Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Let The Healing Begin?
Hilarious posts from Gafni's friend Ken Wilber of Integralnaked.org. He's all shocked that someone who teaches for something called Integralnaked could commit "sexual improprieties." Here are excerpts from Wilber:
...I do not believe that somebody with an acknowledged emotional illness or sexual pathology is competent to be a public spiritual teacher. Therefore, at this time, Marc will not be involved in public teaching or presentations of any sort at Integral Institute.
...Sending all of you much Love, Light, and Life,
Ken
Rabbi Yosef Blau responds on Jewschool:
Some critics of Jewish Renewal are responding to the accusations against Mordechai Gafni by criticising the movement. This should not lead to the defensive response of refusing to reevaluate the tragic dismissal of earlier accusations.
I have known Mordechai for at least twenty five years starting when he was a student and during the years that he functioned as an Orthodox rabbi. The young women who complained then and have never modified their stories, did not receive much of a hearing then from an Orthodox rabbinate that was impressed by his charisma and talent. A number of us, followed a career of short periods of brilliance as a head of an outreach program, a teacher and a congregational rabbi each ending suddenly with rumor of scandal. After changing his name and moving to Israel the pattern repeated itself. The only thorough investigation of the accusations was made by a private investigator in Israel in 1997 and it did not clear him. Based on my ongoing conversations with women who had made accusations, which was only a portion of the dossier prepared by the private investigator, the supposed investigations by various rabbis two years ago were minimal and their testimony not heard. I suggest that all the defenders read the long interview with Rabbi Gafni in the magazine (sof hashavua) of Maariv Oct. 15, 2004. If he is sick, then it is not the kind of illness that suddenly strikes someone in his mid forties and his earlier behavior should reevaluated accordingly.
Whether one supports Jewish Renewal or not is irrelevant to the fundamental issue of protecting women from abuse from an authority figure.
Micha Odenheimer writes:
Ken Wilbur has an unfortunate history of turning a blind eye, or “rehabilitating” even the most egregious offenses of people he considers “brilliant”–usually those whose ideas conform in some ways to his own. This history includes fawning praise of Da Free John, but even more significantly, continuing association with “enlightened spiritual master” Andrew Cohen, whose history of severe, ungoing and systematic psychological abuse of his followers is well documented in two books: “Enlightenment Blues” written by Andre van der Braak, a student of Cohen for 11 years, and the other, Mother of God, by Cohen’s own mother, Luna Tarno, who was also his disciple until understanding the tyrannical and narcisistic nature of Andrew’s guruship. There is also ongoing documentation on www.whatenlightenment.blogspot.com.
The Gafni connection is that, through Wilbur, Gafni met Cohen and invited him to tour Israel together with him as a guest of Bayit Hadash. I personally contacted Gafni and warned him of Cohen’s systematic humiliation of his followers, and his creation of an almost fascistic hiearchy of people “in favor” or “out of favor” with Cohen–to no avail. Gafni continued to promote Cohen in Israel. Wilbur continues to benefit from his association with Cohen and to appear with him on the pages of Cohen’s magazine “What is Enlightenment”. So there is a triangle of abuse here, with Cohen, Gafni, Wilbur, with Wilbur acting as enabler of both–and with both Cohen and Gafni returning the favor by continuing to promote Wilbur as a great philosopher and theologian of the New Age. Will Wilbur learn from the Gafni incident and reexamine the copious evidence of Cohen’s continued and extremely severe psychological abuse of followers? I doubt it.
Incidentally, as my friend Shefa Siegal has pointed out, one of the aspects of both Wilbur and Jewish Renewal’s promotion of Gafni and failure to truly investigate accusations against him despite repeated warnings is that Renewal, and I assume Wilbur’s organization, made good money from Gafni. Gafni, a facile “charismatic” speaker, was a good draw for Renewal events and for retreat centers such as Elat Chayim associated with Renewal. Whether consciously or not, I assume this was part of what kept the whole kit and kaboodle running forward.
Yeilah writes:
I am more than a little disturbed by Ken Wilbur’s assumption that Gafni’s sincerity is meaningful. People with pathologies like Gafni’s (I am assuming he has a personality disorder of some kind) are frequently sincere in their apologies once they get caught. I have personal experience with this through a family member, who has issued more than eight deeply sincere and moving apologies but hasn’t been able to stop his behaviot. People like this may mean what they say, but will often cycle through the behavior again, and then offer more sincere apologies when they get caught again. Sadly, sincerity is not a benchmark for success in this matter.
Rabbi Marc Gafni & Andrew Cohen Enlightenment, Evolution, and the Future of Judaism
Rabbi Marc Gafni is not your average Rabbi. He's an unorthodox Orthodox Rabbi, a passionate Kabbalist, a popular Israeli television host, and the founder of Bayit Chadash, an international spiritual community and retreat center committed to Jewish renaissance. Yet no matter how far from the established order he may travel, Gafni never loses sight of those most basic Judaic tenets: pray to God and live a moral, ethical, and generous life, because this life is the one that matters most!
In this videotaped conversation between two spiritual masters, Andrew's original conception of an evolutionary enlightenment engages with Rabbi Gafni's soul-level understanding of Judaism's timeless mystical teachings. Together, these two free-thinkers propel an enduring ancient tradition into the exhilarating and uncharted terrain of the future.
...I do not believe that somebody with an acknowledged emotional illness or sexual pathology is competent to be a public spiritual teacher. Therefore, at this time, Marc will not be involved in public teaching or presentations of any sort at Integral Institute.
...Sending all of you much Love, Light, and Life,
Ken
Rabbi Yosef Blau responds on Jewschool:
Some critics of Jewish Renewal are responding to the accusations against Mordechai Gafni by criticising the movement. This should not lead to the defensive response of refusing to reevaluate the tragic dismissal of earlier accusations.
I have known Mordechai for at least twenty five years starting when he was a student and during the years that he functioned as an Orthodox rabbi. The young women who complained then and have never modified their stories, did not receive much of a hearing then from an Orthodox rabbinate that was impressed by his charisma and talent. A number of us, followed a career of short periods of brilliance as a head of an outreach program, a teacher and a congregational rabbi each ending suddenly with rumor of scandal. After changing his name and moving to Israel the pattern repeated itself. The only thorough investigation of the accusations was made by a private investigator in Israel in 1997 and it did not clear him. Based on my ongoing conversations with women who had made accusations, which was only a portion of the dossier prepared by the private investigator, the supposed investigations by various rabbis two years ago were minimal and their testimony not heard. I suggest that all the defenders read the long interview with Rabbi Gafni in the magazine (sof hashavua) of Maariv Oct. 15, 2004. If he is sick, then it is not the kind of illness that suddenly strikes someone in his mid forties and his earlier behavior should reevaluated accordingly.
Whether one supports Jewish Renewal or not is irrelevant to the fundamental issue of protecting women from abuse from an authority figure.
Micha Odenheimer writes:
Ken Wilbur has an unfortunate history of turning a blind eye, or “rehabilitating” even the most egregious offenses of people he considers “brilliant”–usually those whose ideas conform in some ways to his own. This history includes fawning praise of Da Free John, but even more significantly, continuing association with “enlightened spiritual master” Andrew Cohen, whose history of severe, ungoing and systematic psychological abuse of his followers is well documented in two books: “Enlightenment Blues” written by Andre van der Braak, a student of Cohen for 11 years, and the other, Mother of God, by Cohen’s own mother, Luna Tarno, who was also his disciple until understanding the tyrannical and narcisistic nature of Andrew’s guruship. There is also ongoing documentation on www.whatenlightenment.blogspot.com.
The Gafni connection is that, through Wilbur, Gafni met Cohen and invited him to tour Israel together with him as a guest of Bayit Hadash. I personally contacted Gafni and warned him of Cohen’s systematic humiliation of his followers, and his creation of an almost fascistic hiearchy of people “in favor” or “out of favor” with Cohen–to no avail. Gafni continued to promote Cohen in Israel. Wilbur continues to benefit from his association with Cohen and to appear with him on the pages of Cohen’s magazine “What is Enlightenment”. So there is a triangle of abuse here, with Cohen, Gafni, Wilbur, with Wilbur acting as enabler of both–and with both Cohen and Gafni returning the favor by continuing to promote Wilbur as a great philosopher and theologian of the New Age. Will Wilbur learn from the Gafni incident and reexamine the copious evidence of Cohen’s continued and extremely severe psychological abuse of followers? I doubt it.
Incidentally, as my friend Shefa Siegal has pointed out, one of the aspects of both Wilbur and Jewish Renewal’s promotion of Gafni and failure to truly investigate accusations against him despite repeated warnings is that Renewal, and I assume Wilbur’s organization, made good money from Gafni. Gafni, a facile “charismatic” speaker, was a good draw for Renewal events and for retreat centers such as Elat Chayim associated with Renewal. Whether consciously or not, I assume this was part of what kept the whole kit and kaboodle running forward.
Yeilah writes:
I am more than a little disturbed by Ken Wilbur’s assumption that Gafni’s sincerity is meaningful. People with pathologies like Gafni’s (I am assuming he has a personality disorder of some kind) are frequently sincere in their apologies once they get caught. I have personal experience with this through a family member, who has issued more than eight deeply sincere and moving apologies but hasn’t been able to stop his behaviot. People like this may mean what they say, but will often cycle through the behavior again, and then offer more sincere apologies when they get caught again. Sadly, sincerity is not a benchmark for success in this matter.
Rabbi Marc Gafni & Andrew Cohen Enlightenment, Evolution, and the Future of Judaism
Rabbi Marc Gafni is not your average Rabbi. He's an unorthodox Orthodox Rabbi, a passionate Kabbalist, a popular Israeli television host, and the founder of Bayit Chadash, an international spiritual community and retreat center committed to Jewish renaissance. Yet no matter how far from the established order he may travel, Gafni never loses sight of those most basic Judaic tenets: pray to God and live a moral, ethical, and generous life, because this life is the one that matters most!
In this videotaped conversation between two spiritual masters, Andrew's original conception of an evolutionary enlightenment engages with Rabbi Gafni's soul-level understanding of Judaism's timeless mystical teachings. Together, these two free-thinkers propel an enduring ancient tradition into the exhilarating and uncharted terrain of the future.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Narcissists In Love
According to My Moral Leader, I "must" guest blog for him during his five day "spiritual retreat" in Las Vegas.I've been given a list of topics that I can and cannot discuss: no Kitten Natividad (of course); no Holly Randall (who?); but lots about Luke Ford -- the hovel-dwelling, moral-leading Jewish theologian.
Yeah, sure.
I haven't been reading Luke Ford for weeks. I needed a little break from all the self-absorption.
So, after being given my guest blogging instructions, I decided to check out the Luke Ford Family of Blogs™, including the naughty one (that I'm not allowed to mention). Perhaps, I hoped, Mr Ford has changed; perhaps he is now a more outward-focused, giving, and thoughtful human being, entering into mature, healthy relationships with other similarly well-grounded people.
Er, no.
If anything, Hovel Boy™ seems to be regressing.
Since I'm not allowed to discuss Holly Randall, I will discuss a completely different person: Rolly Handall (not her real name).
If I have the story right, Our Moral Leader started dating Rolly last Fall. Soon, Luke, a hopeless romantic, fell madly in love with the Shiksa goddess.
Luke's invisible friends [!] (i.e., the voices inside his head[!!]) convinced him that soon he'd be marrying Rolly and moving into her fabulous Malibu mansion (with its cosy book-lined study overlooking rolling hills, and horses, and a sandy beach, and the Pacific Ocean), and starting a family of ridiculously good-looking Aryan children (raised as Orthodox Jews, of course).
Too good to be true?
Afraid so.
In fact, Rolly didn't even know that Luke was her "boyfriend," and couldn't even be bothered to invite him to her parent's New Year's Eve party.
Undeterred, Our Moral Leader attends the big party. As he chats with prospective father-in-law Kumphrey Hnipe (not his real name), imparting some much needed Dennis Prageresque wisdom on the old boy, he can't help but notice his "girlfriend" throwing herself (all ho-like) at various "gentlemen," including ex-boyfriends. Eeeeewwwww!
Luke Ford, the sensitive artiste-type, storms out of the house and races back to Hovelworld™ (in the Serial Killer Van™), where he writes an angry email to Rolly announcing that the marriage is off and their relationship is over.
The End.
So what is the moral of this heartbreaking story of unrequited love/lust?
Is it that mixed relationships don't work? That a socially conservative, religious Jew like Our Moral Leader needs to stick with his own kind (who hate and reject and refuse to have sex with him), rather than running after a pagan princess (with whom he has been having weeks of blissful, chemically-enhanced sex)?
Hell, no!
The problem is that Luke Ford is a narcissist, and he must be the centre of attention in a romantic relationship. His partner must play the supporting role -- financial and emotional -- paying his (modest) bills and constantly stroking his fragile ego. Rolly, alas, is also an attention hog. She even has her own interior-type blog: a tell-tale sign of NPD.
Let's be real: there can only be one superstar in a successful relationship. Around here that superstar is Luke Ford. And don't you forget it!
This Story is Bad for the Jews (NY TIMES)
If this had not appeared in the New York Times, who among you - save the few degenerate antisemites amongst you - would have believed it? Alas, it shames me to report what the goyim are reading about us. This is not good for the Jews. And those of you who would have the city clamp down on this expression of religious liberty I ask, if today a rabbi can not suck blood out of a baby's penis, what other liberties will you lose tomorrow? Make yourself heard!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NY Times
January 6, 2006
Mayor Balances Hasidic Ritual Against Fears for Babies' Health
By JIM RUTENBERG and ANDY NEWMAN
With three days to go before Election Day, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, held what was by far the largest rally of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign. With searchlights bouncing across the Brooklyn sky and klezmer music blaring from speakers hoisted on cranes, thousands of Hasidic Jews, in black hats or head scarves, cheered the beaming mayor from rooftops and blocks upon blocks of bleachers.
When one of the most revered Orthodox leaders, Rabbi David Niederman, addressed the throngs, he praised the mayor for his push to create more affordable housing, his takeover of the public schools and his support for the constitutional separation of church and state.
For many in the crowd, the last reference was code for the administration's decision to hold off from taking action against an ancient form of ritualistic circumcision practiced by some Hasidic rabbis that had been linked to three cases of neonatal herpes in late 2004, one of them fatal.
But now, with the election over, the city's Health Department, while not banning the procedure, is angering those Hasidic leaders just the same by pushing a public health campaign against the rite, in which the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the circumcision wound to clean it. The department took the action after linking the rite to additional cases of herpes in infants, one of whom suffered brain damage as a result.
Some in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities say the city is infringing upon their religious rights. They go so far as to accuse Mr. Bloomberg of reneging on what they say they took as an election-year assurance that the administration would leave the matter to rabbinical authorities. But others outside those communities had been harshly critical of the administration, saying that it failed to take adequate action against a practice that has been endangering the lives of infants.
The dispute, which had the mayor trying to calm rabbinical leaders at Gracie Mansion yesterday in what his aides called a frank exchange, has put Mr. Bloomberg in the rare position of balancing a key constituency against the policies of one of his most trusted commissioners. And it occurs against the backdrop of the roiling ethnic politics of New York, with Orthodox leaders having threatened to disrupt the mayor's inauguration last Sunday by wearing yellow stars like the ones Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
The Bloomberg administration denies that politics have had anything to do with its decisions, and administration officials say they made no pre-election promises regarding the rite.
"The mayor has a fundamental commitment to public health," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the commissioner of health and mental hygiene. "That didn't change when it looked like the smoking ban was going to cost him re-election, and it didn't change in this case."
Still, Dr. Frieden said, there were plenty of other factors to make an issue affecting a small percentage of city Jews as thorny as the smoking ban that the mayor pushed in 2002, which affected millions. In this case, Dr. Frieden said, the administration is trying to balance religious rights against the health of infants by educating parents about the dangers of the procedure.
"There's no question this is one of the most delicate issues I've ever had to deal with," he said.
Dr. Frieden and other officials said they were forced to act in recent weeks after discovering the two new cases of herpes infection.
But some Hasidic leaders see political motivations at work.
"The whole thing seems to be that Bloomberg before the election just told the health commissioner, 'Listen, cool it down, and wait till after the election,' " said Isac Weinberger, a leader in the Satmar Hasidic sect in Williamsburg. "It was a flip-flop. He fooled the community."
The health department began focusing on the risks of the procedure, known as metzitzah b'peh, after it learned that one boy in Staten Island and twins in Brooklyn, circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004, contracted Type-1 herpes.
That form of herpes can prove deadly for infants, who, health officials argue, are of particular risk during metzitzah b'peh. Most non-Orthodox Jews have abandoned the practice, as have even many Orthodox Jews.
But Orthodox rabbis who support the procedure say 2,000 to 4,000 such circumcisions are still performed each year in the city. They insist the procedure is safe and does not transmit herpes, which can be contracted by infants from their mothers, during childbirth. For some Jews the procedure is crucial to raising boys in a Jewish tradition.
"We chose America because of religious freedom. That's why we are here," Rabbi Niederman said this week in an interview at City Hall. "There is no compromise on this issue, because we know it is safe."
The issue erupted in August, when the health department prepared an order prohibiting the mohel whom the department had linked to the three cases of herpes, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, from performing further circumcisions. After members of the Central Rabbinical Congress promised to keep him from performing circumcisions and to investigate the cases involving him, the health department stopped drafting the order.
The mayor and his health commissioner said they would continue to study the matter but that they would not ban the practice, with Mr. Frieden saying that such a ban could be seen as interfering with religious freedom, and that a ban would be unenforceable anyway.
And, in a message heard loud and clear by rabbinical leaders, Mr. Bloomberg said on his radio program, "It is not the government's business to tell people how to practice their religion," although he also promised, "We're going to do a study, and make sure that everyone is safe."
Some outside the Hasidic communities criticized the mayor's statement, seeing it as a decided change of tack for an administration that had banned smoking and taken an aggressive stand on public health issues in general.
"He has made it legally impossible to have a cigarette and a cocktail at the same time, anywhere in the city," fumed the writer Christopher Hitchens on Slate in August. "I'll trade him his stupid prohibitionist ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics."
An editorial last week in a local Yiddish newspaper, Der Blatt, cited the mayor's position then as a catalyst for the huge campaign rally for him on Nov. 5 in Williamsburg.
"What has been promised to us prior to the recent elections - and this was the only request we made - was that the subject of metzitzah b'peh should be completely untouched by the city department of health," the editorial said. "This and only this was the reason why thousands of Orthodox Jews registered themselves to vote, undersigned a petition to the mayor, came out in droves, men, women and children, to an unprecedented rally."
Rabbi Niederman said this week that he believed that Orthodox Jews supported Mr. Bloomberg because of many of his policies, not just his position on the rite, and said it would be unfair to question his political motives. Nonetheless, he said, "Before the election, we were very proud that the mayor did the right thing."
He said he was "astonished" and "shocked" by the city's more recent actions.
In December, Dr. Frieden wrote an "open letter" to Jews recommending against the practice and highlighting an alternative in which a sterile tube is used. He has also announced a plan to hand out literature about the practice's dangers to postnatal mothers. And a new health department alert has reminded hospitals of a mandate to report what Dr. Frieden described as "all unusual manifestations of disease" in newborns.
Dr. Frieden said his hand was forced when his department discovered the new cases of neonatal herpes - one coming in the spring, the other, in which the infant suffered brain damage, coming in October - and conclusively determined that they and the earlier cases were caused by metzitzah b'peh.
He emphasized that the city had no plans to take more aggressive action against the procedure. "I really have bought into the worldview that says for some part of the community metzitzah b'peh is integral to circumcision, and circumcision is integral to being Jewish," he said.
One public health specialist, Dr. William M. McCormack, director of the infectious disease program at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, said Dr. Frieden's move "was probably the least that he could have done with a clear conscience."
But members of the Central Rabbinical Congress said that Dr. Frieden was in effect going over rabbis' heads by talking directly to their congregations in an attempt to persuade them to abandon a centuries old religious practice.
An open letter responding to Dr. Frieden, signed by "a member of the Jewish community" but approved by Hasidic leaders, said, "The citizens of the observant Jewish community live by the our own Director of Surveillance, with mandates that have guided and preserved our families for thousands of years."
Rabbi Niederman, who attended last night's meeting at Gracie Mansion, said the mayor calmed the rabbis by calling for a meeting of doctors who agree with the city and doctors who agree with the rabbis at which they would find "common ground."
"Maybe it needs a Camp David, you know what I mean, for three days, and nobody leave the room until an agreement is reached," Rabbi Niederman said.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NY Times
January 6, 2006
Mayor Balances Hasidic Ritual Against Fears for Babies' Health
By JIM RUTENBERG and ANDY NEWMAN
With three days to go before Election Day, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, held what was by far the largest rally of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign. With searchlights bouncing across the Brooklyn sky and klezmer music blaring from speakers hoisted on cranes, thousands of Hasidic Jews, in black hats or head scarves, cheered the beaming mayor from rooftops and blocks upon blocks of bleachers.
When one of the most revered Orthodox leaders, Rabbi David Niederman, addressed the throngs, he praised the mayor for his push to create more affordable housing, his takeover of the public schools and his support for the constitutional separation of church and state.
For many in the crowd, the last reference was code for the administration's decision to hold off from taking action against an ancient form of ritualistic circumcision practiced by some Hasidic rabbis that had been linked to three cases of neonatal herpes in late 2004, one of them fatal.
But now, with the election over, the city's Health Department, while not banning the procedure, is angering those Hasidic leaders just the same by pushing a public health campaign against the rite, in which the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the circumcision wound to clean it. The department took the action after linking the rite to additional cases of herpes in infants, one of whom suffered brain damage as a result.
Some in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities say the city is infringing upon their religious rights. They go so far as to accuse Mr. Bloomberg of reneging on what they say they took as an election-year assurance that the administration would leave the matter to rabbinical authorities. But others outside those communities had been harshly critical of the administration, saying that it failed to take adequate action against a practice that has been endangering the lives of infants.
The dispute, which had the mayor trying to calm rabbinical leaders at Gracie Mansion yesterday in what his aides called a frank exchange, has put Mr. Bloomberg in the rare position of balancing a key constituency against the policies of one of his most trusted commissioners. And it occurs against the backdrop of the roiling ethnic politics of New York, with Orthodox leaders having threatened to disrupt the mayor's inauguration last Sunday by wearing yellow stars like the ones Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
The Bloomberg administration denies that politics have had anything to do with its decisions, and administration officials say they made no pre-election promises regarding the rite.
"The mayor has a fundamental commitment to public health," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the commissioner of health and mental hygiene. "That didn't change when it looked like the smoking ban was going to cost him re-election, and it didn't change in this case."
Still, Dr. Frieden said, there were plenty of other factors to make an issue affecting a small percentage of city Jews as thorny as the smoking ban that the mayor pushed in 2002, which affected millions. In this case, Dr. Frieden said, the administration is trying to balance religious rights against the health of infants by educating parents about the dangers of the procedure.
"There's no question this is one of the most delicate issues I've ever had to deal with," he said.
Dr. Frieden and other officials said they were forced to act in recent weeks after discovering the two new cases of herpes infection.
But some Hasidic leaders see political motivations at work.
"The whole thing seems to be that Bloomberg before the election just told the health commissioner, 'Listen, cool it down, and wait till after the election,' " said Isac Weinberger, a leader in the Satmar Hasidic sect in Williamsburg. "It was a flip-flop. He fooled the community."
The health department began focusing on the risks of the procedure, known as metzitzah b'peh, after it learned that one boy in Staten Island and twins in Brooklyn, circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004, contracted Type-1 herpes.
That form of herpes can prove deadly for infants, who, health officials argue, are of particular risk during metzitzah b'peh. Most non-Orthodox Jews have abandoned the practice, as have even many Orthodox Jews.
But Orthodox rabbis who support the procedure say 2,000 to 4,000 such circumcisions are still performed each year in the city. They insist the procedure is safe and does not transmit herpes, which can be contracted by infants from their mothers, during childbirth. For some Jews the procedure is crucial to raising boys in a Jewish tradition.
"We chose America because of religious freedom. That's why we are here," Rabbi Niederman said this week in an interview at City Hall. "There is no compromise on this issue, because we know it is safe."
The issue erupted in August, when the health department prepared an order prohibiting the mohel whom the department had linked to the three cases of herpes, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, from performing further circumcisions. After members of the Central Rabbinical Congress promised to keep him from performing circumcisions and to investigate the cases involving him, the health department stopped drafting the order.
The mayor and his health commissioner said they would continue to study the matter but that they would not ban the practice, with Mr. Frieden saying that such a ban could be seen as interfering with religious freedom, and that a ban would be unenforceable anyway.
And, in a message heard loud and clear by rabbinical leaders, Mr. Bloomberg said on his radio program, "It is not the government's business to tell people how to practice their religion," although he also promised, "We're going to do a study, and make sure that everyone is safe."
Some outside the Hasidic communities criticized the mayor's statement, seeing it as a decided change of tack for an administration that had banned smoking and taken an aggressive stand on public health issues in general.
"He has made it legally impossible to have a cigarette and a cocktail at the same time, anywhere in the city," fumed the writer Christopher Hitchens on Slate in August. "I'll trade him his stupid prohibitionist ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics."
An editorial last week in a local Yiddish newspaper, Der Blatt, cited the mayor's position then as a catalyst for the huge campaign rally for him on Nov. 5 in Williamsburg.
"What has been promised to us prior to the recent elections - and this was the only request we made - was that the subject of metzitzah b'peh should be completely untouched by the city department of health," the editorial said. "This and only this was the reason why thousands of Orthodox Jews registered themselves to vote, undersigned a petition to the mayor, came out in droves, men, women and children, to an unprecedented rally."
Rabbi Niederman said this week that he believed that Orthodox Jews supported Mr. Bloomberg because of many of his policies, not just his position on the rite, and said it would be unfair to question his political motives. Nonetheless, he said, "Before the election, we were very proud that the mayor did the right thing."
He said he was "astonished" and "shocked" by the city's more recent actions.
In December, Dr. Frieden wrote an "open letter" to Jews recommending against the practice and highlighting an alternative in which a sterile tube is used. He has also announced a plan to hand out literature about the practice's dangers to postnatal mothers. And a new health department alert has reminded hospitals of a mandate to report what Dr. Frieden described as "all unusual manifestations of disease" in newborns.
Dr. Frieden said his hand was forced when his department discovered the new cases of neonatal herpes - one coming in the spring, the other, in which the infant suffered brain damage, coming in October - and conclusively determined that they and the earlier cases were caused by metzitzah b'peh.
He emphasized that the city had no plans to take more aggressive action against the procedure. "I really have bought into the worldview that says for some part of the community metzitzah b'peh is integral to circumcision, and circumcision is integral to being Jewish," he said.
One public health specialist, Dr. William M. McCormack, director of the infectious disease program at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, said Dr. Frieden's move "was probably the least that he could have done with a clear conscience."
But members of the Central Rabbinical Congress said that Dr. Frieden was in effect going over rabbis' heads by talking directly to their congregations in an attempt to persuade them to abandon a centuries old religious practice.
An open letter responding to Dr. Frieden, signed by "a member of the Jewish community" but approved by Hasidic leaders, said, "The citizens of the observant Jewish community live by the our own Director of Surveillance, with mandates that have guided and preserved our families for thousands of years."
Rabbi Niederman, who attended last night's meeting at Gracie Mansion, said the mayor calmed the rabbis by calling for a meeting of doctors who agree with the city and doctors who agree with the rabbis at which they would find "common ground."
"Maybe it needs a Camp David, you know what I mean, for three days, and nobody leave the room until an agreement is reached," Rabbi Niederman said.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Coming Soon
Yourmoralleader (and mine) is traveling for restorative purposes the next few days.
Watch this space as we apply lessons taught in the Book of Job to modern life.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Flyover Country
Yourmoralleader is somewhere over Middle America, headed west to the hovel.
His mission in Tampa complete, we anxiously await the next chapter...
Monday, October 10, 2005
The Humiliation Continues
Apparently I'm a girl.
Here's my picture. Does that look like a girl to you, Bill?
I didn't think so. Thanks for the compliment about my writing, though.
Of course, I know full well just how worthless male compliments are when the intended recipient is a woman, or thought to be a woman. This is not to say that men lie to women, although we do (a lot); it's more a comment on male gullibility.
A year or so ago there was a controversy about the lack of big name female bloggers. Male writers, supposedly, were failing to link and promote the many talented women political bloggers. At least this is what some women (i.e., lesbians) thought.
A lot of women (and not just lesbians) don't understand the male mind. As if men are going to ignore women who write about politics (or sports, or computers, or cars). Ever heard of Michelle Malkin? Or consider the case of Libertarian Girl. A young man worked very hard on his political blog for months on end. But he just couldn't generate traffic. So he decided to call himself "Libertarian Girl," added a picture of a blonde woman (from a Russian mail order bride service), and immediately his hit total went through the roof. Why? Because men are stupid.
I had a similar experience a few years ago. I was watching a reality show and started to post comments on a message board. I thought my comments were interesting and thoughtful, but hardly anyone seemed to agree. I'd start a new thread and ... nothing. I was being ignored. I hate that!
So, as an experiment, I created a new account with a female name. I started posting exactly the same kind of observations and, as if by magic, other posters (i.e., men) started to respond enthusiastically to my comments, saying how interesting and thoughtful they were. It didn't stop there, though. Some started emailing me to compliment me on my perceptiveness. One creep even wanted me to go over to his place and ...
Eeeeewwwww!
Men are gullible, stupid, and gross.
Why do women put up with us? Perhaps because we enjoy spending money on them. I'd really be interested to find out how much money Michelle Malkin makes from her blog. I bet she doesn't live in a hovel.
Men are incredibly foolish when it comes to women and money. There's even a columnist for a weekly magazine in Orange County (who will go nameless, but here's a pic),
who constantly asks men to send her money and presents. And guess what? They do! Why? Because men are gullible, stupid, gross, and pathetic.
You'd think lots of men would start political blogs pretending to be attractive young women, complete with bogus pictures. Just add a Paypal button and ... easy money. I'm sure of it.
This was my mistake, because I'm still waiting for Luke Ford to pay me the $100 (actually, I think it's now up to $140) that he owes me for guest blogging. He's giving me the run around. Now he tells me he just doesn't have the money to pay me. This is an outrage! How can someone who goes on one fabulous vacation after another (London, Paris, and Florida), turn around and say he can't pay his guest bloggers? Next week he'll probably announce that he's going on a year-long world cruise, and taking a half-a-dozen teenage girls with him.
I really think that you (Bill), me, and Al should get together and launch a class action lawsuit. It's the only way we'll get paid ... unless we're prepared to undergo sex change operations.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Here's my picture. Does that look like a girl to you, Bill?
I didn't think so. Thanks for the compliment about my writing, though.
Of course, I know full well just how worthless male compliments are when the intended recipient is a woman, or thought to be a woman. This is not to say that men lie to women, although we do (a lot); it's more a comment on male gullibility.
A year or so ago there was a controversy about the lack of big name female bloggers. Male writers, supposedly, were failing to link and promote the many talented women political bloggers. At least this is what some women (i.e., lesbians) thought.
A lot of women (and not just lesbians) don't understand the male mind. As if men are going to ignore women who write about politics (or sports, or computers, or cars). Ever heard of Michelle Malkin? Or consider the case of Libertarian Girl. A young man worked very hard on his political blog for months on end. But he just couldn't generate traffic. So he decided to call himself "Libertarian Girl," added a picture of a blonde woman (from a Russian mail order bride service), and immediately his hit total went through the roof. Why? Because men are stupid.
I had a similar experience a few years ago. I was watching a reality show and started to post comments on a message board. I thought my comments were interesting and thoughtful, but hardly anyone seemed to agree. I'd start a new thread and ... nothing. I was being ignored. I hate that!
So, as an experiment, I created a new account with a female name. I started posting exactly the same kind of observations and, as if by magic, other posters (i.e., men) started to respond enthusiastically to my comments, saying how interesting and thoughtful they were. It didn't stop there, though. Some started emailing me to compliment me on my perceptiveness. One creep even wanted me to go over to his place and ...
Eeeeewwwww!
Men are gullible, stupid, and gross.
Why do women put up with us? Perhaps because we enjoy spending money on them. I'd really be interested to find out how much money Michelle Malkin makes from her blog. I bet she doesn't live in a hovel.
Men are incredibly foolish when it comes to women and money. There's even a columnist for a weekly magazine in Orange County (who will go nameless, but here's a pic),
who constantly asks men to send her money and presents. And guess what? They do! Why? Because men are gullible, stupid, gross, and pathetic.You'd think lots of men would start political blogs pretending to be attractive young women, complete with bogus pictures. Just add a Paypal button and ... easy money. I'm sure of it.
This was my mistake, because I'm still waiting for Luke Ford to pay me the $100 (actually, I think it's now up to $140) that he owes me for guest blogging. He's giving me the run around. Now he tells me he just doesn't have the money to pay me. This is an outrage! How can someone who goes on one fabulous vacation after another (London, Paris, and Florida), turn around and say he can't pay his guest bloggers? Next week he'll probably announce that he's going on a year-long world cruise, and taking a half-a-dozen teenage girls with him.
I really think that you (Bill), me, and Al should get together and launch a class action lawsuit. It's the only way we'll get paid ... unless we're prepared to undergo sex change operations.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
I'm not sure I like This
I just heard that yourmoralleader was lying back in a lawnchair, poolside, in the greater Tampa Bay Area. The light is on in the deep end and the warm light glows from below the diving board. He's talking (slurring, actually) to another blog owner and bragging : "my guest bloggers are better than your guest bloggers".
Better for him, that is.
Word is that the other bloggers guest blogger gets free run of said bloggers apartment, complete with a stocked refrigerator, and that said bloggers digs aren't a hovel. The other bloggers apartment has wall to wall carpet, as if there's any other kind, and it has NO pet stains.
Well, I just hope that yourmoralleader enjoys himself at our expense, and remembers that the single malt he drinks neat tonight is paid for by our blood, sweat and tears and so-called $20.00/post.
Better for him, that is.
Word is that the other bloggers guest blogger gets free run of said bloggers apartment, complete with a stocked refrigerator, and that said bloggers digs aren't a hovel. The other bloggers apartment has wall to wall carpet, as if there's any other kind, and it has NO pet stains.
Well, I just hope that yourmoralleader enjoys himself at our expense, and remembers that the single malt he drinks neat tonight is paid for by our blood, sweat and tears and so-called $20.00/post.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Sun City Center and Free Vacation Getaways.
Well, I can't speak for what my co-guest-blogger says, and I hate to follow her posts. They're so witty and so much in the true spirit of lukeford.net that I just want to step back and read them over and over again. Luckily, they usually get picked up and re-posted elsewhere on the net so I get to see them more than once or twice.
I don't know about the extra curriculars ourmoralleader may be engaging in while on Florida's gold coast but I do know why he went. The great Luke Ford has reached that stage in a Jews life that he begins to plan for the future. He begins looking for his place in the sun, replete with shuffleboard, Buicks, golf carts, pick-up chess matches under kapok trees and early bird specials. Being a newly minted west coast Jew you might think he'd look in Arizona or New Mexico, where condo prices are more reasonable and the infrastructure less taxed but Luke knows what we know. The best Jews in North America are from New York, and New York Jews move to Florida.
So, in response to a 4 color postcard solicitation delivered straight to the hovel by a branch of the Unites States Government, Luke headed to the greater Tampa Bay Area for a four hour, no obligation presentation of the amenities and benefits of living out his golden years in Sun City Center Though this is a 55 plus community, ourmoralleader must be prepared for what the future holds. Besides, playing the part of a 55 yo is no stretch for him.
Though I'm waiting patiently, I haven't heard if he put his deposit down on a condo on the fairway or opted for the townhouses closer to shopping. I do know he had a problem with security, and it had to do with the thumb operated bell on the three wheeled bicycle he was riding and an unbalanced load in the rear basket. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured and the resolution was amicable.
So, don't be surprised if future updates are timestamped in EST and the focus turns to the rising price of everything. Luke's at home now, and not likely to return.
Godspeed, Luke. Godspeed.
Bill
PS, Should you see her, please tell Rabbi Kami I said hello.
I don't know about the extra curriculars ourmoralleader may be engaging in while on Florida's gold coast but I do know why he went. The great Luke Ford has reached that stage in a Jews life that he begins to plan for the future. He begins looking for his place in the sun, replete with shuffleboard, Buicks, golf carts, pick-up chess matches under kapok trees and early bird specials. Being a newly minted west coast Jew you might think he'd look in Arizona or New Mexico, where condo prices are more reasonable and the infrastructure less taxed but Luke knows what we know. The best Jews in North America are from New York, and New York Jews move to Florida.
So, in response to a 4 color postcard solicitation delivered straight to the hovel by a branch of the Unites States Government, Luke headed to the greater Tampa Bay Area for a four hour, no obligation presentation of the amenities and benefits of living out his golden years in Sun City Center Though this is a 55 plus community, ourmoralleader must be prepared for what the future holds. Besides, playing the part of a 55 yo is no stretch for him.
Though I'm waiting patiently, I haven't heard if he put his deposit down on a condo on the fairway or opted for the townhouses closer to shopping. I do know he had a problem with security, and it had to do with the thumb operated bell on the three wheeled bicycle he was riding and an unbalanced load in the rear basket. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured and the resolution was amicable.
So, don't be surprised if future updates are timestamped in EST and the focus turns to the rising price of everything. Luke's at home now, and not likely to return.
Godspeed, Luke. Godspeed.
Bill
PS, Should you see her, please tell Rabbi Kami I said hello.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Judeo-Pagan Chicks Rule
Luke Ford has asked me to guest blog for him (again). I reluctantly agreed (again) -- knowing full well that I was about to get screwed (again).
Because some people think I lie -- which is rubbish -- here, in full, is Mr Ford's original email sent to me before his trip to Europe: "Would you like to guest blog on Lukeford.net?"
Mr Ford is certainly a man of few words, and those few words clearly state that I was offered to blog on his main site, not his backup blog: a blog with a horrible template; a blog that nobody reads; a blog that I didn't even know existed until he told me that he had changed his mind that I wasn't to pollute his precious Lukeford.net site with my potentially offensive scribblings. And now he's doing it to me again -- and, worse still, making no announcement whatsoever that there will be guest bloggers during his Tampa trip.
What is My Moral Leader thinking? Is he trying to humiliate me? Was I too understated in communicating my displeasure at being banished here during Luke Ford's Euro Teen Tour 2005?
According to Kate Fox, as cited by Luke Ford:
HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME -- YOUR NUMBER ONE[ish] FAN -- THIS WAY, YOU BASTARD!
I'm so furious. I can't even think straight. My blogging will be even more lame than usual.
I wouldn't mind it so much if I could get a straight answer out of the dude. He still won't tell me why he de-linked my fan site. He won't tell me when, or if, he will pay the $100 he owes me from my first stint as a guest blogger. He wouldn't even explain to me why he's going to Tampa. When I pressed him, he answered obliquely, almost English-like, something about a big convention for moral leaders.
"Oh really?" I said. "I suppose your moral leader, the Great Dennis Prager, will be attending?"
"I don't know, maybe ..." Rat Bastard mumbled.
"Speak up," I demanded.
Rat Bastard said: "I gotta pack. Bye."
Well, I've been doing some research on the Internet about this moral leader conference. And, yes, indeed such a meeting is taking place between October 6-11 in Tampa, Florida. It's a convention of leading Jewish theologians from across America. All the different branches of the Jewish family will be there: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Humanistic (i.e., atheist), Judeo-Pagan.
The Judeo-Pagan delegation especially caught my eye. They're all females. That's a bit strange, I thought. Then again the Judeo-Pagans are different. They don't observe the Halakhah. They don't even believe in the Jewish G-d. Rather, they believe in doing whatever you feel, whenever you feel like it, which kind of defeats the purpose of religion doesn't it? You'd think.
A lot of them seem to be converts, or at least that's the impression I got from looking at the names of the various Judeo-Pagan rabbis set to speak. Some like Rabbi Katie Gold and Rabbi Daphne Rosen are presumably ethnic Jews, but others I'm not so sure about. Rabbis Mari Possa, Rita Faltoyano, and Flower Tucci sound ethnic Italians. Rabbi Carmen Luvana could be Cuban, but there's a small Jewish community in Cuba, so it's difficult to know for sure. Rabbi Courtney Cummz, who will be lecturing on the concept of Tikkun Olam, doesn't sound Jewish at all. I'll have to ask Mr Ford about this when he returns from the conference -- assuming he's still talking to me.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Because some people think I lie -- which is rubbish -- here, in full, is Mr Ford's original email sent to me before his trip to Europe: "Would you like to guest blog on Lukeford.net?"
Mr Ford is certainly a man of few words, and those few words clearly state that I was offered to blog on his main site, not his backup blog: a blog with a horrible template; a blog that nobody reads; a blog that I didn't even know existed until he told me that he had changed his mind that I wasn't to pollute his precious Lukeford.net site with my potentially offensive scribblings. And now he's doing it to me again -- and, worse still, making no announcement whatsoever that there will be guest bloggers during his Tampa trip.
What is My Moral Leader thinking? Is he trying to humiliate me? Was I too understated in communicating my displeasure at being banished here during Luke Ford's Euro Teen Tour 2005?
According to Kate Fox, as cited by Luke Ford:
Ideally, the English male would rather not issue any definite invitation at all, sexual or social, preferring to achieve his goal through a series of subtle hints and oblique manoeuvres, often so understated to be almost undetectable. This "uncertainty" principle has a number of advantages: the English male is not required to exhibit any emotions ...That sounds just like me! Apparently Mr Ford's Cro-Magnon Australian brain doesn't get subtlety. Obviously I have been overly oblique and emotionally restrained. So I will put things in terms that Mr Ford can understand:
HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME -- YOUR NUMBER ONE[ish] FAN -- THIS WAY, YOU BASTARD!
I'm so furious. I can't even think straight. My blogging will be even more lame than usual.
I wouldn't mind it so much if I could get a straight answer out of the dude. He still won't tell me why he de-linked my fan site. He won't tell me when, or if, he will pay the $100 he owes me from my first stint as a guest blogger. He wouldn't even explain to me why he's going to Tampa. When I pressed him, he answered obliquely, almost English-like, something about a big convention for moral leaders.
"Oh really?" I said. "I suppose your moral leader, the Great Dennis Prager, will be attending?"
"I don't know, maybe ..." Rat Bastard mumbled.
"Speak up," I demanded.
Rat Bastard said: "I gotta pack. Bye."
Well, I've been doing some research on the Internet about this moral leader conference. And, yes, indeed such a meeting is taking place between October 6-11 in Tampa, Florida. It's a convention of leading Jewish theologians from across America. All the different branches of the Jewish family will be there: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Humanistic (i.e., atheist), Judeo-Pagan.
The Judeo-Pagan delegation especially caught my eye. They're all females. That's a bit strange, I thought. Then again the Judeo-Pagans are different. They don't observe the Halakhah. They don't even believe in the Jewish G-d. Rather, they believe in doing whatever you feel, whenever you feel like it, which kind of defeats the purpose of religion doesn't it? You'd think.
A lot of them seem to be converts, or at least that's the impression I got from looking at the names of the various Judeo-Pagan rabbis set to speak. Some like Rabbi Katie Gold and Rabbi Daphne Rosen are presumably ethnic Jews, but others I'm not so sure about. Rabbis Mari Possa, Rita Faltoyano, and Flower Tucci sound ethnic Italians. Rabbi Carmen Luvana could be Cuban, but there's a small Jewish community in Cuba, so it's difficult to know for sure. Rabbi Courtney Cummz, who will be lecturing on the concept of Tikkun Olam, doesn't sound Jewish at all. I'll have to ask Mr Ford about this when he returns from the conference -- assuming he's still talking to me.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Here we go Again
I capitalize letters based on how I think they will look on the page. Especially in subject lines.
I want to do my best for Luke while he's jetting off to Florida, U-S-A so expect to hear more from me soon. For once I know why he's headed southeast and I intend to spill it all.
Bill
I want to do my best for Luke while he's jetting off to Florida, U-S-A so expect to hear more from me soon. For once I know why he's headed southeast and I intend to spill it all.
Bill
Thursday, September 29, 2005
So Sorry
According to David Scott, I'm "dishonest," a "doodie-head," and "the worst guest blogger in the history of guest blogging." And that's just what he's called me in public. In a private email, Mr Scott wrote: "I hate you! You are going to hell, you evil atheistical bastard you! DIE! DIE! DIE!"Let's face it, I suck (a lot).
Not only are my posts incredibly lame, I've been able to come up with just four of them -- this when I promised Mr Ford that I'd update his blog at least five (but no more than ten) times a day.
Luke Ford was ever so kind to ask me to guest blog for him, and incredibly generous to offer me $20 per post. To think, I could've been making up to (but no more than) $200 per day! Alas, I've only made $80 so far.
I hate me (a lot).
But hey, my miserable failure as a guest blogger is, at least, partially Luke Ford's fault. How come no one is pointing a finger at Our Moral Leader and calling him a "doodie-head"? After all, he's the one who shunted me off to his backup blogger site with this stupid template. You try writing first-rate material using this template. It's tough, man.
When I agreed to guest blog for Mr Ford, I was led to believe that I'd be writing on LukeFordDotNet, not this aesthetic disaster with it's awful colour scheme and too narrow margins. The margins are sooooo inhibiting. I can't use big words. They won't fit. Now people think I'm stupid.
And why was I forced to blog here rather than on LukeFordDotNet? Because, like you Mr Scott, Our Moral Leader thinks I'm dishonest.
After I agreed to guest blog, Mr Ford sent me an email with a long list of topics that I couldn't discuss. And even though I promised not to mention them (I crossed my little heart and hoped to die), he still decided to stick me here. Then he had the nerve to warn me (again!) to especially not write about ____, or he would change his blogger password, prevent me from posting, and not pay me!
Imagine how terrible I felt when the Great Luke Ford told me in effect he didn't trust me.
Hurt, that's how I felt! I'm not stupid. I know why I'm here and not on LukeFordDotNet with its supercool minimalist, all-white design.
Yeah my posts suck: they're mean-spirited; there's way too much blockquoting; and there's been too few of them. But I'm still depressed from Mr Ford's cruel de-linking of my fan blog. And then for him not to let me post on LukeFordDotNet, well, it was just too much for me.
I think it's fair to say that there's enough blame to go around: emotionally distraught me; un-trusting rat bastard Luke Ford; and this godawful blogger template. So have a little compassion, Mr Scott. Wasn't it Jesus who said [KJV]: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone"?
For a dude convinced that the world was about to end, Jesus sure came up with some really good aphorisms.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Say It Ain't So
With Our Moral Leader hanging out with teenage girls across England (and now Paris) it's up to us, his many followers, to start thinking for ourselves. But, alas, thinking is hard -- at least it is for me. So, I've been forced to search the Internet looking for articles on religion and morality as I await Mr Ford's return to regular blogging.
I've found four interesting articles: the first laments the loss of Biblical literacy; the second, by a post-Marxist, points to the Biblical foundations of modern democratic politics; the third contrasts Jewish and Christian ideas on the morality of hate; and, lastly, an article from the BBC (of course!) suggesting that religion, and by inference Biblical morality, is bunk.
Unfortunately, I regard the last article to be the most persuasive of the four. You see this is what happens when the Great Luke Ford puts his holidaying pleasures above tending to the moral needs of his flock -- we get tempted by dangerous ideas, like science, secularism, and fantasies about partying with hot English (and Parisian) teens!
1) In "The Bible Tells Me So: Biblical illiteracy is a shame" the Wall Street Journal's Adam Nicolson writes:
Reading Soloveichek and Jacoby it may appear that Christian morality is clearly superior to the Jewish alternative. But hating one's enemies, and doing them harm, is a pragmatic philosophy in a way that turning one's cheek is not. Jesus' teachings should be understood within their intended (narrow) context. Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. He told His followers to behave as if they were already living in the Kingdom of God: to love their enemies, give up their material possessions, leave their families, if necessary, and follow Him, for the world was about to end.
Now if that sounds nutty consider the following.
4) In "God on the Brain" Liz Tucker points to the scienfitic evidence that the very religious, especially those claiming to have experienced religious visions, suffer from a brain disorder:
Oh my.
Mr Ford isn't going to be pleased to find out that he may be suffering from yet another medical condition. I'll have to ask him about this when he returns from Europe. Assuming, that is, that he does return. I have a terrible fear that Mr Ford forgot to pack all his (many) medications, and in a moment of unmedicated weakness he will do something stupid with, or worse to, one (or more) of his teenage admirers, and just like Roman Polanski, he'll never be allowed to return to America (and The Hovel™).
Let us pray that a) the Great Luke Ford isn't a fruitcake, and b) that he proves this by returning from his European vacation with his morals safely intact.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
I've found four interesting articles: the first laments the loss of Biblical literacy; the second, by a post-Marxist, points to the Biblical foundations of modern democratic politics; the third contrasts Jewish and Christian ideas on the morality of hate; and, lastly, an article from the BBC (of course!) suggesting that religion, and by inference Biblical morality, is bunk.
Unfortunately, I regard the last article to be the most persuasive of the four. You see this is what happens when the Great Luke Ford puts his holidaying pleasures above tending to the moral needs of his flock -- we get tempted by dangerous ideas, like science, secularism, and fantasies about partying with hot English (and Parisian) teens!
1) In "The Bible Tells Me So: Biblical illiteracy is a shame" the Wall Street Journal's Adam Nicolson writes:
Up until, say, 100 years ago, biblical literacy would have been practically mandatory. If you didn't know what "the powers that be" originally referred to, or where "the writing on the wall" was first seen, or what was meant by "the patience of Job," "Jacob's ladder" or "the salt of the earth"-- if you didn't know what an exodus was or a genesis, a fatted or a golden calf -- you would have been excluded from the culture. It might be said that a civilization consists, at its core, of these easily transmitted packages of implication. They are one of the mechanisms by which cultures can be both efficient and rich. You don't have to return to first principles every time you wish to communicate ... Without the set of archetypes and fount of wisdom in the Bible, our lives would be thinner and poorer. I know my own life would have been immeasurably less if I had never encountered the majestic language of scriptural stories, as told in the King James Version.2) History professor Richard Wolin discusses left-wing German philosopher Jurgen Habermas' interest in the role of Judeo-Christian belief in a healthy democracy:
Among 19th-century thinkers it was an uncontestable commonplace that religion's cultural centrality was a thing of the past. For Georg Hegel, following in the footsteps of the Enlightenment, religion had been surpassed by reason's superior conceptual precision. In The Essence of Christianity (1841), Ludwig Feuerbach depicted the relationship between man and divinity as a zero-sum game. In his view, the stress on godliness merely detracted from the sublimity of human ends. In one of his youthful writings, Karl Marx, Feuerbach's most influential disciple, famously dismissed religion as "the opium of the people." Its abolition, Marx believed, was a sine qua non for human betterment.Habermas, in contrast, points to "the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love" as the necessary basis for Western political ideals of fairness and equality:
The "contract theory" of politics, from which our modern conception of "government by consent of the governed" derives, would be difficult to conceive apart from the Old Testament covenants. Similarly, our idea of the intrinsic worth of all persons, which underlies human rights, stems directly from the Christian ideal of the equality of all men and women in the eyes of God. Were these invaluable religious sources of morality and justice to atrophy entirely, it is doubtful whether modern societies would be able to sustain this ideal on their own ... religion, as a repository of transcendence, has an important role to play. It prevents the denizens of the modern secular societies from being overwhelmed by the all-encompassing demands of vocational life and worldly success. It offers a much-needed dimension of otherness ... Religious convictions encourage people to treat each other as ends in themselves rather than as mere means.3) In the Catholic journal First Things Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Yeshiva University explores the Jewish idea that it's sometimes virtuous to hate one's enemies:
[Jesus] acknowledged his break with Jewish tradition on this matter from the very outset: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous ... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." God, Jesus argues, loves the wicked, and so must we.See also Jeff Jacoby's comment on Soloveichek in a piece titled "When Hatred Is Necessary." Jacoby notes: "Jewish tradition holds, with Ecclesiastes, that there is a time to love and a time to hate."
[...]
For Christians, God acted on humanity's behalf, without its knowledge and without its consent. The crucifixion is a story of a loving God seeking humanity's salvation, though it never requested it, though it scarcely deserved it. Jews, on the other hand, believe that Gods covenant was formed by the free consent of His people. The giving of the Torah is a story of God seeking to provide humanity with the opportunity to make moral decisions. To my knowledge, not a single Jewish source asserts that God deeply desires to save all humanity, nor that He loves every member of the human race. Rather, many a Jewish source maintains that God affords every human being the opportunity to choose his or her moral fate, and will then judge him or her, and choose whether to love him or her, on the basis of that decision. Christianity's focus is on love and salvation; Judaism's on decision and action.
[...]
The Protestant theologian Harvey Cox, who is married to a Jew, wrote a book on his impressions of Jewish ritual. Cox describes the Jewish holiday of Purim, on which the defeat of Haman is celebrated by the reading of the book of Esther. Enamored with the biblical story, Cox enjoys the tale until the end, where, as noted above, Esther wreaks vengeance upon her enemies ... he is disturbed by Jewish hatred. It cannot be a coincidence, he argues, that precisely on Purim a Jew by the name of Baruch Goldstein murdered twenty innocent Muslims engaged in prayer in Hebron. There is something to Cox's remarks. The danger inherent in hatred is that it must be very limited, directed only at the most evil and unrepentant.
Reading Soloveichek and Jacoby it may appear that Christian morality is clearly superior to the Jewish alternative. But hating one's enemies, and doing them harm, is a pragmatic philosophy in a way that turning one's cheek is not. Jesus' teachings should be understood within their intended (narrow) context. Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. He told His followers to behave as if they were already living in the Kingdom of God: to love their enemies, give up their material possessions, leave their families, if necessary, and follow Him, for the world was about to end.
Now if that sounds nutty consider the following.
4) In "God on the Brain" Liz Tucker points to the scienfitic evidence that the very religious, especially those claiming to have experienced religious visions, suffer from a brain disorder:
Controversial new research suggests that whether we believe in a God may not just be a matter of free will. Scientists now believe there may be physical differences in the brains of ardent believers. Inspiration for this work has come from a group of patients who have a brain disorder called temporal lobe epilepsy. In a minority of patients, this condition induces bizarre religious hallucinations ...I remember reading a similar explanation for the religious visions of Mohammed in Will Durant's The Age of Faith (1950). So, I guess this argument has been around for awhile. But now, apparently, there is scientific proof that moral leaders Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Ellen White, Joseph Smith, et al., were fruitcakes, and so, too, presumably, the Great Dennis Prager and, horror of horrors, the Great Luke Ford.
[...]
Professor VS Ramachandran, of the University of California in San Diego, believed that the temporal lobes of the brain were key in religious experience ... So he set up an experiment to compare the brains of people with and without temporal lobe epilepsy ... What Professor Ramachandran discovered to his surprise was that when the temporal lobe patients were shown any type of religious imagery, their bodies produced a dramatic change in their skin resistance.
[...]
Scientists now believe famous religious figures in the past could also have been sufferers from the condition. St Paul and Moses appear to be two of the most likely candidates. But most convincing of all is the evidence from American neurologist Professor Gregory Holmes. He has studied the life of Ellen G White, who was the spiritual founder of the Seventh-day Adventist movement. Today, the movement is a thriving church with over 12 million members. During her life, Ellen had hundreds of dramatic religious visions which were key in the establishment of the church, helping to convince her followers that she was indeed spiritually inspired. But Professor Holmes believes there may be another far more prosaic explanation for her visions.
He has discovered that at the age of nine, Ellen suffered a severe blow to her head. As a result, she was semi-conscious for several weeks and so ill she never returned to school. Following the accident, Ellen's personality changed dramatically and she became highly religious and moralistic. And for the first time in her life, she began to have powerful religious visions.
Oh my.
Mr Ford isn't going to be pleased to find out that he may be suffering from yet another medical condition. I'll have to ask him about this when he returns from Europe. Assuming, that is, that he does return. I have a terrible fear that Mr Ford forgot to pack all his (many) medications, and in a moment of unmedicated weakness he will do something stupid with, or worse to, one (or more) of his teenage admirers, and just like Roman Polanski, he'll never be allowed to return to America (and The Hovel™).
Let us pray that a) the Great Luke Ford isn't a fruitcake, and b) that he proves this by returning from his European vacation with his morals safely intact.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Monday, September 26, 2005
Actress Michelle Ferre (Female Star of Who Am I?, her one film (it's with Jackie Chan)) Interview
I got these questions to her through her brother.
* 1 When she was a girl, what did she want to be when she grew up?
A1) ... When I was a girl, I had interest in becoming just about anything. The very first "dream" I had, was in becoming a fashion designer. I loved to imagine and draw variety of clothes. But eventually, I came to realize I had a problem. I wasn't good at drawing!
* 2 What was she expected to become?
A2) ... I wasn't expected to become "something" in particular, I suppose. I always had freedom of decision, in whatever I wanted to do.
* 3 What led her into journalism?
A3) ... I did deliver news in the program "CNN Headline" in Japan, but I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore journalist. It all came as a natural flow of coincidence. I majored in International Relations and Political Science at my University. Upon graduating, I had to decide which career I was to proceed in. Interest in mass media along with the educational background, and my ability to speak both English and Japanese lead me naturally to settle in the field of journalism.
*4 What are her wishes for her life?
A4) ... Having experienced acting in a movie, and having experienced the joy of acting, I very much "wish" to succeed as an actress in the movie scene.
* 5 Could she describe any highlights and lowlights from her life?
A5) ... I think the highlights of my life are yet to come, talking from an optimistic viewpoint. But if to give something offhand, it would probably be the opportunity of having played the role in "Who am I." Lowlights, on the other hand are undesirable events along life. Many events are simply undesirable, but most are necessary to make one grow up for what is to come. I tend to find reasoning in any mishaps. This way I can take it, chew it, and digest it, so I can get over with it. Otherwise, too much pessimism just lays you down on the track of negative events. Sorry that I don't have an example of a lowlight event, but experience tells me: "NO FUN" is rather "JUST A WASTE OF TIME", so I'll just keep it to myself.
* 6 What parts of her life give her the most meaning?
A6) ... Family, no matter what. My family has always been on my side, both in good times and bad times. Mutual love and trust within my family has helped a lot in shaping my character. Therefore, I will be what I am, and want to be with people who like me for what I am.
* 1 When she was a girl, what did she want to be when she grew up?
A1) ... When I was a girl, I had interest in becoming just about anything. The very first "dream" I had, was in becoming a fashion designer. I loved to imagine and draw variety of clothes. But eventually, I came to realize I had a problem. I wasn't good at drawing!
* 2 What was she expected to become?
A2) ... I wasn't expected to become "something" in particular, I suppose. I always had freedom of decision, in whatever I wanted to do.
* 3 What led her into journalism?
A3) ... I did deliver news in the program "CNN Headline" in Japan, but I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore journalist. It all came as a natural flow of coincidence. I majored in International Relations and Political Science at my University. Upon graduating, I had to decide which career I was to proceed in. Interest in mass media along with the educational background, and my ability to speak both English and Japanese lead me naturally to settle in the field of journalism.
*4 What are her wishes for her life?
A4) ... Having experienced acting in a movie, and having experienced the joy of acting, I very much "wish" to succeed as an actress in the movie scene.
* 5 Could she describe any highlights and lowlights from her life?
A5) ... I think the highlights of my life are yet to come, talking from an optimistic viewpoint. But if to give something offhand, it would probably be the opportunity of having played the role in "Who am I." Lowlights, on the other hand are undesirable events along life. Many events are simply undesirable, but most are necessary to make one grow up for what is to come. I tend to find reasoning in any mishaps. This way I can take it, chew it, and digest it, so I can get over with it. Otherwise, too much pessimism just lays you down on the track of negative events. Sorry that I don't have an example of a lowlight event, but experience tells me: "NO FUN" is rather "JUST A WASTE OF TIME", so I'll just keep it to myself.
* 6 What parts of her life give her the most meaning?
A6) ... Family, no matter what. My family has always been on my side, both in good times and bad times. Mutual love and trust within my family has helped a lot in shaping my character. Therefore, I will be what I am, and want to be with people who like me for what I am.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Mission To Britain
Why has the Great Luke Ford travelled to Britain? His objectives are twofold.First, he singlehandedly seeks to bring ethical monotheism and transcendental direction into the lives of Britain's wretched secular masses. According to a recent public survey, 40 per cent of Britons don't believe in G-d. (Actually, 52 per cent of American Jews don't believe in G-d, so Mr Ford needn't have travelled half way around the world to minister to the lost and confused.)
Second, Mr Ford is (still) looking for his future wife and, disappointed with American women, is now searching the length and breath of Old Blighty for his one true (submissive) love. A bit of advice. Avoid the "women" of London: butch, rude, unpleasant, feministical -- they're just awful.
Perhaps in the English countryside, or better yet up North, Mr Ford may find a fair lady to his liking. Initial reports suggest he's already having some success in Cambridgeshire (see below).
So far so good, but Mr Ford would be better served if he focused less on teenagers (and the elderly) and more on women his own age (save five or ten years).
Luke Ford's decision to abandon American women is a wise one. He appears to be following the advice of the Great Fred Reed, author of the wonderful essay "Marriage, Horror, and Susan Reimer," wherein Mr Reed explains why American women are an "international horror":
Because of The Chip. The Attitude. The bandsaw whine of anger, anger, anger ... It's there. It's real.So, if Mr Ford can't find his one true love in England, he shouldn't despair. Keep looking, Luke. Mr Reed suggests: "[T]ry Singapore. Argentina is splendid. Many places are. You would be amazed. See what's out there before you marry a gringa with her Inner Susan ..."
You, a young man, may not recognize the Chip if you have never seen normal, warm, happy women. If you are twenty-something and haven't been out of the US, you haven't seen them. They exist by the billion — in Latin America, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaya, China and, last I looked, France and Holland.
[...]
Susan Reimer [a columnist at the Baltimore Sun] is what is out there, guys: bitter that no one wants her (as who in his right mind could?), sure that no one is good enough for her, never having grasped that those who would be loved must first be lovable. Understand this: Susan is America.
by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Cambridge Girls Embrace Luke Ford
For the weeks before my trip, I was tired and depressed, so I husbanded my energies for this trip.
I'm writing this report now at 1:05pm Friday in Wapping, near Canary Wharf, London. I'm overlooking the Thamas. I'm sitting in an old warehouse which is being used as a set for an independent movie.
I'm wearing my black undertaker suit, which I also wore on the plane over because I didn't want to carry it around. I just brought a backpack with about 20 pounds of clothes (I just wash them in the bathtub and re-use), three books, two books on tape, a digital recorder and a small digital camera.
My flight over here was everything I could dream of -- I had the company of an attractive smart young woman who couldn't get away from me for ten hours. She was bound to her chair and it was just the two of us by the window and the rest of the world could go to hell.
I did not talk to her for the first 45 minutes, playing hard to get. I buried myself in my Michael Lewis book, Liar's Poker. Then, while we were past Nevada, I turned to her and extended my hand. "Hi, Luke."
She shook my hand. "Hi, I'm Fiona."
Twenty seven, she was a graduate student at Cambridge. Her parents lived in Southern California.
We chatted for about an hour until dinner came. I asked her if she wanted her chocolate cake. She didn't so I scoffed it. Then I asked her if she wanted her waters. She did.
That was about the last thing we said to each other. For the next eight hours, we lived in our own worlds.
I expected that the women in England would be as rough as bags but there are a ton of hotties. The English are reserved however, which makes it difficult to make quick connections like you can in Los Angeles.
What I most love about traveling is that it places you in frequent situations where people are virtually forced to talk to me (such as being seated next to me on a plane, train, or automobile). In normal life, people frequently avoid me. But I've constructed a preferred personality on the internet where I'm a legend on the LukeFordFanBlog.Blogspot.com (don't believe the unflattering things he write about me, nor the true things).
I've been walking about six miles a day. I have several painful blisters on my feet. I've done most of the famous tourist attractions in London, including the Tower of London, the Clink, Parliament House, walked by Westminster Abbey past Downing Street and Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.
I went to Cambridge Thursday, ran into a bunch of 10th grade schoolgirls from Stafford who asked me if i was famous. I said I was semi-famous. I signed about a dozen autographs, took pictures, told them I wrote on religion. They went home and googled me. One just emailed me. I have quite a fan base among the intellectuals in London.
Because I was from Los Angeles, the girls mainly wanted to know if I knew anyone famous, perhaps Britney Spears or Aussie cricketers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
I do not.
I haven't run into one rude person in London, but almost everyone is reserved. One buxom blonde woman around 40 was bubbly and outspoken on my train ride back from Cambridge but she's been the only one Brit who's overflowed.
I've seen things here that I've never seen before, such as a mate snorting cocaine so he could have the energy to go out with me that night. Also, on three different occasions, I walked in on a guy taking a wank. I was freaked but he seemed pretty relaxed about it. The English don't take things too seriously.
I've been up early and out late every night. I went to the club Cheers till 3am Thursday morning. It was filled with Tourists and they played an ABBA song. I haven't heard an Air Supply tune since I've been here and I'm having withdrawals.
I'm heading for North London in a few hours to celebrate the Sabbath with some Orthodox blogger friends I've never met. Then Saturday night I'm off to Paris (it's three hours and £100). I'll stay the night at a cheap hotel, take a tour Sunday, and return to London late Sunday night.
For the first time since I've been here, it's raining. The high temperatures have been in the sixties all week and about 50 at night.
This trip has cured my depression, and I'll be feeling even better if I'm able to break down some of that British reserve and truly make a unique impression.
I'm going to hit Oxford next week.
I'm surprised that I've noticed no difference in the way people dress between England and America, though one American executive I saw here said the British dress a bit finer.
I've been reading a great book: WATCHING THE ENGLISH. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the customs of this country.
In Australia we have the stereotype that the English don't bathe. My mom grew up in England and she says she only had a bath twice a week. Now it seems with upgrades in plumbing, the English shower every day just like Yanks and Aussies.
I haven't noticed the horrible teeth that the English are (or used to be) infamous for.
I've been staying in Chelsea, a little over a mile from Parliament House and Westminster Abbey, and just a few blocks from Sloane Square, around which the Sloane Rangers hang out (upper-class trendsetters). My sister was enamored of the Sloane Rangers 20 years ago when she lived here and got a law degree from Buckingham University.
There's little crime in the nice areas I've been (though one side of a street can be in a nice area and the other side a nasty one). The tube (London's underground subway) is clean and people are reserved and well-behaved (though designed by an American, the tube far cleaner and kinder than the New York version). They know how to que.
I'm sitting at a computer with two big screens and I can use my mouse to pop between the screens from the same keyboard. I've never had that before.
The English keyboard has about a dozen differences from the American one. The most important difference I struggled with was the "@" sign. I couldn't send an email until I had found it (it was way over on the right, on top of the single quote mark).
I'm writing this report now at 1:05pm Friday in Wapping, near Canary Wharf, London. I'm overlooking the Thamas. I'm sitting in an old warehouse which is being used as a set for an independent movie.
I'm wearing my black undertaker suit, which I also wore on the plane over because I didn't want to carry it around. I just brought a backpack with about 20 pounds of clothes (I just wash them in the bathtub and re-use), three books, two books on tape, a digital recorder and a small digital camera.
My flight over here was everything I could dream of -- I had the company of an attractive smart young woman who couldn't get away from me for ten hours. She was bound to her chair and it was just the two of us by the window and the rest of the world could go to hell.
I did not talk to her for the first 45 minutes, playing hard to get. I buried myself in my Michael Lewis book, Liar's Poker. Then, while we were past Nevada, I turned to her and extended my hand. "Hi, Luke."
She shook my hand. "Hi, I'm Fiona."
Twenty seven, she was a graduate student at Cambridge. Her parents lived in Southern California.
We chatted for about an hour until dinner came. I asked her if she wanted her chocolate cake. She didn't so I scoffed it. Then I asked her if she wanted her waters. She did.
That was about the last thing we said to each other. For the next eight hours, we lived in our own worlds.
I expected that the women in England would be as rough as bags but there are a ton of hotties. The English are reserved however, which makes it difficult to make quick connections like you can in Los Angeles.
What I most love about traveling is that it places you in frequent situations where people are virtually forced to talk to me (such as being seated next to me on a plane, train, or automobile). In normal life, people frequently avoid me. But I've constructed a preferred personality on the internet where I'm a legend on the LukeFordFanBlog.Blogspot.com (don't believe the unflattering things he write about me, nor the true things).
I've been walking about six miles a day. I have several painful blisters on my feet. I've done most of the famous tourist attractions in London, including the Tower of London, the Clink, Parliament House, walked by Westminster Abbey past Downing Street and Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.
I went to Cambridge Thursday, ran into a bunch of 10th grade schoolgirls from Stafford who asked me if i was famous. I said I was semi-famous. I signed about a dozen autographs, took pictures, told them I wrote on religion. They went home and googled me. One just emailed me. I have quite a fan base among the intellectuals in London.
Because I was from Los Angeles, the girls mainly wanted to know if I knew anyone famous, perhaps Britney Spears or Aussie cricketers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
I do not.
I haven't run into one rude person in London, but almost everyone is reserved. One buxom blonde woman around 40 was bubbly and outspoken on my train ride back from Cambridge but she's been the only one Brit who's overflowed.
I've seen things here that I've never seen before, such as a mate snorting cocaine so he could have the energy to go out with me that night. Also, on three different occasions, I walked in on a guy taking a wank. I was freaked but he seemed pretty relaxed about it. The English don't take things too seriously.
I've been up early and out late every night. I went to the club Cheers till 3am Thursday morning. It was filled with Tourists and they played an ABBA song. I haven't heard an Air Supply tune since I've been here and I'm having withdrawals.
I'm heading for North London in a few hours to celebrate the Sabbath with some Orthodox blogger friends I've never met. Then Saturday night I'm off to Paris (it's three hours and £100). I'll stay the night at a cheap hotel, take a tour Sunday, and return to London late Sunday night.
For the first time since I've been here, it's raining. The high temperatures have been in the sixties all week and about 50 at night.
This trip has cured my depression, and I'll be feeling even better if I'm able to break down some of that British reserve and truly make a unique impression.
I'm going to hit Oxford next week.
I'm surprised that I've noticed no difference in the way people dress between England and America, though one American executive I saw here said the British dress a bit finer.
I've been reading a great book: WATCHING THE ENGLISH. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the customs of this country.
In Australia we have the stereotype that the English don't bathe. My mom grew up in England and she says she only had a bath twice a week. Now it seems with upgrades in plumbing, the English shower every day just like Yanks and Aussies.
I haven't noticed the horrible teeth that the English are (or used to be) infamous for.
I've been staying in Chelsea, a little over a mile from Parliament House and Westminster Abbey, and just a few blocks from Sloane Square, around which the Sloane Rangers hang out (upper-class trendsetters). My sister was enamored of the Sloane Rangers 20 years ago when she lived here and got a law degree from Buckingham University.
There's little crime in the nice areas I've been (though one side of a street can be in a nice area and the other side a nasty one). The tube (London's underground subway) is clean and people are reserved and well-behaved (though designed by an American, the tube far cleaner and kinder than the New York version). They know how to que.
I'm sitting at a computer with two big screens and I can use my mouse to pop between the screens from the same keyboard. I've never had that before.
The English keyboard has about a dozen differences from the American one. The most important difference I struggled with was the "@" sign. I couldn't send an email until I had found it (it was way over on the right, on top of the single quote mark).
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Luke Ford To the Rescue!
I seem to recall reading somewhere, maybe it was on the Luke Ford Family of Blogs™ (I couldn't find the exact quotation), that when Dennis Prager enquired if he could write for the Jewish Journal he was turned down because of his writing style, or lack thereof. Luke Ford is also, apparently, less than impressed with Mr Prager the wordsmith:There are so many examples of poor writing on the jacket [of Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A human nature repair manual] that I do not have the time to list more than a few:I'm not entirely sure what point Mr Ford is trying to make here. (Making coherent arguments is not one of Luke Ford's strengths. Nor apparently is criticising someone else's violations "of the canons of good writing" without also violating "the canons of good writing.") He might be saying that Dennis Prager should have written the material on the book's dust jacket, because it was so poorly written by the publisher. Or Mr Ford might be saying that Dennis Prager did write the material on the jacket (as indeed Mr Ford does for his own books), and it's even more poorly written than the book itself. Let's assume that it's the latter, which is the more insightful of the two assertions, and thus probably not the point Luke Ford was trying to make, and agree that Mr Prager thinks better than he writes.
* The sentence that begins "However ..." The word "however" means "yet" EXCEPT at the beginning of the sentence, when it means "in whichever way," which is not the way the word is used (misused) on this jacket.
* Then there are the sloppy phrases like "in order to be happy." Why not just say, "To be happy?"
* Then there is the phrase "make you personally happy ..." Why do we need the word "personally?" We don't.
By contrast to the jacket, Dennis Prager's writing is the triumph of substance over style. Through his use of the passive voice and numerous modifiers, he violates many of the canons of good writing in his pursuit of ideas. But it works.
Dennis Prager reminds me of Thomas Sowell. Both write like men: simple and direct. They make their point, and then stop. They are not long-winded. They are not interested in having a relationship with their readers. They seek merely to persuade through the power of their ideas.
Mr Prager's latest column is an illustration of the use of simple prose to make a profound argument. He contrasts the Judeo-Christian moral system with that of the left:
Judeo-Christian values believe the road to a just society is paved by individual character development; the Left believes it is paved with action on a macro level. Many parents, for example, measure their child's character by the child's social activism, not by his or her behaviour toward fellow students. If the child has walked for AIDS, or marched for breast cancer, or works on "environmental issues," the child is deemed -- and the child deems himself -- a fine person. That he or she might mistreat less popular kids in class is not considered ... [L]eftist ideals, being overwhelmingly macro, will always be more appealing to the less decent who want to feel good about themselves. That helps explain those Hollywood celebrities who lead narcissistic, hedonistic personal lives but nevertheless feel very good about themselves by raising money for "peace" or by demonstrating against global warming.Note Mr Prager's assumption that one can't be a good Christian or Jew and be a leftist. It's profound observations like this that have made the Great Dennis Prager the world's number two moral leader -- behind, of course, the Great Luke Ford.
Kenneth Minogue covers much of the same ground, but in a more elegantly written essay, in the current special issue of the New Criterion devoted to Britain. Mr Minogue explores "two concepts of the moral life," one of which (the Establishment's, i.e., the left's) has led to a self-defeating moral inversion:
We have observed a pretty clean sweep of important moral convictions in the collapse of the virtues of chastity, loyalty, and thrift. Is this merely to be recognized as a case of moral decline? Or have these virtues been replaced by something else? And if so, what? The moral life has clearly evolved -- but where has it gone? The evident answer, I think, is that moral sentiments now focus on benevolence, philanthropy, and charitable causes ... As a new morality, this development prides itself on releasing judgment from a narrow concern with sex in order to bring ethical standards to bear on the really serious decisions made in government and commerce ... The new morality thus incorporates both multiculturalism and "political correctness," in that both basically respond to a solicitude for the sensitivities of people different from "us" ... It has above all identified the people who need help, both those victimized by disease or misfortune in our own society and those afflicted in other parts of the world. Morality has thus liberated itself from the merely personal element of being true to oneself and become a program for perfecting the world ... the transposition of bad moral conduct into the language of social acceptability and social capital removes it entirely from the innerness of the moral life ... The new politico-moral order imposes on us duties to strangers, people we have never met, and for the most part never will. Particular duties to family and friends, much less that central duty of integrity to ourselves on which the older moralists laid so much stress, hardly enter the picture ... Could it be, however, that our very greed for social perfection has destroyed our grip on the real moorings of human life?Perhaps when Mr Ford returns from his London holiday he can update us on Britain's decline from the religious, peaceable land that it once was, and that I remember, to the secular, violent wasteland of today.
-- by the Luke Ford Fan Blogger
Why Luke is Abroad
Simply put, his mission entails nothing less than saving Western Civilization from demographic doom. All that Luke has been for good and ill, and all that he is capable of becoming, shall find expression is this grand task. Luke aims to revivify the West, beginning with the Jewish community of the UK.
--Mr. Amalek
--Mr. Amalek
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Move On….. dot Org
Come on fellow “guest bloggers”. I thought the last post ended on a positive note. Feel free to follow it with self-deprecating jokes about Judaism or hilarious parodies of Our Moral Leaders' visit to the UK.
Personally, I’m falling asleep to warm fuzzy thoughts of him discussing Ethics with “football” fans and, perhaps, women of ill repute in an un-air-conditioned neighborhood pub. The dike is breeched and the floodwaters will surely follow.
Personally, I’m falling asleep to warm fuzzy thoughts of him discussing Ethics with “football” fans and, perhaps, women of ill repute in an un-air-conditioned neighborhood pub. The dike is breeched and the floodwaters will surely follow.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Death of a Gentile
In his infinite wisdom, Our Moral Leader has appointed, as far as I know, three guest bloggers while he heads to the UK in search of knowledge and material for his readers. For our part we must exercise patience while we await his return.
As is his way he has provided for you like no other Leader will, arranging a mixture of viewpoints for your pleasure. You have one self-obsessed guest, one Luke-obsessed guest, and one southern gentile guest who is of late concerned with thoughts of death. Just call me “Bill”, because that’s what Our Moral Leader himself calls me.
Anyway, to the subject:
A very close friend passed away last Friday after battling cancer for a little over a year. Upon his diagnosis he quickly called his friends and family and told them of his situation and prognosis. He stressed that though he was young (59), he had lived a rich and full life and had no regrets. He spent the next three or four weeks putting his affairs in order, making an orderly transfer of assets to his children. The balance of this past year he spent fighting his illness with as little disruption to his life as possible. When he saw medical hope gone and his family and friends prepared, he made his peace with God and simply let go. Truly a noble man.
His daughter bravely delivered his eulogy and transformed what could have been a time of grief into a time of celebration of his life and a torrent of pleasant memories. She told several anecdotes about him that illustrated his influence on our lives. The large, protestant sanctuary was full to capacity and everyone in attendance left the service with fond memories of his time on earth.
His tortured body was lowered into the ground at sunset Sunday evening. This new week has begun without him, the world a better place for his time here.
As is his way he has provided for you like no other Leader will, arranging a mixture of viewpoints for your pleasure. You have one self-obsessed guest, one Luke-obsessed guest, and one southern gentile guest who is of late concerned with thoughts of death. Just call me “Bill”, because that’s what Our Moral Leader himself calls me.
Anyway, to the subject:
A very close friend passed away last Friday after battling cancer for a little over a year. Upon his diagnosis he quickly called his friends and family and told them of his situation and prognosis. He stressed that though he was young (59), he had lived a rich and full life and had no regrets. He spent the next three or four weeks putting his affairs in order, making an orderly transfer of assets to his children. The balance of this past year he spent fighting his illness with as little disruption to his life as possible. When he saw medical hope gone and his family and friends prepared, he made his peace with God and simply let go. Truly a noble man.
His daughter bravely delivered his eulogy and transformed what could have been a time of grief into a time of celebration of his life and a torrent of pleasant memories. She told several anecdotes about him that illustrated his influence on our lives. The large, protestant sanctuary was full to capacity and everyone in attendance left the service with fond memories of his time on earth.
His tortured body was lowered into the ground at sunset Sunday evening. This new week has begun without him, the world a better place for his time here.
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