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Luke Ford says: Here is chapter four of my autobiography. It picks up when I am 22 years of age. I moved to Los Angeles in August of 1988, to attend UCLA.

Over AM 790 KABC radio one Sunday night I heard Dennis Prager's commanding voice and intellect. He used words such as "good and evil" that I wasn't used to hearing in academia or media. I called his show regularly because he seemed to have answers to the great questions of life which had long puzzled me. Prager became the most powerful figure for me in a long line of father figures. I had looked for years for an older man to lay down the law. I particularly wanted to hear that Marxism was stupid.

Knowing that Prager specialized in Marxism in his graduate study at the Russian Institute at Columbia University, I called for the first time to say:

"Good evening Dennis. I'm a 22 year old Economics student at UCLA and I'm flirting with the doctrines of Karl Marx, who I take is one of your favorite philosophers."

"Yeah, he's the only man to be consistently wrong," said Prager.

I continued: "I came out of a strict Christian upbringing. Then at 18, I looked around and saw a world that didn't make sense to me. Two-thirds of its inhabitants suffered whether they lived under regimes of the right or left. You ask for an evil greater than communism [besides Nazism]. How about imperialism?

"White Man's burden' sent Europeans around the world to Christianize it. In the process they slaughtered... millions... from my own country Australia where we slaughtered the Aboriginees to this country where we slaughtered the Native Americans... [to]... Africa and much of Asia...."

"The moral record of imperialism is light years ahead of the moral record of Marxism," said Prager.

"Though we have a world today where affluent western countries are richer than they need be... [while the rest of the] world is starving," I said.

"That's not the west's fault."

"We colonized those areas and turned them into..."

"Baloney... That's pure lie. The third world is not poor because of the first world."

"We went into Africa..." I said.

"And we made a rich place poor?" asked Prager.

"No, we made a poor continent worse."

"What about India?"

"Indifferent."

"That India is a democracy is due to British imperialism. To the extent that the caste system has been uprooted and that people are not treated as garbage is due to British imperialism. That Indian widows are not burned with their dead husbands, which was a Hindu practice, is due to British imperialism," said Prager. "India is not indifferent. It is better for [imperialism]...."

"Perhaps," I said. "[But what about] Australia? The Aboriginees were doing fine. They didn't need a system of private property (because) they were providing for themselves. In this country the Native American Indians were fine... In Central and South America they were fine... until..."

"I don't know what 'fine' means," said Prager. "I grant you that the arrival of the white man was a tragedy for Native Americans... but I don't think it's an issue of imperialism alone. People explored.... There was tribal warfare before the white man came. You should not... romanticize what was there before.... The human sacrifices endemic to Meso-American civilization makes the Spaniards who conquered them look like moral giants. You [seem to say] that some idyllic paradise was disturbed by white men."

"...The level of technology in weapons that we've introduced, produced slaughter on a scale... unknown to the native peoples. Yes, there was child sacrifice, but when we introduced machine guns, wow, what a change!"

"But the white man also brought in smallpox vaccinations," said Prager. "The record of white man's inventions in the third-world is far greater in saving life than in destroying it. And I don't blame white men for the use by third-world peoples of machine guns against their own people... Just as I blame [domestic] criminals for the use of machine guns and not machine gun makers."

"If this is true," I said, "why do third world peoples look away from western capitalism... and instead to communism?"

Prager replied: "... First of all, it's not [third-world] peoples looking towards [communism], it's their governments, for a simple reason. The only way they can retain power with all their corruption is using an eastern model. If they used the western free-enterprise capitalist democracy model they would be out of power. People want power, especially third-world tyrants, and most third world countries are run by tyrants. Tyrants love communism. They hate capitalism for a good reason. The moment you involve private enterprise you must involve a competing arena of power. Of course they are pro-socialist. It defends their horrible despicable rule against their own people. The suffering of third-world people at the hand of their own [people] is much greater unfortunately [than at the hand of first-world people]. More Africans were killed by Idi Amin than by white men. But white people of the leftist variety don't care when black people get killed. They only care when black people are killed by white people.

"[Third-world people] clamor for freedom. Because as soon as people can eat, their first desire is to be free."

As I lay in bed that night listening to the rest of Prager's show, I felt good hearing many people comment on my call. But I felt stupid when I reflected on what I had said. The pre-colonial world was not a beautiful one. I had read enough by age eight to know that. It took going college to learn something so stupid as the thesis that the rich countries of the northern hemisphere caused the poverty of the southern hemisphere.

***

"Good evening Dennis. I want to discuss Natural Rights--the idea that men enter into society with certain basic rights that no government can deny.... Rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of property.... The [United States] Constitution was founded [upon this idea of Natural Rights].... And now at the end of the twentieth century, the intellectual trend is once again towards Natural Rights, particularly because of the growth of totalitarian regimes such as Stalin's and Hitler's which refused to recognize the dignity and value of each individual. And so we had mass slaughter.

"Now, is this theory [of Natural Rights] quaint if we are here by chance through [atheistic] evolution? If "we are but the accidental collocation of atoms," to quote Bertrand Russell. and as an atheist I believe that, then surely there is no such thing as Natural Rights."

"Yes... I think a lot of secularists make a leap of faith to Natural Rights," said Prager. "Since when do molecules have rights?"

Good point. Human beings only have Natural Rights if a transcendent source confers them. Why didn't I realize that before? Because I didn't want to face the horror of a world without God. At first atheism seemed fun for I could do whatever I wanted.

***

"Good evening Dennis. New York Governor Mario Cuomo in his passionate veto of a proposed death penalty law noted that 23 innocent people have been put to death this century in the United States. Knowing the many imperfections in the Criminal Justice system, it seems to me unethical to sentence to death those who can't afford a good lawyer."

"No," said Prager. "What's unethical is that we don't sentence rich murderers to death. It's not unethical that we sentence poor murderers to death. It's like saying we should not give speeding tickets to cars unless all speeding cars equally get ticketed. But that's inconceivable."

"But a speeding ticket and a death penalty are not comparable. You're triviallizing my point."

"No, I am not triviallizing your point. If you don't think my analogy is valid, then don't use it. So, I won't give you an analogy. The unethical part of what you just said is that rich murderers don't get put to death. But there's nothing immoral about putting poor murderers to death."

"There's nothing immoral about putting poor murderers to death when, if you have enough money, you can buy your way out?" I asked. 'That doesn't bother you?"

"It bothers me terribly," Prager replied. "And I'm opposed to that. But I'm not opposed to putting people to death. Also, I believe that it is usually a smoke-screen for opposition to the death penalty. There's always some new statistic that is raised.

"I have a question then. I assume that if the rich are as likely to be put to death as the poor, you'd favor the death penalty?"

"It would be more troubling to me," I replied. "But I think that I'd still be against it."

"Then why are you raising the issue?" asked Prager. "What don't you tell me the real reason that you're opposed to the death penalty and don't give me smoke-screens."

"I think that I gave you a good reason to be opposed to it."

"But you'd be opposed to it anyway," said Prager.

"I said that it'd be much more of a dilemma [if it were given out equally]."

"Listen," said Prager. "If you typify people who oppose capital punishment then I'm glad to hear that your barrier to accepting the death penalty is that it is not equally applied. You should join with me in seeing to it that it is equally applied."

"I am troubled by many aspects, not just that one."

"Exactly," said Prager. "That's what I keep saying you are and you try to fool me. The moment I say 'let's work that out', you say that there are really other things. Like what?"

"Twenty three innocent people dead this century."

"Then let us make sure that innocent people are not put to death. Anyway, nothing is risk free. Would you like to compare the number 23 with the number of innocent people killed by murderers who escape prison and kill people? Or who are let out for whatever reason and kill people. Or the number of prison guards or fellow prisoners who are killed by murderers? Compare those statistics!"

"Let me move on then to a second point," I said. "Murder is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of class and alienation. People are in the grip of social class necessity and as long as we have this sink-or-swim society, a society that is based upon ascendancy to material success and status, those that don't win in this big game are alienated from society and not provided with health care, clothing, housing, education or anything... you are going to have people who will struggle in the water and take those around them down."

"In effect then, it's really not their fault," said Prager.

"It is not completely their fault."

"What percentage would you say?" asked Prager.

"I'd say 20-30% (responsible)"

"So, overwhelmingly they're not responsible for committing murder if they're poor?"

"It's not just that they're poor," I said. "It's that they're alienated from society."

"Maybe they're alienated from the values of the society that say 'Thou shalt not murder.'"

"If they (murderers) are without a friend in the world," I said, "If they've been abused as children, if they've been hated all their lives, kicked around by society...."

"What about this guy who ran this torture-murder-cult thing in Texas who owns two beautiful homes in Mexico and a Mercedes. Would you like to see him put to death? And the others came from middle-class families."

"Yes, you can find plenty of middle-class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males who commit murder but they are not in the majority."

"Would you like to see them put to death?" asked Prager.

"I'm not sure. But the majority are not those people. The majority (of murderers) have not known love."

"And the vast majority of those people don't commit murder."

"I don't know," I said.

"Maybe it comes down to the unutterable issue of post-Marxist post-Freudian society--values."

"Well, isn't it troubling to you that the type of background I've described much more predisposes people towards murder. People from a privileged background like yours and mine, people who've been brought up with love, surrounded by economic security with people whom we can turn to when we have problems... we are much, much less predisposed towards murder. Yes, your point troubles me, but doesn't my point trouble you?"

"Fair enough," said Prager. "They both trouble me. But, in the final analysis, it's infinitely more troubling to me to hold that people who are poor... exercise no free will. If I believed that, I would give up. The human condition is so pathetic then, that we are entirely the product of socio-economic forces, that we are merely self-conscious flowers.."

"It is not that we are entirely... "

"Seventy per cent you held," said Prager. "[I hold people] ninety per cent responsible [for their actions] with a ten per cent socio-economic possibility. But since the vast majority of poor people don't murder, as the vast-majority of people who attend church or synagogue don't murder...."

"That's because they have somewhere they can turn. These (majority of murderers).."

"They can turn. They choose not to," said Prager. "You believe that doing evil is abnormal. I don't...."

"If it's not abnormal then, how come in most societies throughout history it has been the abnormal..."

"No, it has been the law not to do it. And in many societies killing people has been the norm...."

"Okay," I said. "How about the text 'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.' Why not leave it to God?"

"I leave vengeance to God and I leave punishment to us. And if you want to quote the Bible, why don't you take the one in Genesis 9:6 right after God creates the human being, 'If a man sheds blood, then by man shall his blood be shed."

I felt good that I gave Prager a good challenge but I clearly realized that again he'd bested me. Capital punishment seemed so obviously just, how could I oppose it? I had supported executing murderers all the way up to my entrance to university but once again, I had to receive an 'elite' education to believe something so stupid as that murderers aren't mainly responsible for their murders.

***

I challenged Prager about America's health-care system, and he said, "It's the best in the world. But in America some have a desire not to say that we can improve, but to say that we are miserable."

"But shouldn't we be concerned about 37-million people who don't have health insurance?"

"It's an interesting statistic, but it doesn't prove anything. They still get care."

"Hmmm," I replied. "According to studies, health care is only one of many factors contributing to good health. The most important factor is values...The way you lead your life...Whether or not you wear a seatbelt.. How you eat, drink."

Prager replied: "My brother [Dr. Kenneth Prager], who is on the Columbia faculty of physicians and surgeons, has often said that we owe our greatest debt to health improvement, not to doctors, but to garbage men...I would love to see the sanitation workers of the world get a Nobel Prize."

***

Prager also hosted the "Religion on the Line" program which featured different priests, ministers and rabbis each week. I found the rabbis most impressive, particularly a blunt Orthodox rabbi, Yitzchok Adlerstein. After listening to a drawn-out Christian discussion on faith vs works, Rabbi Adlerstein made three sharp points that I still remember.

First, that faith goes nowhere to gaining heaven. According to Judaism, each person is rewarded according to his deeds. Second, how do we know what is right and wrong? Judaism's detailed legal code provides answers. Third, because there's much more to this life than gaining after-life, Judaism concentrates on how to live each day, balancing the competing demands of family, work, friendship, education, play and worship.

In reply to a Pastor's insistence that only faith in Jesus Christ brings salvation, Rabbi Adlerstein told the story of a Protestant minister from Canada who flew to Israel to provide Adolf Eichmann (the architect of the Holacaust) with last rites. Met at the airport by reporters, the minister said that if Eichmann confessed his sins and took on Christ he would be saved. And what about Eichmann's six million Jewish victims? If they died as Jews and without taking on Christ, could they too be saved? The minister replied with a pithy "no."

Rabbi Adlerstein's story made clear to me what I'd always felt - any system that makes beliefs more important than behavior will lead to evil. Rabbi Adlerstein showed me a masculine approach to religion. He didn't get angry at people's differing theologies as much as he got angry at evil - gratuitous human cruelty.

At the time I perceived most religious men (particularly the pastors with all their talk about love, faith and relationship) as effeminate. Most of the guests on Religion on the Line, for instance, were nice but weak. But Prager, Rabbi Adlerstein and Dr. Russell Roberts showed me that real men can take religion seriously.

Dr Roberts, an Orthodox Jew, taught me two classes in micro-economic theory. After hours, we engaged in wide-ranging discussions about economics, Marxism, God, Jews, and morality. (I have continued my friendship with Dr. Roberts in the years since I left UCLA and we talk about writing a book together on moral-decision making in daily life. Dr. Roberts also flirts with using our conversations as the basis for a book on Judaism.)

Dr Jules Zentner, a 63-year old Northern European expert and the Faculty in Residence person in my Rieber Hall dormitory, is the fourth wise man in my story. I approached him first one Sunday morning in October to ask for tips on increasing my daily study limit past six hours. After his good advice, I asked his opinion of a book I'd enjoyed, The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom. Dr Zentner liked it too. We became friends.

I shared with Dr Zentner a common belief in standards of objective excellence. For instance, we believed that there is bad art (for instance, the Mapplethorpe photos of men urinating in each other's mouths) and there is great art (such as classical music composers Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, etc.). We thought Beethoven to be deeper, more profound music than the Beatles (which we were forced to listen to from omnipresent stereos). Not only did we believe in standards of artistic excellence and literary excellence (Dr Zentner received his PhD in Scandinavian Literature from UC Berkeley) and academic excellence (which UCLA's undergraduate education, particularly in the liberal arts, frequently did not achieve) but we also believed in objective standards of moral excellence. We didn't know, however, where these standards came from as neither of us believed in God and revealed religion.

Dr Zentner's upbringing exposed him to many religions. Some Judaism, some Christianity...

(Note: I piece together from memory most quotes in this book. They are not fully accurate.)

"How wonderful," I said.

"No," he replied. "It was terrible. Just an extra day of school. And it left my brothers and me without religious roots."

Dr Zentner acted as a catalyst for my growth. He listened to my thoughts and then he asked me questions which showed me my inconsistencies. Along with many of my dormmates, Dr Zentner listened to my increasingly intense discussions with Prager over KABC radio.

"I'm going to slam-dunk Prager tonight," I promised everybody.

Prager's thought was getting through to me by the Spring of 1989. I still wanted, however, to test the Jewish theologian by throwing at him in a vehement tone every objection that I or my secular leftist professors could think of. I strode up and down my dorm on Saturday and Sunday nights preparing for combat.

"Crucify him, crucify him," I muttered, referring to my intentions towards Prager.

"Who appointed Prager Mr Morality? Who made Dennis the King of the Jews?

"Why can't you understand what I say, Jew boy? Because you are of your father the devil."

"Good evening Dennis. I think that we are watching events in China tonight to which the United States is irrelevant. They are a unique culture and we have no influence. They don't want your way of life, they don't want your system of government.... We've been naive about their Lady of Liberty to think that they want a U.S.-style two party democratic system with unlimited capitalism...."

"How do you know?"

"By reading the newspapers... Many students sing "Internationale," the communist anthem."

"I think those students are naive because everybody who has sung that song and gotten into power has deprived people of liberty and put them in concentration camps. They're allowed to be naive. I've met Vietnamese who supported the Viet Cong and then became boat people. There are many disgusting human traits but none is more pathetic than the inability of people to learn from others' errors. Every time communism has triumphed, and you and I sound like a broken record on this, it has produced unmitigated horror. But everyone thinks that this will be the new one. Mao will be the new one. Che [Guevara] will be the new one. Castro will be the new one. Ho Chi Minh will be the new one. Now the Sandanistas are the new one. Every time there's a new one. They'll be different from the last one. But they're never different. They all deprive people of the most fundamental desire after living - freedom..."

"I don't know what freedom means," I said.

"The ability to work and speak and father as you like. "I'm surprised that you don't know what freedom means. You seemed intelligent When you don't have freedom you certainly know what it means. The problem is that a lot of Westerners who have it, don't know what it means. That was a revealing statement you made."

"Freedom to you and me..."

"Is the same to the vast majority of human beings on earth. People don't like to be told that they won't get rations if they don't line up for the party."

"Freedom of speech means nothing to most people," I said.

"That's incredible to me."

"Look. You can't speak freely at a university... or you'll get nailed in your grades. You can't speak freely to your boss or you'll get nailed. There are certain institutional ways of speaking freely in this country that mainly intellectuals take advantage of..."

"What country do you live in? Are you calling from the United States?"

"I'm calling from Westwood," I said.

"Maybe in Westwood there's no freedom of speech."

"Come on. Most people don't take advantage of their freedom of speech."

"Really," said Prager. "Most people don't feel free to talk on the phone with their neighbors about what they think of the president.... You must have different friends than I do. [I understand] Being free to speak means that you can tell your neighbor and your child what you believe about life. That's a complete freedom in this country. That's a non-freedom in communist countries."

"In China neighbors can tell each other what they think about life."

"No they can't. Until recently there were block committees in every communist country that monitor what was said and children were told to snitch on their parents.... Eastern Europe is changing but in Romania it remains true. In East Germany it remains true. In Albania it remains true. In North Korea it remains true. In Vietnam it remains true. And in Nicaragua you are still given according to the block committee (which)..says how good a Sandanista supporter you have been....If you've shown up at rallies, if you've voted on time, if you've spoken inappropriately....and that's how you get rations."

"Friends around the world can tell each other what they think," I said.

"You don't know what you are talking about. Under communist regimes that is not the case. And that is why you said earlier that you don't know what freedom means. And the reason is... you live in freedom. And only when it's deprived will you really know what it means. And I hope to God it isn't."

Several dorm friends asked my girlfriend after that call: "Is Luke ok? He got destroyed tonight." I walked around in shock for "daddy" had spanked me hard. I hated Prager and wanted to kill him. I loved Prager and wanted to emulate him. I hated and loved him and wanted to kill myself.

***

My search for truth became more serious as my ability to think declined. After a full year of testing, my doctors concluded in March 1989 through a diagnosis of exclusion that I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I left school in June and have never returned.

My diagnosis of Judaism for what ails the world came similarly through exclusion. Every religion of which I was aware made the next life more important than this life, which, while reducing pain, also reduced purpose. I had left Christianity because I didn't see anything important in it for me to do. Living for myself had been fine while I had my health, but now what? In whom could I believe now that I could not believe in Luke? Perhaps in the socialist vision of people organizing for the gigantic task of meeting human needs (such as CFS)? I longed to lead the workers into the promised land.

"Luke, you are a true believer," said Prager. "Just like the Christian waiting for Jesus, and the Jew waiting for the Messiah, you wait for socialism despite all evidence to the contrary."

I thought about what he said and on my last weekend at UCLA I asked Prager:

"To what extent do you hold Karl Marx responsible for the Gulag Archipelago, that instrument of Stalinist terror which killed about twenty million people in the Soviet Union in the 1930s... who were inconvenient to the communist regime?"

"That's a question that is more worthy to be posed to God because God has to judge motives and acts that an individual did not directly cause," said Prager.

"I tried to talk to God but he wasn't in, and so..."

"In that case I'll try to play second fiddle," said Prager. "Had Marx been a personally ethical type... who showed sympathy for moral values but had merely described a world in which economic equality reigned, I'd have a more sympathetic answer.

"But, there's an entire book on the racism of Karl Marx and...I'd offer you this thought:

"Any system that does not hold the individual morally accountable for his actions will breed evil. The essence of Marxism is that the individual is not morally accountable for his actions, and any notion of a [moral] system that transcends the society and economics is nonsense. [Marx] destroyed the two pillars upon which goodness can prevail...

"Have you seen my book [The Nine Questions People Ask about Judaism cowritten with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin]?"

"No," I answered.

"Though the stuff on Judaism may not interest you," said Prager, "I have a chapter comparing Marxism with Judaism... based upon an essay I wrote at Columbia University.... You might like it."

CHAPTER FIVE

CFS forced me to leave UCLA in June 1989, and I returned to my parents home (in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range 40 minutes drive up I-80 from Sacramento). Too sick and groggy to do anything, I sat alone in our isolated house watching TV and movies as my friends in particular and life in general passed me by. My low state led me one day to pick up Prager's book, (hand it to my stepmother to read to me) and begin my study of the most difficult religion in the world.

I came to the Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism knowing that my present approach to life did not work, and that all other approaches to life of which I was aware were inadequate. Now too sick to distract myself from the pursuit of meaning with the temporary pleasures of sex and success, I sought answers to life's ultimate issues from the man whose loving kindness touched my life and opened me to his religion. Prager not only answered my calls over KABC radio but he also answered my letters and he sent me at no charge two editions of his quarterly journal Ultimate Issues.

Out of the many profound religious thinkers (generally Christians) that I'd met through a lifetime of study, I chose Prager to change my life for these distinguishing reasons.

* He has no agenda besides what works. For instance, how a person comes to ethical monotheism, for instance, be it through Christianity, Islam or Judaism, does not matter much to him.

* He's real.

* He speaks frankly about sex and the rest of life.

* His sharp clear definition of evil as "gratuitous human cruelty."

* He hates evil, not people with differing theologies from his.

* His honesty in stating that he didn't know why there was unjust natural suffering.

* His honesty in admitting that he didn't know many things. He rarely spoke about economics, for instance.

* His moderation.

* His openness to truth from any source.

* By staying open to many conflicting values, he struggled, and I appreciate that the point of life is not in the reward (as it was for the Apostle Paul) but in the struggle.

* His fairness, shown for example, in his comparison of Marxism with Judaism (in chapter four of The Nine Questions). After reading it, and after nearly a year of listening to Prager on the radio, I easily realized that socialism had been a substitute religion for me. At age 22, I decided to take real religion seriously.

Nine Questions gave no new arguments for God's existence, but it showed me more clearly than I had seen before the stark necessity for taking the God question seriously. Without belief in God, life has no ultimate meaning and no objective standard of good and evil. If the only thing wrong with gratuitous torture was that I didn't like it, depressed me.

I decided to take God and organized religion seriously, and to reject the secular life which in my teens had looked attractive because it allowed me to act in any way that I wanted.

I wrote to Prager to tell him what he'd done for me and he wrote back: "I receive many letters, but few have touched me as much as yours. Get better. You are needed in the fight for good values."

I accepted that we needed to organize to make a better world, but why should I join the Jewish organization and hold myself accountable to hundreds of painful laws? Judaism, after all, unique amongst world religions, says that it is easier to get afterlife rewards by staying outside the religion than by coming in. Judaism holds non-Jews accountable to only a few rules of basic decency (the seven laws of the sons of Noah).

One strong argument to converting to Judaism was my painful awareness of how I had screwed up my life. In the years before my illness, I abandoned the Sabbath, and worked and studied every spare minute to get ahead. In the process, however, I abandoned my family and friends, failed to develop myself in areas outside work and study, cut ethical corners in schoolwork and taxes, and destroyed my health.

I saw Judaism's balanced approach to life as a combination wife and mother and father figure to keep me on the straight and narrow path.

From June to December, 1989 I lived in secular and Christian environments and they convinced me that I could not return to either approach to life.

Thus, my second and most powerful reason for converting to Judaism was that I saw no alternative.

I began observing Jewish Law in October (both the Sabbath and vegetarianism were familiar to me from my Adventist upbringing) 1989.

The third reason propelling me to Judaism was my desire for importance. You can't get more important than belonging to the Chosen Ones. They possess the only step-by-step detailed system for making a better world --halacah (Jewish Law).

Before Christmas 1989 I decided to convert to Judaism.

"How could you [convert to Judaism]?" asked my Seventh Day Adventist girlfriend. We lay squashed together in a single bed. "Doesn't it bother you that the Jews crucified Jesus?"

"The Jews didn't crucify Jesus," I said. "The Romans crucified Jesus. Anyway, that was two-thousand years ago. My focus is on healing this world."

"You're wasting your time with this world," she replied. "It stinks."

Life certainly stunk for me for the next few months as our relationship disintegrated and headaches prevented me from further study. With but a simple faith that salvation is of the Jews, I looked around for help.

I quickly found that Jews don't seek converts to Judaism. "If you want to convert, that's fine. But you have to come to us," is the general Jewish attitude. That I was too sick to leave the house was my bad luck. Thinking about the red-carpet treatment that Christians roll out for converts, I felt hurt.

I was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53)

I found solace in Dennis Prager lectures on tape which filled with a sense of Judaism's mission to the world.

One day I heard Prager mention my name during question time of his February 28, 1990 lecture morally comparing Liberalism with Conservatism delivered before the Beverly Hills Republican Club:

"My wife knows this example well. Some of you who've heard my show may recall Luke. Luke was a UCLA student from Australia. You may recall this young man with an accent. Burning, as the Yiddish say 'fabrenta marxist'... burning, passionate Marxist..Called me, debated me for a year. Before he went home to Australia last year he sent me a long letter saying "You have changed my life. I have now decided to take religion seriously and I now realize that Marxism was my own religion and I was wrong."

I lay in bed one summer afternoon listening to Prager's lecture 'Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism.' Jews bother the world because its the Jewish mission to bother the world and to give it no peace so long as it has not God. The Jews' allegiance to Judaism's trinity of Ellohim, Torah and Yisrael (God, law and peoplehood) challenges the gods, laws and national identities of the goyim (non-Jews).

"And just in case you weren't antisemitic until now, and we didn't challenge your values enough," said Prager on tape, "we also believe that we are chosen by God....

"But every nation in history has believed itself chosen. Do you know what China means in Chinese? Center of the world. Would you say that's ethnocentric? Do you know why the Japanese flag has a large red circle in it? That is the sun. The Japanese have the quaint belief that the sun rises first on Japan and then goes to the rest of the world... Americans believe in Manifest Destiny....

"How many of you want to see the Chinese exterminated because they think they are the center of the world? I suspect none of you. How many of you want to see the Japanese thrust into gas chambers because they think they're the land of the Rising Sun? You know why you don't care? Because you don't believe it.

"Any do you know why they hated us for our belief in chosenness? Because they did believe it! That's the difference. Nobody laughed about Jews being chosen. They believed it and they resented it..."

My telephone rang and I switched off the tape. I heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line.

"Luke?"

"Oh my God."

"Do you know who this is from one word?"

"Oh my God. It's Dennis Prager," I said.

"You've called me many times," said Prager. "So I thought it was time I called you."

I told Prager that I now lived for God and he told me to be moderate. "There's no need to enter a monastery."

Prager invited me to sit in on his radio show when I'm next in Los Angeles.

1/25/94

I drove to Tampa Bay this afternoon with Paula Lemire to hear Dennis Prager lecture twice each at a Conservative and a Reform synagogue over the weekend.

After years of reading and listening to my hero, I set eyes on Prager for the first time at 7:45PM. I introduced myself and the 6'4 240 pound Prager beamed and hugged me. We talked for ten minutes and he appeared thrilled about my turnaround in health. I told Prager (Saturday afternoon) that his pro-medication attitude persuaded me (along with the good advice of Prager's right-wing Orthodox friend Rabbi Yitzhock Adl---tein) to try anti-depressants. After a year of mixed success, I found help from Nardil, recommended by my ex-girlfriend's doctor Daniel Golwyn.

"You owe her your life," Prager told me, referring to Debbie.

"Didn't anyone recommend Nardil to you earlier?" asked Prager.

"Not that I remember," I replied. "But because I come from a Seventh Day Adventist background that discourages the use of mind-altering medication, I resisted for years trying anti-depressants. Also, I never thought that I had a depression problem. I believed that I had a physical problem.

"Nardil's great. It blunts my sex drive so that I'm more in control of myself. Nardil gives me energy and improves my self-confidence. I am returning to how I felt before my illness."

"That's right," said Prager. "There's a great misconception about anti-depressants that they give you self-confidence, etc.... Nardil has simply brought your brain chemistry back to normal."

Prager told me that he received a letter from my worried mother six months ago. People who cannot change me frequently write to people in my life who can change me - such as Jules Zentner and Dennis Prager.

"Your parents must be glad about your recovery in health," said Prager Friday night before his lecture.

"I also heard from your ex-girlfriend," said Prager.

"Which one?" I asked.

We established that it was Lana (not her real name) who grew so discouraged by my failure to take her out that she faxed Prager complaining about me. Prager phoned her back a few minutes after Lana heard from me that I had gone off with Deb.

I appreciate the time that Prager has spent replying to the letters of my friends and family. I'm embarrassed that they take his valuable time. I limit my own correspondence to Prager because I know that he gets hundreds of letters a week, and that he replies to all the serious ones.

I frequently told my Christian friend Joanne Boleman who most encouraged me to see my hero, that I do not feel that I have much to contribute to Prager. Yet Friday night and throughout the weekend, Prager seemed interested in me. He wants to read my book on my conversion to Judaism. I feel however that I have nothing to say that is as significant as what Prager could read in other more important books.

In his Friday night lecture, Prager referred to me. Then during question time, we had a 10-12 minute dialogue.

I addressed my hero through the public microphone. "You want people to take Judaism seriously. I think you would agree that an excellent way to begin is with study of Judaism's sacred texts. I'm a pisher (boy) in Judaism, but I bet that the majority of people who immerse themselves in study of text think that your thought is bizarre."

Prager to the audience: "Did most of you hear the question?"

Audience: "No."

Prager: "Good!"

Audience, Prager and I laugh.

Prager said that I asked an excellent question. He admitted that Orthodox Jews are ambivalent about him.

Prager quoted a prominent Chabad rabbi in Los Angeles who said that Prager had brought more people to Orthodox Judaism than anyone else (aside from the entire Lubavitch movement).

Prager regularly speaks for Chabad, the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish sect. And he does have the encouragement of many Orthodox rabbis.

"But those are rabbis that deal with reality rather than study of sacred text all day," I interjected. Prager agreed with me.

Prager said that many Orthodox scholars do dislike his thought, but my hero pointed out that passionate sects in general frequently most hate those who differ only slightly.

"But if all I knew about a Conservative rabbi was that he'd spent a life studying text, I would bet that he would think you nuts," I said.

"Give me an example," replied Prager and we went on to discuss the Jewish mission to bring the world to ethical monotheism.

Prager said that the Conservative movement is growing more insular.

"I love your ideas," I told Prager, "but when I discuss them with scholars of Judaism, they cut me to peices. You Dennis use human logic outside of traditional Jewish means of thought. You are human first, Jew second. What helps make you great is that you left Judaism for years and then came back in.... [You see Jewish things inside out.]

"You are unlike every major thinker in the rabbinic tradition... unlike Joseph Karo (who compiled the most authoritative code of Jewish Law, the Shulchan Aruch) unlike the Vilna Gaon (who studied 16 hours a day."

"The Vilna Gaon said that you should study Talmud rather than talk with your wife," said Prager.

Later I reflected that the great Gaon had much basis in the rabbinic tradition for his statement.

Prager said that it did not personally upset him that so many Jewish scholars thought him nuts, but he did feel for people like me - people who came to Judaism to touch the world with ethical monotheism and found that those who most knew Judaism seemed to occupy themselves with trivia.

I appreciated Prager's kind words but I do not mind a fight, even if it is with people who know much more than I do.

After I stopped arguing with Prager during Friday night's question period, he told my story to the audience and allowed me to plug my book.

Afterwards, during schmoozing and eating time, I met two interesting Jewish men in their late 30s - Michael and Lance. Along with Paula, we hung out at a jazz club for an hour after services.

After Prager's second talk finished early Saturday afternoon, I asked him how much energy I should use to combat congregational rabbis who deny the God of Judaism. We agreed that God matters and that reconstructionist Judaism deserves our opposition.

I asked Prager for his latest list of favorite Jewish thinkers alive today, and he did not have any. All his favorite thinkers are non-Jews.

"Who are those thinkers?" a man asked, and Prager allowed me to answer for him. I have heard most of Prager's lecture tapes and radio shows, and I have read most everything important that he has published.

I have heard recordings of every lecture that Prager gave this weekend, but luckily he threw in 20% new material.

As Prager drove out of the parking lot, he called me over to him and we talked privately for almost ten minutes.

Afterwards, back in the Conservative shul, I met Rabbi Adler's daughter Rae and and her husband Paul. We talked for fifteen minutes about Rabbi Adler, and Rae said that I probably knew more about his Judaism than she did.

At the beginning of Prager's Saturday night and his Sunday morning lectures, my hero had me hand around papers for people to sign up for his $25 a year quarterly journal Ultimate Issues.

Before I gave Prager his papers back Saturday night, I demanded that he answer another question of mine - If I had a girlfriend that I was 95% sure I wouldn't marry, did I have to tell her that?

Prager said yes and cited the shopkeeper law - "You may not ask a shopkeeper the price of an item that you know you will not buy, because it would raise the hopes of the storekeeper for no reason." (Talmud)

Before Prager drove off Saturday night, he told me again how happy he was to see me. "If I die now," he said to me, "I will die happy and in large part it will be due to you." Prager told the people gathered around us how well I knew his thought.

"If I die tonight," he said to me, "you will have a heavy responsibility to carry on."

During Sunday morning's lecture on how to raise a Jewish child in a secular society, Prager lost his train of thought. But I yelled a few words up to him and they enabled him to continue.

"I told you that he was good," Prager said to the audience of 500 people about me.

Prager hugged me again before he drove away and told me to stay in touch. If I return to Los Angeles, he said that he might have work for me.

Tears welled up in my eyes.

Prager drove away to catch a flight for Miami where he'll record the first of his guaranteed 39 weekly half-hour national tv shows. His show will be produced by the makers of the "Rush Limbaugh program" and Prager's TV show will follow Rush in most cities. If Prager's tv show gets good ratings and stays on the air, Prager's radio show should at long last go national.

I reminded Prager Saturday night that he had said that he'd never do a TV show unless he got his way in almost everything. Prager said that he had on this new show.

5/94

My job with Prager did not materialize.

12/97

My enthusiasm for Prager and his teachings has not diminished over the years. And for years I've longed to write about them in more depth. Now I will. I will start on an unauthorized biography of Dennis.

1/15/98

I get Dennis to autograph his new book HAPPINESS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM. He writes, "For Luke Ford, no comment but warm wishes..."

Now, what does that mean?

I suspect that he is gently pointing out that friends should sometimes not 'comment' on each other in public. Or, as my friend Chris points out, isn't "no comment" a phrase used with unfriendly media?

1-18-97

I found the dust jacket on Prager's latest book, Happiness Is A Serious Problem, to be a serious problem.

First, there are the obligatory blurbs - pats on the back from friends, for whom the author must reciprocate. I do not sympathize, for instance, with Prager's recommendations of the books of atheist 'Rabbi' Harold Kushner.

There are the old reliables here on the back of HAPPINESS - Harold Kushner, Robert Jastrow and Stephen S. Marmer.

Then there is the indecipherable prose - such as Robert Jastrow's blurb - "Dennis Prager understands more about the human mind that science can tell us." What the hell does that mean? Does that mean that science cannot tell us how much Dennis understands the human mind, or that Prager understands the mind more than "science?"

Harold Kushner: "There is perhaps no more important task for a person than the search for happiness, and no more reliable guide in that quest than Dennis Prager." Huh? I can think of many things more important for a person than seeking happiness: such as the pursuit of goodness or depth. Now, Prager and his book are wonderful, but is there "no more reliable guide?" What about Torah or the Bible, or the Talmud, or The Path of the Righteous or Man's Search For Meaning or some of humanity's other thinking and thinkers over the past three thousand years?

This dust jacket feels like the cheap promotion of a used car salesman.

The short bio of Dennis exemplifies garbled writing. "Dennis Prager is the author of four books, including the critically acclaimed Think a Second Time and The Prager Perspective..." Excuse me, but The Prager Perspective is not a book.

"...He has been called [Prager has been called many things] "an amazingly gifted man and moralist" by the Los Angeles Times and "one of the 10 most powerful people in Los Angeles" by L.A.'s influential Buzz magazine." Well, someone at the LA Times once wrote an article, and either called Prager.... or quoted someone as calling Prager....blah, blah blah... And who thinks of BUZZ magazine as influential? 'Yeah, Luke, I read the latest issue of Buzz, and it transformed the way I see the world.'

"As a world-class lecturer and theologian, he is regularly invited to speak throughout the United States and abroad." Well, by definition, Prager as a "world-class lecturer," would be invited to speak across the US and abroad.

On the front flap,  a heading screams: "Here's the Repair Manual We Should Have Been Handed at Birth." If everyone were handed Prager's book at birth, it would make little difference. "For when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Our chief problem in this regard is not a lack of available wisdom, but the will to pursue it. Also, most things that we are handed at birth, so to speak, are taken for granted.

There are so many examples of poor writing on the jacket, that I do not have the time to list more than a few:

* 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.

Then there's the backcover of the paperback edition of his previous book Think A Second Time: Doesn't anyone proof this stuff?

Do you think you have the answers?...Think a second time.

Dennis Prager, theologian and philosopher turned talk-show host, is one of the most brilliant and compelling voices in America today. His extraordinarily popular radio show with the signature sign-off, "Think a second time," coupled with his own biweekly newsletter, has firmly established him as a fixture in intellectual communities nationwide. In Think A Second Time, Prager blends a rigorous and scholarly education with utterly original thinking on current events. From the dangers of idealism to the roots of extremism to his thoughts on God and an afterlife, Prager offers challenging answers to up-to-the-minute questions...

Ok, Mr. PR Guy, do you think you have the answers? Think a second time.

* If Prager's show is "extraordinarily popular," then what would you call those of Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh? Extraordinarily, extraordinarily, extraordinarily popular? 

* "...one of the most..." A feeble formula.

* "...with the signature sign-off, "Think a second time..." Prager has never had a signature sign-off.

* "...with his own biweekly newsletter..." Try bimonthly (at best).

* "...a fixture in intellectual communities nationwide." Like faucets?

* "...Prager blends a rigorous and scholarly education..." Excuse me, are we talking about the guy who graduated high school near the bottom of his class, then attended the prestigious Brooklyn College, where he would've flunked Geology if the instructor wasn't so eager to get rid of him?

* "...with utterly original thinking on current events." Dennis often says that he is not an original thinker. He is a superb synthesist.

* "up-to-the-minute-questions" Huh?

A friend writes to me:

Aha! You have discovered the pablum coating and it tastes like nutrasweet. Congratulations on discernment!

The publishing industry and packaging "self help books".

Dennis' star is on the rise. Whether he will expand his market is a question. Will he be packaged enough? Get picked up by a famous person? Will he learn to simplify and repeat enough?

While "nice" bunkum is found in flattering dedications...the adulation, meaningless public mumblings and helful nods from famous "peers" and, in private, pats on the back from devoted and sincere hangers-on and those who learn everything from the teacher except discernment, are dangerous.

>I have decided to write a biography of >Dennis Prager... I must be on the right >track because my friends so passionately >oppose the idea... I do not know yet what Prager thinks...

Ouch! What qualifications? Authorized or unauthorized? The result is bound to be conflicted. Best to suffer in silence and learn what fame and success does, not to Dennis, but to discourse.

There are only two markets for celebrity bios. Adulatory and uncritical. And debunking or heterodox. Your friends are absolutely sure you can't do the first sufficiently well.

I know exactly what you mean about the dustcover and its absurd quotes. All my cynic alarms turn red and clang with klaxon cruelty. Covering my screaming ears I flee to the wilderness hermitage.

1-19-98

My friends despise my plan to chronicle the life and thought of Dennis Prager. Perhaps my best friend Chris Donald writes sarcastically on the email Prager List:

In a message dated 1/19/98 8:05:46 AM, Luke wrote:

>I found the dust jacket on Prager's latest book, Happiness Is A Serious Problem, to be a serious problem.

>First, there are the obligatory blurbs

I think Dennis stinks. I think his book-jacket stinks. So do his boring old friends that still somehow like him and his work after all these years. And his pets, too. Also his distant relatives and his postperson TOTALLY suck.

In addition, Dennis is old and tired. So is his show. And his car. And his ties. Come to think of it, he just bums me out completely.

I believe this so much so that I plan to devote some good portion of my adult life to tearing him down further, perhaps by writing an unwanted book about him. And about his books. Yes. And his tie. Well, maybe not the tie so much....but those socks he sometimes wears ARE hideous. I'm definitely including a chapter on them.

I hope people will want to read my book half as much as they want to read HIS.

But then why wouldn't they? MINE will definitely have a snazzy dust-jacket!

John writes: "Any type of recognition or reply to Mr. Luzdedos' writings only serves to encourage him to write additional rantings. In fact, just this response alone probably brings about a shifty, pornographic smile to his face."

1-21

My friend writes about me on the Prager List.

I need to make a statement.

This forum is one designed to promote the free expressions of ideas, specifically in a debative fashion. While that "rule" has been unwritten, it is clear. This forum was created in honor of the clarity of thinking and elevated topics DP is well known for, and we've expected each other to try to maintain that tradition.

In a large measure thanks to our efforts in that direction, DP himself occassionally monitors this site. I am proud that he feels we warrant this attention. I happen to know that he is an EXTREMELY busy man with little time to read his own mail, let alone our intellectual bickerings.

Over recent months there have been series of posts that have been of a profoundly inappropriate nature. One author in particular has taken it upon himself to transform this list (when he can) into a personal advertisment for his porno web site and a clearinghouse for "porno" discussions and information.

This has apparently not proven exciting enough to satisfy the need to offend any longer- the responses perhaps too few and not negative enough - and so this author has decided now to dissect Dennis and his work, heaping insult after dress-down (with the occassional accalade presumably for "balance"). He has taken it upon himself to serve as DP's self appointed "critic journalist at large".

I find this innappropriate, irresponsible and ugly.

We live in a free country. That freedom includes the ability to write, as well as the ability to discriminate between the profane and the valuable.

I ask here that members avoid any voyeuristic impulses to read droning criticism and unsubstantiated claims about Dennis here draped in "bio" auspices (from a source as "credible" as a serial porn and attack poster), and simply delete these posts whenever you find them in your mailbox.

If you are not already doing so.

Sharon from Beaumont added:

Thanks Chris. Your suggestion to simply delete mail from jerks is well-taken. In particular, out of curiosity I read the beginning couple of paragraphs of that supposed "bio". In the first few paragraphs I noted several blatant errors (the one coming to mind immediately was that KABC was DP's first radio program). Then I looked at the who the writer was and said to myself, "Oh, no wonder!"

I have learned something though, from the writings of such people. For what it's worth, the little signature dittie I use at the end of email is something I concluded because of such "attacks". The thing of it is that it's the writer who looks jerkier and jerkier with every thinly guised "attack."

Thanks again!

Sharon from Beaumont

+ Those who can, do.

+ Those who can't,

+ nitpick and whine,

+ moan and groan,

+ and generally make themselves

+ pains in the tooshes

+ to those that do.

I responded a few minutes later:

Sharon and Chris, this Luke Ford aka Luzdedos guy is an absolute jerk. You are so right. He is a disgrace to the Prager list. Surely the owner of this list can kick him off it?

I've known Luke for 31 years. He is hateful, vituperative, self-centered, vicious, mean, sadistic, masochistic, insecure, skinny, unhealthy, self-centered, whiny, gossipy, ugly, uncircumsized, self-centered, obnoxious, rude, uncouth, self-centered...

He's so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him.

All good people, all those who care about Dennis Prager and the values he espouses should not visit the following site which does nothing but dish the dirt on a good man.

BTW, can't we put this schmuck in "cherem?" [excommunication]

1-22

Let's talk seriously now. I posted this to the Prager List:

I believe that Dennis Prager is the greatest thinker on the human condition of the late 20th Century. I decided to create a web page dedicated to discussing Prager precisely because I believe that he is important.

Dennis changed my life for the good, and I've been profoundly influenced by his thinking over the past decade. For years while I was confined to bed by chronic illness, I dreamed of writing his biography. I dreamed of fighting for his values.

I met Dennis for the first time in January 1994, after years of correspondence. He told me that weekend, "If anything happens to me, you've got to carry on the fight… In a sense, I could die happy now that I've met you."

Since recovering my health in 1994, I've allowed the opinions of others to dissuade me from the important task of taking his values to the world. For some reason, I have always felt blocked from discussing deeply Prager's ideas and values. Three years ago I plannd to set up something similar to this web site but allowed a friend of mine and Prager's to dissuade me. So instead I've written on entertainment.

One night in December 1997, I decided to write out some of my frustrations with Prager's radio show. After ten minutes, I sent them across this list under the headline "Is Prager's Show in Decline?"

Many of my friends and Prager's closest supporters were furious that I had criticized 'the master' in public. They verged on excommunicating me from their community.

For several weeks I pondered the furor until I finally saw clearly that something was very wrong. In blunt terms, Prager is surrounded by sycophancy.

To counter this, and provide sharp incisive analysis of Dennis Prager's public decisions, shows, writings, ideas, etc… I am setting up <www.dennisprager.net.>

Unfortunately, many of those most devoted to Prager are not open to critical independent thinking. The idea of a forum out of their control frightens them. I am sorry, but the web site will go on, even if I have to leave many of my friends and Prager's closest supporters behind (for the moment). Good values and the pursuit of truth are more important than popularity. Excellence does not come from following the crowd.

As Dennis often says, nobody likes competition. But competition best produces excellence.

2/14/98

Dennis Prager was in classic form this rainy Saturday morning, 2-14-98, as he spoke before 200 persons at his liberal Los Angeles synagogue on the week's Torah portion - Yithro (Jethro) which he says is the most important Torah portion. It contains the Ten Commandments.

My friend Chris responded to my post with this:

I hate to be the one to ask this question. But.

Are Dennis' activities on his Sabbath fair grist for unsolicited written commentary, for world-wide distribution?

Is it just me, or is it indeed an invasion of Mr. Prager's privacy to follow him into and then detail comments he makes at his Temple while teaching the Torah? Comments he himself did not reven ecord? If the writer were to confront/overhear Mr. Prager using the bathroom afterwards, would whatever he heard as well be open to reportage?

Prager cannot even teach Torah to members of his own synagogue without worrying what type of coverage he may be getting?

I am disgusted that things that Mr. Prager does in- and desires to keep-private not be respected. That someone would abuse the privaledge of knowing where Mr. Prager attends synagogue to further his personal financial/social wants is the worst. If Mr. Prager wanted this lecture public, he would have taped it to offer it publically- as he has done before.

I think it patently unfair to follow him into his schul and report what he does - good or bad. This is a religious and holy activity, and he has a right to have his Sabbath observance respected as private. Everything he does at all times is not for general public consumption.

This may have been something that other's wanted to hear. Some may have wanted to hear what he said to his wife or son afterwards as well. Is it fair to follow him from shul to eavesdrop to report that? To interview Prager's highschool buddies and post whatever sexually-explicit stories they may "seem" to remember?

Mr. Prager made clear to the writer in question -long ago - his desire that this type of activity stop. His assistant has also made clear her disapproval.

So have other of Prager's associates. Yet it continues, and indeed gets more egregious over time.

Where does it end, Luke? And where does the support for this gossip end from members of this list?

Steve wrote: You guys are starting to remind me a little of one of my favorite movies: The King of Comedy. Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard play two competing fans/groupies of a talk show host, played by Jerry Lewis. They end up teaming up and kidnapping him. It's a great film if you like black comedies."

Chris followed up to my reply:

In a message dated 2/15/98 11:18:39 PM, Luke wrote:

> Mr. Prager made clear to the writer in question -long ago- his desire that this type of activity stop. <

<<This is a lie.>>

Technically, I miswrote. Dennis' assistant -Dennis' ONE assistant- "forwarded" this desire to Luke months ago, again in my presence. Apologies for that. You assume that Dennis finds any of your activities worthy of dealing with personally. That is why he employs an assistant. An assistant that she tells me you mischaracterized on you page as having originally been the Prager's "babysitter". THAT is a lie. She was a dear friend of the family long before the arrival of Prager's youngest son, and she was NOT a babysitter for any of the other children. This was from her mouth.

>My Prager site >(www.dennisprager.net) and my postings are only an update on what I have done for years with Prager's knowledge. We have talked regularly >for years. I know the man pretty well, and his values, and I largely live my life in the light of them.<

CHRIS: Have you ever been invited to his home? This man you know pretty well?

>BTW, as of 1994, I was the biggest overall customer of his writings and tapes, purchasing twice as many as anyone else.<

Relevance?

>I respect Prager's privacy so much that I did not even mention the name of the syngagogue where he spoke. Nor did I mention a word that he did not utter from the lectern.<

You wrote publically words he spoke -in privacy- to his community. Words he did not even tape for later distribution. Everything he says is not automatically for public consumption. This is an idea all too often lost on many writers.

>While there were many criticisms from people like you a month ago, Chris, they have muted when they saw how honorable my approach, and my site, is. <

You were largely ignored as well when you've written numerous posts of a pornographic tone to this list over the months. Silence is not always agreement.

>Six weeks ago I emailed a Prager assistant a copy of all notes that I thought might use on Prager's biography. She has made no suggestions and no further concerns to me.<

She was clear on your intentions originally, and told you that you would alienate yourself from herself, Dennis, and others if you continued to pursue this book. She followed through. That is not "making no further suggestions".

That is a statement unto itself.

>Prager and I talked briefly yesterday and we plan to talk more in the future.>

What did you expect him to do, flee? He got away with as little interaction as he could have and went about enjoying his Sabbath. How does one deal with what you are doing? I don't envy him here. He is understandably understated thus far.

>He is a strong man, most able to articulate his own concerns. So far he has neither articulated any concerns, problems, criticisms, nor has had any assistant tell me any concerns in his name.>

I stand behind my statement. If Laurie, his ONE personal assistant, posts to the contrary here, will you then stop the reporting or the writing the book?

>I am curious. Prager frequently gives personal examples in his lectures and on the radio. Do you think this is gossip and slander?>

I am unaware of anyone's ability to gossip about one's self.

>I have posted nothing about him, nor in yesterday's post did I post anything about myself, etc... that he has not done similarly.<

You do not have the same rights to Prager's thoughts that he does. This is the primary problem. You somehow think you do.

>I liken my journalism, in part, to that of a therapist (in this sense).<

You are not professionally qualified to perform either.

>Chris, your attacks place you in the company of the person whose computer sent the unsubscribe message. Without you helping to provide the hostile atmosphere, that deed and other unseemly things would not have flowed over this list and my life.<

I accept full responsibility, then.

You recieved NUMEROUS death and beating threats about your first book on pornography. You played them for several of us, to our shock, one Shabbat.

Who created THAT atmosphere? You do this stuff constantly. You've consistantly created hostility toward yourself and revel in it as noble. Is this a thread that has run throughout your life? I am just the current protagonist. You reject that. Almost every friend that we have had in common has left your friendship behind due to this. Why is that? A conservative conspiracy?

>Once again, taking Judaism, ethical montheism and Dennis Prager to the world.

>That is my obligation to the man who changed my life. :) >

Many loonies have felt a "duty" to do many unethical, unwanted things. That is no defense.

>I confined the personal comments to this list because it is much smaller, and more intimate. It is talking with friends, where I will say things that I would not say more publicly.<

Anything from this list can go around the world in a few moments.

There are no "friends" here (generally)- this is not an "intimate community."

It is an E-MAIL LIST. Largely anonymous. We know almost NOTHING of each other beyond our debating skills and positions.

This is yet another example of an inability to distinguish boundaries appropriateness in my opinion. "Whatever I feel is appropriate, is." "If I dislike a boundary, I will breach it." That has not been a great barometer for behavior thus far.

In a message dated 2/16/98 1:29:20 AM, Luke wrote:

>Well, you have lied about me many times on this list, but here you tell the truth. I make not just thousands of dollars from posting on the Prager List, but millions of dollars. Yep, I'm really raking it in.>

You have told me and DP's assistant of your plans to write an autobiography of DP's life. Your web site - it must be assumed - is the "spring board", as it was for your last book. Is this to be only a labor of love? Or are any profits to go towards charity?

If so, I retract many of my criticisms, and I apologize.

<<Well, Chris, why don't you provide all the examples where I have written up this type of personal information on Dennis? I am sure that you just did not make up these wild questions, but that they are only based on things that I have posted here, or on my dennis prager site, in the past>>

They are based on what I and others sense coming. I do not get a sense of boundaries from you. I am not alone here, am I?

<<So I don't have a list about your many lies about me. But I do remember you complaining about the "pornography" that I post to this list?>>

Anyone on this list over a month can retrieve numerous posts of yours (from their computer archives) dealing with blatant, explicitly sexual themes, using explicit sexual language, even asking if "any women on this list are into DP and pornography?".

VERY classy. That's what I was speaking of. I've never accused you of "posting pornography", but of "posting ON pornography" (occassionally vulgarly) and on other sexually explicit topics. You may recall several posts responding to your peculiar tastes in topics and such - not from myself. I am reminded of the post where you detailed a fantasy about wanting to sexually degrade and humiliate women, and suggesting that ALL men have this fantasy.

True or false, that is - as I told you privatly at the time - NOT appropriate grist for this list.

I was the one who introduced you to this list, remember?

...DP's personal assistant spent over two hours drilling this theme [not writing about Prager's personal life] home with the both of us present. She is far more a Prager associate. Several mutual friends of ours and Mr Prager's have discontinued contact with you over it.

How much discouragement does one need?

Mr. Prager has many employees- but ONE assistant who handles his daily and business affairs. She has done so for several years. You are ACUTELY aware of this. To suggest otherwise is very dishonest. Her name [Laurie Zimmet] stands alone in all his literature.

She has made it clear that this is so offensive to Dennis that she is done with you and thus has not responded further, and that DP would not likely respond either. She spoke to you of this for over two hours one night - with myself in attandance. She has made his disapproval of this unauthorized autobiography clear - in my presence - to you.

What else must be said? My intent is not to embarrass nor in any way to do anything but protect the rights of a man I respect and who has changed our world for the better. We owe that type of man reasonable loyalty, in my opinion.

Luke Ford has written numerous errors in his biography on Dennis. I have been told this by the (angered) individuals themselves. The people on this list and others go into his website, read it, and because it is in print they may believe it to be true. That is a terrible wrong done to Dennis Prager.

Secondly, much of the personal information Luke has put in this unauthorized, misinformed biography, he learned by ingratiating himself into Dennis Pager's and Joseph Telushkin's lives. Personal statements that J.T. made before his Los Angeles family (his congregation) Luke believed was fair game for world wide public reading. Personal information D.P. has shared with his community (his congregation) Luke feels is fair game for world wide public reading. What I reject about Luke Ford is his inability to distinguish between that which could be put on his website and personal, gossipy information that should not be put in any public forum.

In my opinion, Luke is behaving like an ungrateful, unstable, intrusive, and yes, actually mean person. His web site on Dennis Prager is filled with slander and gossip (and much that is false beyond what I have previously outlined). He hides behind the protective blanket of combining it with already published information and helpful daily reports on DP's radio show and appearances. He is immoral for putting up such a site, and any of you who encourage him to continue it and any of you who read it are just as wrong as he is. You also owe Dennis Prager an apology.

Finally, I ask Luke Ford one question. If Dennis Prager publicly requests that you desist from continuing with your web site on him and that you drop your unsolicited, unauthorized biography on him, will you do so? Are you as grateful to Dennis Prager as you have publicly committed yourself to being? If DP asks you to stop, will you?

I likewise promise that, if Dennis publicly states that he is in favor of - or is even neutral to - what you have been doing, I will both apologize here and pay yearly dues for you to any three of your favorite Synagogues.

Luke says:Yes, if Prager says that he is strongly opposed, I will drop both.

I do not look for his seal of approval, for it is an independent site.

I gave him advanced notice about my plans.

The rest of your posts, Chris, on this matter, are so disgusting, nasty and personal, that, for the moment, I will ignore them.

2/18/98

On the E-mail list which discusses Dennis Prager, Rhonda wrote:

Luke, your recaps of Dennis's programs are interesting, but almost every day, you get some kind of a jab in at Dennis. Usually it's very petty. Yes, he's a passionate centrist. Centrist does not imply dead and passionate is the key word here. The baby Richard debacle was an outrage. Once again the courts put the feelings of an adult above the needs of a child and probably ruined the child's life. And this is standard procedure in our Ameircan courtrooms.

Dennis' passionate feelings and words were very appropriate.

If you have a criticism of Dennis, you should call him and tell him to his face instead of using this forum to constantly pick at him. His screener doesn't weed out people that disagree with him. In fact, he usually puts people who have a disagreement ahead of the others. If the screeners aren't letting you on, maybe they feel that your criticisms are so petty that they wouldn't be of interest to anyone or would put everyone to sleep.

I think what bothers me about your criticism of Dennis is that they aren't just honest disagreements about what he says. You pick apart the way he says things, trying to trip him up, pointing out even the most mild (what you perceive to be) inconsistencies and blowing them out of proportion. Maybe in your quest to improve the world, it would be more effective if you took that microscope of yours off of Dennis and turned your attention to that man in the mirror for a while.

...You are an excentric, obsessive psychopath. If Dennis were a woman, he could have you arrested for stalking.

2-20 Mike Dang:

At first blush of this series [by Luke] of posts I thought "How petty." But as I read further I came to appreciate Luke's pursuit of restitution of his newslist image. I haven't seen his site, I haven't actually read the individual posts referred to. Snowboarding called me away for a week. So I don't know about the slander. But I like to see a person pursue proper restitution and it seems like Luke's doing so appropriately. I also have to respect Chris's nutting it up in terms of membership. Since my roommate's membership in a local synagogue costs him $800 a year (and he says that's inexpensive) I can appreciate what Chris is willing to put up.

This whole thing is pretty entertaining. Like must see TV. I hope Rhonda will likewise nut it up if she's guilty as charged.

Sarcasm aside, all I know is I've immensely appreciated Luke's daily recaps. I can't listen to Dennis most of the time so his recaps really help.

Errors of material public facts about Dennis by Luke should be easy to point out. I assume they have been by David. But to sling so many outrageous swords and arrows at Luke seems excessive. Sounds like sour grapes to me, Mr. Uva.

"Ungrateful"? What the heck is that. Is DP "His benevolency"? DP is a man like many. Yes, like many. DP's the one that regularly talks about his sexual fixations. DPs just a regular dude that happens to distinguish himself by thinking with impressive singularity and clarity.

DP thinks better than most, and not as good as some, not unlike other modern day sharp thinkers, like Frankl, Herzberg, Nozick, etc. Let's not begin worshipping him just yet.

Chris Donald:

I have no problem with the 'recaps' for the most part. They usually to do more good than harm.

If Luke is willing to abandon ship on the unauthorized Bio and Web Page, as he said he would after DP asks him to do so, I will largely agree with you.

But not until then. Descency demands that.

It has been one issue - the world wide publishing of an unwanted (by DP and co.), unauthorized, and factually fractured "biography" with a running commentary by a writer criticizing a moral and scholarly figure beyond his league. That is the only significant area where we part ways, at least publically.

Luke is one of those rarities where you have enormous talent buried beneath a dung-heap of poor decision making, coupled with an inability to process moral criticism of his activities as anything other than Persecution. Even when it comes from numerous and responsible directions.

He has moments of genuine sweetness and clarity, but they soon lose all luster, sanded down by the impish, adolescent recklessness he bestowes onto others' (and his own) dignity.

Alan:

I have been critical of Luke in a previous post for a lack of journalistic ethics and what frankly seems to be a psychopathic approach to dealing with DP and his retainers. However, you have also crossed a line here. This is still the US of A and we have the First Amendment. DP has gone to considerable lengths to make himself a public person. It is Lukes choice to publish or not; neither you or DP or any one else has a say in that. He has a moral responsibility to be accurate. Dennis and company have a right not to be stalked. We all have a right not to read what we don't want to read.

Mike Dang:

If DP asks Luke to abandon ship as you mention then I would hope Luke would comply if only out of respect for DP. While I support Luke's free speech right to publish regardless of DP's request, and while I support a person wishing to pursue proper restitution, I firmly believe fans of DP should share DP's general respect for others as well as DP's other general values. That sharing of values such as respect should extend to complying to a request from DP. Certainly that would shed the brightest light to indicate where Luke stands.

CHRIS:

I hold that writing an unwanted book about someone's private life is Gossip.

THAT is immoral in my religion, of which Luke is a member. I never said he didn't have any legal standing. Like the right to shed unwanted babies into a sink until the last moment, he has the legal right to publish whatever comes into his head- with few legal conditions. He is not morally allowed to.

Gossip is a close kin to murder in the Torah. Spreading it is a large sin. We have a belief that you can murder a man's character- even in reporting the truth as you see it. If it is unwanted, you don't publish it if it is private-even if the person revealed it to someone else in another public forum. DP has the right to not want what he's said spread further than it is now. His private life is not completely yours to peruse -morally- just because Luke wants to compile from various, often obscure, sources- including but not limited to personal memory.

I wouldn't accuse you of being immoral were the BIO yours. I would accuse you of ingratitude, and try to morally suade you, as I am Luke. I just wouldn't have as firm a footing with you, as I have no idea what God or code of ethics you follow. I know where Luke gets his rules...and he's not justifiable witin them at all. Not in my opinion, and not in the opinion of any Rabbi I can imagine.

Claiming innocence because "My profession is a higher calling than doing as God asks me (not to spread gossip)" does not exempt you from moral judgements.

A Jew is to carry God into every endevour. And I couldn't see God writing this book, Alan.

In a message dated 2/22/98 5:46:12 AM, Luke wrote:

>Such a media rep would not last in >the real world. I have dealt with media reps since about age 14, and have dealt with hundreds.

CHRIS DONALD:

Funny..... she [Laurie Zimmet] makes about 4 x YOUR income (Luke the Professional Journalist), and seems to be doing reasonably well. DP's career is *still* flourishing- even as a religious mole in the secular media. She is responsible in LARGE MEASURE for much of the content of each show.

Perhaps all those Pulizer Prize winning articles and near bestsellers that you've written -while dealing with all those More-Professional Media Reps" - just needed more......advertising or something...

I recommend you leave her out of your criticisms from now on. You don't match-up real favorably. (She doesn't even write, and she's managed to publish just as many books as you have.)

2/27/98

From: ZIMatTPP@aol.com to the unofficial Prager email discussion list:

My name is Laurie Zimmet and I am Dennis Prager’s pesonal assistant. I am also director of media relations for Dennis Prager. Although he has an entire staff working at The Prager Perspective office, I am his assistant.

I have not publicly responded to Mr. Ford thus far because what Chris Donald wrote regarding the meeting with Mr. Ford is true. I spent over 3 hours with Mr. Ford explaining why he was not the one to write Dennis’ biography. For Mr. Ford to write that I never responded to him is therefore a lie.

Since that long talk, Mr. Ford has attempted, through email, to verify information he had either already put up on his unauthorized web site on Dennis or was about to. I did not respond for two reasons.

One, Mr. Ford’s web site and biography on Dennis was unauthorized, unsolicited and not supported by either Dennis or myself. To respond is to validate.

Second, so much of what Mr. Ford sent to me was either slanderous, or contained such personal information, that it should never had been considered for public domain. In short, it was largely gossip of which some was true and some not.

Mr. Ford's contention that my silence is in part responsible for his posting wrong information on Dennis Prager and that our silence is in a sense a neutral position and therefore supportive of his endeavor, is unbelievable. It is tantamount to him writing that "Dennis Prager beats his wife," sending it to me, writing that I have a week to respond, and when I don’t he puts this up on a world wide web site as fact. This is not journalism, it is extortion.

Mr. Ford wrote:

>> Journalists run questions by media reps all the time to check facts. A media rep who refused to cooperate, and then ridiculed the journalist to numerous folks for his supposed mistakes, is probably a lousy media rep. Such a media rep would not last in the real world>>>>>

My answer to Mr. Ford is that he is not a journalist. He did not send me any credentials. In the 4 years that I have known him the only published work I have seen from him was a porn film in which he starred. It was given to a friend of mine for viewing. After a couple minutes, I shut it off.

Mr. Ford took Dennis’ name for his web site URL without our permission. We were never sent a request. I don’t think any of you would appreciate your name as an URL. (e.g. Luke Ford starting a chrisbolton.net or a chrisdonald.net) without requesting your permission to do so.

This week he tried to take our dennisprager.com away from us by hiring a company called Servint to do so. They verified his name as the request recipient. I have this verified in writing. We are launching our site today. I have been working on this expensive endeavor for over six months. I didn’t want to put out anything less than the class Dennis deserves. I could have easily purchased a program for $50.00 or used an AOL template and had a site up within a week. Dennis deserves better than that.

For someone who has written so often how indebted he is to Dennis Prager for changing his life for the better, Mr. Ford has demonstrated a most unusual form of gratitude: stealing Dennis' name for an unauthorized web site, trying to take Dennis’ official site away from him, and worldwide distribution of truths and untruths about Dennis’ private life, that of his wife, his children, and his friends.

Mr. Ford has done a fine job of summarizing Dennis’ shows, providing the related articles of Dennis’ show topics, and researching articles written about Dennis. But all of this is overshadowed, in my opinion, by his irresponsible web site and biography on Dennis Prager. It is unauthorized, unsolicited, and will not be supported by Dennis, myself, or anyone from the Prager Perspective staff.

Sincerely,

Laurie Zimmet

cc: Dennis Prager

Luke Ford replies:

I have known Laurie Zimmett for four years. She is a person of integrity and richly deserving to be Prager's assistant.

We've had our share of disagreements over the years. This is the most significant.

I have tried to keep her name out of our discussion, just as I have generally ignored the personal attacks by Chris on me.

When I discussed media representation in my posts, I purposefully tried to keep the discussion to values, not personalities.

Laurie writes:

>I have not publicly responded to Mr. Ford thus far because what Chris Donald > wrote regarding the meeting with Mr. Ford is true. I spent over 3 hours with > Mr. Ford explaining why he was not the one to write Dennis’ biography. For > Mr. Ford to write that I never responded to him is therefore a lie.

Laurie, Chris and I did talk for about three hours on December 25th. They both made clear to me their opposition to my writing on Prager. I regret that this intensely personal and frequently painful conversation we had that night has been dragged across the internet. Their recollections of the conversation and mine agree on some points and differ on others.

Laurie and Chris both deliberately chose to take my discussion of journalism, privacy and media reps as totally directed at Laurie. I regret that they have done so. It was clearly labeled as beyond and aside from personality.

> Second, so much of what Mr. Ford sent to me was either slanderous, or contained such personal information, that it should never had been considered for public domain. In short, it was largely gossip of >which some was true and some not.

I would like that serious charge backed up. What have I written about Dennis that he has not said either on the radio or at lectures in front of hundreds?

> Mr. Ford took Dennis’ name for his web site URL without our permission. We > were never sent a request. I don’t think any of you would appreciate your > name as an URL. (e.g. Luke Ford starting a chrisbolton.net or a chrisdonald.net) > without requesting your permission to do so.

I told Dennis and Laurie of my plans well in advance of my acting on them.

There are infinite variations on Dennis Prager that could be used for a web site... Dennis Prager as a headline appears frequently on flyers, newspaper headlines, quotes on book jackets...etc... Every page on my site has always had a disclaimer that it was not authorized by Prager. Unauthorized articles, unauthorized journalism is the norm. Newspapers and magazines do not seek permission before writing on someone. I have bent over backwards to give advance notice.

I stated several weeks ago on this list that I would take down my Prager site if he requested. I also told him this privately from the beginning.

The difference between a ChrisDonald or Chris Bolton site is that they are private figures while Dennis is a public figure who has been written about for 20 years.

>This week he tried to take our dennisprager.com away from us by hiring a company called Servint to do so. They verified his name as the request> recipient. I have this verified in writing.

Servint is my new server. I did not try to take dennisprager.com away. The servint company confused dennisprager.com with dennisprager.net and made a stupid request, which I immediately stopped. A site cannot be changed like that without signatures and documentation. You will find no signature attached to this request, it was a stupid goof by Servint. It did no harm. It was corrected immediately. It had no potential to do harm. A simple phone call or E-mail to me would've set this straight if Laurie or anyone had any questions.

> For someone who has written so often how indebted he is to Dennis Prager for > changing his life for the better, Mr. Ford has demonstrated a most unusual > form of gratitude: stealing Dennis' name for an unauthorized web site,  > trying to take Dennis’ official site away from him, and worldwide distribution of > truths and untruths about Dennis’ private life, that of his wife, his > children, and his friends.

OK, back up your charges. I want you to show all the supposedly private information that I disseminated about Prager that he has not already said publicly or published?

Do I conduct my affairs and my writing perfectly? No. If I were to turn a similar microscope on to others, as has been turned on to me of late, you would also find flaws. Yes, I have plenty of them. But for someone who has been relentlessly attacked on this newsgroup over the past five weeks, I have conducted myself generally with restraint. I do not descend to these types of personal attacks. You've never seen me digging up stuff on Chris, or Laurie or on Dennis.

My writings and web sites speak for themselves.

SHARON: "After reading the clear denunciation of your actions by Mr. Prager's assistant, Ms. Zimmet, I could not agree more. Your actions do indeed speak for themselves and you have been clearly found out. Proverbs 10:7-10."

David Uva writes:

Last week, I was examining the web site "www.dennisprager.net", authored by Luke Ford. I found this site to contain a biography of Dennis Prager as well as various critique of his show. At the time, I thought that Luke was revealing too much personal information about Dennis and unfairly scrutinizing him. This, in combination with some news posts I read implicating that that Luke may have been using misinformation and was printing this material against the wishes of Dennis Prager, caused me to become very outraged at Luke, since I am a huge admirer of Prager.

In a very knee jerked-reaction, I made a post, titled "LUKE FORD IS A FRAUD!", to this newsgroup. In this and a subsequent article, I stated that Luke had "slandered" Prager. I also used, for the vast majority of the original post, an article by Chris D. (to whom I also owe an apology for using his words without his consent or knowledge) from a Prager mailing list. This article by Chris, contained many allegations against Luke which have not been substantiated. I have no personal knowledge as to whether or not the accusations against Luke were true, and I admit that it was wrong of me to have posted this as a reaction to his web site. My original intention was to use this article as an attachment and state that it did not represent my knowledge; however, that would have been wrong also.

I have no intention of harming the reputation of Luke or anyone close to him, which is exactly what that post could have done. I ask of anyone who read my post, to please disregard it! Any conclusions one makes about Luke should be done so without giving any credibility to that article.

I wish to also make clear that I respect Luke's right to free speech.

Even though it may seem that luke is overly critical of Dennis at times, it is his prerogative to do so as long as he is truthful and demonstrates responsible journalism. Also, the ability to disagree and point out where one is wrong is what talk-radio is all about.

Furthermore, it is apparent that Luke has powerful writing and research abilities that can be beneficial in any discussion group.

Once again, my sincere apologies to Luke Ford and anyone else I may have offended.

Subj: Prager-L: Luke's Internet Scribblings on Dennis Prager

Date: 98-02-28 21:37:14 EST

From: lukeisback@gmail.com (Luke Ford)

Sender: owner-prager-l@email.csun.edu

> Second, so much of what Mr. Ford sent to me was either slanderous, or > contained such personal information, that it should never had been > considered for public domain. In short, it was largely gossip of which some was true and some not.

>Mr. Ford has done a fine job of summarizing Dennis’ shows, providing the > related articles of Dennis’ show topics, and researching articles written > about Dennis. But all of this is overshadowed, in my opinion, by his > irresponsible web site and biography on Dennis Prager.

These are serious charges from a moral person who is the assistant to my hero.

So I take them seriously.

Less than one percent of what I have posted on this newsgroup, and the internet, about Dennis Prager and his ideas could in any way be construed as gossip. Of that, between 80-100% of that information has been said by Prager on his radio show before hundreds of thousands of people.

Therefore, those comparitively few words that supposedly slandered Dennis, his friends and his family, must be incredibly damaging and serious to outweigh the hundreds of pages of stuff that I have posted regarding his ideas, most of which have been either supportive or neutral. So I am most curious what the slanderous things were that I wrote.

You've made a serious charge. Now the honorable thing is to back it up.

Many readers of this list must be confused by the intensity of the disagreements and the personal attacks traded between Chris and company and myself. After all, Chris and company and I have been friends for about four years. Overall, we share values. We all love Dennis Prager and want him and his values to succeed. We all want to take Prager's values to the world. We all do take Prager's values to the world, and largely strive to live our lives in accordance with the wisdom we have learned from him.

So why the vehemence and heat, when, after all, Chris and company would have no problem with 95% plus of the stuff I write about Dennis? Are the remaining words of mine that vicious and evil?

Precisely because we share so much in common, we are having this disagreement.

It is a civil war, it is intercine strife.

I think most disinterested observers would conclude that it is not really about Dennis Prager and my writings on him. What this is really all about are relationship issues between Chris, myself..etc... Our own self esteem, turf, self-image, foibles, sins, flaws, insecurities, neuroses, ambitions, hopes, dreams, jobs, income, self-respect, standing with peers, place in pecking order, hierarchy, feelings...etc... Different ones probably apply differently to the persons involved.

When people fight, particularly when people who overwhelmingly share values fight, they rarely fight over what they are explicitly arguing about. There are the surface issues, the ones articulated, but underneath them are the META-issues, the true driving force of the clash.

When people hate, they rarely articulate the exact reason why they hate someone.

If this was really about my writings on Dennis, my detractors would know that they had no credibility with me on this particularly issue, and that attacks on me would not change my mind, as they change few people's minds. They would also know that I cannot be intimidated so easily.

If this petty airing of dirty laundry was really about my writing on Dennis, my detractors would've asked Dennis to either write, E-mail or phone me, asking me to stop. I've often said that if he did so, I would stop.

Or, as Dennis is a busy man with more important concerns than our relationship issues, they could've turned to the many persons-friends we have in common who do carry credibility with me, explained to one of them their objections, and ask that person to talk to me. Internet newsgroups and mailing lists are not the medium to resolve these types of disputes.

Things like this should be resolved quietly, discreetly, with as few persons involved as possible.

I think that Prager list readers would be wise to wait before pronouncing on many of the issues between myself and my detractors over my web site and writings on Dennis. It doesn't particularly bother me if you want to attack me, but it does your own soul no good. I suspect that very few people really know what is driving this argument and that things will become more clear when Dennis chooses, if he ever chooses, to pronounce on the issues involved. Until then, I think that we should generally avoid personal attacks, if for no other reason than to honor the man who has brought us so much joy - Dennis Prager.

Of course the values raised by this discussion should be fair game, and individual actions, but to pronounce on whether a whole person is good or bad, or mentally sick or healthy, is a perilous task usually best left to God.

Rhonda writes:

The only thing I am confused about is you. You say one thing and act another way. There are so many subtle and not so subtle ways you have been inconsistent in your so-called friendship and admiration of Dennis Prager.

For you to still not realize what it is you're doing wrong is completely baffling to me. You are acting like a skitzoid psychopath. Sometimes the words that come from you are so full of warmth and wisdom, they could have been written by a rabbi or some other man of God. Then in the next post if not the next paragraph, you will say something so bizzare, it makes me think you've been invaded by the body snatchers and that someone from another planet is speaking through you.

You must examine yourself and your own motives very honestly. Because apparently no one from the outside is going to be able to reach that soul of yours.

Screwtape loves to confuse and confound and I'm afraid he is the one pulling your strings. You may not realize it, though, until it is too late.

Subj: Re: Prager-L: Luke's Internet Scribblings on Dennis Prager

Date: 98-03-01 03:08:22 EST

From: lukeisback@gmail.com (Luke Ford)

In a message dated 98-03-01 02:27:10 EST, you write:

> The only thing I am confused about is you. You say one thing and act another way.

I have the blessing and the curse of being able to see things from many different perspectives, and the courage and lack of discretion, to express these contradictions in different settings.

I also confuse my poor Christian family, who at various times wonder whether I am sick or evil. Or do I suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

I live a very serious life, totally dedicated to work and study and Judaism. I just go about my work etc...in a frequently goofy way. I'm generally harmless.

You have not seen me making many personal attacks, even though I am a frequent recipient of them.

I try to only be goofy in ways that will do minimal if any damage. So I make fun of myself all the time, and rarely of others.

I am difficult to get to know. There are a handful of wise people who quickly get a handle on me, such as this adorable rabbi in Orlando, Dr. Rudolph Adler, my UCLA prof friend Jules Zentner, and a few others that I won't embarrass my naming.

I don't think I take pride in "complex." It's just the way I've chosen for the moment. Wise people are very slow to criticize about things like this, when they don't have a handle on what is going on.

But you are so obviously good natured and well intentioned, you get instant forgiveness... :)

When I am being serious, that will show through in my writing. When I am goofing, that will also be obvious to the careful reader.

There are areas where I try to be consistent. But everyone believes in ideals that they do not live up to. For better and worse, I'm just more open about it.

> For you to still not realize what it is you're doing wrong is completely baffling to me. You are acting like a skitzoid psychopath.

I honor your good intentions, but a public email list like this is not the appropriate place to make these sort of personal comments. If you are really truly curious about me, and wish me more good than harm, than you would make these type of enquiries privately. I am writing this not so much to you, as I am not using your name, but as an important statement of values.

If people are truly concerned about someone on this list or elsewhere, and have concerns that could reflect negatively on the recipient if made public, then these concerns should generally not be made publicly. If you want someone to stop doing something, you first should ask yourself if your direct asking him to stop, will do anything. If it might, then you should ask privately. If that does not work, and this is very important to you, you ask someone who has credibility with the person concerned, to talk to him.

Though well intentioned, there are various folks on this list who do not have any credibility with me right now, and their criticisms will do no good. They will only do harm.

A wise person thinks before criticizing persons. Criticizing an idea or even an individual behavior is much less problematic.

I frequently don't listen to people deeply. It is a flaw that I share with many people. I often see religious people trying to change others. That is fine. But they just bulldozer ahead. They are not listening to where the person is at.

PEOPLE DON'T CARE HOW MUCH YOU KNOW, UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE.

You seem a well intentioned person, but I do not sense you that you care for me. I'd guess that you've made about 30 negative comments about me on this list, and about 3 positive ones. If you thought about this more deeply, you might readjust your approach.

Others, such as the honorable gentleman who just apologized to me on this list, or a Mike Dang or an SGill or a Dana, have credibility with me that they have earned. They have pull. If they asked me to change something, I know that they would do it privately. Personal criticism, particularly when delivered publicly, shaming a person before hundreds, will not motivate the recipient of your barbs to the changes you'd like to see.

Or as Proverbs puts it, "Do not reprove a fool, for he will hate you. Reprove a wise man and he will love you."

We all are too quick to criticize persons. We are too petty, too often and too much.

Before doing so, stop, think, judge where your recipient is at, ask yourself if your criticism will do any good? Then, generally speaking, do it privately.

One may then question my frequent criticisms of Dennis Prager. First of all, they are entirely of various decisions of how he conducts his radio show. Or of his ideas. They are not of his person. Second. I don't make them for the primary desire of trying to change him. If I wanted to effect a change in his or anyone's behavior, I would generally place my comments in question form, and in private. I write about Prager as a journalist, as an observer, as my job.

You may be stunned at my arrogance. Who appointed me to write about Prager? Answer: The thousands of people who visit my web site and Email their appreciation, and patronize my advertisers.

I write about a person who has chosen to be a public figure, to put himself on the line... A person who gets attacked for a living. I do not write about other people on this list in the critical way I write of Prager, even though I love and adore Prager more than anyone alive.

As a journalist, my primary obligation is to truth, not to people's feelings.

Outside of that, my primary obligation in interpersonal relations, is to people's feelings.

I am very self critical and open about my flaws. You could say I bare my throat for the blade. But the person who digs that blade in, especially publically, is the fool.

I am known for eccentric behavior but it is almost always controlled by my values. Even at my wildest, you won't see my picking on people, criticizing them, making fun of them. People are too precious.

Yes, I have made risque jokes at innapropriate times, but you won't hear me saying to folks..."You know what your problem is? Your problem is that you are X, Y, Z..."

Luke further responds to Laurie on the Prager-List:

I only recall saying that you did not respond to my emails subsequent to my decision to write Prager's bio...After Jan. 15. So please substantiate to the contrary or apologize.

And do you want to stick with your characterization of this private conversation as "over 3 hours with Mr. Ford explaining why he was not the one to write Dennis' biography" or would you like to resubmit that as about five minutes? And do you really think this private conversation should be disected on the Prager List? After all, it was your buddy and mine Chris who brought it up, and now you.

And perhaps you might elaborate about your email of around Jan. 15, where you said I should give Prager the option to ask me to desist. Which I had already done, and have done repeatedly. I have only asked of Dennis that he not oppose my writing on him. And thus far he has accomodated me.

Your feelings, Laurie, about this are all very interesting, but probably not worthy of posting to this list. But now that you have done so, and stopped hiding behind Chris's posts (and your private attacks on me to our friends), perhaps you will now have the ovaries to back them up?

Perhaps you might explain Laurie, why, if my writing on Prager is so heinous, he has not bothered to ask me to stop? And if you felt so strongly about this, why did you not ask him to ask me? And if you did, what does it mean that he hasn't?

Or why did you not seek out a person who has credibility with me in this area (we know many fine persons in common), and deal with the matter this way?

Rather, you have chosen to, until now, silently use Chris as your attack dog on this List making endless personal accusations about me. Was it really necessary for you to slander my name to so many of the friends we have in common? Was cooperating and coordinating with Chris the destruction of a person's name who has the temerity to write without your permission about Dennis, really the best way to accomplish your noble ends?

And while you are at it, perhaps you could share with us your view of this E-mail discussion Prager-List? It would give us a better understanding of your views on any "unauthorized, unasked for" writing about Dennis Prager.

>...so much of what Mr. Ford sent to me was either slanderous, or

I will ask you again to back up your serious charges. And as I have written hundreds of pages about Dennis and his values, these "slanders" must be very naughty indeed, to justify your charges and tactics.

> My answer to Mr. Ford is that he is not a journalist.

Perhaps you might explain how you have the wisdom to declare who and who is not a journalist?

>He did not send me any credentials. >In the 4 years that I have known >him the only published work I have seen from him was a porn film in which he starred.

Now that is relevant?

Incidentally, Laurie, in case you're curious (I know this whole meeting on a literal level of your charges misses the main point but...) I have published several essays on Dennis Prager in past years, worked for a news radio station in Sacramento for four years (KAHI/KHYL 1982-87) won various awards for my journalism at high school and college, written for newspapers ranging from the Sacramento Bee, Auburn Journal to the Gladstone Observer in Australia, and have been written about and quoted in such publications as the New York Post, Video 3000, The Independent on Sunday ( a leading newspaper in London), MS Sidewalk San Diego, and about two dozen others.

I just wanted to take your serious charges on a literal level. I have already explained that we are not fighting over what we are fighting over, but that, unfortunately, Chris and Laurie decided to take our personal relationship tensions and project them into some high falutin language on a public plane.

> This week he tried to take our dennisprager.com away from us by hiring a company called Servint to do so. They verified his name as the >request recipient. I have this verified in writing.

I am sure that you would take the time to know what you are writing about before leveling such a serious charge? As a web site can only be shifted to a new server through a certain procedure, I'm sure you already know what that is? You must have signed authorization, complete with ID from either the web site owner or the web site administrator. So please produce this, or perhaps you should just withdraw your charge and apologize.

I have explained already that my web server SERVINT stupidly confused www.dennisprager.net with dennisprager.com in making its request to INTERNIC, an embarrassing mistake that caused no harm and had no potential to harm.

If you are going to level such a serious charge in public, Laurie, perhaps you should also explain why, if you had genuine concerns, you did not bother to E-mail or phone me about this strange request about dennisprager.com that showed up Wednesday.

> Mr. Ford has demonstrated a most unusual form of gratitude: stealing >Dennis' name for an unauthorized web site

Perhaps you could also enlighten us with your feelings about the other web pages devoted to Dennis Prager and the very name of this mailing list that you used to level your charges: Prager-L? And if my site is so hurtful to poor Dennis, uhh, why hasn't he called me? Are you saying that he is hiding behind your skirt and is unable to speak for himself?

> Mr. Ford has done a fine job of summarizing Dennis’ shows, providing the related articles of Dennis’ show topics, and researching articles written> about Dennis. But all of this is overshadowed, in my opinion, by his > irresponsible web site and biography on Dennis Prager.

Well, we are all waiting for you to substantiate these charges, which have been made with your active cooperation, these past six weeks on this list by Chris, and by you privately to many people.

Subj: Prager-L: Luke's Internet Scribblings on Dennis Prager

Date: 98-03-01 12:57:20 EST

From: ChrisDnld@aol.com (ChrisDnld)

Sender: owner-prager-l@email.csun.edu

In a message dated 3/1/98 8:08:22 AM, Luke wrote:

>Though well intentioned, there are various folks on this list who do not have any credibility with me right now, and their criticisms will do no good. They >will only do harm.

To lose credibility with Luke...what must one do? Star in a porno film?

>We all are too quick to criticize persons. We are too petty, too often and too >much.

>Before doing so, stop, think, judge where your recipient is at, ask yourself >if your criticism will do any good? Then, generally speaking, do it privately.

I'm completely lost here. Considering the frequency of criticisms and micro-scrutiny of DP by this author...... day after day...... after day.....one can only marvel at the double standard involved here.

It's OK to do to a public speaker, but not to a public writer? How did you arrive at that? What exempts you? Tradition?

> They are not of his person. Second. I don't make them for the primary desire of >trying to change him.

And I do not write imagining I can change you. Some of us who care deeply have tried to accomplish that for almost 4 years now...to no avail. That's hard to swallow, but we have.

I write, spending my valuable time here, in order to discredit someone's work which I think is doing an immoral thing to the detriment of a friend of mine. I do it because ethics demand that I do. Laurie agrees with me.  

So it's my moral opinion, Lauries, and DP's vs. yours. What else am I to do?

>I am known for eccentric behavior but it is almost always controlled by my values.

Luke, please do not misrepresent yourself like this publically. This is how your personal life becomes public. You force the hand of those of us who know better. You have chosen to live and die by your earned reputation. Please DO NOT force it public here.

Chris_

Subj: Prager-L: Regrettable proof and a welcome end

Date: 98-03-01 17:15:42 EST

From: ChrisDnld@aol.com (ChrisDnld)

Sender: owner-prager-l@email.csun.edu

Beware the man who has an excuse for everything but an apology for nothing.

Luke's contention that I and Dennis Prager's Director of Media Relations have a personal vendetta against him, or as he puts it "a civil war", and that's why we are against his unauthorized and slanderous web site on Dennis Prager, actually frightens me. It is more dilutional than I'd ever imagined. There is no civil war, no vendetta; just an ill human.

As was the case with his last "book"/website, he is doing a wrong, and is paranoid of those pointing it out, without regard for how credible they may be. I had been something of a friend of Luke's for 3 years. I introduced him to this list.

Luke wrote that everything personal he has written on Dennis and his family was already made publicly either at speeches or in print. Luke wrote that Laurie Zimmet should back up her claim of gossip and slander on the part of Luke Ford. Of course she will not do that. As she wrote, to respond is to validate. She works with credentialed journalists on a daily basis. She does not validate Luke as journalist. She also does not want to drag gossip through this List.

However, since I do not represent Dennis and because I so want to show the rest of you how credible Laurie Zimmet is, I will provide only one example. I regret having to provide even this one. I regret it for Dennis' and his wife's sake. But I need the rest of you to understand how egregious and hurtful Luke's bio is.

Luke wrote:

>>Dennis and Fran tried to have another child, but after unsuccessful attempts which included a couple of misacarriages>>

This is what I found out from the parties involved:

A) This was never made public before; not in speeches and not in print.

B) It's not true. Or as Dennis put it, an UNBELIEVEABLE LIE!

That Luke put this up on a world wide web site in unconsionable.

Most of the personal information on Dennis that Luke put up on his site was not already made public. As Laurie put it, some are truths, some are lies, most of it gossip and not for public reading.

I refuse to list the others. Those of you who wish that I would, please think more of Dennis, the man this List is dedicated to, than any voyeuristic tendencies within us. Please send an ethical message here.

LUKE: Check out Volume eight, number four of Prager's journal Ultimate Issues where he describes the efforts he and his wife went through to have another child. Essay entitled "Thoughts On Adopting A Child"

Subj: Prager-L: Regrettable error and apology

Date: 98-03-03 00:07:06 EST

From: ChrisDnld@aol.com (ChrisDnld)

Sender: owner-prager-l@email.csun.edu

After further research and review, I acknowledge that Luke told the truth here.

I was misled in this instance, and I apologize for this error. Dennis apparently misled Laurie as well- he must have forgotten writing about it. I certainly did not remember it, and cannot read every article DP has released to confirm everything I am told by reliable sources. Sometimes we amateurs must rely on the credibility of the credible. (Especially the horses mouth. Sheesh.)

While there are numerous other examples that I have provided here and privately of errors and mis-statements in Luke's Bio, and while I still feel that such personal info is not something to be republished on the Web (without DP's express permission), in this specific case I was indeed wrong. And I am sorry for the error.

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