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12/12/98

Prager spent much of the last few days discussing Clinton's impeachment (which does not mean removal) which Prager supports.

Regular listener Gil46 says: "He is interrupting people far too often now. Prager's doing it so often that the listeners can't tell what either he or the caller has said, and there were three instances I caught yesterday alone where he had to ask the caller to repeat because even HE didn't hear because of his own interruptions. Words like not and yet were obscured, causing quite a bit of confusion. He's gonna kill his program if he doesn't clean it up."

12/7

Dennis Prager opened his show discussing the previous show of Mr. KABC who had many callers complaining about the LA Times Friday front page picture of the seven year old son of the slain police officer. Many callers thought it was in bad taste. Prager thought it was absolutely legitimate.
Wait a minute! Prager is always the one accusing the media of voyeurism. Prager criticized the LA Times over a year ago for running a front page picture of Princess Di's boys at her funeral. It was voyeuristic.
Prager kept asking: "Do we need this? Is this news?"
Doesn't Prager usually say that the media is always prying into personal lives?
I called up to challenge Prager. His screener took my call, then at 9:15, during the commercials, she said that Dennis was going to pass on my call.

On Thursday morning, Mr. KABC challenged Prager with my question. Dennis responded, in essence (through gritted teeth?): "The difference was that the photo of Princess Di's boys intruded into their private life [I think it was coming out of church on a Sunday] while the funeral for the police officer was public. I saw that email. It wasn't very intelligent... Not too bright." Mr. KABC laughed.

12/5/98

Dennis Prager spoke Saturday morning on the Torah portion of the week - Genesis 32-36.
In preparing for his talk, Prager found the reason that Jacob was chosen over Esau, a problem that has long troubled him. Strictly going by the Biblical text, Esau comes off as a decent guy, perhaps finer than Jacob.
Prager said Jacob was chosen because Jacob struggled. Jacob became Israel, which means "struggle with God." Esau was primitive. He was natural man. He hunted. Jacob sat in the tents thinking.
Prager says the Torah does not condone the deception Jacob practiced on his father Isaac, and that Jacob gets paid back in spades for that. But wily and flawed, Jacob struggled for higher values, as indeed we must. Then Prager gave his familiar recipe of struggling with Jewish Law. That we need to find reasons for the commandments, and reasons for why we observe at the level we do.
IMHO, such reasons are often rationalizations. Thought follows deed more than deed follows thought.

11/28

Dennis Prager spoke Saturday morning at Stephen S Wise on the Torah portion of the week Va-Yeze (Genesis 28-32) where he found two supports for his values-over-blood crusade.
One, when Rachel suggests to her husband Jacob that he impregnate her maid servant so that "I can have a child through her." Rachel believes that the child will be hers even though the maid gave birth to it. Two of the children (including Dan) that Rachel's maid gave birth to placed among the twelve sons who formed the 12 tribes of Israel.
Two, when Jews speak of the matriarchs, they speak of four - Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Rebecca - when some of the founders of the twelve tribes came from maid servants. Prager sees this as support for his theory. Another possible perspective is that in ancient times, servants did not count for much, and possibly women too, as the children who form the 12 tribes are always of the seed of the three patriarchs - Avraham, Yitzhock and Jacob.
Prager pointed out that on Jacob's ladder, angels ascended and descended, meaning they went first from earth to heaven and then heaven to earth. Prager also pointed out that the Hebrew word usually translated as "angel" means messenger. Anyone who carries a message from God is an angel. We could have angels all around us. Other people become angels when they speak or give to us a message from God.
Prager pointed out the romance in the portion, where it says that Jacob worked seven extra years for Rachel, and they were like a few days to him because of his love for Rachel.

Prager critic Singlemom writes on the newsgroup alt.radio.talk:

Here are some examples of what some might call nutty or false shows/statements by Dennis Prager -

1. In his post election '98 analysis he suggested that the Republicans use racial minorities as props at photo ops so that they can win elections. I posted his quote in this NG. He does this at a time when
he is fond of saying - "There are only 2 races - the decent and indecent."

2. In attempting to justify school vouchers, he suggested that a Jew living in Santa Monica send his children to Catholic school in Torrance, a distance of approximately 20 miles - the closest place to Santa Monica where a voucher would pay for a private education.

3. Denies facts - When a caller wanted to discuss an outbreak of the bacterium cryptosporidium in the Milwaukee water supply, Prager said, "I read 7 newspapers a day. I haven't read anything about that" and dismissed the caller's fact because he hadn't read about it in his 7 newspapers.

4. Misrepresents facts - One example - Recently, a teenage couple in New Jersey murdered their new born. Prager repeatedly offered the quote
"Mistakes were made" as if it was used by the murderers or their attorneys. The statement "Mistakes were made" was said by the teenage boy's coach to a news reporter when asked to comment on the case.
Prager continues to present this as if "Liberals" or "Democrats" or "Secularists" are responsible for this statement.

5. Misunderstands or poorly researches facts. One example - Prager recently expressed his unhappiness with a group of students in Oregon, I believe, who, he said "called themselves the Gothics" as if they were a
unique group or gang. As many parents can attest, teenagers and young people throughout the world have been identifying themselves as Gothics or "Goths" since the late 70s. It's a youth fad style like mod, rocker, preppy, hippy, etc. Prager tried to make it sound evil.

4. Rants on air about attorneys and litigation ruining our society and then has his attorneys go after Luke Ford for making information available that Prager himself had made public!

5. Prager almost daily scours the news media for ANY negativity, extrapolates it to American society/the world, sounds an alarm that we
are all threatened by whatever ugliness he can dig up and usually pats himself on the back, saying that he predicted such a thing.

6. Attacks universities and American education regularly then uses a University survey to support a position he favors - school vouchers.  (See "American Universities vs. Western Civilization" available for $20
from The Prager Catalog).

7. Identifies, whines about and strives to fix what he calls America's "broken moral compass" with his "common sense ideas" yet refuses to share his wisdom. Instead he sells it to a limited, paying audience of subscribers to his newsletter.

8. Identifies one group as "ideal" at the expense of another group.

9. Daily dispenses his anger, disgust and gloomy worldview over the KABC airwaves yet stated to the LA Times on 2/4/98 in reference to his book on happiness - "Happiness is of first-rank importance. We owe it to those around us to be happy. It's a moral obligation,so society will be less cruel. We also
need to be happy for religious reasons. Unhappy people are an insult to God." "Most unhappiness comes fromwithin, but we blame society, poverty, racism,sexism, ageism, you name it," he says.

11/27

Prager discussed this column by George Will:

There is indeed a widening gap between civilian and military cultures. And as more and more military jobs become more technical, a culture gap is opening within the services, a gap between those whose jobs are just jobs, and those who are warriors. In a survey of Army personnel, 32 percent of men and 55 percent of women did not agree that the Army's primary focus should be on warfighting.

Prager also discussed this:

PLEASANTON, Calif (AP) - A male stripper hired to perform for a group of teen-age girls faces lewd conduct charges for allegedly fondling at least four of them during his routine. The mother of the girl who held the party, accused of hiring the stripper, also faces charges

"His hands were on bare breasts, under bras, down pants," said Deputy District Attorney Deborah Streicher.

The 39-year-old mother faces a felony charge of exhibiting lewd material to minors. Authorities withheld her name to protect her daughter, who was one of the 15-year-olds who were allegedly fondled.

The mother told police she watched as the stripper perform for the nearly 50 girls who attended the Oct. 30 party. At the end of his act he removed his G-string, encouraged by a $20 tip from one of the girls, Streicher said.

Partygoers told authorities the mother helped hire and pay for the stripper, although she told police her daughter hired him without her knowledge. She said she only let him continue his act to avoid embarrassing her daughter, Streicher said.

Angry parents who learned of the affair called school officials and police after their daughters told them of the night's events, authorities said. The party, billed as "Girls Night Out" on leaflets distributed at Amador Valley High, charged $3 to $5 for admission.

11/26

Dennis Prager's friend Michael Medved was the guest for two hours on Prager today, discussing Michael's new book "Protecting Childhood." It's always a love fest when Michael and Dennis start talking. It was an
uplifting show, similar to DP's time with Bill Bennett.
Dennis thanked his father for teaching him to be generally fearless. DP related how his mother was a mother and protective, but his father encouraged
him to explore life. His father encouraged him to fight in the Cold War, to help Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union in 1969.
DP finished his show contrasting the movie LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL where a father seeks to shield his son's innocence in a Nazi death camp with America, a
beautiful country, whose elites rob children of innocence through death education, AIDS education, etc...

"Geoff Edwards (formerly with KFI): I am thankful I am not the program director of KABC.

"Communication to www.laradio.com/current.htm:
(November 22, 1998) This past Thursday, longtime KABC veteran Ken Minyard left his morning slot after a quarter of a century. Ken reflects:

"...That brings us to 1998, a new management team at KABC. When Drew Hayes had arrived I already pretty much knew that my days were numbered. I had a 6-month option that had been exercised at
the lst of July. It was clear for the last couple of years that the new wave of Disney management at our station did NOT like to pay the kind of money I was making. On top of that, Drew arrived in town seemingly determined to turn KABC into an
all-conservative radio station. Once, when we booked a guest who was too friendly to Pres. Clinton, Drew mandated that for the next 5 mornings we were to talk to a right-wing critic of the president's. (I'm not making this up!). Drew apparently believes that pro-Clinton sentiment doesn't serve what he calls the
station's "core audience." It was clear at that point
that the station had an agenda and Peter and I didn't fit into it..."

Anathema35@aol.com: "Ever anxious to find order and sense in his religiosity, Prager pounced on
George F. Will's unbalanced Newsweek article to announce that atheists "no longer have the backing of science." At his most vulnerably silly when discussing science, Dennis would delight me, and I'm sure many of his other detractors were he to debate in studio an
academic or literary atheist such as Richard Dawkins, Dan Barker or George H. Smith. Science is inherently atheistic, it will consider god(s) as soon as evidence for him/her/it/them is presented for review. It is worthy of note that the July 1998 edition of Nature magazine in a poll of National Academy of Sciences scientists found that 93% do not believe in god!
Regards Shannon (The Englishman that Dennis always hangs up on: "I never hang up on callers" DP) .

BT: "While I disagree with anethema35's tone--I don't think one needs to frame this discussion as an attack on Prager's vunerability, nor does it help to start the thread with the coarsely disrespectful "Gawd"-- I fully endorse his basic point: Prager frequently devotes hours to broadcasting views which are nutty or simply false, he does so with considerable rhetorical
flourish, and NOBODY is introduced to answer his claims and charges. Callers, of course, never get much of a foothold: the program is fundamentally a monologue.

"Prager's claim that the preponderence of science now comes down on the side of the existence of an intentional Designer of some sort is just plain false: science has produced NO evidence of the existence of God, while it has identified considerable evidence suggesting the mindless, self-designing processes of natural selection. At best, some scientific theories--like the "big bang"-- do not flatly contradict religious mythology, and the "Science is finding God" view is supported by a tiny minority of scientists.

"I think that bringing a scientist or humanist who has a Prager-like level of practice in public speaking to debate Prager would serve Prager's stated aim ("Think a Second Time"), not merely delight his detractors as anathema35 suggests. On the questions of science and religion, Dawkins would be a fine choice, as would the philosopher Daniel Dennett.

"In other words, not only would such a debate promote responsible thought, I think that it would make for better radio--I suspect such debates would
compel the usual Prager listeners to tune in, and it would attract new listeners as well."

George Will wrote today about the anniversary of the birth of C.S. Lewis:

When Lewis came to see the world -- the sky, a grain of sand, friendship -- through the spectacles of faith, he felt completely at home in the world. And alienated from his time.

In Lewis's light masterpiece, "The Screwtape Letters," a seasoned devil warns a novice devil that their work is frustrated by great moralists. Such moralists, the devil says, do not inform men, they remind them. Lewis's deceptively modest mission was to remind readers that they -- their natures; their susceptibility to the numinous -- are among life's constants. Evidence of which, his millions of readers might say, is the continuing hunger for his adversarial stance toward life in our time.

11/25

Prager began his show discussing his many emails. He felt exasperated that many don't understand him. DP repeated himself on Nicole Kidman. Boring.

DP said he felt more committed than ever to writing a book on sex given how much confusion there is on the topic. P said he subscribed to Playboy, as his father had done.

P. criticized Tipper Gore for refusing to appear on ABC's Nightline program in support of the Communication Workers union. P. said the Democrats are in the pocket of the union.

A reasonable young man phoned at the end of the first hour asking Prager the basis for his statement that Tipper had refused to appear on Nightline because she'd been asked not to by the President and Vice-President.

Prager replied by rereading, in a matter of fact "isn't it obvious tone" the USA Today article from last week. The young man pointed out the article said nothing about the president and VP asking Tipper not to go.

Prager was caught. He admitted then he'd made an assumption. P then lashed out at the young man at the value P focused on - that the Democrats were in the pocket of the unions.

Prager's main point was a worthy one but he came across badly and his reaction illustrated a human trait - when people catch us saying or doing something wrong, we respond by lashing out at them instead of going inside to figure out why we went wrong.

Prager often demands immediate answers to sometimes difficult questions on topics that the person did not call in. Prager seems to filter most of his strong calls through the narrow filter of whether or not they agree with his point.

I've called Prager on the air about 50 times over the past ten years and half the time he asks whether I agree or not with his point. Usually I (and many callers) simply want to challenge him with a different perspective rather than a black and white agree or disagree.

Prager spent the last half of his show discussing divorce.

11/24

Dennis Prager opened his show discussing this article in the New York Times:

PARIS -- The French invented perfume because they had to. In the 17th century, even Louis XIV seldom bathed.

In the late 20th century, 96 percent of the French live in homes equipped with showers or baths, even more than those with bidets. But only 47 percent bathe every day, according to a roundup of national surveys published in the daily Le Figaro last week, just before a cold wave began and probably drove the average down even further.

Washing their dirty linen in public like this is something the French seem to do every two or three years. In the latest survey, only 60 percent of Frenchmen were found to change their underwear daily, the same percentage of all French people who said they regularly washed their hands after going to the toilet.

This last figure led Bernard Pivot, host of a popular literary television program, to wonder publicly on Sunday about the wisdom of the French custom of shaking hands with co-workers at the start of the day.

In particular, Pivot worried about what advice to give employees who faced the hazard of running into the boss just outside the office bathroom. Underlings not knowing what the hand that feeds them might just have touched, he suggested, would be best advised to forestall a handshake by picking up a voluminous file.

Le Figaro assured readers that 85 percent of them said they washed their hands before meals. But 6 percent said they never washed them at all, perhaps explaining why the per-capita consumption of toilet soap in France was four to five bars a year, compared with a little more than twice as much in Germany and a lot more than twice as much in Britain.

Then Prager switched to Levi Strauss's plan to decorate a Christmas tree with condoms. Prager thought that no matter how noble the intent (to save lives by preventing AIDS) it was in terrible taste, sacrilegious. From today's New York Times:

A plan to raise a Christmas tree adorned with condoms in the Central Park skating rink for an AIDS-prevention event was canceled Monday after a Catholic group urged the rink's private operator not to allow the tree, the group said.

The city's Parks Department, whose approval would have been needed, had also expressed concerns about the appropriateness of the event, which was to include a concert and a tree-lighting ceremony next Tuesday at the Wollman Rink, parks officials said. The event was to have been sponsored by Levi Strauss & Company.

William A. Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said he was delighted when officials of the Makkos Organization, which operates the rink, told him they would not allow the event. Makkos officials did not return numerous telephone messages last evening seeking to confirm that the event had been canceled.

Levi Strauss officials said they had not heard from the Makkos Organization. They said another venue for the event would be found if it were not allowed to be held at Wollman Rink. "This is not about Wollman Rink," said Cassie Ederer, a spokeswoman for Levi Strauss, which is based in San Francisco. "It's about AIDS awareness."

For his final hour, Prager laughed about this article in the Wall Street Journal about speed limits. In 1995 the federal government lifted federal limits on highway speeds (previously limited to 55 since the Carter energy saving years). The federal highway safety agency said that lifting the ban would causes 6400 deaths a year. Four years ago Prager believed them for he then had the naive belief that government agencies would tell the truth having no reason to lie.

It turns out that allowing states to raise the speed limit saves lives.

Eric Peters, a nationally syndicated automotive columnist, writes on the opinion section of today's WSJ:

Remember when Congress abolished the federally mandated 55-mile-an-hour speed limit back in 1995 and various "safety experts" clucked that this would entail a dramatic rise in accident and fatality rates? Well, the facts are in. But you probably haven't heard very much about them, since they tend to refute everything the experts said would happen.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicted that an additional 6,400 motorists would die annually as a result of rising speed limits. In fact, fatality and accident rates have declined since the repeal of the national speed limit; 1997, the year for which the most recent data are available, had the lowest traffic-death rate in the nation's history. NHTSA has been less than vigorous about acknowledging its erroneous prediction, perhaps because the 55 mph speed limit gave the federal government considerable power over the states and provided a raison d'être for the continued existence of NHTSA's bloated bureaucracy.

These higher speeds are safer because they reflect the normal flow of traffic--what highway engineers call the "85th percentile" speed. This is the speed most drivers will maintain on a given stretch of road under a given set of conditions. When speed limits are set arbitrarily low--as under the old system--tailgating, weaving and "speed variance" (the problem of some cars traveling significantly faster than others) make roads less safe.

11/23

Prager discussed this 11/22 NY Times piece:

It will come as no surprise to Nicole Kidman's screen admirers to learn that she also looks sexy and beautiful on stage, not least when scantily dressed. Yet this unremarkable discovery threw British newspapers into a veritable swoon this fall when she made her first stage appearance in 11 years.

A few theater critics did actually notice her performance ("she can act"). But far more space was dedicated to poetic, erotic and clinical ("no -- repeat, no -- cellulite") ruminations about her body. The normally staid London Daily Telegraph was quite overwhelmed. "Pure theatrical Viagra," it gasped.

True, sex is the theme of the play, "The Blue Room," David Hare's loose adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's turn-of-the-century play "Reigen," or round-dance, now better known as "La Ronde."

Ten characters (Ms. Kidman and the British actor Iain Glen each play five) engage in a daisy-chain of sexual encounters. Copulation is suggested every time the stage goes dark, with surtitles coyly offering how long each of the 10 couplings supposedly lasts. And yes, for the briefest of moments, the tall, lissome actress does stand naked, her back to the audience, as her partner dresses her. But what is it with the Brits? This was theater, not live sex.

"I think there's an element of the British that is kind of pathetically grateful for a glamorous star gracing our boards," said Sam Mendes, who directed the play at the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden. "Even those who have seen the play have written about something that isn't really on stage. This is not the kind of violently erotic 'Oh, Calcutta!'-style review that has been reported here. They wrote about the wrong things. They didn't write about the play."

Dennis Prager attended his temple Stephen S. Wise in Brentwood Friday night, 11/20/98, along with 1000 other Jews and was deeply moved by the service conducted by Cantor Nathan Lamm and Rabbi Eli Herscher, who'd just returned from a trip to Eastern Europe. Prager wished that the service had been videotaped so that it could be distributed to traditional Jews who had a negative view of Reform Judaism. Prager said Saturday morning 11/20 that the service was emotionally and religiously moving, powerful and glorious.

Prager taught this week's portion to his six year old son Aaron Friday night and they both found it absorbing. Prager said Aaron kept saying, "more," which indicated he found it as interesting as his other favorite story, Godzilla.

As usual, Prager delivered the Saturday morning sermon at SSW. He spoke on this week's Torah portion Toledot (Genesis 25-28) and demonstrated how the Pentateuch supports values over blood. How the Torah goes out of its way to say that it is individual character that matters, not genes and birth order. Frequently in the Bible it is the younger children who rise to prominence over the older. Frequently siblings are enraged with each other, as in Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau.

Prager noted how many of the leading rabbis of the Talmud came from nefarious backgrounds. That Jews were the first group to allow outsiders to convert to it.

Prager said his view of "yichus" (Yiddish for one's pedigree, for one's prestigious ancestors, as in "his grandfather was a great rebbe") was "yich." Prager said "yichus" was an example of how Jews did not live up to Judaic ideals.

During question time, Prager was challenged by Biblical precedents that seem to place great weight on blood line. For instance, the Jewish priesthood, the Kohenim, is solely inherited. And the Torah commands Jews to hate Amelek and his descendents. Prager said that it was genius to keep the priesthood hereditary because it keeps people from fighting to be priests. And that the Torah's injunction to hate Amelek should be taken metaphorically.

Prager could not name any traditional Jewish commentators who explicitly support his "values over blood" interpretation.

Singlemom writes:

If Prager so desperately wants to fix our "broken moral compass", if he so wants to save the world, the most efficient way to accomplish that would be to remove his demand for a buck and post the Prager Perspective online.

The World Wide Web is one of the most effecient means of communicating information. If Prager continues to withhold his wisdom from a world
which needs it, then his true motives are clear. $$$$$

If he wants to profit from his "wisdom" while witholding it from those who don't pay for it, he is like so many other money grabbing gurus before him.

Would Jesus Christ charge for His message of love?

If all needed food, food banks would offer all food. If our society's "moral compass is broken" as Prager so often states, why wouldn't he offer the fix for free to our society?

***

Luke: "I usually write about Prager as a critic, seeking flaws. I sit in judgement.

"As a human being, I have a different reaction to Prager. I listen humbly, seeking what I can learn from his words, how I can apply them to my life, and where I must change. Listening as a human is humbling. I am intimidated by his moral depth. Much of what he says demands painful changes in my behavior and attitude. Because this is so personal and shattering, I rarely write about this side of my reaction to Prager's words. It exposes too much of me.

"This dichotomy pervades most of my meaningful interactions. To truly listen deeply to someone you have to assume that what they are saying is true. You must seek to understand how what the person says can be true. In what instances and from what perspectives. It verges on the impossible to deeply listen to people and actively disagree with them."