myself. Heaven forbid that should happen!
Lord Peter Luther Christian writes: Dear Mr. Ford:
Speaking from the Christian perspective, there is much in your new business venture that can be laudable, provided it is executed properly. Your tour could be used to educate tourists on the dangers of perdition that come with the sin of random fornication outside of Christian marriage.
Begin, as has been suggested by others, with the bus depot, the Gates to Hell where many a young girl has begun her descent to damnation. Continue to the Demon Flynt Building, where Satan first breaks many an innocent's spirit. Then continue on to the filth factories of the Valley, where the dehumanizing process proceeds apace. Be sure to visit some HIV treatment centers, and discuss the relationship between the moral diseases of pornography, feminism, sodomy, etc., and such physical diseases as HIV and hepatitis.
Next stop - an abortion clinic, where unborn children brought to life in this moral sewer are masticated by the whirring blades of the abortionist's cutting tools, to the beat of a hip-hop sound track. This should be followed by a visit to the graves of the damned - porn actresses whose lives were cut short as a result of their involvement with pornography.
This can be a very depressing experience, with little to commend repeat business. So you will want to end on a high note: a trip to a Christian church, where the good news of Christ everlasting, and the promise of forgiveness of even the pornographer's sin, is presented to the shocked attendees in word and song. Finally, offer baptism to all who wish it.
Victory in Christ!
Lord Peter Luther Christian, OBE
John Douglas writes: Dear Lukey, I hope you got my IM where I put in for a reservation for your tour. I see it referenced that the first outing is for the media and since we are often referred to as a very watered-down version of YourMoralLeader.com I assume that I qualify as media. So once again, I am claiming a seat. I shall bring the appropriate gear (including a cell phone should you decide to ditch us all in a gang-infested barrio of East Los Angeles - which is okay with me since I have relatives in those parts).
Confucy writes: You must contact the owners of Graveline Tours and pick their brains. They have one of the most popular tours on the Westside of L.A. Graveline use to make a potty stop at the park across the street from Aaron Spelling's mansion.
You could drive your van into the parking lot of West Hollywood's Pleasure Chest store so people could rush in and pick up one of the most popular vibrators of this century, "the mini- massager G2 Pocket Rocket!"
America's Most Spiritual Blogger Addresses an Am Haaretz
Chaim Amalek writes: "How does America's most popular observer of the passing scene in prepare for the Days of Awe? Where do you pray, and what do the Jews charge you to pray there? How observant are you on the second day of Rosh Hashonna (which really isn't necessary)? On Yom Kippur, do you do the full, hard fast - no solids
or liquids? Do you daydream during services? What plans have you made for the coming year to make you into the sort of a man that a 40 years young jewish
woman might want to marry?"
Luke says: I observe Jewish Law (except for where I don't, and in these sinful things, I keep silent).
or liquids? Do you daydream during services? What plans have you made for the coming year to make you into the sort of a man that a 40 years young jewish
woman might want to marry?"
Luke says: I observe Jewish Law (except for where I don't, and in these sinful things, I keep silent).
JOHN KERRY'S UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
Evan Gahr from Chimpstein writes:
Journalist expelled from Kerry national HQ for "illegal" camera use. How long does it take to bait Kerry & Co into quotable quotes and goofy actions, which arguably run afoul of local and federal law? Exactly 53 seconds.
By EVAN GAHR
Chimpstein.com
The much derided Willie Horton commercial that helped sink the presidential campaign of the teeny weenie Michael Dukaksis was far more honest and much less vicious than the speech which John Kerry gave last week to black Baptist leaders gathered in New Orleans.
The Wille Horton advertisement is endlessly criticized for playing to white fears. True enough, whites, and blacks, have much to fear from convicted rapists treated to weekend getaways. And facts are pesky things. Perhaps good-faith arguments can be made regarding how the commercial used or missed certain basic facts, but nobody could impugn the commercials overall truthfulness.
Not so Kery's speech in which the alleged war hero made statements which he knew or should have known were false.
The speech arguably raises more statements about his truthfulness than the military service claims now alleged.
And it's much easier to refute. Similarly, in perhaps a creepy preview of what John Kerry's America might be like, a journalist taking pictures--illegally Kerry's people claimed--at the front desk of the national headquarters was expelled literally seconds after he asked leading questions about the seemingly dearth of black campaign workers and the foolish New Orleans speech.
Why aren't other journalists making these kind of inquiries?
It shouldn't be too difficult. In his speech to the black ministers organization Kerry served dollops of regurgiated liberal pablum disguised as soul food.
The Massachusetts senator played on the theme--which dates to the Kerner Commission Report in the late 1960s--that America is really two nations, separate and unequal, one black, one white. Kerry asserted that American cities "are being torn apart by forces just as divisive and destructive as Jim Crow."
These kind of assertions, like so much else of liberal thought that has infected mainstream thinking, is counter-intuitive and even upon cursory scrutiny quickly collapses under the sheer weight of its own inanity.
If black people are so hapless and oppressed then why is Kerry so determined to grovel before his negro masters for their support?
But grovel he did.
It was Superwhitey to the rescue. Making the curious clam that "a million African-American votes [were] not counted" in the 2000 election, Kerry, according to one press report, wieded statistics about unemployment povery and the drop-out rates of minorities to suggest the nation is terribly fractured by intractible racist forces.
The biggest lie in the speech was that urban American is ravaged by the same kind of vicious and intractable racism equivlant to Jim Crow.
Oh really? Jim Crow was a segregation system enforced by terror and fear, often times by Southern law enforcement officials. It is synomous with lynching, a horrifice chapter in our nation's history.
Just who gets lynched these days in American cities? Which KKK figures have day jobs in Southern law enforcement? Do these cities include those ruled at times by black mayors, such as David Dinkins, Wilson Goode, Harold Washington and other blacks?
Which cities?
Time for a reality check.
Let's examine the Washington area, starting in Arlington, VA. Early Friday morning two parking lot attendants at an unnamed garage are smoking cigarettes right in the driveway. Asked about Kerry's suggestion that there are two Americas, they react with all the passion and emotion that might have been expected if a passerbyer inquiried whether it is true that Roslyn has one McDonals and one Burger King. One of the attendants, with a closely shaved dark beard and intense eyes, finally says that he disagrees with the thrust of the speech.
He for example resides in a middle class, racially mixed neighborhood. Is he voting for Kerry? "It ain't gonna be Bush. That's for sure."
The oppressed negroes head inside back to their job--but they certainly don't anser to "the man." Around 9am a steady stream of cars go into the garage, many SUV's, driven by blacks, whites and Asians.
Walk over the Key Bridge from Rosslyn to DC and it's more of the same. A light-skinned black women, clad in short green skirt, walks along Pennsyvania avenue, holding hands, with a taller slender white guy.
A few blocks away where workers are demolishing a big building , a tall white man, who looks like redneck from central casting, big stomach, missing some teeth stands with his two black workers. The speech was undoutbedly designed to incite the hapless negroe masses to action, and it sure does leave one of the black contruction workers active, his face covered by an American flag fascimile--indignant about the speech. "That's bullshit. He's lying."
At the GWU campus, however, one black man expressed agreement with the speech as he gets into his nifty car, his mother already seated in the passenger seat. "It's exactly the way I felt for years," he says. For good reason: he owns his own company, employees about 10 and depends on racial set-asides. He can cry about racism all the way to the bank.
But the divisive sensibility of this affirmative action baby is apparently not shared by many GWU students and employees.
Black college girls who look like stereotypical sororority sisters casually schmooze with white co-eds seated on the grey benches right outside an H St. dorm.
GWU employees, one black and one white, do some kind of logistic overlook.
There is one place, however, where the two nations analogy obtains. In John Kerry land. White DNC workers who are canvassing the campus for support are asked why they don't have any black colleaggues. "I'm sorry I can't help you. We do hire them."
The women, brunette with piercing blue eyes, s strikingly pretty but doesn't seem to be the deepest of thinkers. "So your job is just to look pretty?"
"Alright, it was nice talking to you."
"If it was so nice why are you running away?"
Run, whitey, run.
About 7 blocks down, however, the black front desk worker at Kerry's national headquarters stood still in the face of provocative questions regarding the speech, but then with a wave of her dark hand dispatched the campaign's security guard to expell the provocateur, dressed about as much of a slob as Frank Rich but more fastidious than his new role model, Michael Moore. He was then threatened with arrest if he re-entered the building by another guard, working for or perhaps with the Kerry campaingn.
Call them Kerry's black honor guard.
Events transposed so quickly this military-like account is probably the best way to impress upon readers the astounding combination of malice, arrogance and stupidity of the Kerry campaign.
At approximately 17:00 hours on September 10, 2004, a white male, clad in standard journalism semi-slob style, meandered into the waiting area of alleged war hero John Kerry's national campaign headquarters.
The following fracas, as recorded by the intruder's digital camera, ensued.
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION
00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25 Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27 Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44 Hymie-American: Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right]
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front desk:Seriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK
Take him out?
What is this a mafia hit?
Funny, she doesn't look Italian.
The woman must have fit perfectly with the campaign. Just another transparent hustler, as is her utterly pedestrian ultimate boss, the putative serious Catholic who probably would acquiesce in demands from NARAL for the legalization of fourth trimester abortions.
The negress spoke with affected inflections, trying to be girlie when she was nothing but John Kerry's personal bitch.
Sort of a black Maureen Dowd, too cute for her own good, she was utterly bereft of the genuine girlie and soft and fluffy tones of Jill Abramson, the elitist out-of-touch New York Times managing editor who answers her own phone. (Smooth and shrewd, for all we know, Jill has made Bill Keller HER bitch.)Most importantly, Jill knows how to handle leading questions designed to ridicule and embarass the respondent without giving any quotable quotes, let alone leaving her employer vulnerable to federal discrimination complaints.
Not so. The Kerry campaign worker (details in related story below.)
Such is John Kerry's America. Elswhere, blacks don't realize they are oppressed and whites don't act like the slave masters of Kerry's putrid paradigm.
It's morning in America.
Nearly 9:00am in the produce area of an Arlington, VA Safeway grocery store. One worker, about 5'8'', blue apron over his white shirt, concentrating on stocking up the vast bins filled with peaches, as a larger, hulk of man, perhaps 6'4" with a stomach that ranks in size with Michael Moore's watching him carefully.
The hulk is black. His charge is white, and they're talking about baseball. Later on the checkout line, with the hulk nearby, he is asked if anybody ever mistook him for Jesse Jacks, same hair same mustache.
Yeah, he laughs. You should see my father he looks even more like him. Why don't you just tell people that you are Jesse Jackson? Then you can get thousands of dollars for speaking fees?
No, he laughs, it would be my luck that just that day someone tries to shoot at him.
Read the above carefully, and think. Jesse Jackson has been threatened by many things--the truth, the ADL, his mistress, but not violence. The last civil rights leader shot was Vernon Jordan, then Urban League head, in 1980. Before that was Martin Luther King, which many blacks, laymen and "leaders" contended might have been a government plot.
It's quite possible that the hulking supermarket manager had this kind of stuff in mind--fear of the government, colluding or acting unfairly to blacks, in ways big and small, when he made his comment. Many blacks to this day cite the notorious Tuskegee experiments to justify their fear of the government, which, in the view of some, is currently embodied by the racial profiling of police departments and other law enforcement authorities.
This is the kind of stuff which could be used as a starting point for a serious discussion abour race in America. That's why Kerry stood clear of it, and opted for outdating and patronizing platitudes in New Orleans, with his own little house negress guarding the campaign HQ in DC.
His speech--just like the campaign antics, the fish rots from the head down--is striking testament to John Kerry's revolting vision of America, which these two events alone should give serious pause to those who contend he is fit to lead.
EVAN GAHR used to work for Eric Breindel and sometimes feels like he still does.
Mr. Gahr, King of All Animals for Chimpstein.com, previously broke the House Bank story (stolen by Roll Call), the story that Hillary Clinton had helped fund PLO front groups
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0598/gahr1.html, and
the Paul Weyrich story
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0126/hentoff.php
Most recently, Mr. Gahr's series of investigative reports for JewishWorldReview.com about religious conservatives collusion with reputed terrorist-friendly Muslim groups to oppose gay marriage, sparked a nationwide outcry, was picked up by, among other major media outlets, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Forward, AndrewSullivan.com and the Washington Blade, and led to the "withdrawal" of the controversial Muslim group from the Alliance for Marriage's coalition.
Many of his recent pieces--for the Washington Post, Washington Times, the American Spectator, the Women's Quarterly, the American Enterprise Magazine, are archived at
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gahr031202.asp
703-528-1021
202-431-4231
KERRY CAMPAIGN CHARGED WITH ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION
Federal and local authorities have been asked to investigate an incident late last Friday afternoon in which a journalist who meandered into Kerry campaign headquarters wielding a silver Kodak digital camera and asking questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people was expelled from the front desk reception area and threatened with arrest if he returned to the building.
In a complaint emailed to R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the journalist asserts that the Kerry campaign illegally discriminated against him based on race in violation of the landmark Civil Rights act, which many conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley opposed.
The journalist a honky-American, contends that the malicious and arbitrary of the Kerry people is illegal because they treated him differently than they might have a black person who made similar pesky inquiries.
For years, he alleges, black leaders have not only asked questions about minority underrepresentation in campaigns and conventions but loudly demanded changes, dating back to Jesse Jackson's antics when he rounded up a bunch of black people, many of them not even registered to vote, and hereded them into a Dem convention to demand more diversity among delegates.
This could be a tough sell, legally, but it raises the kind of embarassing questions--Kerry wants to safeguard America against all threats foreign and domestic but his people can't handle digital cameras--that his already faltering campaign won't be too pleased to answer.
Legally, the stronger claim could be the complaint which the journalist faxed late today to the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights.
In addition to charging racial discrimination in violation of DC human rights law, he also charges that the conduct violated the statutes prohibition against political bias because the campaign, not knowing he is a journalist, treated him with the heavy-handed manner that might be expected from a bunch of fools confronte by a pesky protestor.
To butress his point, he makes the argument that the campaign could not possibly have a legitimate, non-discriminatiry reason to expell him, such as disruption because his pesky questions and camera wielding in no way interfered with campaign activity, and the white person standing next to him smiled--digital recording available--as the journalist pressed his point regarding the dearth of minorities.
The ACLU and DC Office of Human Rights could not be reached for comment.
--EVAN GAHR
September 13, 2004
VIA FAX and EMAIL
R. Alexander Acosta
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Main
Washington, D.C. 20530
Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0293
(202) 307-2572
(202) 307-2839
Mr. Acosta:
This is a formal complaint agains the John Kery campaign and the managment of the building in which its headquarters is housed for conspiracy to deprive me of my civil rights under the law, including but not limited to discrimination in public accommodations based on race.
Petitioner is a white male, Jewish, and perceived looney tune by many conservative activists. Petitioner alleges that in the events described below he was treated differently because of his race when he was ejected from the Kerry campaign headquarters and threatened with arrest if he even entered the building again after the embarassed the campaign with questions that suggested it was way short on black people.
CHRONOLOGY
1. Petitioner is white male, Jewish, perceived by many as looney tune.
2. On September 12, petitioner entered the building that houses the Kerry Campaign national headquarters.
3. Petitioner signed his name at the log book on the guard's desk. No guard was present.
4. Petitioner walked past guard on 7th floor and into the lobby of the campaign HW.
5. Petitioner asked a series of questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people.
6. Petitioner started taking pictures. Two front desk workers names unknown, one black the other white, told him he was not allowed to take pictures? Petitioner asked under what rules?
Front desk worker said that she made the rules and she was the soveirgn of campaign.
7. Petitioner continued to film campaign with digital camera, although it might not have been noticeable and ask questions.
8. White male next to petitioner and talking to front desk woman smiled at the humor.
9. As unidentified Negros talked to white guy petitioner cut her off, asking him "is this the black hq?"
He smiled. She did not. She told guard "take him out."
The moment petitioner heard the order he started walking out. He was, nevertheless, followed downstairs by the burly guard, left the building and then walked South along 15th st. Another guard followed him and threatened with arrest if he entered the building.
DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
The campaign lacked a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for expelling petitioner, ie. under DC human rights laws, denial of service.
Reading of the transcript should reveal that complaints about picture taking were obvious pretext.
a. The expulsion was ordered when petitioner asked about dearth of minorities.
b. Respondent Negro didn't seem to realize the camera was filming
c. It is unlikely any such photo policy existed. If it does exist was it applied consistently or was petitioner singled out because of his race inquiries.
Discrimination based on race
It is standard fare for black politicians, public figures and journalist to ask questions about private institution's lack of minorities which they deem manifestation of racism and demand changes. Jesse Jackson's game is described in book titled Shake Down.
Based on information and belief the campaign was particularly vicious and singled out petitioner because he is white for saying that which it would not object if made by minorities.
OVERBREADTH
1. Petitioner did not disrupt the campaign. Rude questions even somebody else is speaking does not rise to disruption. Yes, he asked Negroes question as she was speaking to third party white to his left. But this white person hardly minded. He even smiled. Therefore the offense was not interfering with customers, but ideological.
2. The building, per above, is normally open to the public. Respondent has no authority to summarily bar petitioner from building which they occupy but do not own.
3. The black guard who bullied petitioner and threatened hi
halfway down the block from the building impeded free expression on a public sidewalk over which he has no authority and those who do have authority could not legally impede similar speech.
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION
00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44Hymie-American:Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front deskSeriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK
Journalist expelled from Kerry national HQ for "illegal" camera use. How long does it take to bait Kerry & Co into quotable quotes and goofy actions, which arguably run afoul of local and federal law? Exactly 53 seconds.
By EVAN GAHR
Chimpstein.com
The much derided Willie Horton commercial that helped sink the presidential campaign of the teeny weenie Michael Dukaksis was far more honest and much less vicious than the speech which John Kerry gave last week to black Baptist leaders gathered in New Orleans.
The Wille Horton advertisement is endlessly criticized for playing to white fears. True enough, whites, and blacks, have much to fear from convicted rapists treated to weekend getaways. And facts are pesky things. Perhaps good-faith arguments can be made regarding how the commercial used or missed certain basic facts, but nobody could impugn the commercials overall truthfulness.
Not so Kery's speech in which the alleged war hero made statements which he knew or should have known were false.
The speech arguably raises more statements about his truthfulness than the military service claims now alleged.
And it's much easier to refute. Similarly, in perhaps a creepy preview of what John Kerry's America might be like, a journalist taking pictures--illegally Kerry's people claimed--at the front desk of the national headquarters was expelled literally seconds after he asked leading questions about the seemingly dearth of black campaign workers and the foolish New Orleans speech.
Why aren't other journalists making these kind of inquiries?
It shouldn't be too difficult. In his speech to the black ministers organization Kerry served dollops of regurgiated liberal pablum disguised as soul food.
The Massachusetts senator played on the theme--which dates to the Kerner Commission Report in the late 1960s--that America is really two nations, separate and unequal, one black, one white. Kerry asserted that American cities "are being torn apart by forces just as divisive and destructive as Jim Crow."
These kind of assertions, like so much else of liberal thought that has infected mainstream thinking, is counter-intuitive and even upon cursory scrutiny quickly collapses under the sheer weight of its own inanity.
If black people are so hapless and oppressed then why is Kerry so determined to grovel before his negro masters for their support?
But grovel he did.
It was Superwhitey to the rescue. Making the curious clam that "a million African-American votes [were] not counted" in the 2000 election, Kerry, according to one press report, wieded statistics about unemployment povery and the drop-out rates of minorities to suggest the nation is terribly fractured by intractible racist forces.
The biggest lie in the speech was that urban American is ravaged by the same kind of vicious and intractable racism equivlant to Jim Crow.
Oh really? Jim Crow was a segregation system enforced by terror and fear, often times by Southern law enforcement officials. It is synomous with lynching, a horrifice chapter in our nation's history.
Just who gets lynched these days in American cities? Which KKK figures have day jobs in Southern law enforcement? Do these cities include those ruled at times by black mayors, such as David Dinkins, Wilson Goode, Harold Washington and other blacks?
Which cities?
Time for a reality check.
Let's examine the Washington area, starting in Arlington, VA. Early Friday morning two parking lot attendants at an unnamed garage are smoking cigarettes right in the driveway. Asked about Kerry's suggestion that there are two Americas, they react with all the passion and emotion that might have been expected if a passerbyer inquiried whether it is true that Roslyn has one McDonals and one Burger King. One of the attendants, with a closely shaved dark beard and intense eyes, finally says that he disagrees with the thrust of the speech.
He for example resides in a middle class, racially mixed neighborhood. Is he voting for Kerry? "It ain't gonna be Bush. That's for sure."
The oppressed negroes head inside back to their job--but they certainly don't anser to "the man." Around 9am a steady stream of cars go into the garage, many SUV's, driven by blacks, whites and Asians.
Walk over the Key Bridge from Rosslyn to DC and it's more of the same. A light-skinned black women, clad in short green skirt, walks along Pennsyvania avenue, holding hands, with a taller slender white guy.
A few blocks away where workers are demolishing a big building , a tall white man, who looks like redneck from central casting, big stomach, missing some teeth stands with his two black workers. The speech was undoutbedly designed to incite the hapless negroe masses to action, and it sure does leave one of the black contruction workers active, his face covered by an American flag fascimile--indignant about the speech. "That's bullshit. He's lying."
At the GWU campus, however, one black man expressed agreement with the speech as he gets into his nifty car, his mother already seated in the passenger seat. "It's exactly the way I felt for years," he says. For good reason: he owns his own company, employees about 10 and depends on racial set-asides. He can cry about racism all the way to the bank.
But the divisive sensibility of this affirmative action baby is apparently not shared by many GWU students and employees.
Black college girls who look like stereotypical sororority sisters casually schmooze with white co-eds seated on the grey benches right outside an H St. dorm.
GWU employees, one black and one white, do some kind of logistic overlook.
There is one place, however, where the two nations analogy obtains. In John Kerry land. White DNC workers who are canvassing the campus for support are asked why they don't have any black colleaggues. "I'm sorry I can't help you. We do hire them."
The women, brunette with piercing blue eyes, s strikingly pretty but doesn't seem to be the deepest of thinkers. "So your job is just to look pretty?"
"Alright, it was nice talking to you."
"If it was so nice why are you running away?"
Run, whitey, run.
About 7 blocks down, however, the black front desk worker at Kerry's national headquarters stood still in the face of provocative questions regarding the speech, but then with a wave of her dark hand dispatched the campaign's security guard to expell the provocateur, dressed about as much of a slob as Frank Rich but more fastidious than his new role model, Michael Moore. He was then threatened with arrest if he re-entered the building by another guard, working for or perhaps with the Kerry campaingn.
Call them Kerry's black honor guard.
Events transposed so quickly this military-like account is probably the best way to impress upon readers the astounding combination of malice, arrogance and stupidity of the Kerry campaign.
At approximately 17:00 hours on September 10, 2004, a white male, clad in standard journalism semi-slob style, meandered into the waiting area of alleged war hero John Kerry's national campaign headquarters.
The following fracas, as recorded by the intruder's digital camera, ensued.
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION
00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25 Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27 Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44 Hymie-American: Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right]
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front desk:Seriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK
Take him out?
What is this a mafia hit?
Funny, she doesn't look Italian.
The woman must have fit perfectly with the campaign. Just another transparent hustler, as is her utterly pedestrian ultimate boss, the putative serious Catholic who probably would acquiesce in demands from NARAL for the legalization of fourth trimester abortions.
The negress spoke with affected inflections, trying to be girlie when she was nothing but John Kerry's personal bitch.
Sort of a black Maureen Dowd, too cute for her own good, she was utterly bereft of the genuine girlie and soft and fluffy tones of Jill Abramson, the elitist out-of-touch New York Times managing editor who answers her own phone. (Smooth and shrewd, for all we know, Jill has made Bill Keller HER bitch.)Most importantly, Jill knows how to handle leading questions designed to ridicule and embarass the respondent without giving any quotable quotes, let alone leaving her employer vulnerable to federal discrimination complaints.
Not so. The Kerry campaign worker (details in related story below.)
Such is John Kerry's America. Elswhere, blacks don't realize they are oppressed and whites don't act like the slave masters of Kerry's putrid paradigm.
It's morning in America.
Nearly 9:00am in the produce area of an Arlington, VA Safeway grocery store. One worker, about 5'8'', blue apron over his white shirt, concentrating on stocking up the vast bins filled with peaches, as a larger, hulk of man, perhaps 6'4" with a stomach that ranks in size with Michael Moore's watching him carefully.
The hulk is black. His charge is white, and they're talking about baseball. Later on the checkout line, with the hulk nearby, he is asked if anybody ever mistook him for Jesse Jacks, same hair same mustache.
Yeah, he laughs. You should see my father he looks even more like him. Why don't you just tell people that you are Jesse Jackson? Then you can get thousands of dollars for speaking fees?
No, he laughs, it would be my luck that just that day someone tries to shoot at him.
Read the above carefully, and think. Jesse Jackson has been threatened by many things--the truth, the ADL, his mistress, but not violence. The last civil rights leader shot was Vernon Jordan, then Urban League head, in 1980. Before that was Martin Luther King, which many blacks, laymen and "leaders" contended might have been a government plot.
It's quite possible that the hulking supermarket manager had this kind of stuff in mind--fear of the government, colluding or acting unfairly to blacks, in ways big and small, when he made his comment. Many blacks to this day cite the notorious Tuskegee experiments to justify their fear of the government, which, in the view of some, is currently embodied by the racial profiling of police departments and other law enforcement authorities.
This is the kind of stuff which could be used as a starting point for a serious discussion abour race in America. That's why Kerry stood clear of it, and opted for outdating and patronizing platitudes in New Orleans, with his own little house negress guarding the campaign HQ in DC.
His speech--just like the campaign antics, the fish rots from the head down--is striking testament to John Kerry's revolting vision of America, which these two events alone should give serious pause to those who contend he is fit to lead.
EVAN GAHR used to work for Eric Breindel and sometimes feels like he still does.
Mr. Gahr, King of All Animals for Chimpstein.com, previously broke the House Bank story (stolen by Roll Call), the story that Hillary Clinton had helped fund PLO front groups
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0598/gahr1.html, and
the Paul Weyrich story
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0126/hentoff.php
Most recently, Mr. Gahr's series of investigative reports for JewishWorldReview.com about religious conservatives collusion with reputed terrorist-friendly Muslim groups to oppose gay marriage, sparked a nationwide outcry, was picked up by, among other major media outlets, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Forward, AndrewSullivan.com and the Washington Blade, and led to the "withdrawal" of the controversial Muslim group from the Alliance for Marriage's coalition.
Many of his recent pieces--for the Washington Post, Washington Times, the American Spectator, the Women's Quarterly, the American Enterprise Magazine, are archived at
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gahr031202.asp
703-528-1021
202-431-4231
KERRY CAMPAIGN CHARGED WITH ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION
Federal and local authorities have been asked to investigate an incident late last Friday afternoon in which a journalist who meandered into Kerry campaign headquarters wielding a silver Kodak digital camera and asking questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people was expelled from the front desk reception area and threatened with arrest if he returned to the building.
In a complaint emailed to R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the journalist asserts that the Kerry campaign illegally discriminated against him based on race in violation of the landmark Civil Rights act, which many conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley opposed.
The journalist a honky-American, contends that the malicious and arbitrary of the Kerry people is illegal because they treated him differently than they might have a black person who made similar pesky inquiries.
For years, he alleges, black leaders have not only asked questions about minority underrepresentation in campaigns and conventions but loudly demanded changes, dating back to Jesse Jackson's antics when he rounded up a bunch of black people, many of them not even registered to vote, and hereded them into a Dem convention to demand more diversity among delegates.
This could be a tough sell, legally, but it raises the kind of embarassing questions--Kerry wants to safeguard America against all threats foreign and domestic but his people can't handle digital cameras--that his already faltering campaign won't be too pleased to answer.
Legally, the stronger claim could be the complaint which the journalist faxed late today to the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights.
In addition to charging racial discrimination in violation of DC human rights law, he also charges that the conduct violated the statutes prohibition against political bias because the campaign, not knowing he is a journalist, treated him with the heavy-handed manner that might be expected from a bunch of fools confronte by a pesky protestor.
To butress his point, he makes the argument that the campaign could not possibly have a legitimate, non-discriminatiry reason to expell him, such as disruption because his pesky questions and camera wielding in no way interfered with campaign activity, and the white person standing next to him smiled--digital recording available--as the journalist pressed his point regarding the dearth of minorities.
The ACLU and DC Office of Human Rights could not be reached for comment.
--EVAN GAHR
September 13, 2004
VIA FAX and EMAIL
R. Alexander Acosta
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Main
Washington, D.C. 20530
Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0293
(202) 307-2572
(202) 307-2839
Mr. Acosta:
This is a formal complaint agains the John Kery campaign and the managment of the building in which its headquarters is housed for conspiracy to deprive me of my civil rights under the law, including but not limited to discrimination in public accommodations based on race.
Petitioner is a white male, Jewish, and perceived looney tune by many conservative activists. Petitioner alleges that in the events described below he was treated differently because of his race when he was ejected from the Kerry campaign headquarters and threatened with arrest if he even entered the building again after the embarassed the campaign with questions that suggested it was way short on black people.
CHRONOLOGY
1. Petitioner is white male, Jewish, perceived by many as looney tune.
2. On September 12, petitioner entered the building that houses the Kerry Campaign national headquarters.
3. Petitioner signed his name at the log book on the guard's desk. No guard was present.
4. Petitioner walked past guard on 7th floor and into the lobby of the campaign HW.
5. Petitioner asked a series of questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people.
6. Petitioner started taking pictures. Two front desk workers names unknown, one black the other white, told him he was not allowed to take pictures? Petitioner asked under what rules?
Front desk worker said that she made the rules and she was the soveirgn of campaign.
7. Petitioner continued to film campaign with digital camera, although it might not have been noticeable and ask questions.
8. White male next to petitioner and talking to front desk woman smiled at the humor.
9. As unidentified Negros talked to white guy petitioner cut her off, asking him "is this the black hq?"
He smiled. She did not. She told guard "take him out."
The moment petitioner heard the order he started walking out. He was, nevertheless, followed downstairs by the burly guard, left the building and then walked South along 15th st. Another guard followed him and threatened with arrest if he entered the building.
DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
The campaign lacked a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for expelling petitioner, ie. under DC human rights laws, denial of service.
Reading of the transcript should reveal that complaints about picture taking were obvious pretext.
a. The expulsion was ordered when petitioner asked about dearth of minorities.
b. Respondent Negro didn't seem to realize the camera was filming
c. It is unlikely any such photo policy existed. If it does exist was it applied consistently or was petitioner singled out because of his race inquiries.
Discrimination based on race
It is standard fare for black politicians, public figures and journalist to ask questions about private institution's lack of minorities which they deem manifestation of racism and demand changes. Jesse Jackson's game is described in book titled Shake Down.
Based on information and belief the campaign was particularly vicious and singled out petitioner because he is white for saying that which it would not object if made by minorities.
OVERBREADTH
1. Petitioner did not disrupt the campaign. Rude questions even somebody else is speaking does not rise to disruption. Yes, he asked Negroes question as she was speaking to third party white to his left. But this white person hardly minded. He even smiled. Therefore the offense was not interfering with customers, but ideological.
2. The building, per above, is normally open to the public. Respondent has no authority to summarily bar petitioner from building which they occupy but do not own.
3. The black guard who bullied petitioner and threatened hi
halfway down the block from the building impeded free expression on a public sidewalk over which he has no authority and those who do have authority could not legally impede similar speech.
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION
00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44Hymie-American:Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front deskSeriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)