Those of you who have seen me of late know that more and more, I look like a bear. I'm building up some much needed bulk (though not necessarily where I'd like it to go), and my face is getting broader, too. And thanks to certain legal lifestyle drugs that I take, my body is becoming more hirsute. In short, I'm looking more and more like a bear.

We bears need hugs, hugs that I find difficult to come by in a conventional Jewish setting. (Although to be fair, my new friend Tom from Finland likes giving me lots of hugs after prayer services.) I am, therefore, considering starting an informal Jewish prayer group of my own for Jewish Bears like me. Luke's Dovening Den, I may call it. If you live in the LA area and are interested, just drop me a note.

I'm hearing good things about the $4 million movie When Do We Eat?:

Plot Outline: A family's Passover gets screwy after the patriarch unknowingly ingests a hit of Ecstasy.

Source says: The film was even better than what was written there. It is something made for a jewish audience, but he didn't make it too religious so that it could go mainstream without leaving people out. I am not sure how they could market it properly to actually pull in non-jews, but it should be done as it is a great film and is for almost everyone.
I am just impressed with how they tie so much together. the rabbi (Mordecai Finley) who introduced it said something about how this film has everything his favorite book has; family, religion, sex, incest, drugs, love, humor, etc....just like the bible.

LONDON: The author of a thriller that has sold more than 12 million copies is to be sued for plagiarising two books published more than 20 years ago.

Dan Brown, whose The Da Vinci Code is claimed by the publisher to have become the best-selling hardback adult novel ever, is expected to face legal action by the authors of a 1982 non-fiction bestseller and a 1983 novel.

Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, whose The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was condemned by the Catholic Church but continues to draw readers and disciples, are said to be preparing to sue him for alleged breach of copyright of ideas and research.

Another author, Lewis Perdue, is threatening to sue Brown for alleged plagiarism, claiming that he borrowed heavily from Perdue's novel The Da Vinci Legacy.

The authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail claimed to have found evidence that the Priory of Sion - a secret society founded in the late 11th century linked to the Knights Templar, and whose grand masters supposedly included Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Isaac Newton - guarded documents that challenged orthodox Christian tenets and history.

.............

Author Lewis Perdue writes Luke: Thank God (by whatever name you know Him/Her) for Aussies ... The Australian runs with a real story while while the rest of the mainstream media are content to let Random House and its multi-billion-dollar German parent, Bertlesmann try and nail my gluteus maximus to a tree in New York District Court ... all because I had the nerve to stand up for the Da Vinci Code's plagiarism of my work. Anyway, glad there are still cojones down in Oz.

Chaim Amalek writes: Have you turned in your book on JJournalists? What are you currently working on? (I now think you should listen to your inner bad boy and write a finger wagging book about the Hilton video phenomena.) Of all the ideas you have kicked around, this has the best prospect of paying the bill for being a Jew and
putting food on the table.

Speaking of which, given the state of your health through the years, why not admit the obvious - that God/nature/Darwin made us omnivores who are meant to eat a very broad range of foods, including fish, chicken and beef - and cut that final string to your 7th Day Adventist upbringing? What is the case for you to keep at this? A good friend of mine, after getting progressively sicker on her bizarre vegan diet
of many years, very quickly became stronger and healthier by returning to a proper omnivorous diet.

Luke says: I could not eat meat if I wanted to. The thought repulses me.

Yes, I've turned in my Jewish journalism book. Out in a month. Working on another one.

What keeps me occupied is studying and observing the Torah and writing in a way that glorifies that which is holy and attacks that which is unholy.
She now has the strength to become the success that
she was meant to be but which she could never be on
her ridiculous vegan diet. There is nothing Jewish in
being vegan.

I like to think of myself as a moralist, but I must admit that the shape of a young woman's midot (character traits) can have a profound affect on me.

Lainie Speiser writes: "You're a strange man Mr. Ford. You Australians just love to stir the pot, its like an orgasmic experience for you guys, and thats why you make the best tabloid journalists. Thank christ my parents don't even own a computer."

Lainie posts: Yes as someone who still goes to an orthodox shul it is indeed very sexual exciting when the men and women are separated. In my temple the men are on the ground floor and the women are on a balcony above. And there is a whole lot of men checking us out from above, but of course most of the men that look me over are married with several children.

And yes the mystery might make it sexy for the men but what of the women? Again this is totally a man's sexuality nothing that benefits a woman.

Yes I do think G-d does approve of me and what I do because I'm honest first of all, and second of all I believe the most important commandment, Do unto others as you'd have done unto you. There is a Rabbi who said you could sum up the entire Torah on one foot with that one line.

Live and let live I say. as long as its positive and good and human.

But hypocrisy, well as someone who lived in Williamsburg for awhile it never ceased to amaze me about how many satmars would load into a beat up old station wagon looking for crack hos to perform five dollar BJ's.

Yes I'm a porn peddler and have met many many orthodox people who are huge porn fans. I was at an S&M event, The Black and Blue ball are met many orthodox men and hasids there. Also, three orhodox men started a porno site with me a few years ago. Of course no one in their temple knew of this.

I believe in god and feel him within me all the time because I have an open mind, heart and soul. Thats all thats needed.

Because I got such a large response the first time I published some comments from Lainie Speiser [picture of her sandwiched between Linn Thomas on the left, and Dr. Victoria Zdrok on the right, pic is glatt kosher], publicist of Penthouse, here are some more of her emails to be (published with her permission):

Orthodox!? Hell no! I did suffer a horrible eight years at Yeshiva of Hudson County from ages five through 13. But try as I may I cannot get any of those song-prayers out of my head, I remember all my blessings and if you put a sider in front of me I probably could still read the blasted thing. My Mom drags me to Temple once a year during High Holy Days and last year I took a novel (with the cover off) and it was so much more pleasant for me.

I believe in god believe it or not, but in all religions, well they're all bunk to me, and encourage seperatist behavior. I'm very spiritual and try to be the best person I can be, but I don't need to go to a building or read the words someone else wrote to prove it.

This business (behind the scenes) is all Catholics 'n Jews.

I grew up a sephardic jew first generation American (Mom is from Tangiers, Dad is from Argentina), and while my Mom did keep a kosher home we ate whatever we wanted outside of the home. I don't keep kosher now in or outside my house. That's another ridiculous rule. All these things need to be updated. Dietary restrictions were made during the "bible days" because of lack of refridgeration etc. Now its silly, although I agree, pork is not good for anyone. But I love lobster and crab and all that other shellfish.

I remember a song they taught us as little kids in Yeshiva, it went, "...all the animals that we eat must chew their cud and have split feet..." My older sister keeps kosher, although not religious and married a Southern Blond Goy (my sister and I love our men vanilla). I don't know why she does, I've tried to get her to try lobster but she won't do it.

Yom Tovin? Whats that? I know what Yom Tov, but what's Yom Tovin?

What made you want to convert to Judiasm? Are you orthodox?

My Dad is an atheist, but yet has always been really into being a jew because of the history and politics, and although he shacked up with a fair shair of shiksas, mainly of the Latina variety, he told me in his heart it didn't feel right, that he knew he would only marry a jewish girl.

I've been on TV a few times because of my job, and my Mom is mortified when her fellow Temple Beth Abraham brothers and sisters say they saw me on TV. But they're
cool about it for the most part.

Whats "shaygetzes?"

I guess it is divine compared to other religions. I mean I like the fact that we don't pray to false idols for instance. But I don't like the orthodox way towards women --- covering your hair because its only for your husband and not being able to sing in public.... I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a while ago, we lived walking distance to the Satmars, and although they wouldn't put money in my hand when giving me change back (they owned the best bakery), they had know problem piling into their beat up old station wagon trolling for crack ho's. I just really really hate the hypocrisy.

Which brings me to my next question ... how is it an orthodox jew peddles and/or pushes ----? Or are you some kinda "modern" orthodox? Do you go to temple every saturday? Do you pray every morning? Do you keep Sabbath?

I guess you can say I've only dated non jews. Recently tho' I hooked up with a
real jewish cutie, not a boyfriend/girlfriend thing, more of a casual thing, and I think it was cool with me because he's from Tennessee. Other than that I've been on a date here and a date there, nothing really came of it, one guy had an anxiety attack on the date. NYC jews should lighten up I think.

Well Luke, y'know you have a name in adult entertainment, no? I don't dig p---
myself. I think of myself as a drug dealer who doesn't do the drugs, which is
how I've been able to stay in it so long. But I don't think it should be
abolished, and anyway, it could never be. P---, like prostitution, will never
fade. I like the business of it though, obviously I've chosen to remain in it.

And you know with all this FCC hassle going on, lately it makes me proud to be
in this business. Enjoying freedoms isn't just about what each individual likes, but most importantly even what you don't like. Of course I wouldn't support say a Nazi magazine, but it is their right to publish it.

Get out of town, you are shomer negiya? I can't imagine a man whose shomer
negiya asking me how Jim Goad knows about the size of my breasts (he's met me
in person by the way, thats how he knows, we've know each other for awhile now,
distantly obviously, but stayed in good contact. He's one of the coolest,
smartest I've ever met). What kind of shomer negiya are you ... no touching at
all or no sex? I've seen many varieties.

The Stamars did try to get action off me, you know, anyone who isn't one of
them might as well be a crack ho.

Hey I guess I sound pretty Jew harsh, obviously this has brought much good into
your life and thats great. Maybe if you'd have had my religious background you'd think differently, but maybe not.

I'm not religious or political. I'm in the business of the politics of people. People are what interest me the most. But of course most of my family is Republican because they're pro Isreal. For me, well I just don't want to be told how to live, whether its about abortion or religion or smoking or p---.

One of my henchmen emailed me a link to your Looking for a Wife site. I got a big kick out of it.

I do know of two very marriage minded Jewesses who would love to settle down and have babies and go to Temple and make latkas. One has a very good job working for the DA's office in Queens (and she shares your politics). The other doesn't have as great a career but is highly educated and hasn't had intercourse in so long I'd say
she's a born again virgin. And they are both attractive too (the woman who works for the DA's office has very very shiny chestnut colored hair and green eyes).

But alas your age requirements I feel are too stiff. They are older than me, in their late 30s (they are close friends of my older sister). But Luke, its very common for women to pop our children in their late 30s and early 40s. My Mother had me well into middle age and had no problem getting preggo at all, in fact with both her pregnancies she got knocked up right away, my sister was conceived on the Honeymoon and I was conceived on their anniversary four years later.

So although I found all your requirements extremely reasonable, I think you could bend on the age thang. After all sir, you are no spring chicken, how do we know your sperm is still vital?

Actually I thought all the other requirements were fine, and you weren't too physically picky either (and I totally agree about the hip to waist ratio that is the most important part of the female form in my opinion). It was just the age. Because younger women aren't necessarily so marriage and children minded, but then again, we are talking JEWS aren't we?

I'd love to hook you up with my friends. Meryl and Sandi... it don't get much more Jewy than that. And I even think they'd be willing to uproot themselves for you. More so Sandi, because her career isn't the big deal that Meryl's is, tho' I feel Meryl would be the better match in verbal matters.

See I didn't throw my marital hat in the ring because although I do have long hair and a good waist to hip ratio and am jewish and smart, I'm too much of a bad girl for you, I smoke cigarettes and weed and enjoy cocktails and I wouldn't join you in temple every week and then there is the p---- peddler job that I very much enjoy. Too bad my Mother would have adored you.

Well then Mr. Ford, if a lot is tongue and cheek, may I take the liberty to ask
about your oral views as expressed on the site? Because ---- --- - mutually -
is one of the greatest pleasures in the world, and I feel it IS safe ---
actually. And I would never perform oral on anyone if they were wearing a condom - GROSS! Are you that germaphobic or just a man that really isn't into performing it but doesn't want to flat out say it? I hope that was part of the joke, because I could never in good faith recommend a man who is uptight in these areas.

Well sir, that is a pity. And that isn't fair either. You'd probably get a lot
more ----, and more importantly enthusiastic ----, if you acquired a taste for
it. But that's an Aussie thing isn't it? I haven't had relations with any Australians, but I got this report from a close friend of mine long ago.

Luke I think Hashem is very dissapointed in you and perhaps that is why you
haven't had the naches to meet the right lady yet. Don't you know you'd be
performing a great mitzvah by putting your selfish views aside and giving? I
think you must have experienced some nasty hairy hygenically challenged girl in
Australia and it turned you off for good.

Ha, if Torah gave me orgasms I wouldn't have left Yeshiva for good at the age
of 13! But it is chock full of dirty stories, this is true.

Now I'm going to be a nice jewish girl and not relay this to Victoria [Zdrok]. She
would be very disenchanted with you if she heard that.
 

Dennis Prager was in Miami this past weekend to lecture at a non-Orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur. He spoke Friday night to 650 people. Saturday the temple heeded the city's hurricane warning (even though there was no evidence to believe the hurricane was headed towards Miami, it only drizzled) and closed down. Prager's hotel closed down. Virtually every non-Orthodox synagogoue in the city's low-lying areas closed down (because its members watch TV and got hysterical over the hurriance passing hundreds of miles to the north). All the Orthodox synagogues in Miami stayed open on Saturday (because its members don't watch TV on holy days).

Prager noted that his Trump hotel said it was evacuating because of liability concerns. Out of fear of lawsuits. That is the same reason that propelled the city to urge its citizens in low-lying areas to evacuate even though there was no evidence of threat and there was only a light drizzle.

Lainie Speiser, publicist for Penthouse, writes me: As a survivor of 9 years at Yeshiva of Hudson County in Union City, NJ I can tell you, no woman can be possibly sexual AND orthodox at the same time. The rules of orthodoxy don't allow it
because it doesn't allow a woman to shine in any way shape or form whether it be showing her hair or singing in public.

Last week at my gym, I noticed an orthodox woman (I go to an all girls gym) watching me work out. I knew she was orthodox from her wig and the fact that she was wearing an oversize dowdy floor length skirt. Anyway, she came by to ask me about some arm exercises I was doing, I gave her some advice and she walked away. I wanted to ask
her why the hell she was wearing her wig and skirt in the company of other women, it is after all an women's only gym.

I felt sorry for this woman, really, really sorry.

I spent Yom Kippur at my mothers house. I struck a deal with her -- that I'd go to evening services Friday night and closing evening services on Saturday night. While my father, mother and sister were at the day services on Saturday I smoked pot like a teenager, with my body halfway out of the window, I napped, and I read a great book
by a great pulp fiction writer. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, but you see Luke I contemplate my existance every single damn day, I scold myself for any bad behavior every single damn day, and I try to be the best person I can be every damn day.

Hashem knows this very well about me, and I think he would've approved at how I spent Yom Kippur. And more than anything I made my family happy by being there.

Der Nister writes on Protocols:

To each his own, Lainie, to each his own. The more you suppress sexuality, the more sexual desire morphs to accomodate the suppression. Wrap a woman in a sheitl or a burka, then the wisp of hair that escapes becomes intensely erotic. Send the hemlines to the floor, and the glimpse of stocking is something shocking.

You can even argue, using the "don't think of elephants test," that all this suppression only intensifies the erotic atmosphere. Go to a typical Reform Friday night service, where women and men sit side by side and anything goes dress-wise, and you'd find more of a sexual buzz at the Motor Vehicles Bureau. Head to a hasidische shul and note all the sweating, the tight-packed bodies, the swaying and moaning, the peeks over the mehitza (in both directions). You can tell me Orthodoxy has channeled sexual energy, but they have far from eliminated it.

 

Cathy Seipp writes on the Matthew Klam NYT blogger article.

Charles Johnson of LGF writes: Matthew Klam, with whom I spoke on the phone for 43 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back, writes a story for the New York Times Magazine about political blogs.

And in a 10-page article, covers only the left wing blogs, including the worst, most virulent centers of lunacy.

In glowing terms.

Featuring a photo of Markos Zuniga, the owner of Daily Kos.

There is not one word about the anti-idiotarian blogosphere. No LGF. No Roger L. Simon. No Michael Totten. No Allah. No Belmont Club. No Power Line. No INDC Journal. No Command Post. No Michele. No Cox & Forkum. No Rantburg.

Nobody but Atrios, Josh Marshall, Daily Kos, Wonkette, and the other New York Times-approved left-wing drones.

Not one word. Ten pages.

The New York Times, with help from Matthew Klam, is trying to make us all disappear.

I don’t trust myself to write what I really feel about Klam’s outrageously slanted piece. Read it for yourself: Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail.

The mainstream media’s shameful, arrogant bias, up there for all to see.

.............

Ace writes: Well, after two weeks in which conservative bloggers and conservative posters on conservative for a like FreeRepublic disprove a major media fraud and nearly bring down a sitting anchorman (and when I say "nearly," I just mean we're not done yet), the New York Times decides to write a big Sunday Magazine article about bloggers.

About FreeRepublic, that started the ball rolling?

About PowerLine, that greatly advanced the story in those first hours?

About LGF, who proved the documents to be forgeries within hours of seeing them by just posting an MS Word copy of the text on his site?

Oh, no.

You might think that those might be the bloggers the NYTimes would talk to -- you know, the ones actually making news.

But you'd be wrong.

In the first clear victory for the blogosphere over the legacy media, the New York Times decides to spend ten pages talking about...

Daily Kos, Josh Marshall, and Wonkette.

Gee, PowerLine LGF refuted a 60 Minutes story and put the entire CBS News organization in a state of crisis, and Wonkette tells dick-jokes (bad ones, actually). Who's more newsworthy?
 

LF Fan Blog: Our Moral Leader has a new book coming out, his third in four months. Amazing! This is Luke's fourth book. Impressive! (Although he's 619 behind Dame Barbara.) It's called Yesterday's News Tomorrow. Witty! It's about Jewish journalism. Fascinating! Luke has given me a copy to review for my website. Thanks! He'll have to wait, however, as I'm no genius. Duh! In fact, I'm really quite stupid. Really! It will take a week or two (or three) for me to read the book and write a review. Sorry!

LF Fan Blog: To celebrate my good fortune, I decided, using Luke Ford as my role model, to start hanging out with hookers, strippers, and elderly p___ stars. Big mistake. You see these women are very, um, materialistical, and it didn't take them long to go through all my funds, what with all the diamonds, furs, and trips to Capri -- not to mention booze and drugs -- I was buying. Then, much to my surprise and disappointment, all my girlfriends left me! Bummer.

What Your Moral Leader is reading:

John Grisham, The Summons: B
Saul Bellow, Herzog: C-
Laurence Roth: Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories: C
Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex: B+
Murder is no Mitzvah: Short Mysteries About Jewish Occasions: B+

Yesterday, as the Shabbos Queen and the Yom Kippur King danced with each other inside my head and empty stomach, I had an epiphany. I suddenly knew what my next book would be about. It would not be a tell all book about Gabais or a history of the UCLA economics department (not even one as told by their janitors - sorry, Chaim). Instead, it would be about my favorite topic: me. I've decided to do chapter after chapter about the people in my life, and talk about how good or bad they've been to me. If the former, they should not object; if the latter, they really should have asked me for forgiveness by now (no one ever does). No matter. In this book, I will set the record straight, and thanks to the mechanism of self-publishing, I don't have to worry about pansy lawyers making a capon of me in print.

(All thanks to Cathy for inadvertently suggesting the title.)

Evan Gahr writes: New York Post Editorial page staffer Robert George, perhaps the page's only black writer ever, is refusing to condemn his boss, Bob "Edith Bunker" McManus for racist humor far more serious than the bigoted and inane comments which he and other putative conservatives seized upon to drive Trent Lott out of office.

McManus, who Eric Breindel has described as having "a pea for a brain", pleasures himself immensely by likening black businessmen to criminals.

McManus has said with a huge smile on his big fat Irish Catholic face that the 100 Black Businessmen is really 100 Black Men with their parole officer. Anybody laughing? Humor is serious. To poke fun or even make crass jokes about the disproportionate number of blacks involved in criminal activity is one thing; you're dealing with a fact and then responding in kind. But what does it say about McManus that he equates black businessmen with criminals? What does that say about his mindset in general? His attitude towards blacks?

McManus also enjoys surfing the internet on company time. Back in 1996 hit pay dirt on his little fishing expedition when he came across a mock inner-city math quiz, which he printed out and gave to the junior member of his predecessor's staff. It had stuff like "if the bitch steals five grams of coke from Rufus and he started with ten how much is left?"

Again how much time did he spend finding this stuff?

Who else did he give it to?

Why?

When?

Ugly stuff, but mum's the word from his staff when questioned yesterday. Marc Cunningham and Adam Brodsky hung up when the caller identified himself. Robert George was even more abrupt.

Any problem with Bob's racist humor?

"Click."

When David Brock published his confessional memoir, Jill Abramson, the elitist pc snob who answers her own phone, asked if Brock lied previously why should we believe him now.

Similarly, if Robert George refuses to disassociate himself from his own boss's disgusting why should anybody take him seriously if he takes issue with liberals
association with unseemly characters, such as Al Sharpton?

Moreover, doesn't this render his glorification by the New York Times, which
quoted him trashing Trent Lott, for supposedly breaking ranks, outdated and in need of correction?

Did he really break ranks or simply join the lynch mob that was determined to crucify Trent Lott to attone for the original sin by such conservatives as William Buckley for opposing the landmark civil rights act?

Taking Lott to the woodshed was a calculated political move by players who
risked nothing, contrary to the NYTimes depiction of the low-tech lynching as
some kind of moment of great soul searching.

Robert George would do well to try the genuine kind and ask himself whether he's nothing but Bob's bitch and just a sorry excuse for a man, journalist and black man when he countenances the kind of ugly bigotry for which many liberals, such as John Lewis, risked their personal safety to defeat.

I write Jack Shafer: Who is an appointed populist? "[S]elf-appointed populist" is a snotty remark signifying nothing. Riley is no more a "self-appointed populist" than you are a self-appointed press critic. Sure, Slate employs you, as Fox employs Riley, and readers of my self-published web sites and books read and elect me.

I don't recall the term "self-appointed" ever imparting meaning.

I'd say that a person like Riley who creates himself may be more worthy of admiration than those who are placed in their positions by large bureaucracies such as CBS News.

PS Yes, "self-appointed" gets used on me all the time and I'm sick of it.

From TiffanyAStone.com: "Note: Stealing from here is a very bad idea. My entourage is viscous."

Link to dictionary.com inserted by me.

Rabbi David Wolpe writes: In order to answer why Shawn Green should not play, I have to go back to Leroy Kelley.

As some may remember, Leroy Kelley was an outstanding running back for the Cleveland Browns, and is deservedly in the hall of fame. I am not sure he is well remembered today. He was not as great as the running back he replaced, the legendary Jim Brown. But for me, he was greater than almost any athlete in the world.

In grade school I was obsessed by sports. Like many young men I pasted pictures of players up on my wall (in those primitive days, pages ripped from sports magazines affixed by scotch tape). I wrote to teams for autographed pictures. I received scores of autographed pictures. Most had simple signatures. Some carried gnomic utterances, such as Roman Gabriel's picture which read "Always 110%, Roman Gabriel" which was either an exhortation to effort, or an astonishing egotism. But only one wrote a letter worth reading.

Leroy Kelley, number 44, wrote a letter that I remember. It was not fancy, a mimeograph on yellow paper. It said that as happy as he was to provide the autograph, I should remember that football was not as important as studying and making something of oneself. Here was a player preaching values beyond football. I never forgot it.

Now we come to Shawn Green and the manic interest in his decision to play one of two games on Yom Kippur. It is hard not to feel sorry for him as he contemplates this decision, made awesome by the intense focus. There is a lot of blather about his obligation to his team and his promise to be part of the sport, and the amount of money he is being played. Although Mr. Green is not himself in a society which would educate him to this decision, I regret that he did not say no.

"Of course not!" should have been his first, final and simple answer. "There are values above baseball, above money, above work. What self-respecting Jew would play on Yom Kippur?" Oh, what he might have done with that simple declaration.

First he would have honored the Giver above the gift. God gave him great gifts, but they do not override reverence. His ability has been honed, but it has not been earned. None of us earns his or her natural endowments. "I am grateful to God for my strong arm and my keen eye. I think I will take this day to express my thanks."

Now Mr. Green has said that he is not a religious man, so perhaps this is too extravagant an expectation. Fair enough. If we cannot appeal in terms of gratitude, then let us appeal in terms of self-respect.

Shawn Green was a Jew before he was a baseball player. He was a Jew before he was a public figure. To take who you are seriously means to honor it even when others think that it is less important, or unimportant. Koufax's decision not to pitch on Yom Kippur in the world series is honored not because he was a religious man but because he paid tribute to who he was.

Koufax has been quoted as saying that Green's decision is tougher because he, Koufax, could be shifted in the rotation whereas Green is an everyday player. But honoring who you are is not a piecemeal decision. Twenty years from now, Green's decision might have stood as a signal example of principle among people who will never remember who won the pennant in 2004.

Finally, to those who say he must play because he is being so well paid: that is another, powerful reason why he should not play. Is there no room in this society to make a statement that says "money does not override everything?" In an age when athletes shift cities the way they change socks, and fans 'know' it is all about money, wouldn't it be great if someone said, in clear, ringing tones, it is actually not about money? It is not even about my teammates expectations? It is about the expectations of a tradition that is about 3,000 years older than the Dodgers and a
community that was here long before, and will be here long after, the game of baseball.

Does anyone remember the story of Eli Herring, offensive tackle for Brigham Young? He is a devout Mormon who turned down a multi-million dollar deal with a professional football team because he won't play on his holy day, Sunday. Instead he teaches high school math for $25,000 a year. A reporter questioned his decision; wouldn't he be a role model to more kids as a famous football player?

I wish someone has mentioned to Shawn Green what this faithful Mormon said to the reporter. Quoting the old hymn, Eli Herring answered "You can't be a beacon if your light don't shine." It was a lesson I heard from Leroy Kelley when I was a child. I wish the children of America had heard that lesson from Shawn Green today.

It has been about five years since I've gone to somebody in the days before Yom Kippur and sought forgiveness for my specific sins against them. I've never experienced the healing and reconciliation this can bring.

I'm skeptical of seeking of forgiveness unless it meets these criteria:

* It is for something specific where one can take practical steps to mitigate the harm one has caused.

* The seeking of forgiveness can do some good and lead to a reconciliation. Most of the relationships that have ruptured in my life have been irreparable, not so much because of the hugeness of the sin, but because we've been going in different directions, and our differences in direction are irreconcilable.

My best friend in Los Angeles had bad credit. I gave him a credit card in my name (I was responsible for paying for it). He was usually late paying me. Finally, I cut off his card. He refused to pay me the approximately $400 he owed me. We've never been able to discuss the matter. I've tried a few times (pushed by my therapist) but he would never talk about it. He has no money. I can't forgive him because he hasn't asked for forgiveness. Every time I hear his voice on the phone (I decided to keep him as a friend because I can't afford to keep chucking people out of my life), I remember how he didn't repay me. Our friendship limps along.

I remember once (in 1990) I sought the advice of a rabbi on the day before Yom Kippur about my long distance telephone-and-letter relationship with a non-Jewish ex-girlfriend. He told me to cut it off. I knew he was right. I did. It caused pointless misery for both of us. She'd already moved on to another relationship and she just wanted to stay in touch with me because I was so sick, lonely, and isolated.

Most every time I pushed myself to act extra-moral, I only increase my isolation. Plenty of my immoral acts have also furthered my isolation. On balance, my immorality has hurt me more than my putatively moral acts.

Cathy Seipp and I have exchanged numerous barbs over the length of our friendship, many of which have hurt the other. But it would feel pro-forma to me to go to her and ask for general forgiveness. If I ask it for specific wrongs, that would only increase the hurt. So forget it.

Most of the hurtful things I say, and that people say to me, are true, and much of the time they impart needed truths. Hurting somebody is not always wrong. Hurting somebody needlessly, for no good reason, is wrong.

I've often done the 'please forgive me for anything I've done against you in the past year,' which, without specifics, feels pro-forma to me (but I always reciprocate it if somebody offers it to me). I normally try to apologize as soon as I realize I have done wrong against somebody (when I think the apology will do some good).

In my experience, most apologizing is pro-forma and rarely does any good. Not apologizing for needlessly hurting somebody, however, is a horrible thing.

Most of my sins over the past year have been careless remarks which have wounded feelings and tasteless writing on my Web sites. So, dear reader, please forgive me for the awkwardness, shock, horror and disgust your reading of me has brought you, your family and your community (I know you can not forgive on behalf of others).

I sold 60 copies of my memoir, XXX-Communicated, and 39 of my producers book.

I won't. I am his better.

Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant. Heidegger, Heidegger, was very rarely stable. Or was that Schlegel?

I drink therefore I am.

Hegel. Heidegger. Kant. These Aryans don't impress me.

Terri, who has a masters degree in the classics, writes:

Alright, now you've gone too far.

But not farther than Kant. Did you also know that he never in his life traveled more than 50 miles from his hometown, Konigsburg? But he was still the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment (yeah, philosophers are always a century or so behind the times).

And Martin Heidegger was a Nazi stooge - but he was also one of the most poetic and (therefore) profound thinkers of the last half century.

Wittgenstein was simply the greatest philosopher of the 20th Century.

I think you'd find them to be more profitable reading than Bill Bennett - or Hayek or Rand or Strauss or whomever the Young Republicans are reading these days.

Officially yours, Terri

P.S. Hey, if you want to start a dropouts' philosophical reading salon, let me know. We can start with the Pre-Socratics and work our way forward.

Luke says: Terri, you think like a goy. The greatest philosopher of the 20th Century was a longshoreman - Eric Hoffer.
 

G. writes: Luke, Heard that Malcolm Hoenlein went into a meeting today with a European minister in New York for the UN GA and tried to explain to the minister why the Sharon plan for disengagement was bad for Israel.

Is this proper? Do you know if that is the policy of the Conference of Presidents? Why is he criticizing the Israeli government to other governments?

Luke says: I wonder if Malcolm told the European minister that if he didn't go along with what he was saying, Mr. Hoenlein would ---- him for the rest of his life.

I've been wanting to penetrate the keen taut mind of Alana Newhouse, Arts & Culture editor of the Forward, for some months now. So I started reading one of her favorite books and am falling in love with it - The Mind Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein. It's about an Orthodox woman's sexual awakening at college.

I wonder what about it speaks so powerfully to Alana the HAFTR (yeshiva) girl? She told me in our interview: "I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and I went to Orthodox day schools. I went to Hebrew Academy of Five Towns in Rockaways. I'm a Long Island JAP. When I went to Barnard, the whole world opened up for me."

Here's an excerpt of Goldstein's book that spoke to me: "There's been so much serious discussion devoted to the profound question of the vaginal vs. the clitoral orgasm. Why doesn't anyone speak about the mental orgasm? It's what's going on in your head that can make the difference, not which and how many of your nerve endings are being rubbed."

Nothing impure or smutty should be imputed to my writing of this post. My interests here are of the mind. They float on an airy intellectual plane far above the baser interests of lesser mortals in dear Alana.

My intentions, by contrast, are rigorous, professional, journalistic, mathematical, philosophical, and most of all, Jewish. They are imbued with my deep passion for releasing women from the bondage of secularistic feminism and setting them free to become the halakhic princesses they most want to be.

Err, excuse me. I'll be right back. I have to take my meds.

Has everybody seen Borat (from the TV show AliG) sing his song about throwing the Jew down the well? http://students.ou.edu/H/Geoff.D.Hansen-1/

You must download the file as a JPG and then rename it to a WMV file for it to work. (Note: Right click on the link. "Save target as". Once downloaded rename the jpg to a wmv file.)

ThrowtheJewdownthewell.com

Though I only saw Ali G for the first time Sunday night on DVD, I've become a huge fan. It would've been tempting to use some of his techniques in my interviews.

WHEN Ron Jeremy made his decision three years ago, it was only half as difficult as the one he has to make now.

In 2001, Jeremy opted not to f--- on Yom Kippur in the movie Gang Bang In The Fat Lane. Due to its low budget status, the decision only cost Filmco a few dollars to reschedule.

Now Ron Jeremy is slated to star in the epic Barnacle Bill the sailor. The movie's key orgy scene takes place on Yom Kippur and tens of thousands of dollars are riding on its success.

Ron says he might f--- on Friday night, the beginning of Yom Kippur, but he will only do girl-girl on Saturday, Judaism's most solemn day. In observance of the Jewish fast, he will limit himself to two meals and no more than 3,000 calories worth of the most strictly kosher offerings.

In 2001, when Jeremy walked into shul in the middle of prayers, the entire synagogue rose and applauded.

"It was the proudest moment of my life," a sheepish Ron recalled months later. "That and when I first performed fellatio on myself."

Jewish actors not f---ing on Yom Kippur has a rich and proud history. Though they are not generally religious people, folks such as Nina Hartley, Raylene, Traci Lords and Jamie Gillis have often chosen to continue the traditions of their ancestors rather than earn a quick paycheck performing meaningless sex on the holiest day of the year.
 

A Muslim friend invited me to an ecumenical Bible study Wednesday night in Studio City with believers from all three of the monotheistic religions.

Imagine my surprise when I found it was being held at a nightclub and there were a lot of scantily clad, not particularly religious, young women.

We didn't get much studying done last night but we all did get to know each other better and learn to appreciate our differences.

As I started to press the flesh, the dancing girls transmogrified in my mind into Orthodox rabbis. They stared into my soul. Though they say not a word, I could hear their thoughts:

- You're an insincere convert.

- You said you weren't doing this anymore.

- I stuck my neck out for you and you betrayed me. You went back on your word.

- I introduced you to my family.

- We can't have this in our community.

- Two people came over to me during Rosh Hashanah davening to tell me about you.

- I taught you Torah for two years, and now you do this?

- I vouched for you. I never heard of Luke Ford. I only knew you as Chaim Amalek. We're returning your $600 donation. Thank you very much, but we don't want your filthy tainted money.

- I think it is clear that this is not the place you should pray.

- You want to touch someone? Touch me. Feel my tzitzit. Feel the wrath of God.

- Time to pack you off to Pure Life Ministry in Kentucky.
 

A friend is in love with a girl. She took a week to return his last call. I told him that he needs to wait at least a week and add 50% to make it ten days to return her call. If he does not do this, she will think him a wimp.

To make some extra money, I'm renting out my hovel and van by the hour to my friend Robert and giving him lessons in the Australian accent.

I'm also dressing up in a clown suit and driving up and down my neighborhood in my van selling icecream to children. "G-day, would you like a Red Rocket?"

Friend writes: Luke -- what I should have said, by way of dissenting against your advice, is that not returning her call untill 10 days from now is apt to cause her retaliation -- to retaliate in similar fashion. Such "little games" only end up being mutually reinforcing, one side "one-upping" the other. I think it would only weaken both of our interests in each other; i.e. a mutally reinforcing ratchet effect.

Why do I want to give her the impression that my feelings were hurt as a result of her not calling (which is what my not calling her would indicate?), hmm? I don't think that playing games -- which really is what this is which you recommend -- redounds to anyone's benefit in these situations. Again, I think she'll just read my abstention as just calculating behavior and would belie only in vain the fact of my being hurt that she didn't return my call while she was away on vacation.

Allison Kaplan Sommer writes: Do Palestinians or Mexicans have Luke Fords who are searching for the non-existent sexy Orthodox fertile 22-year-old willing to wed an obsessive blogger living in a hovel? Nope, they grab the girl next door, whoever she may be -- deal with her imperfections -- and start having babies, and lots of them.

Ariella writes: Rabbi "Gadol" who I suspect is actually quite Katan... may you spend your whole life with a woman who treats you like the trash your ideas are. And Luke... I love, love{!!} that you are so condescending. Who wants a woman like us? We think we are such a prize? That's funny, because ultimately you converted so that you'd specifically end up with a Jewish woman. If you want Maria or Jahmillah to propegate your family of 15, cut out and fast {and spare the rest of us who may actidentally date you - thank god for 48 states in between}. And correct me if I am wrong but are you not whoring yourself out on the internet?? Have you not set up a site specifically touting your own horn and included black and white "arty" photos to land yourself a what?? oh yes, a Jewess, who you seem prepared to despise. As if marrying a stuck up, shallow, convert is such a blessing that no woman could pass up.

Male Repellant writes: Why do women think it's the men's fault? Because it is. I've seen the girls frum guys choose and they're nothing to write home about. Plenty of them have don't even raise their own kids-like the Palestinans you so admire. I, and many of my friends, can easilly find goyim to ask us out, but Jewish guys reject us for girls who are nothing. And-think of singles events or marrried couples-don't you often see these great girls being suggested for/marrying/hit on by losers? We have every right to resent this.

I was reading Jewsweek.com and came across this: "Benyamin Cohen is the editor of Jewsweek Magazine and is currently authoring a book tentatively titled How to Find a Wife in 100 Dates."

Doesn't the word "authoring" strike you as pretentious? I think it should be "writing."

When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I'm a freelance journalist or writer. I would never say "I'm an author." Perhaps, "I'm a self-published author, on the web and in print." That should impress them!

Anon writes: Benyamin Cohen has been "writing" this book for years now. It must take that long to get 100 dates.

I know you could do better, Luke. Perhaps "How to Get Married in 99 Dates" - which is a snappier title anyway. Or how about a book on J-Dating or online dating in general as your next book? In depth, of course.

Luke says: I've done way too much dating. I've also done much of it while being stone broke. In other words, I've lived off women. I had one who would do my housework so I could work on my autobiography. I've been a big of a gigalo. I should write about that, only it is so humiliating and non-Torahdic.

Andrew Silow-Carroll praises Jonathan Kirsch's new book, God against the Gods.

"Kirsch is a writer of gently iconoclastic religious books, including studies of biblical sex and a biography of King David."

I have read all of Kirsch’s (who is the Jewish Journal’s pro bono lawyer for defamation) books but this one.

Kirsch's iconoclasticism only runs in one direction - towards debunking Orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity. Kirsch popularizes current academic research and shapes it into making his arguments against religion which believes in itself. Kirsch has a fundamental hatred of Western religion as it has historically understood itself.

I enjoy his writings but I understand his clear polemical position (something that seems to completely escape Andy, who most likely shares Kirsch's views).

I understand why the Jonathan Kirsches of the world want to deny belief in the one true God who holds people accountable for their actions. This way, the Kirsches of the world can do what they like. There is no universal moral code, no objective system of right and wrong, in Kirsch's worldview. He, and those who view the world as he does, are free to do whatever they can get away with. I don't trust them.

By Rabbi Avi Shafran

If only the world made sense.

If it did, Kofi Annan's recent declaration that Sudan's leaders bear responsibility for not reining in the Arab murderers of villagers in Darfur would raise hopes that the U.N. Secretary General might apply a similar judgment to Yassir Arafat for (at best) making no effort to impede the murder of Israeli civilians.

If only the world made sense, Palestinian writers like columnist Hassan al-Batal, who decried the Chechen terrorist carnage in Beslan as "inhuman horror and the height of barbarism" for which "there are no mitigating circumstances," would express similar sentiment for the horror and barbarism their fellow Palestinians visit upon innocent Israelis.

And if only the world made sense, the European Union's member states would feel sufficiently freighted by sanity, not to mention their own histories, to concede that a physical barrier is a most reasonable way for a population to keep at bay crazed killers bent on its destruction.

But, alas, the world makes no sense. Which is why Iraq remains a wild shooting gallery instead of a civilized and prosperous free nation; why the mullahcracy in Iran is not being prevented from developing nuclear weapons; and why the dementocracy in North Korea was not prevented from doing so.

For Jews in particular, the craziness of contemporary geopolitics is of profound concern. Some of the most unstable and irrational players on the world scene today are also some of those most incensed by the existence of Jewish organizations, of a Jewish State, of Jews. It is not a situation that offers much comfort or hope.

What does, though, is Sukkot.

If they haven't appeared already, impermanent structures of varied materials, shapes and sizes will soon enough be sprouting like post-rain mushrooms across Israel and throughout Jewish neighborhoods around the world.

The holiday of Sukkot takes its name from those structures, which Jews are enjoined by the Torah to inhabit for a week each year. The walls of sukkahs can be made of any material. But, in fulfillment of Jewish tradition's insistence that the dwellings be "temporary" in nature, their roofs must consist of pieces of unprocessed wood or vegetation, and they may not be fastened in place.

At first glance, living in sukkahs - by definition decidedly vulnerable to wind, rain and pests - would seem only to compound any innate Jewish proclivity to worry. The delicate dwellings would be expected to intensify Jewish anxiety. And yet, at least for Jews who appreciate the holiday's deeper import, just the opposite is true.

For Jewish tradition considers the sukkah symbolic of the divine "clouds of glory" that protected the ancestors of today's Jews as they wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. The miraculous clouds destroyed whatever obstacles or noxious creatures stood in the people's path.

Thus, the sukkah represents a deep Jewish truth: Security is not a function of fortresses; it is a gift granted from above.

The Yiddish poem by Avraham Reisen (1876-1953) sung in countless sukkahs well captures the idea. It paints the picture of a Jewish father sitting in his sukkah, as a storm rages. His anguished daughter tries to convince him that the sukkah is about to fall. He responds (rendered from the Yiddish):

Dear daughter, don't fret;

It hasn't fallen yet.

The sukkah's fine; banish your fright.

There have been many such fears,

For nigh two thousand years;

Yet the little sukkah still stands upright.

Sukkahs, of course, have in fact succumbed to storms. Jews, too, have fallen at the hands of ancient and modern murderers alike. But, as Reisen's metaphor so poignantly reminds us, there is timeless meaning in the fact that the Jewish people has survived.

The meaning lies in what the sukkah's fragility implies - that true security, in the end, comes from only one place.

So all the world's craziness and evil, all the unreason and hatred and violence, cannot shake the serenity of the sukkah. We have, if only we merit it, an impenetrable fortress.

Beginning a month before Rosh Hashana, Psalm 27 is added to Jewish prayer services; it is recited twice a day, until the very end of the holiday when Jews live in sukkahs. A verse in the Psalm, as it happens, refers to one:

"For He will hide me in His sukkah," King David sings confidently about the Creator, "on the day of evil."

© AM ECHAD RESOURCES

[Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.]

Robert writes Luke: How about writing a children's book? If Madonna and Jamie Lee Curtis can do it, then you're certainly qualified. Aim your books at the offspring of new converts to Judaism? That's got more mass appeal than a stupid producers interview book. Sample title: "Mommy and Daddy Don't Love Jesus Anymore."

Also when is the book on tape version of XXX-Communicated coming out? Your story could really be inspirational to the blind and illiterate.

I was interviewed for three hours Sunday morning by three journalists from a Croatian literary magazine. The topic? My life and my contributions to elevating our national and communal conversation.

I was honored by how well they knew my work (even my anonymous magnum opus on the Rambam's Mishna Torah). They asked me such good questions I've been on a high eversince.

I was describing this to a wise old friend Monday. He asked me for some examples of their searching questions. I gave him some. He wasn't impressed. He thinks the flutterings of my heart have more to do with the beauty of one of my interviewers than the depth of their perceptions.

It is sad to see my friends grow so cynical.

I'm trying to decide on my next book. I think I'm going to write a book on the SDA church. Should be big money and prestige there and the subject interests me. Return
to the bosom that once suckled me, this time as a journalist rather than as a child.

Robert writes: "You are going to go broke self publishing all these asinine books. Why don't you take some of this inexhaustible cash of yours and print up some maps to the Jewish movie stars homes and set up a booth on Fairfax? Do some honest work for a change. Sheesh."

Chaim writes: "After reading "your" homily on Protocols, I suggest that you instead write a book about the deeply closeted Children of Amalek who dwell here in the
United States and just want to be left to live the American Dream, but who are being hunted by fanatical Torah Jews who take the bible literally."

Email: Has Los Angeles Dodger Shawn Green ever joined a local shul or has a special rabbi? Know any bookies who might be taking bets as to whether he plays Friday or not?

I'm reading this terrific book: Manic power: Robert Lowell and his circle

It reminds me of a friend in San Diego.

Lyra writes: How could a writer have any good material without going threw turmoil. If your life was perfect I guess your stories would be boring just like your life. I
thought you'd appreciate some madness but I guess it's over your head. I didn't know you were so perfect and close minded. Why did it take you two days for your judgmental constructive criticism any how. K.B. may suck your synagogue ---- for obvious social reasons but I find you average and predictable like every other conceded writer with boring socially acceptable material that you can barley get published! That must be why you as old as you are and still single. Mabey
God can help you get laid! Happy Shabas. I ate pork today just for you..

Dennis said on his radio show today that he asked a priest, minister, rabbi Sunday in a public panel discussion what do you say to a parent who has lost a child... He said a couple of parents who had lost children came over to him in tears of gratitude...

Dennis didn't bother to say what he or the clergy recommended you say to a parent who has lost a child.

Dennis wondered where else you could get such uplift for two hours for only $33, yet DP said many people would've considered it expensive.

Tom Thumb writes: I'm not into reading lectures, but I'd pay to get weekly videos of you preaching from the bible. I'd also pay for a series of videos in which you write
some essay and turn it in to Cathy S. for her to look over. She gets VERY upset with you and, while wearing some nice leather outfit, beats some editorial sense
into your sorry scrawny ass, before correcting your work and posting it on the web with all the changes indicated so that all can witness your humiliation.

Due to popular demand, I am adding a weekly homily to my Internet publishing. Here's my first.

Email: "Luke, whatever caused sadness for you on Rosh Hashanah, I feel for you."

Luke replies: "It was only dark humor."

Email: "I don't get that side of you."

I've decided to begin augmenting my paltry income by offering my time to teach adult learners all about the Torah, and prepare them for bar/bat mitzvah as an adult. Contact me and I'm sure we can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to enable another outsider to see why he is the way he is. This Rosh Hashonah (the second day, which is the one my friend Chaim churlishly asserts is a testament to rabbinic ignorance of calendar technology) I was walking home from temple with my new friend Tom who, like me, is a convert and foreign born. (Tom is from Finland.) I was discussing my brief sojourn amongst the Abo of the outback, a time for which I have retained curiously few memories. Tom found this suspicious, and began to challenge me on my recollection of those days. Before long, the memories began flooding back, and soon I could recall the central horror of my life then: I was reduced to being some primitive abo's catamite, much like Golan Cipel was reduced to being New Jersey Governor McGreevey's catamite.

More than this I shall not say for now, as the memories trigger feelings so extreme that they are not conducive to this period of the Jewish calendar. But they are a part of me, so if you meet me later on today or at some time in the future, please do not ask me anything about my years amongst the dark skinned aboriginal people of Australia. The memories simply are too painful. Instead, I ask that you give me a hug (but only if you are female and fertile), and maybe say something nice about me.

For those who want the communal experience of going to shul, but go out of their mind reciting the prayers:

God in All Moments: B
Jews & Gentiles: A Historical Sociology of Their Relations: F
The Divine Symphony: The Bible's Many Voice, by Israel Knohl: B+
Rape: A Love Story, by Joyce Carol Oates: B+
Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century: F
An Introduction to Jewish Ethics by Louis E. Newman: B+
Heschel, Hasidism and Halakha by Samuel H. Dresner: A
This is Burning Man by Brian Doherty: B
The Anti-Chomsky Reader: B+
Sam Spiegel: D
Manic Power by Jeffrey Meyers: A

I was warming up over my Rosh Hashanah dinner, about 9:30 pm, entertaining the table with tales of my marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama so blacks could have the right to vote, and my harrowing days kidnapped by Aborginees in the Australian outback...

After warning me about 40 times to shut up, the hosts got sick of my shtick and put me on a time-out, sending me into the living room to play with the kids.

Dawn writes: I think you particularly did a great job making "XXX-Communicated" more accessible to readers not already familiar with your work, by getting the excellent forewords and afterword, the glossary, and the guide to the names.
"The Producers" is a great bathroom book, something no one else has ever done about people in that field. Someone writing a textbook for college students going into TV and film production should license material from that book.

I am considering doing a book about the Punk Rock scene - not the music or the groups, but their fans. If you were a fan of the Ramones, which one's demise affected your mood the most? With which Ramone, living or dead, did you identify with the most?

In addition to this project, I am considering doing a book about the Torah scene of the mid-20th century - not the rabbenim or their commentaries, but their acolytes. If you were a follower of a particular Tzadik, which one and why?

C.S. Lewis vs. Sigmund Freud

JMT writes Luke: "It seems to me that the privilege of writing under your name has to be worth something. If you were to start charging Those Who Would Be Luke a modest licensing fee, it might provide enough of an income stream to enable you to date more, or date better. Give it some thought."

Cathy Seipp writes: Free minds, free markets, free lunch, or: Cato-a-go-go

Khunrum writes: You don't need a coach. With your personality and financial assets you should have no trouble finding a wife.

My take is that you are simply fishing in the wrong stream. Try the personal adds in Tijuana and Manila. Don't forget to show a picture of the van so they'll know there is lots of room when extended family drop by......(also good for hiding members of her clan who have just waded across the Rio Grande)

Dr Janice writes to Jewlicious.com:

Does Luke Ford have any idea how narcissistic he is? I don’t think so, and that’s why he isn’t married. He has absolutely no awareness of how his words could be received by women, let alone how his actions affect them, even when women tell him directly.

I can’t tell if he’s actually going out on dates. But he sure talks a lot about what HE wants and what HE thinks about women, relationships, religion, whining and (of course) sex. B - o- r- i- n- g ! ! !

The main I have question is this – What does Luke Ford actually have to offer a woman in a relationship?? What can he contribute to make his marriage more than just gratifying Luke Ford?


...........

That was a fun post. It certainly got my narcissistic attention.

I am a huge believer in psychology, therapy and having coaches. All my life I've looked to mentors for help.

I got the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from a shrink in Australia in March 2000.

To quote from the report:

Luke is very dependent upon other people for his identity as a person.

He has poor identity integration and poor self esteem. Accordingly, Luke is always looking for mirroring - it's called "narcissistic supply." That is to say that Luke is always looking for external validation of himself as a person (i.e., he needs other people to tell him who he is). However, because it is not possible for people to mirror him all the time, he gets disappointed and this can turn to envy. Luke may not be conscious of the fact that he is very envious of his family as they seem to have things he would like to have but does not have. This leads to him fluctuating between, on the one hand, devaluing people such as the family (putting them down) and on the other, idealisation of people - such as Dennis Prager.


...........

A few points:

* It may be that I have written not a word of the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog. Or it may not...

* I sold LF.com in August 2001.

* I have had several relationships that have lasted about a year and I have many friendships that go back more than 25 years to childhood. I am on good terms with almost all my ex's. So that says something about my ability to relate to people. I am more gentle in my relationships than in part of my blogging.

* I've had an active dating life. Financial problems inhibit that now. I don't write that much about my dating, as I don't about my shul and my sacred relationships because these areas of my life are sacred and are not generally for blogging. If I blog it, it generally means it is not sacred to me. If I were looking for advice on dating or other personal matters, I would turn to friends, clergy, psycho-therapists etc all who are accessible to me. I would not turn to my blog-reading audience unless it was for humor.

* A great deal of what I write is number one, not written by me, including stuff in my name on my blog YML and elsewhere, and two, written primarily for humorous affect.

* The parts of my life that are most precious to me, and such precious persons, are the ones least likely to show up in my writing in any form. Most of the persons who had been in my personal life who I wrote about in my memoir are persons who've written me off. Therefore, I was not sacrificing their friendship when I wrote about them. I didn't burn any active friendships in that book or in my blogging.

* I don't like promoting myself. I am not going to make the case on my blog, or probably not in real life either, for why someone should have a relationship with me. It lacks dignity to make these claims. I have self-evident worth. I don't need to package or market myself. I do the work believing I will be rewarded for the good I do and punished for the bad, if not in this life, then in the world to come.

* I got a shrink who said many of the manifestations of my NPD could be blunted with proper medication. I've been much happier and easier to be with since getting on lithium (mood stabilizer), clonazepam (anti-anxiety) and clonidine (anti-ADD). But as anyone who reads me know, pharmacology is an inexact science.

* Many people think I have designs on women I blog about, such as Chayyei Sarah. If I had serious intentions towards a woman, I don't think I'd blog about her. Blogging is for fun!

...........

Janice responds:

Luke – have you thought that it is duplicitous to be passing off posts written by others as your own? Do you realize that the people, especially the women, that you’ve directed your whining about, will actually think that you’re a misogynist, rather than just someone suffering from a mental illness? This lack of honesty is only going to further impede your efforts to get married, IMHO.

I respect that you find your dates and feelings private and “sacred,” however I think that this is just a rationalization to protect you from taking a real, objective look at yourself, your behavior, and the effects of your behaviors on others. Because if you did (look at yourself), then you might be able to make the changes that would help you create and maintain the kind of relationship that you really want. You may still be friends with your exes, but is that really your goal?

I suggest that you stop hiding behind your ghost-written posts and start posting honest accounts of your life. That’s the best way to get the help you say you want, especially from your readers (and me too, if you so desire) to find a magnanimous Jewish woman to settle down with.

Luke replies:

* Blogging is not primarily about therapy for me. It is about the thing in itself. I have written with excruciating honesty about myself at times. I don't think there's a lack of rigorous self analysis in my work, particularly my memoir.

* One man's duplicity is another's humor. It's not my fault that many Americans have an irony deficiency. If a woman does not find the Luke Ford Seeks A Wife blog funny, and my work funny, and the work of people inspired by me funny, then she is not for me.

* The primary goal of my writing and blogging is not marriage. It is to do good work in the faith that good things will result from that. Most of the funniest comedians do work that many would find racist, misanthropic etc, but what counts is, is it funny? Is it insightful? Does it evoke interesting and profound responses? Those are the criteria I write by.

* Friendships with exes is not my main goal, and I never claimed it was. It is simply better to be on cordial terms with exes, usually, than bitter terms.

* I would say that marriage is my main goal in my life now, along with the quality of my work, the development of non-romantic relationships (primarily with other guys), the practice of my religion and the growth of my character.

A man at the Cato seminar today told me about his plan for a parade in Pasadena designed to offend everyone -- Muslim sluts for Bush. Islamic women dressed up in traditional burkas et al who parade around and then throw off their garb and prance about in bikinis and endorse President Bush... Umm, excuse me, I'll be right back.

I signed a deal today for my book with the most financially healthy studio in Los Angeles - Vivid. Rocco Siffredi will play me, Jenna Jameson will play Alana Newhouse, Ron Jeremy will play Chaim Amalek and Mike Horner will play Gary Rosenblatt. Coming soon to a theater near you.

Adrian writes: Dear Luke:

I'm writing because I think you and your other readers might be interested to know about our new BUSHISMS DVD.

I am one of the producers of the DVD based on the best-selling BUSHISMS series of books. The DVD is hosted by Comedy Central's BRIAN UNGER and features commentary from Slate.com editor JACOB WEISBERG and AL FRANKEN.

If you can let your readers know about our project and the website - www.bushism.net - we would be very grateful.

Also, our product is available by the case for fundraisers and as a donation premium. This is a terrific way to raise money for your organization.

Cathy Seipp told me to be at the Beverly Hills Hilton at 11 a.m. sharp. So I drove up in my horrific van. I don't think the valets had ever seen a vehicle more hideous (it cost me $14, I could've bought two women in Brazil for that).

Matt Welch invited me to sit with him at one of the three ritzy tables that Reason magazine bought (with their ill gotten funds from child pornographers and drug dealers, I just made that up, I think it was witty).

I saw Amy Alkon talking to a tall man with long hair about atheism.

I introduced myself and shook hands with him. He said his name. I didn't get it. "Pat? Ted? Pet?"

"Penn!" he boomed. "Like Pennsylvania."

Turned out it was Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, the Las Vegas magicians.

Penn looked ok, so it must've been Teller who got bit by the lion.

"No, that's that gay couple, Siegried and Roy" said a friend. I have no evidence to back up the assertion that Siegfriend and Roy swing from the other side of the vines.

Libertarian gatherings seem to attract a lot of atheists and cosmopolitan fifth column types like Amy Alkon who deride belief in angels and eternal universal transcendent moral norms dictated by the One True God of Israel. I sure hope there's eternally burning hellfire for these infidels. The Taliban knew how to treat shameless hussies like Alkon.

Islam is the answer and in Islam there are no questions.

TOSSING CATO'S SALAD

After the First Amendment panel discussion, a group of distinguished persons including Cathy Seipp gathered around me to ask for my help defining such phrases as tossing someone's salad.

When, reluctantly, I defined the term, Cathy got a grossed out look on her face and said she was leaving.

I wasn't convinced. She put on the same act when she asked me to describe "double ----" a few months ago. It led to a lengthy discussion of changing social norms on our way to a party thrown by The Atlantic with Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis.

Cathy could not understand how "tossing salad" could derive from such an abhorrent practice and I was too embarrassed to try to defend the etymology.

Starting Wednesday night, Rosh Hashanah, I am swearing off salad tossing, no matter how much Cathy pleads with me to do it.

Cathy, Matt and Emmanuelle Richard arrived 30 minutes late to the show and didn't sit with me, which put me in a peevish mood until lunchtime when Cathy tossed my salad. I then ate it with my fingers and explained to the onlookers that I was raised by Aboriginees.

Through conversation with Matt, I worked out that I am libertarian in the way I live but conservative in my political philosophy and Orthodox in my religious ideals.

I ask Matt what he likes to think about while listening to Cato lectures, a question that is only funny when you know that the first thing I ever said to Matt, back in June 1998, was what did he like to think about while engaging in an activity similar to listening Cato lectures but more pleasurable.

Senator Tom McClintock gave a sterling address about fiscal responsibility. I got so excited (the one brand of libertarianism I subscribe to is Charles Murray's), I asked a question: "Why isn't somebody doing something about the flood of illegals into this state?"

I got all weak in the knees addressing Tom.

He said it was a good question.

I sent this note to the editor of Reason, Nick Gillespie, an icon in the gay community along with Tammy Faye Baker:

Dear Dr. Gillespie,

First, thank you for hosting me for a lovely time today at the Cato shindig. Cool lunch. Hope it was kosher.

Second. Matt talked about taking a position with Reason. I asked him if Reason provided benefits such as health care. He said it did.

SELL OUT! How can you in good conscience offer these things? Why not leave it up to your employees to acquire their own benefits in the beautiful free marketplace? You'll throw the poor on the street but those who happen to be able to write and to claim they hold with your principles, you lavish them in the lap of your own socialistic enterprise (funded not by your own labors but by donors).

Curiously,

Luke

PS Your publisher says you like to bugger little boys.

Here's the paperback cover

Hardcover

Robert L. writes: You da' man. If you were a chick, I'd want to bone you.

Luke,

Kelly and her beautiful female friend (a sorority sister of hers from college), Carrie, said they'd very much enjoy lunching with us sometime soon. But they'll only do so on the condition that you arrange to bring a female -----star along. They opined strongly a wish to meet none other than JANINE. (No, I'm not making this up). May you arrange this?

I'm a mere lackey in this matter, relaying their request -- from moi to toi. You're delusional if you think Ive any vested interest whatever.

Your moral debasement of my sweet, wonderful Kelly continues unabated. You are a moral degenerate.

 

Dave Deutsch, humor editor for Heeb magazine, writes: Luke, I understand you were upset because 60 Minutes wouldn't let you read for that anchor slot. I can even understand you're crafting those fake memos in an effort to embarrass 60 Minutes when the forgeries were revealed (clumsy as they seem to have been, you were right to excise that line about how "Lt. Bush spends too much time chasing the sheilas..."). What I don't get, and never will, is how Dan Rather could refer to you as an "unimpeachable source..."

New Tour Explores L.A.'s Jewish Scene

(Wireless Flash) -- Los Angeles tourists who want to bone up on Orthodoxy will soon have their chance.

A journalist named Luke Ford is offering something called "Jewish Tours" -- tours of L.A.'s Torah landmarks.

Some of the landmarks on the tour include the spots where various rabbis kicked Luke to the curb.

Some tour groups may also visit actual synagogues, which Ford says "can be a turn-on for the first four times or so."

The Jewish LA Tours will officially begin June 25 and will cost $25 a pop.

Ford plans on giving the first tours himself, but, if successful, he hope to hire scantily clad tour guides as soon as possible.

Luke Ford's Magical Mystery Jewish Tour

Needing some extra dough to romance Hebrew Honeys, I've decided to start up a Luke's LA Tour.

Participants will pile into the back of my beaten van while I drive you around all the most important to Luke Jewish sites in Los Angeles.

Chaim Amalek writes: See, one of the benefits of dating a jewess is the motivation to become prosperous that it provides. To date the jewess is to spend lots of money, and if you are to come by that money honestly you will have to work smarter and harder, at least until you marry and impregnate her.

The tour is not such a bad idea. Kenny Kramer, the putative model for the character "Cosmo Kramer" of the jewish Seinfeld show made a mint for himself with his "Seinfeld Reality Tour" in Manhattan. You can do the same with rabbi-star tours in LA, but I suggest you charge more money for it. Tours should include aids clinics, the local bus depot where many a Torah star was discovered, etc. And each tour should end at the Museum of Tolerance. Tell folks that you will be waiting for them right behind the door labeled "tolerant" to give the unsatisfied among them refunds. I suspect that in no time at all, you will have to rent some large buses to handle the spurt in business. Time to prove that you really are worthy of Honey's Jewish genes by making this go.

Now, some of the rabbis will object to having their homes on the tour. Not surprising, as all big stars value their privacy - Hollywood or Valley, it's all the same, no? As for giving out their real names too, this is more troubling. On the other hand, if everyone thinking of going into Torah knew that you would quickly strip them of their false identities, perhaps fewer innocent young Christian girls would be defiled at the hands of swarthy, bagel-eating, greedy rabbis. Clearly there are good arguments on both sides, but I think I come down on the side of NOT divulging the christian names of these young women.

Lynne writes: Luke, I like your idea of a tour. So many of the kosher manufacturers have tried so hard to be discreet about their locations, and you could ruin that for them instantly. You could start in the West Valley and finish in Laurel Canyon at the site of the Wonderland Massacre. In between, I would suggest a stop at a distributor, because the sight of thousands of seferim piled on shelves is very impressive, and a stop at Aish HaTorah, where the fake wailing wall is very impressive. For an extra $5, your guests will receive a genuine Aish Ha Torah Polaroid of themselves in the nude (a great souvenir for the family photo album, don't you think?)

For another $5.00, the Deluxe Tour could include a visit to an actual minyan. You will have to kick back some of that money to the producer, but it would be welcomed. Many minyanim no longer have room in their budgets for condoms, so not only would you be exploiting the performers, but doing something really valuable at the same time, like keeping them alive.

Nice Jewish Girl says your driving is really atrocious, and, since you have few enough true fans as it is, I hesitate to consign them to the back of your van. Your van is more suited to smuggling illegal aliens who don't care about such niceties as seat belts, door handles or air conditioning. And you do not speak Japanese, so you will need an adorable Asian "I'm really a molecular biologist" cutie riding shotgun to interpret for you.

Arrange to stop at your favorite valley eating place and let your tour group purchase lunch. The restaurant will kick back a free lunch for you (although skipping lunch for a bit might not be a bad idea, Luke. There's not a big market for pudgy TV personalities.) Maybe they'll even name a sandwich after you. The Luke Ford special. The contents of that sandwich escape me, though -- does anyone have any ideas? After visiting Wonderland and leading the group in a moment of silent prayer, you can drop off your group at the Hollywood Greyhound Bus Depot, so they can get the true perspective on what it's like to step off the bus when future Torah stars arrive in Los Angeles to embark upon their new careers. Plus they can get home from there.

Mdl writes: Lox and schmaltz on a rye loaf -- open faced. Just think, you could arrange the shinny pink lox in an attractive shape and drizzle the schmaltz over the top. There could be variations:

The Luke Ford Sister - roast beef instead of the lox.
The Luke Ford Extreme - 1 side roast beef -- 1 side lox, with whole baby carrots inserted and globs of schmaltz instead of drizzles.
The Luke Ford Voyager - it's amazing what you can do with a pimento olive.

Helpful writes: Other possible interesting stops on Luke's Tour include:

The actual corner on Santa Monica Boulevard where Matt Ramsey was discovered. The front of the Larry Flynt building where Mike Albo mercilessly bitch slapped poor Luke (and with one hand tied behind his back too).

The scene of the infamous John Holmes "Four on the Floor" murders in Coldwater Canyon.

Dave Hardman's former residence where a distraught Lynne Lopatain was arrested for stalking him with a loaded hand gun in her purse.

Charlie Sheen's Malibu Manse where more newcomers hit the sheets than at Ed Powers couch!

The Altadena love palace where Max makes so many girls deepest, darkest fantasies come true.

The World Modeling agency where booking agent, Jim South and his horny associates make so many of their own deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.

The Slums of Beverly Hills Apartments where Luke Ford makes surprisingly few lucky young Jewish ladies' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.

The Los Angeles area Men's detention facility where Jack Hammer currently makes so many of his burly cellmates' deepest, darkest sexual fantasies come true.

The AIM testing facility where members of Luke's Tour can socialize with the charming Sharon Mitchell and receive a free blood panel analysis.

The cardboard box behind the Hollywood Boulevard Stop-Go market where super-agent, Scotty Schwartz lives. Rob Spallone's shooting house. WARNING: Please no rummaging through the trash cans for Kendra Jade's discarded soiled panties. Luke has already done so and they are available for sale at the end of the tour.

The Doc Johnson Sex Toy manufacturing facility where for $29.95 tour members may have a lifelike mold of their genitalia formed in silicone.

NOTE: All silicone penises of tour members over 8 inches in length become the "intellectual property" of Doc Johnson, Inc.

The Gold's Gym in Venice where AVN bull-stud, Gene Ross, works out daily. CAUTION: Ladies please refrain from touching Gene during his work out. and finally . . .

The fiery gates of HELL ! ! Where all porners are destined to end up at.

Remember in June all topless tour members bust size D and above get 50% off admission!

Goddess writes: The Torahland tour sounds cool, but I'm wondering if you're gonna have any rides--ya know, like Disneyland?? Just curious, cause if you're gonna have a Gene Ross ride, I'm gonna be on that sucker all day... BTW, "Helpful," if I can't touch Gene while he's flexing and squating, what the hell is the point?!

Kaspar writes: Hey there - great idea about the bus tour. But you want to do it right! You need a bus and a driver for that bus. My cousin Hector is new here and does not know the language, but he can drive a bus, and I can get you a bus at a very good rate. Fully air conditioned, too, with a pa system so you can talk over the traffic, and new shocks. Needs a bit of work to pass inspection, but not a problem, we can take care of that. So how about it Amigo, ready to do some business?

Ben writes: HI Luke, Luke! Now this is a great idea. I phoned a few of my jewish friends, they just can't wait for you to start these tours.I would like to ask you IF? there was a Van full, could we have a group rate? Say $ 18.99.Plus, yes there are a few. Would you pick us up from LAX? You would spend not time at all picking us out, of a busy airport. We have Ski jackets on, and rubber boots on, and our faces very white, no tan at all. Now, about your apartment. Will it sleep 8 persons plus yourself? (We have to keep the cost down)

Kaspar: I spoke with my cousin Hector. First, he wants to know how many miles a day this will be. Also, he insists that you do not go to where the black people live. too dangerous. And do you really have the money to start this? Just because we are Mexican does not mean we are cheap. You get what you pay for.

George writes: Luke; That Tour sounds like a hell of an idea. My only problem is the $20 for the tour. At present I have only a single Canadian twenty in my wallet. Would that be OK?

I was also thinking that for the extra I might need, the NJG could come along and pay that, besides her own, and for that I would hold onto her and keep her safe because of your atrocious driving that she mentioned. Hell for that price I would even bring an extra pillow to put in front of her face.

That would be for just before you run into something so that she doesn't get her beautiful looks ruined before marrying some rich guy that is going to keep her in the lap of luxury that she is preparing herself for. If her gorgeous face was damaged all she could hope for is some ordinary working stiff like myself. Heaven forbid that should happen!

Lord Peter Luther Christian writes: Dear Mr. Ford:

Speaking from the Christian perspective, there is much in your new business venture that can be laudable, provided it is executed properly. Your tour could be used to educate tourists on the dangers of perdition that come with the sin of random fornication outside of Christian marriage.

Begin, as has been suggested by others, with the bus depot, the Gates to Hell where many a young girl has begun her descent to damnation. Continue to the Demon Flynt Building, where Satan first breaks many an innocent's spirit. Then continue on to the filth factories of the Valley, where the dehumanizing process proceeds apace. Be sure to visit some HIV treatment centers, and discuss the relationship between the moral diseases of pornography, feminism, sodomy, etc., and such physical diseases as HIV and hepatitis.

Next stop - an abortion clinic, where unborn children brought to life in this moral sewer are masticated by the whirring blades of the abortionist's cutting tools, to the beat of a hip-hop sound track. This should be followed by a visit to the graves of the damned - porn actresses whose lives were cut short as a result of their involvement with pornography.

This can be a very depressing experience, with little to commend repeat business. So you will want to end on a high note: a trip to a Christian church, where the good news of Christ everlasting, and the promise of forgiveness of even the pornographer's sin, is presented to the shocked attendees in word and song. Finally, offer baptism to all who wish it.

Victory in Christ!
Lord Peter Luther Christian, OBE

John Douglas writes: Dear Lukey, I hope you got my IM where I put in for a reservation for your tour. I see it referenced that the first outing is for the media and since we are often referred to as a very watered-down version of YourMoralLeader.com I assume that I qualify as media. So once again, I am claiming a seat. I shall bring the appropriate gear (including a cell phone should you decide to ditch us all in a gang-infested barrio of East Los Angeles - which is okay with me since I have relatives in those parts).

Confucy writes: You must contact the owners of Graveline Tours and pick their brains. They have one of the most popular tours on the Westside of L.A. Graveline use to make a potty stop at the park across the street from Aaron Spelling's mansion.

You could drive your van into the parking lot of West Hollywood's Pleasure Chest store so people could rush in and pick up one of the most popular vibrators of this century, "the mini- massager G2 Pocket Rocket!"
 

Chaim Amalek writes: "How does America's most popular observer of the passing scene in prepare for the Days of Awe? Where do you pray, and what do the Jews charge you to pray there? How observant are you on the second day of Rosh Hashonna (which really isn't necessary)? On Yom Kippur, do you do the full, hard fast - no solids
or liquids? Do you daydream during services? What plans have you made for the coming year to make you into the sort of a man that a 40 years young jewish
woman might want to marry?"

Luke says: I observe Jewish Law (except for where I don't, and in these sinful things, I keep silent).

Evan Gahr from Chimpstein writes:

Journalist expelled from Kerry national HQ for "illegal" camera use. How long does it take to bait Kerry & Co into quotable quotes and goofy actions, which arguably run afoul of local and federal law? Exactly 53 seconds.

By EVAN GAHR
Chimpstein.com

The much derided Willie Horton commercial that helped sink the presidential campaign of the teeny weenie Michael Dukaksis was far more honest and much less vicious than the speech which John Kerry gave last week to black Baptist leaders gathered in New Orleans.

The Wille Horton advertisement is endlessly criticized for playing to white fears. True enough, whites, and blacks, have much to fear from convicted rapists treated to weekend getaways. And facts are pesky things. Perhaps good-faith arguments can be made regarding how the commercial used or missed certain basic facts, but nobody could impugn the commercials overall truthfulness.

Not so Kery's speech in which the alleged war hero made statements which he knew or should have known were false.

The speech arguably raises more statements about his truthfulness than the military service claims now alleged.

And it's much easier to refute. Similarly, in perhaps a creepy preview of what John Kerry's America might be like, a journalist taking pictures--illegally Kerry's people claimed--at the front desk of the national headquarters was expelled literally seconds after he asked leading questions about the seemingly dearth of black campaign workers and the foolish New Orleans speech.

Why aren't other journalists making these kind of inquiries?

It shouldn't be too difficult. In his speech to the black ministers organization Kerry served dollops of regurgiated liberal pablum disguised as soul food.

The Massachusetts senator played on the theme--which dates to the Kerner Commission Report in the late 1960s--that America is really two nations, separate and unequal, one black, one white. Kerry asserted that American cities "are being torn apart by forces just as divisive and destructive as Jim Crow."

These kind of assertions, like so much else of liberal thought that has infected mainstream thinking, is counter-intuitive and even upon cursory scrutiny quickly collapses under the sheer weight of its own inanity.

If black people are so hapless and oppressed then why is Kerry so determined to grovel before his negro masters for their support?

But grovel he did.

It was Superwhitey to the rescue. Making the curious clam that "a million African-American votes [were] not counted" in the 2000 election, Kerry, according to one press report, wieded statistics about unemployment povery and the drop-out rates of minorities to suggest the nation is terribly fractured by intractible racist forces.

The biggest lie in the speech was that urban American is ravaged by the same kind of vicious and intractable racism equivlant to Jim Crow.

Oh really? Jim Crow was a segregation system enforced by terror and fear, often times by Southern law enforcement officials. It is synomous with lynching, a horrifice chapter in our nation's history.

Just who gets lynched these days in American cities? Which KKK figures have day jobs in Southern law enforcement? Do these cities include those ruled at times by black mayors, such as David Dinkins, Wilson Goode, Harold Washington and other blacks?

Which cities?

Time for a reality check.

Let's examine the Washington area, starting in Arlington, VA. Early Friday morning two parking lot attendants at an unnamed garage are smoking cigarettes right in the driveway. Asked about Kerry's suggestion that there are two Americas, they react with all the passion and emotion that might have been expected if a passerbyer inquiried whether it is true that Roslyn has one McDonals and one Burger King. One of the attendants, with a closely shaved dark beard and intense eyes, finally says that he disagrees with the thrust of the speech.

He for example resides in a middle class, racially mixed neighborhood. Is he voting for Kerry? "It ain't gonna be Bush. That's for sure."

The oppressed negroes head inside back to their job--but they certainly don't anser to "the man." Around 9am a steady stream of cars go into the garage, many SUV's, driven by blacks, whites and Asians.

Walk over the Key Bridge from Rosslyn to DC and it's more of the same. A light-skinned black women, clad in short green skirt, walks along Pennsyvania avenue, holding hands, with a taller slender white guy.

A few blocks away where workers are demolishing a big building , a tall white man, who looks like redneck from central casting, big stomach, missing some teeth stands with his two black workers. The speech was undoutbedly designed to incite the hapless negroe masses to action, and it sure does leave one of the black contruction workers active, his face covered by an American flag fascimile--indignant about the speech. "That's bullshit. He's lying."

At the GWU campus, however, one black man expressed agreement with the speech as he gets into his nifty car, his mother already seated in the passenger seat. "It's exactly the way I felt for years," he says. For good reason: he owns his own company, employees about 10 and depends on racial set-asides. He can cry about racism all the way to the bank.

But the divisive sensibility of this affirmative action baby is apparently not shared by many GWU students and employees.

Black college girls who look like stereotypical sororority sisters casually schmooze with white co-eds seated on the grey benches right outside an H St. dorm.

GWU employees, one black and one white, do some kind of logistic overlook.

There is one place, however, where the two nations analogy obtains. In John Kerry land. White DNC workers who are canvassing the campus for support are asked why they don't have any black colleaggues. "I'm sorry I can't help you. We do hire them."

The women, brunette with piercing blue eyes, s strikingly pretty but doesn't seem to be the deepest of thinkers. "So your job is just to look pretty?"

"Alright, it was nice talking to you."

"If it was so nice why are you running away?"

Run, whitey, run.

About 7 blocks down, however, the black front desk worker at Kerry's national headquarters stood still in the face of provocative questions regarding the speech, but then with a wave of her dark hand dispatched the campaign's security guard to expell the provocateur, dressed about as much of a slob as Frank Rich but more fastidious than his new role model, Michael Moore. He was then threatened with arrest if he re-entered the building by another guard, working for or perhaps with the Kerry campaingn.

Call them Kerry's black honor guard.

Events transposed so quickly this military-like account is probably the best way to impress upon readers the astounding combination of malice, arrogance and stupidity of the Kerry campaign.

At approximately 17:00 hours on September 10, 2004, a white male, clad in standard journalism semi-slob style, meandered into the waiting area of alleged war hero John Kerry's national campaign headquarters.

The following fracas, as recorded by the intruder's digital camera, ensued.

PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION

00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25 Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27 Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44 Hymie-American: Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right]
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front desk:Seriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK

Take him out?

What is this a mafia hit?

Funny, she doesn't look Italian.

The woman must have fit perfectly with the campaign. Just another transparent hustler, as is her utterly pedestrian ultimate boss, the putative serious Catholic who probably would acquiesce in demands from NARAL for the legalization of fourth trimester abortions.

The negress spoke with affected inflections, trying to be girlie when she was nothing but John Kerry's personal bitch.

Sort of a black Maureen Dowd, too cute for her own good, she was utterly bereft of the genuine girlie and soft and fluffy tones of Jill Abramson, the elitist out-of-touch New York Times managing editor who answers her own phone. (Smooth and shrewd, for all we know, Jill has made Bill Keller HER bitch.)Most importantly, Jill knows how to handle leading questions designed to ridicule and embarass the respondent without giving any quotable quotes, let alone leaving her employer vulnerable to federal discrimination complaints.

Not so. The Kerry campaign worker (details in related story below.)

Such is John Kerry's America. Elswhere, blacks don't realize they are oppressed and whites don't act like the slave masters of Kerry's putrid paradigm.

It's morning in America.

Nearly 9:00am in the produce area of an Arlington, VA Safeway grocery store. One worker, about 5'8'', blue apron over his white shirt, concentrating on stocking up the vast bins filled with peaches, as a larger, hulk of man, perhaps 6'4" with a stomach that ranks in size with Michael Moore's watching him carefully.

The hulk is black. His charge is white, and they're talking about baseball. Later on the checkout line, with the hulk nearby, he is asked if anybody ever mistook him for Jesse Jacks, same hair same mustache.

Yeah, he laughs. You should see my father he looks even more like him. Why don't you just tell people that you are Jesse Jackson? Then you can get thousands of dollars for speaking fees?

No, he laughs, it would be my luck that just that day someone tries to shoot at him.

Read the above carefully, and think. Jesse Jackson has been threatened by many things--the truth, the ADL, his mistress, but not violence. The last civil rights leader shot was Vernon Jordan, then Urban League head, in 1980. Before that was Martin Luther King, which many blacks, laymen and "leaders" contended might have been a government plot.

It's quite possible that the hulking supermarket manager had this kind of stuff in mind--fear of the government, colluding or acting unfairly to blacks, in ways big and small, when he made his comment. Many blacks to this day cite the notorious Tuskegee experiments to justify their fear of the government, which, in the view of some, is currently embodied by the racial profiling of police departments and other law enforcement authorities.

This is the kind of stuff which could be used as a starting point for a serious discussion abour race in America. That's why Kerry stood clear of it, and opted for outdating and patronizing platitudes in New Orleans, with his own little house negress guarding the campaign HQ in DC.

His speech--just like the campaign antics, the fish rots from the head down--is striking testament to John Kerry's revolting vision of America, which these two events alone should give serious pause to those who contend he is fit to lead.

EVAN GAHR used to work for Eric Breindel and sometimes feels like he still does.

Mr. Gahr, King of All Animals for Chimpstein.com, previously broke the House Bank story (stolen by Roll Call), the story that Hillary Clinton had helped fund PLO front groups
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0598/gahr1.html, and
the Paul Weyrich story
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0126/hentoff.php

Most recently, Mr. Gahr's series of investigative reports for JewishWorldReview.com about religious conservatives collusion with reputed terrorist-friendly Muslim groups to oppose gay marriage, sparked a nationwide outcry, was picked up by, among other major media outlets, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Forward, AndrewSullivan.com and the Washington Blade, and led to the "withdrawal" of the controversial Muslim group from the Alliance for Marriage's coalition.

Many of his recent pieces--for the Washington Post, Washington Times, the American Spectator, the Women's Quarterly, the American Enterprise Magazine, are archived at
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gahr031202.asp

703-528-1021
202-431-4231


KERRY CAMPAIGN CHARGED WITH ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION

Federal and local authorities have been asked to investigate an incident late last Friday afternoon in which a journalist who meandered into Kerry campaign headquarters wielding a silver Kodak digital camera and asking questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people was expelled from the front desk reception area and threatened with arrest if he returned to the building.

In a complaint emailed to R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the journalist asserts that the Kerry campaign illegally discriminated against him based on race in violation of the landmark Civil Rights act, which many conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley opposed.

The journalist a honky-American, contends that the malicious and arbitrary of the Kerry people is illegal because they treated him differently than they might have a black person who made similar pesky inquiries.

For years, he alleges, black leaders have not only asked questions about minority underrepresentation in campaigns and conventions but loudly demanded changes, dating back to Jesse Jackson's antics when he rounded up a bunch of black people, many of them not even registered to vote, and hereded them into a Dem convention to demand more diversity among delegates.

This could be a tough sell, legally, but it raises the kind of embarassing questions--Kerry wants to safeguard America against all threats foreign and domestic but his people can't handle digital cameras--that his already faltering campaign won't be too pleased to answer.

Legally, the stronger claim could be the complaint which the journalist faxed late today to the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights.

In addition to charging racial discrimination in violation of DC human rights law, he also charges that the conduct violated the statutes prohibition against political bias because the campaign, not knowing he is a journalist, treated him with the heavy-handed manner that might be expected from a bunch of fools confronte by a pesky protestor.

To butress his point, he makes the argument that the campaign could not possibly have a legitimate, non-discriminatiry reason to expell him, such as disruption because his pesky questions and camera wielding in no way interfered with campaign activity, and the white person standing next to him smiled--digital recording available--as the journalist pressed his point regarding the dearth of minorities.

The ACLU and DC Office of Human Rights could not be reached for comment.

--EVAN GAHR

September 13, 2004

VIA FAX and EMAIL

R. Alexander Acosta
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Main
Washington, D.C. 20530

Fax Numbers

(202) 514-0293
(202) 307-2572
(202) 307-2839

Mr. Acosta:

This is a formal complaint agains the John Kery campaign and the managment of the building in which its headquarters is housed for conspiracy to deprive me of my civil rights under the law, including but not limited to discrimination in public accommodations based on race.

Petitioner is a white male, Jewish, and perceived looney tune by many conservative activists. Petitioner alleges that in the events described below he was treated differently because of his race when he was ejected from the Kerry campaign headquarters and threatened with arrest if he even entered the building again after the embarassed the campaign with questions that suggested it was way short on black people.



CHRONOLOGY

1. Petitioner is white male, Jewish, perceived by many as looney tune.

2. On September 12, petitioner entered the building that houses the Kerry Campaign national headquarters.

3. Petitioner signed his name at the log book on the guard's desk. No guard was present.

4. Petitioner walked past guard on 7th floor and into the lobby of the campaign HW.

5. Petitioner asked a series of questions about the campaign's apparent dearth of black people.

6. Petitioner started taking pictures. Two front desk workers names unknown, one black the other white, told him he was not allowed to take pictures? Petitioner asked under what rules?

Front desk worker said that she made the rules and she was the soveirgn of campaign.

7. Petitioner continued to film campaign with digital camera, although it might not have been noticeable and ask questions.

8. White male next to petitioner and talking to front desk woman smiled at the humor.

9. As unidentified Negros talked to white guy petitioner cut her off, asking him "is this the black hq?"

He smiled. She did not. She told guard "take him out."

The moment petitioner heard the order he started walking out. He was, nevertheless, followed downstairs by the burly guard, left the building and then walked South along 15th st. Another guard followed him and threatened with arrest if he entered the building.

DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS

The campaign lacked a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for expelling petitioner, ie. under DC human rights laws, denial of service.

Reading of the transcript should reveal that complaints about picture taking were obvious pretext.

a. The expulsion was ordered when petitioner asked about dearth of minorities.

b. Respondent Negro didn't seem to realize the camera was filming

c. It is unlikely any such photo policy existed. If it does exist was it applied consistently or was petitioner singled out because of his race inquiries.

Discrimination based on race

It is standard fare for black politicians, public figures and journalist to ask questions about private institution's lack of minorities which they deem manifestation of racism and demand changes. Jesse Jackson's game is described in book titled Shake Down.

Based on information and belief the campaign was particularly vicious and singled out petitioner because he is white for saying that which it would not object if made by minorities.

OVERBREADTH

1. Petitioner did not disrupt the campaign. Rude questions even somebody else is speaking does not rise to disruption. Yes, he asked Negroes question as she was speaking to third party white to his left. But this white person hardly minded. He even smiled. Therefore the offense was not interfering with customers, but ideological.

2. The building, per above, is normally open to the public. Respondent has no authority to summarily bar petitioner from building which they occupy but do not own.

3. The black guard who bullied petitioner and threatened hi
halfway down the block from the building impeded free expression on a public sidewalk over which he has no authority and those who do have authority could not legally impede similar speech.

PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION

00:05 Hymie-American: It's OK to look around?
Black guard: [no response]
00:24 Hymie-American: Are you the only black person who works for him?
00:25Negress at front desk: No [laughs]
00:27Hymie-American: Are you sure?
00:29 Negress:I'm postive. There are others.
Hymie-American: Where are they?
0031 Negress: They're working.
Hymie-American: Oh yeah? Do you know their names?
0331:Negress: I do.
Hymie-American: but you cant tell me? Is it like stereotypical black names? Or Jewish names? Or average normal name.
Negress: Can I help you [said to Honky-American at Hymie-American's right]
00:44Hymie-American:Wait, wait. He said there are two Americas. Is this the black campaign headquarters or the white? It Looks like the white.
00:54 Negress-American: It's illegal to take pictures [here]
00:55 Hymie-American: It's illegal to take pictures here?
Under what law?
00:59. Negress: Law of the campaign
Hymie-American: Oh, you run your own country?
Negress:I do.
1:08 Can I see the bylaws.
01:11 white person of course [gestures to Honky-American, smiling, to his right
01:15 Slovenly whtie girl at front deskSeriously, it's illegal to take picture
1:17 Can you take him out
Hymie-American 01:21OK

One thing I find grating about women in general and most female Jewish singles columnists (Teresa Strasser is the big exception) in particular is that they think they're so wonderful.

Here's an example from Esther D. Kustanowitz: "Occasionally someone — usually my mother — will ask me why I, a vibrant, intelligent, attractive and witty Jewish writer, am still single."

The spinsterhood of these women, including Chayyei Sarah, is always laid at the feet of big bad dumb men. Rarely do I read or hear any genuine introspection over the possibility that these women, like men, might have flaws that stand between them and marriage.

I think this is the flip side of the female's greatest fear - that she is not worthy of love. Those who particularly doubt their worthiness are the ones most driven to constantly and publicly lay claim to their worthiness.

(A male's greatest fear is lack of competence. Hence he doesn't like to ask strangers for driving directions, even when lost.)

I have many parts of me that I have to fight to be a decent person (yeah, I know, I'm losing the battle). Any man who is real about himself knows that he has the capability to be a rapist unless he fights himself (to give one example of moral struggles that men have).

I rarely encounter a woman who's in touch with her own struggle to be decent. When I ask women about their moral struggles, they will say things like, I give too much. I'm too trusting.

In short, I'm too wonderful.

"He's Just Not That Into You."

Rabbi Gadol writes: And speaking of which, why do so many women (like this Kustanowitz person) think that what men really want is a devastatingly witty female version of Woody Allen? I find it tiresome to banter all the time with a woman who thinks sarcasm is a virtue (when the concept itself appears nowhere in the Torah). What I want is a woman who is kind, smart, seems like she'd make a great mom to my kids (and is young enough to MAKE said kids), and gives me erections now and then when I am thinking of her. Oh, and one more thing: Jewish women in particular wait too long to marry. The Jewess needs to appreciate that she is not a bottle of fine wine that only gets better with age no matter what her spinster friends may be telling her. She needs to start thinking about what sort of man she ought to be looking for as soon as she clears puberty, find said man, and seek to be married to him by age 23 - just like virtually all of the generations of women who preceded her.

PS Do Palestinians or Mexicans have "dating coaches" or singleton columnists? Nope. They are too busy having children, and lots of them.

From the Luke Ford Fan Blog:

This is part two of three blog posts that will form the basis of my new book, Luke Ford: Genius or Retard, which will be published later this year by iUniverse Press. Surprisingly strong sales of the e-book versions of XXX-Communicated and The Producers reveal a huge demand for writings by, and about, Luke Ford. iUniverse has asked me to help serve this market with an unauthorised biography, generously offering an advance of $300,000. I agreed. Who says that there is no money to be made from blogging. And unlike Jessica Cutler, I don't have to take my clothes off! Not that I'm opposed to nudism; in fact, like Rebecca Schoenkopf, I'm an enthusiastic exhibitionist. It's just that no-one wants me to strip to help promote my book.

[Noam] Chomsky and Ford are both handsome, charismatic moral leaders. Both are prolific writers (Chomsky of political pamphlets; Ford of narcissistic blog entries). Both are Jews (Chomsky real and self-loathing; Ford pretend and self-loving [figuratively and literally]). And both have numerous celebrity followers (Chomsky: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Bono; Ford: Raquel Devine, Heather Hornay, Fluffy Cumsalot).
 

I want to create a magazine called Better People - devoted to the development of character. Instead of Better Homes & Gardens, Better People will concentrate on how we can be finer, kinder, stronger, more moral. I envision an ecumenical magazine that atheists, religious and secular people of all stripes can get behind.

On a humid 85 degree sunny Friday, I walk down Sunset Blvd to a screening room. I spot Pastor Craig Gross and his assistant Jason, John, a religion reporter for The New York Times, and Bill Day (director of the documentary on the XXXChurch.com, Missionary Positions).

When Craig and his fellow pastor Mike Foster began their project, they went to Larry Flynt Publications, Girls Gone Wild and Wicked to see if they could find areas where they could all agree and cooperate (such as to keep kids away from p---). Nobody gave them the time of day, says Craig. Wicked had to be nice to them because there was a reporter from MSNBC there.

"We took the rabbit and balloons," says Craig. "Girls Gone Wild was pissed. It was probably not a good time to visit them because they were not doing well in the news. We got through security and to their door. Bill was videotaping. We got in there and one of their reps came out and put his hand to the camera and said, get out of here. We said, we're just trying to help kids stay away from porn. We hit a dead end.

"Larry Flynt's secretary said, I'm sure Larry would be interested. Here's his card. Call for an appointment. We called and called and got the run-around."

Then James DiGiorgio wrote them about a year ago, and the rest was history (they received enormous media attention for their cooperation on a PSA warning kids away from p---).

"Mike and I haven't recovered from p---," says Craig. "We were never addicted. Our ministry isn't about that.

"We've trying to motivate the church to get off the pews and do something about p---. We complain about all these bad movies. Let's make a good one."

Craig and Mike are married with kids. Their spouses Jennifer Foster and Jeanette Gross support their work "but when it comes into the house, as far as people getting a hold of your home phone number and calling, such as the Little People of America... Or when we go to church and my wife is sitting in the car and they call the cops [because the car is covered with XXXChurch messages]."

"Why would you drive that to church?"

"To let people know. Our wives like it until [their personal lives are disrupted].

"We found that JimmyD is probably a more responsible parent [about protecting his kids from smut] than most Christian parents. He doesn't bring it into the home.

"Jimmy and I did a debate on Lee Strobel's show, Faith under Fire on PAX. We were supposed to debate each other but Jimmy and I have respect for each other and we didn't debate once. Lee and Jimmy ended up going at it. Lee ripped Jimmy a new one. Jimmy came right back at him. I thought, this is no good. This is arguing and tearing each other down."

This girl who worked at Playboy for 18 years came on the show as a victim. She posed for Playboy. She said it made impossible for her to find a good man. Every man wants to marry a virgin. Jimmy disagrees. He says every man wants to marry a p--- star.

Tyler Cash wrote:

Suddenly, the ex-centerfold rushed at Jimmy, her arms swinging wildly as she screeched, “Playboy took advantage of me! Some guy met me in Santa Monica and offered me a lot of money to pose. I was weak and I agreed. They shattered my innocence, destroyed my life, and ruined my marriage!"

DiGiorgio, who’s Dad always taught him to never strike a woman, simply quoted from the ex-Bunny’s bio: "Wait a minute! You worked for Playboy for 18 years, right? At what point, in all that time, did they take advantage of you and destroy your life? Was it AFTER you were divorced and AFTER you were no longer employed by Playboy that you came to that conclusion?”

...............

Craig and Mike have had booths at four porn conventions -- twice at Erotica LA and twice at the AVN show in Las Vegas in January. "People love it," says Craig. "People stand in line to take pictures with the rabbit. They're like, I've got to know more. People wanted to get a photo with the banner. Most everybody knows somebody who goes to church. People always ask, is there p--- on there?

"Our approach is so different. We have a rabbit. We have postcards that say, Jesus loves porn stars. We don't look like professional pastors. The p--- stars want pictures with the rabbit. Sometimes they touch the rabbit where they shouldn't. That's my wife in there.

"The [p---] girls are on all display. Deep down inside, these girls are just kids. They see a rabbit. They want a picture. They don't want to spread their legs."

Craig's friend Ryan Dobson, the author of two books and the son of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, drives up. He has a ton of Christian tattoos (his father does not approve).

Ryan's speaker profile.

Tyler Cash walks up. Jimmy's employer. His shirt is unbutton to his navel. Tyler says he spent 22 years in Hollywood but saw the profit potential in p--- three years ago, and created Smash Pictures.

I ask Craig when he got his ears pierced. He says high school.

"What would Jesus say?"

Craig: "I don't think he'd have a problem with it. He had long hair and a beard. My Christian high school had a problem with it. I had to take them out."

He also has a tattoo on his lower leg, a flame.

Luke: "James Dobson took a far out position. He said masturbation is ok."

Craig: "I don't think he would hang out at a porn show... We're not for masturbation. We say it is a selfish act that pleases no one but you."

Ryan says his tattoos are a formal expression of his faith in Christ. "I was born to testify to the truth," is tattooed across his chest.

James DiGiorgio walks up. "Those black socks," he says to me. "You look like the biggest dork I've ever seen. Those shoes [black heavy], unbelievable."

Pastor Craig Gross used to lecture before future Vivid girl Michelle Michaels when she was in Calvary Chapel Redlands High School.

Craig: "I'm at Erotica LA. The first year. My wife's in this rabbit suit. This porn star walks up and says, I know you. Imagine what my wife is thinking.

"At the time, [Michelle Michaels] didn't have a contract with anybody. She just had a cheap business card. She said I spoke at her school. I spoke for a week. I said, what are you guys doing here? They said, I'm her booking agent. I'm her manager. She says, I've just done my first film. She'd just graduated that June. That was two years ago.

"I have it on tape. She tells me, I know God's pissed off at me but I don't care right now. It's about me. I'm just doing this for a while. Eventually, I will get back to him. I asked Jimmy how to get a hold of her for this reality show we're doing. I did a search. She's done 28 movies.

"Like many of the girls in the industry, she doesn't want to be in it.

"She just wants a taste. I hope and pray that Michelle ends this thing. I'd like to sit down with her and talk with her some more. It's a sad story."

We walk into the screening room. I chat with Mike Foster's parents. They're proud of their son's work.

Bill Day, director, talks about religion and pornography.

"A match made in heaven," says Jimmy.

The documentary runs 85 minutes.

It opens with various media clips about the XXXChurch.

Mike: "One day I was praying in the shower and God spoke to me. He said the word porn. We need to do something. A church that only exists on the Internet."

Craig: "As soon as I heard that Web address, it just clicked."

Mike: "Craig, what do we know about p---? We're not qualified."

Craig's wife Jeannette Gross: "I called him on my cell phone. I was concerned. It came out of the blue."

Craig: "We spent most of our early time just staring at a blank screen. How is this Web site going to help people? We just kept going back to the same issue -- that porn sucks. What does it mean that porn sucks?"

Mike: "Our research consisted of...going to Google, type in the word anti-p---, go to the Web sites, stole all their facts, and put them on our Web site."

The pastors went to Amsterdam for three days to check out the red light district. They took along Bill Day to videotape everything. They interviewed a hooker. They interviewed a woman who was previously married to a man addicted to p---.

They interview a man who just bought a trick.

"Do you think she was happy doing what she was doing?"

"No way in the world," he says. "She was just processing a McDonald's hamburger."

Craig: "There's a ministry in [rural] Kentucky called Pure Life Ministry [started by ex-LAPD cop Steve Gallagher]. They have a six month live-in program for guys who struggle with sexual addictions. We've labeled it p--- prison."

There's no TV, radio or newspapers.

The documentary tells the story of Ray, a man who became addicted to p--- at age 12. "An older boy taught me to masturbate to p---."

Ray: "I went into a public restroom and I was arrested for masturbating in a public restroom."

His wife found out. She tried to help him. But Ray was an addict. They divorced. "Suicide was an option."

At the AVN show, Susan Block lectures the pastors that the "Testament" in "New Testament" comes from testicles. She prances around after making her points.

The pastors are next to Violet Blue's booth. She looks at them skeptically.

Some porners touch the pastor's bunny inappropriately. One says he wants to "f--- the bunny."

Pastor Mike seems discouraged. "We just spent a thousand dollars and a heckuva lot of time. Did we move any people from the dark side to the light side? How the hell did I get here? I'm a pastor. I've got a great job. They pay me a lot of money. I've got a lot of cool friends. I've got two cool kids at home. What am I doing at Erotica LA for three days?"

Craig: "We talked to a lot of people. We didn't get the press we were hoping for but nobody did. We didn't even make the news."

Christian billionaire Jack London gives Mike $50,000 for his XXXChurch. Jack doesn't seem to have a clue about what XXXChurch is about.

Craig's friend John talks about his p--- addiction. John is at the screening with a cute blonde. He spent eight months at Pure Life Ministry in Kentucky.

"I don't want to get close to a girl because I have this problem with porn...and she'll look down on me because of it. Do I want my porn more or do I want my girlfriend more?"

John says half of the people in the Pure Life program got kicked out or left in the middle of the night.

The pastors buy a sign tugged across the sky by a plane. "XXXChurch: The number one Chritian porn site."

They shoot a commercial with Eddie the Midget. They say that porn stunts growth. Little People of America take great exception. They begin harassing the pastors. They dig up their tax returns. They threaten to have them audited.

Mike: "They told us that they had four little people who worked for the IRS and they proved it by producing our tax returns. We had to write a formal apology to the Little People of America and make the ad disappear forever."

They get booked on "Praise the Lord" on TBN. They fly out to Nashville. Tape the show. Send out emails to tell people to watch the show. TBN doesn't play the show and won't explain why.

Mike: "It seems like the only media we got was early-morning shockjocks and be the butt of every joke they wanted to tell us."

Mike on his phone for an interview tells the camera, "He's masturbating on the radio while looking at our Web site."

Later, Mike is stuck in an airport. "We're supposed to be fighting p--- here. Does it look like I am fighting p---? I am going around the country telling people not to masturbate and watch p---."

James DiGiorgio admits that he has selfish motives for shooting the XXXChurch's 30-second promo for free. "It's not that I'm trying to promote p---. I'm trying to promote JimmyD."

Craig: "He seems pretty hostile to his industry.

"People who are getting sucked down need harder and harder material to get off to, so people like JimmyD are forced to push the envelope."

The documentary goes to a scene of JimmyD shooting a gaper.

Jimmy: "I wish I could delete files in my head. I've seen things I wish I hadn't seen and I've done things I wish I hadn't done."

Pat Robertson's 700 Club TV show sends a crew out to interview the pastors and Jimmy at Hustler Hollywood.

Craig: "This was such a big deal for us because the Christian community hadn't embraced us to this point."

The 700 Club runs a promo for the segment on the next day's show. Craig says, "We're just going to a place where Jesus would go." Pat Robertson saw it. Pat turned his assistant and said, 'Jesus would never go to a p--- show.'

The story vanished but showed up one day when Pat was taking a vacation.

Jimmy says he lost work over his directing the anti-p----for-kids PSA. "You can't flunk out of porn. I'm part of this family. There will always be work for me."

Pastor Mike drops out of the XXXChurch.

Craig says Mike tends to quit everything he tries after a couple of years. Mike admits that is true.

The two pastors rejoin forces to go on TechTV.

Host: "Do you think p---ography is a blight on society?"

Mike: "Do you think sitting at a computer with your pants around your ankles watching some hot chick doing a donkey, is there a problem?"

Host: "You wouldn't want to do it every night of the week."

After the documentary, I talk to people in the room. Everyone seemed to like it, from the p--nographers to the pastors to their parents to Mike's wife Jennifer.

The documentary is intended for Sundance.

Jimmy says his son's great great uncle is Carey Estes Kefauver, who headed the anti-Mafia hearings of the 1950s.

"Jimmy has a lot of Mob ties," I say.

"No, I don't," says Jimmy.

I ask Ryan Dobson, "How would your dad like this film?"

"He would love the message but he would get hung up on some of the cursing and some of the scenes. He loves the idea of XXXChurch."

The pastors have done Dr. Dobson's radio show.

The pastors say a tamer version of the film would make it acceptable for some churches to view.

Craig: "TBN wasn't just friendly to us, they were overtly friendly. They were over the top. We came home and thought we'd have a show on TBN. And then to come home and have a TBN party at our house and put on our Web site to watch TBN...and there was a rerun. I'm calling the prayer line and apparently Jan [Crouch, owner of the network along with her husband Paul], the lady with the big purple hair, pulled the plug at the last minute. That was the worst [media] experience.

"Mike got more hung up on the shock jocks than I did. He refused to do any more radio. I do them all."

Craig talks about his time in "porn prison," aka Pure Life Ministry. "We went from Amsterdam to that. We're hanging out at the barbeque [at Pure Life for the weekend]. I think they think Bill [Day] is part of us. Out of the blue, we hear Bill say, 'What is this s---?' You don't cuss around this crowd. Everyone stopped their conversation. Bill's like, 'I can't say that here?'

"I'd rather be in Amsterdam, but not in the red light district.

"Twenty miles outside of Amsterdman is a place [the government has set up] for all the [hookers] who aren't legal can go. Our taxi cab driver told us about this place. He charged us $60 to drive out there. It's three degrees. One a.m. Sunday morning. We drive a mile off the freeway and we see all these brake lights. As soon as you turn right, there are girls here. Transvestites. Guys. These girls or guys are half price [compared to the red light district] but you don't know what you're getting.

"You drive in, roll down your window, and pick a girl up. Then you get to the end of the stop, and there are about 75 car ports and that's where you have sex. You see the steamed-up windows, cars moving, kleenexes and crap outside the car. We're not talking Pintos. We talking Jaguars, Lexuses, Porsches.

"We couldn't shoot footage. There were guys patrolling. When you watch Wild on E! or Wild on Amsterdam, the results of that red light district are 20 miles outside of town. The guy in the Jaguar is driving out there because he can't afford 50 [Euros]. It's because he's ashamed of what he's doing and his problem has drug him out to the darkest place you've ever seen.

"There's nothing tempting to me about this world.

"There's a giant church in the middle of Amsterdam's red light district where John Calvin used to preach. That's where the taxies pick up passengers and drop off. The Christians could've impacted their city but it became just a building. It has no relevance. While you can have sex for 50 Euros or do drugs, it is illegal to share your faith in groups of more than two.

"They rent out the church for $5,000 a day. The last event held there was the Gay Olympics.

"When you tell people you are going to the red light district, they say, meet us at the church. That's our challenge in the United States. Our churches are great buildings, but if we don't get out of 'em, this is what is going to happen here."

I talk to Pastor Ryan Dobson about the book, The Cross and the Switchblade, a favorite during my youth. Ryan says he grew up with Nicky Cruz's (Run, Baby, Run) daughter. Both books were read to my class in Seventh Day Adventist school in eighth grade.

I ask Ryan if he believes in eternally burning hellfire. He says yes, for anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ.

I ask him if he's ever met anyone who's just as fervent in his belief in God, and just as religious and good, as himself, but is not a Christian. He says no. He says he doesn't know any Orthodox Jews.

Ryan snacks on pork. He says Jesus has released him from the law.

None of the pastors seem to have much interest in Israel.

Craig: "This movie will not be embraced by the Church. If you water it down, it's still not going to win [over the establishment Christian church].

"Bill doesn't pick a side but he represents our side well."

Who's more interesting to hang out with? Saints or sinners?

Craig: "Sinners. Saints are boring."

How far do you think Christian youth should be able to go in physical interaction before they marry?

Ryan: "If you're doing more than kissing, you're sinning.

"Soon after I got married, I wished that I kissed less people.

"I say, girls, somewhere out there is your husband and tonight he's going out with another girl. And girls immediately get mad. And you're going out with someone else's husband tonight. How are you going to behave?

"Guys, your wife is out there. She is with a guy right now. Do you want them to get to first base or second base? Act accordingly when you are on your date."
 

Chaim Amalek informs me that he is hard at work formulating a simple yet sensible position on the question of immigration. Once articulated on wifey blog, it will become the official position for the entire Luke Ford Family of Blogs.

My Shabbos Queen has just left me. Sad, but for the knowledge that unlike so many other women in my life, she will return in a six days.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, public affairs director for Agudath Israel (right-wing Orthodox group), writes:

Who'd have imagined that the "Days of Repentance" between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur would conjure thoughts of Howard Dean?

Even with memories as short as so many are these days, most of us can still pretty vividly recall the Vermont governor and unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was, for a time, the focus of quite a media feeding frenzy; his photograph graced the covers of newsmagazines and his every pronouncement was prominently reported.

As was his crash and burn, precipitated by what some have dubbed his "I Have a Scream" speech. After an unexpectedly weak showing in the Iowa caucus, the candidate declared his undeterred determination to forge on, in a rousing address that culminated in a vocalization that fell somewhere between a Zulu war cry and a locomotive horn. It proved to be his political undoing. That single moment's decision to let loose in that way at that juncture spelled the end of Mr. Dean's road to the highest office in the land.

Decisively dooming moments seem almost endemic to presidential candidates: Edmund Muskie's tears of pain, Gary Hart's infelicitous mugging for his "Monkey Business" snapshot, Michael Dukakis's donning of an ill-fitting combat helmet. Each, deservedly or not, brought a national campaign to a screeching halt.

But every of us, too, comes face to face from time to time with opportunities of our own that, wrongly handled, can likewise lead to places we don't want to go.

And we, in fact, are vying for something infinitely more important than a mere nomination for President. We're in the running, hopefully, for the achievement of worth, racing to achieve meaning in our lives.

In the bustle and haste of everyday existence, it is alarmingly easy to forget that the decisions we make, sometimes almost unthinkingly, can be crucial; that seemingly insignificant forks in the roads of our lives can lead to achievement and holiness, or, G-d forbid, to setbacks, even ruin.

Every single decision we make, of course, is important. Each day of our lives presents occasions for choices, chances to seize meaningful things - a mitzvah, a heartfelt prayer, an act of charity - or to forgo them. Every opportunity to be morose or angry is a chance to hurt others, and ourselves - and a chance, too, to do neither, and achieve something priceless.

But there are also truly momentous opportunities, when we are presented with roads that diverge in entirely different directions. The Talmud teaches that "one can acquire his universe" - the one that counts: the world-to-come - or "destroy" it "in a single moment."

Potentially transformative decisions are more common to our lives than we may realize. When we decide things like where to live or what synagogue to attend - not to mention more obviously critical decisions like whom to marry or how to raise and educate our children - we are defining our futures, and others'. And it is of great importance that we recognize the import of our decisions, and accord the gravity due them.

We can even, through sheer determination, create our own critical moments. Consider the Talmudic case of the "conditional husband."

In Jewish law, a marriage is effected by the proposal of a man to a woman - the declaration of the woman's kiddushin, or "specialness" to her husband, followed by the acceptance by the woman of a coin or item of worth from her suitor. If the declaration is made on the condition that an assertion is true, the marriage is valid only if the assertion is. Thus, if a man betroths a woman on the condition that he owns a car, or still has his own teeth, unless he does, they aren't married.

What if a man offers a woman a coin or item and makes the kiddushin-declaration "on the condition that I am a tzaddik," a totally righteous person? The Talmud informs us that even if the man in question has no such flawless reputation the marriage must be assumed to be valid (and only a divorce can dissolve it).

Why? Because, the Talmud explains, the man "may have contemplated repentance" just before his proposal.

That determined choice of a moment, in other words, if sincere, would have transformed the man completely, placed him on an entirely new life-road. The lesson is obvious: Each of us can transform himself or herself through sheer, sincere will.

This season of the Jewish year, our tradition teaches, is particularly fertile for making choices, for embarking on new roads. All we need are the sensitivity and wisdom to be open to crucial opportunities, and the determination to craft some of our own - to make choices that will change our lives and our futures for the holier.

Why is it that when I read on article on commercial sex, it's by a Jew?

David Steinberg writes: How a DA's decision to drop prostitution charges against lap dancers will change the sexual culture of S.F. -- and, perhaps, the country

Braving 80 degree temperatures and mild sunshine, about 130 people turned out Thursday afternoon, September 9, for a Bush-Cheney '04 California Jewish Coalition rally.

I spot the husband of Temple Sinai rabbi Sherre Hirsch.

Republican Jewish Coalition CA President Bruce Bialovsky, Dennis Prager and secretary Connie Friedman.

Dennis Prager (fighting off an insect on his face) and the charismatic Bruce Bialovsky

The crowd pays close attention to Prager's words

Bush supporter

Rabbi Joel Geitlin, who's forming rabbis for Bush

Two generations support Bush

Bishop makes a point to Dennis about the moral intricases of partial-birth abortion.

The new face of Modern Orthodoxy: UCLA Hillel's Rabbi Rob and his Rebbetzin Kara who will look after Orthodox students this school year. They're old school New Yorkers with some creative keruv plans. They're enthusiastic Bush supporters.

Rebbetzin Kara

The rebbetzin pays close attention to Prager points about the Oral Law.

Several colored people showed up to the rally. Prager made them happy with his eloquence. They were always singing and dancing.

This was the most fun I've had covering an event since Jill's tupperware party with 25 of her closest friends in the summer of '99. What a time that was.

I spotted three black people in the crowd. One appeared to be a pastor, another a reporter and another was a woman. I spotted a couple of asians and exactly 13 homosexuals (I have excellent gaydar and can sniff out these types from a mile away). Five people wore yarmulkes. The median age (not counting the infants) was early 40s.

I did not know about 80% of the crowd. And there was only one person there who I've dated.

There were Dennis Prager bumper stickers and Republicans for Bush stickers. I am above all that stuff. I am a non-partisan servant of the truth. I have to live like a monk, as Forward editor J.J. Goldberg enjoins. I've spent years making deposits in my moral bank account, building up my credibility, and I can't just throw it away for the fleeting pleasure of holding a placard or pasting on a sticker.

Bruce Bialovsky kicks the event off at 1:15 p.m. Then RJC secretary Connie Friedman has her two minutes. She wears a t-shirt with a big W on the back. "Bush is for women," she says. Not as much as I am, I think.

Bruce says he took Prager to Minnesota senator Norm Coleman's party last Wednesday night at the Republican convention. It was like he'd brought Bon Jovi. Norm's wife (an actress who lives in Los Angeles) was ga ga with delight to meet Dennis.

"I was stunned how many people did not know Dennis Prager and had not met him before.

"He is the single best spokesman for the Jewish community in the United States."

Prager wears a long-sleeve white dress shirt and tie.

Thursday morning, Bruce went on Prager's radio show.

Dennis addresses one enthusiastic woman in particular: "Jewish women Republicans. That's even more remarkable. Whoever is married to a Jewish woman Republican."

The woman says she is single.

"Then you should be grabbed up. If you are single, then you should be taken within a week. It's a healthy choice. I think it is deeper than politics, why people vote the way they do, especially Jews.

"Because you are standing in the sun, I will have rachmones on you, and I won't be long.

"There's a possibility of a revolution in Jewish life. I think it's a matter of the survival of Jews and of Jewish values for Jews to rethink their social, moral, and political orientation.

"Many Jews use the Democratic party and their liberalism as their religion. It is the source of meaning in their life.

"A woman in Denver wrote to me (I read it on the air yesterday) that she hates my show because I have changed her mind. She is now confused. Being a Democratic gave my life meaning.

"I don't think that for any of you being a Republican gives your life meaning. I have meaning in my life. I don't seek it in politics. I am politically involved because I don't want America to come crashing down. I want to fight bad people on this planet.

"But I don't walk around thinking, I am a Republican, that is my identity. But for Jews on the left, that is their identity. It has been true for hundreds of years.

"The most angry letters I get, filled with expletives, are from Jews. They call me a Hitler and a Nazi and that I am for Jewish destruction. I often write them back and ask what they have done for the Jewish people and I give a little resume of my work for Israel, for Soviet Jews, how many people I've brought from assimilation into a Jewish identity. What did you do so that you can call me Hitler?

"But they have to call me Hitler. They have to call George Bush Hitler. That's the only way to explain how deeply hated a conservative ought to be.

"I don't know a lot of you but I am convinced that none of you hate the Democrats as much as the Democrats hate you. We feel for them benigh contempt. You haven't thought clearly and therefore you are a Democrat.

"There's not a far gap between the way you Jewish Republicans are viewed and [the way apostates are viewed].

"You are at the cusp of a revolution within Jewish life. You are supporting a party that says many abortions are morally questionable.

"I argued on television with the former editor [Gene Lichtenstein] of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles on television about ten years ago. I said, when you say things about abortion, it sounds like you regard the human fetus as no more valuable than a decayed tooth. He said, Dennis, that is exactly how I view the human fetus, as a decayed tooth.

"We who introduced into the world the seminal idea of the infinite value of human life are now in the vanguard of the idea that if a woman wants it, it is infinitely precious, and if she doesn’t want it, it is infinitely unprecious.

"What does compassion for the poor have to do with Democratic party policies? If you have compassion for the poor, you give them standards. You give them something to shoot for. The New York Times Sunday magazine had a story on how good welfare reform has been for people who work. They now have dignity. Isn’t dignity a Jewish value? Is it a Jewish value to take away 50% of people’s money that they honestly earn? When Jews adopted Marx rather than the Torah. That’s when it became a Jewish value.

"If giving half your money away is Jewish, than John Edwards and John Kerry should lead the way and give half of their money away. I get $1.3 billion from my wife but I pay $65,000 in taxes. I paid more money in taxes last year than John Edwards. And he has a plane and I have to fly coach. That's not fair. For me, the greatest day is to go business class. And he paid half of what I did in federal income taxes. And he is calling for an increase in my taxes. That's noble and Jewish according to Jewish Democrats. You could go berserk.

"Why is redefining marriage a Jewish position? The head of the Reform rabbinate, and I attend a Reform synagogue, and he said at Harvard last year that he supported same-sex marriage but I have to acknowledge that there is nothing in 3000 years of Jewish writing to support it. That's honest. It's the Jews who say it is a Jewish value to redefine marriage.

"It is precisely my Judaism that informs my values, that leads me to this moment.

"I was on Dennis Miller two days ago. I had this dialogue with this liberal comedian. She won't use the word 'evil' for the people who shot up children in Russia last week. She used 'whacked.'

"It's in the Garden of Eden, in the liberal translation of the Torah: The Tree of Good and Whacked.

"I just had a major liberal writer on my show for an hour. He wrote a book that religion is unnecessary for morality. Needless to say, he's a Jew.

[Sam Harris, philosopher and author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. August 16.]

"He wrote a big piece on this for The LA Times. Frankly, I so demolished his arguments that he wants to come back on. He feels he didn't do well. Well, he didn't do well. And he won't do well the second trip. It's not because he's not bright. It's because you can't have his views and have them thought through.

"If you say that religion is the problem because of [Islamic terrorism], you might as well say that medicine is the problem because of all the German doctors at Auschwitz [performing inhumane experiments].

"If Jews in America change, America will change. You don't have to anti-Semitic to say that Jews have disproportionate influence in this country. Unfortunately. It's not the Jewish Jew but the non-Jewish Jew who has disproportionate influence. That's the tragedy.

"Every so often I have a dream that all Jewish college professors will take their values from the Torah rather than The New York Times."

Black man in the audience: "Black preachers too...get their values from the Bible rather than The LA Times."

Dennis: "[In New York], I was like the comedian who goes on as the warm-up act. After me it was three senators, a governor and the Vice President. I said it is time for us to acknowledge that Franklin Roosevelt can't run for a 17th term. That's why the toughest Jew to convince is the old Jew. They are still voting for Roosevelt. It doesn't matter if the guy's name is Clinton or Kerry. They're still fighting Hitler. They still think right-wing means Nazi and Christian means anti-Semite.

"My parents are now Republicans. It took them a lifetime.

"Why do they hate George Bush? Because he's a devout Christian. There's an anti-Christian bias among liberal Jews. It is a bigotry. Christians are at best morons and at worst they are racist bigoted anti-Semitic dangerous fascist morons.

"Do you think Jews put Bush in office in 2000? He owes the Jews bupkus [zilch]. Dick Cheney. It must be the Wyoming Jewish community's big effect in his life. Condoleeza Rice must be responding to the awesome pro-Israel currents in black life.

"They are pro-Israel precisely because of their conservative and Christian values."

"EVERY human being to have been killed in the course of a hijacking over the previous twenty years or so has died at the hands of a Muslim. Ditto every human being to be murdered in an office tower or blown up on a bus or beheaded. Not all muslims are fanatic killers - likely most are not, perhaps not even in spirit - but all of these fanatic killers are muslim. If you want to enter the [Luke Ford] wife pool, you have to be able to see this."

If nominated for Miriam Shaviv's Jew of the year award, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.

I've been so pleasurably occupied with Lisa On My Face the past few weeks, I've forgotten to plug Chayyei Sarah as often as I should have.

I think there's a law in the Torah about the minimum amount of linky love you have to give your cyber-girlfriends.

I'm not weird or stalkerish in my intentions towards Chayyei Sarah. I'm strictly honorable. I only have the unconditional positive regard that a Torah Man has for his special Torah woman.

From the Luke Ford Fan Blog: When Luke Ford proudly announced a couple of months ago that he had an IQ of 185, I was somewhat taken aback. Okay, I was somewhat more than somewhat taken aback. It seemed an awfully high score for Mr Cut & Paste. Not that I thought Luke was lying. Of course not! I merely assumed that a gigantic mistake had been made somewhere. Perhaps one day at Seventh Day Adventist Sunday school, Luke's class had been given an intelligence test, and as the teacher read out the results above all the din, racket, and mocking laughter, Luke misheard his score. 18.5 sounds a lot like 185, doesn't it? Yes it does!

Chaim Amalek writes: "I, personally, administered the tests that won Luke membership to Mensa, Intertel, the International Society for Philosophical Inquiry, AND the Geniuses of Distinction Society (G.O.D.S.). The man makes Cathy Seipp seem a bit slow."

Allison Kaplan Sommer writes: And then there's some good stuff on Cathy Seipp's blog. A friend's fiance converts to Judaism and the girls head to Palm Springs, with trusty Luke in the role of chauffeur and nanny.

Cathy and her daughter act as important character witnesses for Luke Ford. I've had quite a few bloggers who he's taken a slightly obsessive interest in and a people I know in real life that he's contacted for his book research ask me if he's nuts in a harmless way, or might border on dangerous.

Cathy and Cecile seem like pretty sensible people, and they are friends someone I know from college. So I tell the people who ask that if Ford were truly a stalker/axe murderer type, I doubt they'd be taking him along on road trips.

I think that Cathy and Cecile should use their show biz connections and create a television show based on their lives -- I envision an edgy right-wing-Jewish-California version of the Gilmore Girls, with Luke as their charming but insane former Seventh Day Adventist converted to Orthodox Judaism turned showbiz/porn journalist/blogger friend.

JSinger writes: Despite (or maybe because of) my own history as a Pico-Robertson Jew, I just can't begin to take any interest in any of these folks, let alone find Luke Ford significant.

Allison writes: I find Luke entertaining. Significant? The jury's still out.

Lisa, when I met you in person at the blogger bash, my first thought was, "Lord, if Luke knew what she looked like, he'd be even more seriously obsessed with this girl."

 

Dennis Prager bought a new cell phone/PDA in Minneapolis for $450. Three days later, he dropped it in the toilet and it stopped working. Is he morally obliged to tell the company he broke it by dropping it in the toilet (without them asking how it broke?) If they pressed him how it broke, should he lie?

Prager went into Verizon in Minneapolis and told them the truth. The help looked up Prager's contract. He said, you don't have insurance. DP said, "I don't recall anybody asking me if I wanted insurance. Normally I do get insurance on these things."

He said, they are not offering everybody in CA the insurance. You'll pay for the insurance. Put down for the $50 deductible. Here's the new phone.

DP says: Early on in life, I vowed that I would be strict with myself in truth telling. I did not cheat in high school. The dominant factor was self-image. I want to like myself. I want to respect myself. I believe you have to earn these things, from yourself, others and God. And you only earn it by how you act. But there was a powerful voice in me that said, if they ask you, tell the truth, but if they don't, don't.

My book XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul ebook is ranked number 735 among all books on Amazon.com. You can download the ebook for $6.

Important people (like the deep-thinkers at the Manhattan Institute in New York, and the Committee on the Present Danger) want to know more about the political thinking present at the increasingly inaptly named Luke Ford Wife Blog. The smart thinking is that here is a political platform that both right and left can rally behind, a platform that juts out into the throat of the rulling class like a sword waiting for some Arthurian hero to seize it and win the land. At least that's what Chaim Amalek (chaimamalek@yahoo.com) keeps telling me.

I say it is all a waste of time, and he ought to assist me in transcribing my interviews of journalists.

LA Press Club party recap and pictures for XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul.

I just found this lengthy interview with my father: Dr. Desmond Ford is an accomplished Adventist theologian and scholar who has addressed many tens of thousands of persons through seminars, sermons and lectures, as well as through books, magazines, radio, and television. His Gospel ministry takes him throughout the United States and to numerous foreign countries on a regular basis. He is also the President and Founder of Good News Unlimited, a non-profit, non-denominational gospel ministry headquartered in Auburn, California. Dr. Ford’s gospel-focused magazine, entitled Good News Unlimited, is distributed in over 80 countries.

With less than 55 days before the presidential election, President Bush not only needs your vote, he needs your help.

WHAT:
Join us along with nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, Dennis Prager as we announce our Bush-Cheney '04 California Jewish Coalition!

WHEN:
Thursday, September 9, 2004 1:00 - 2:00 PM

WHERE:
Outside Cheviot Hills Recreation Center
(Entrance to parking lot on Motor Ave., south of Pico)
2551 Motor Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90064

CONTACT:
Suzanne Ekerling

EMAIL:
sekerling@georgewbush.com

PHONE:
(818) 238-0200

 

Occasionally asked questions about Cathy Seipp.

When I was at UCLA 1988-89, I took two economics classes from a baal teshuva, Dr. Russell Roberts. We got into many wonderful discussions after class. He influenced me to convert to Judaism. I just Googled him and I see that he has gone on to great success, publishing books that he was thinking about during the time I knew him.

My book The Producers: Profiles in Frustration is the #2653 best selling book on Amazon.com and the #78 best selling book ebook on Amazon. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to see this book taking off.

My first taste of Abby Horowitz was delicious:

Into his shoulder bag goes Jonathan's box of tefillin, along with his toothbrush. Yael's roommate is away for the weekend, so it will be one of those nights. A night of sharing her bed. By his twenty-sixth year, Jonathan has learned to weigh which obligations you will follow and which you will forsake. With his tefillin in his shoulder bag, he plans on reciting his morning prayers, even if he does overlook another commandment or two during the night preceding those prayers.

............

Luke says: It reminds me of the time in 1994 when I crossed the street from shul one morning. I was still wearing my tefillin. I saw my shiksa girlfriend. She liked me in tefillin.

We gathered up my washing and took it to the washing room. We stuffed it in the washer. We turned it on. My girlfriend sat on the vibrating washing machine. I closed and locked the door. Still wearing my tefillin, I climbed on top of the machine and explained to her all the detailed halachot regarding the wearing of tefilin, several of which I proceeded to violate.

She eventually went to the rabbi, on her own initiative to begin the process of converting to Judaism.

Then I moved from Orlando to LA. She married an atheist and never finished her conversion.

I'm Instituting a Regime of IQ Tests for Potential Mates

A political platform to get me married

Yehuda writes: I'm going to be a TA this semester, so last week I was required to attend 3-hours of training about sexual harrassment (the university is against it). Most of the time was spent telling us about how it is illegal - or at least, against university regulations - for a TA to maintain even a consensual sexual relationhship with any student in his class, because that would give the student an advantage over his or her peers.

My question is this: What if I engage in a consensual sexual relationship with every student in the class? No student would have an advantage over any other, so would it be ok? (And, after all, what is a TA other than the seamless union of T & A?)

Amy Sohn writes: More and more men are perfecting an infuriating alternative to the painful, drawn-out breakup: the disappearing act.

Luke says: I often do this. I never like to break-up, rather, I prefer to slowly drift away.

For today only, hot young female readers of YML can get two sins forgiven for the price of one by emailing their Moral Leader for a private consultation. Just put "Dennis Prager" in the subject line.

Get right with God before the days of awe (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur)!

David Ehrenstein writes: Hey Cathy, isn't he supposed to be Mr. Fun?

Rodger Jacobs writes: I just wrote on Cathy’s board that you are writing a book about bi-polar Jewish deli owners in L.A. called “Bury My Brisket On Olympic Boulevard”. It somehow sounds so right.

We've been torturing Jason Maoz, the editor of The Jewish Press (Modern Orthodox Jewish paper), over on Protocols. Read all about it in one easy-to-find handy dandy place.

Allison Kaplan Sommer reports: Jerusalem Post Editor in chief Bret Stephens is leaving to go back to the Wall Street Journal.

The current editor of the Jerusalem Report -- and author -- David Horovitz, has been named as his replacement.

........

Luke says: I can never hear David Horovitz's name without remembering that he did me out of about $50.

In the summer of 2001, his magazine, Jerusalem Report, was doing a two-pager on me. They wanted a photo. At their request, and on their assurance they would foot the bill, I sent three photos Fed Ex. I had to sign guaranteeing payment if the Report did not pay their bill.

Guess what? The Report never paid their bill. I sent them emails. When the Report finally answered, they told me to mail a hardcopy of the bill. I did that. Then they told me that Fed Ex was stiffing them, that I should not pay the bill. That's the email I got from David Horovitz.

Easy for him to say. My credit was at stake. Credit collectors came after me. It was easier for me to pay the bill. But the Report and David Horovitz stole $50 from me. They (the Report and David) were impossible to deal with. Basically crooks in their double dealings them. I can never hear the name of the magazine or of David Horovitz without remembering the aggravation they caused me, the repeated emails and appeals I had to send through their correspondent in LA, and all for no good. They stole from me. They were also routinely months late on their payments to their writers.

I wish I could just forget all this, forgive the debt and the tsures, but obviously, I can't, so I might as well admit it publicly.

Joe Schick writes: "If you ever get Horovitz to pay the $50 back, maybe ask him for the $400 or so that the Jerusalem Post still owes me from the early 90's when I covered sports for them as a freelancer. At one point after much complaining, they simply told me they weren't "authorized" to pay any more, though they had already published my articles."

Rodger Jacobs writes: Just read what I presume to be the foreword to your Jewish Journalism book and I admit I am still perplexed by your selection of this topic for book, let alone a series of online interviews. It just doesn’t jive with your crucifixion of Frank Del Olmo for his work to advance Latino journalists. Not one bit. If you are intent on setting a different latitude for Jewish journalism then you owe a major public mea culpa to Frank, his family, and his associates for your ugly portrayal of him after his passing for his dedication to “Latino journalism”. You seem to want to have it both ways: you hate the idea of marginalization and yet you embrace marginal themes such as adult entertainment and, well, Jewish journalism.

I think what I have trouble coming to intellectual terms with is the idea of having to compartmentalize anything: Jewish journalism, black cinema, Italian gangsters. There’s journalism, cinema, and gangsters in the culture. When you start slicing off one wedge of the bigger hunk of cheese and begin examining it for deep insights it seems to me that one is playing a game that is aimed at a limited table of interested parties, a form of mental masturbation really. Sure, the essay I sent you about how Fitzgerald’s Catholicism informed his writing is pertinent in a way to what you are writing about but I can guarantee that you did not approach your subject with anywhere near the passion of the writer of that particular dissertation. In point of fact, your stated thesis is : Jewish Journalism Sucks. More bees with honey than vinegar, if you get my drift. Would you want to read a book about, say, Rock Hudson if you knew that going in to the project the writer’s objective was: Rock Hudson was an asshole? Of course not because you know that you’re not going to get a well-rounded presentation of the actor in that book, not when that was the writer’s stated agenda.

Luke replies:

* The book has meaning to me because I am passionate about journalism and Judaism but bored by most journalism about Judaism.

* Nowhere in the book do I call for affirmative action for Jews or for any group, let alone affirmative action based on national origin, ethnicity or race.

* Jews are not a race. They are a people defined by their religion (even though most Jews do not observe the religion, it defines who is a Jew). Anyone can become a Jew while not anyone can become black or latino or asian.

* I didn't criticize Frank del Olmo's work to advance latino journalists as much as I decried the overwhelmingly race-based criteria used to judge his life and work. I think it is far more worthy to devote oneself to values, such as Christian or Jewish ones, than to one's ethnic group. Still, if a Jewish editor at a major secular paper like The Los Angeles Times, was primarily feted for what he had done to advance the cause of Jewish journalists, I as a Jew would not be proud. That is not the primary task of a journalist for a major secular paper. The problem is that Frank had few journalistic accomplishments other than being a savvy player of the affirmative action game at the LA Times, where he was advanced far beyond his capabilities, so he had to concentrate on running his Mexican Mafia.

* My book on Jewish journalism rises and falls on what I get out of the folks who know the subject 100 times better than I do. Sometimes provocation is a good way to get stuff out of people. Sometimes it is not. Either way, I went into my project deadly honest about my feelings on the subject, but I listened hard to what others had to say, even when it contradicted my own views on the topic.

Yes, I would like to do a book about black journalism, latino journalism et al as well, though it would not have the same meaning for me as Jewish journalism.

I just saw a great film about 1930s Budapest and the Holocaust, Gloomy Sunday.

Julane writes:

For one thing, the beginning and ending create and resolve a compelling mystery (most of the film is a flashback). For another, you may or may not believe that a song could drive people to suicide, but you must admit it is a beautiful, sad and haunting melody. The story held my interest, as did the characters. The other obvious appeal was the opportunity to gaze endlessly at the incredibly lovely and angelic Erika Marozsán. I am female and straight and I could not get enough of looking at her; I could easily believe that she might inspire a piece of music that conveyed its composer's hopeless longing for her.

According to the Los Angeles Times review of this film, "The song was actually composed in 1935 by Rezsö Seress, with lyrics by László Jávor, and did in fact accompany a number of suicides as Europe grew darker; Billie Holliday recorded a popular American version." So I guess it's not so far-fetched after all! Who knew?

Michael writes:

This atmospheric, deeply felt love story plays out in Budapest, 1935 to 1945, between a prologue and epilogue in our own day (1999). With the menage a trois the film has some of the giddiness of "Jules and Jim" but at the same time strongly recalls for me the novels of Alan Furth, set in the same period. I came across the film when I was researching the work of Joachim Krol (a secondary character in Tom Tykwer's Princess and the Warrior, and Inspector Brunetti in the four made-for-German-television movies based on Donna Leon's detective stories). As Laszlo, a businessman restauranteur/romantic with a generous heart, Krol again shows his vulnerability and sense of fatality. Erika Marozan is wonderfully attractive; one sees why the restaurant owner and the pianist both fall for her, as does Ben Becker as the German businessman (initially hapless and despairing, later, in uniform, with a confusion of feelings between tenderness and ruthless exploitation).

The German DVD of the film offers no subtitles (in any language), which is frustrating for a non-native speaker. Interviews with the actors and director are entertaining. Krol is just as thoughtful and sensitive as the character he plays. Both Erika Marozan (Hungarian) and Stefano Dionisi (Italian) speak in English; the contrast between their contemporary selves and the vivid, delicately shaded characters they play reminds us how well written and directed the film is. Among the extras on the DVD is a half hour program on the tune in the title -- "Gloomy Sunday." The program opens with a languid, despairing recording of the song by Billy Holiday, nothing short of electrifying. The tune is authentic; it was written in Budapest at that period and in fact it was associated with love suicides first in Budapest and then, later, abroad (a powerful plot element here and emphasized in a newsreel that the pianist-composer watches with profound unease). Hungarian authorities formally prohibited the playing of it for decades. (Sinead O'Connor is one of the more than 30 artists who have recorded it)

The characters linger in the mind and I puzzle at the plot elements. The contemporary epilogue, set in the same restaurant, deliberately recalls the flow of certain events of more than half a century earlier. There is a profoundly satisfying twist at the end that leads one to question, in retrospect, identities, relationships and outcomes both for the survivors and for those who perished.

My book, Yesterday's News Tomorrow: Inside American Jewish Journalism, went to the publisher today. It will be out in less than three months with new material not available on my Web site.

I frequently berate myself for not being more successful. In particular, I am perplexed why the gift of prophecy has not arisen within me. I've done everything I can to become a proper vessel. I even blog on Protocols. Oh well, even Moshe Rabbenu never got into the Promised Land.

Marines call exaggerated displays of enthusiasm - from shouting Get some! to waving American flags to covering their bodies with Marine Corps tattoos - ``moto.'' You won't ever catch Sergeant Brad Colbert, the 28-year-old commander of the vehicle I ride in, engaging in any moto displays.

They call Colbert ``The Iceman.'' Wiry and fair-haired, he makes sarcastic pronouncements in a nasal whine that sounds like comedian David Spade. Though he considers himself a ``Marine Corps killer,''' he's also a nerd who listens to Barry Manilow, Air Supply and practically all the music of the 1980s except rap.

He is the last guy you would picture at the tip of the spear of the invasion forces in Iraq.

I'm going to be on 60 Minutes Sunday night. Second segment. I'll be talking about Orthodox Judaism's shift to the right. More info here.

"How's your debt level?" asked a new friend.

"Fine," I lied. "I don't really have any."

"So you paid it off since you finished your book?"

"Oh hell. Did I write about that? I'm busted."

I jump for my memoir and turn to the conclusion. There it is - $15,000 in debt. It hasn't changed.

"I lied," I admit. "I didn't realize I had written about it."

By Chaim Amalek, our correspondent in Manhattan.

Jason Maoz, editor of The Jewish Press, responds to Protocols criticisms here:

The bit about Lubavitch advertising is typical. Are we supposed to start turning down ads from certain groups within Orthodoxy? For better or worse, Lubavitch is such a driving force in Jewish communities across the country and around the world. Of course they're going to advertise their activities in an Orthodox paper like The Jewish Press. And of course we'll cover many of those activities. Look at the JTA's coverage of Jewish life in foreign countries. Almost invariably when they quote an Orthodox rabbi in south America, Europe, Asia, etc., that rabbi is a Lubavitcher. You can't cover the Orthodox world without giving Lubavitch an inordinate amount of ink. And by the way, contrary to some dumb rumor posted by an ignorant twit on some blog recently, there is not one Lubavitcher in any editorial decision-making capacity at The Jewish Press.

As for the "Kahanist rag" comment -- obviously a retort made by a retard. There may be some columnists we feature who share some of Kahane's views, but they're in a minority -- and certainly don't reflect the official editorial positions taken by the paper in recent years.

As to the comment about our being heavily feature - and commentary-oriented at the expense of hard news, of course that's true. A weekly publication in the age of the Internet and 24-hour cable news must by necessity focus more on background and features. Time and Newsweek realized this years ago and began to go more in the direction of lifestyle-type features. It would be presumptuous for us to think that most readers look to a weekly of any kind as their primary news source. It's even more ludicrous to expect a weekly newspaper -- one that goes to press Tuesday and that most people don't read before Friday and Saturday -- to contain breaking news stories.

..........

Luke says: I particularly seek feedback on these comments from the morally and psychically retarded as well as those who are just nitwits (I really wanted to use more colorful language here but my religious beliefs prevent me).

Haunted Hollywood by Cathy Seipp

XXX: you don't really have apair of dennis P's soiled boxers hanging on your wall do you?
Luzdedos1: no
XXX: ...i heard taht silly rumor.
Luzdedos1: who said that?
XXX: just some freak ..someone who probably really does have a pair of dennis P's boxers hanging on his wall.
XXX: ...its not me of course.....i'd never have that on my wall. ;-)
XXX: i hope that all is going well with your congregation.
Luzdedos1: yes
XXX: good.....and please don't mind their stares....they will never really trust you...but they will allow you to hang around...but they'll always be watching.
XXX: you have been marked from headquarters..
XXX: you're name is on the list.
XXX: it will always be on the list.
XXX: never to be removed.
XXX: just keep the cash coming and the cheks clearing and there won't be any major problems.
XXX: you want to call yourself a yid?...sure...why not....we'll send you a bill.
XXX: that must be some fancy house of yids you attend...a grand is kind of steep.
XXX: oh wait...i forgot....you got the i wanna be a jew and i'm not really a jew rate...now i understand.
Luzdedos1: it's worth it
XXX: why?...meeting nice women ?
XXX: good breeding stock?
XXX: hebe's with hips?.
XXX: giggling jews?.
XXX: you'd love the stories relating ---- with my temple expereinces growing up..fun stuff.
Luzdedos1: i bet
XXX: my hebrew school....xxx all over..no lie.
XXX: kids hid their ---- at the temple.
XXX: not safe at home...take it to temple.
XXX: hid the stuff in the walls....honest truth.the walls of my temple were lined with sin.
XXX: ...and the rabbi knew.....he was cool with it all.
XXX: didnt understand it back then..now i do...obviously he like it..it was his source of porn.
XXX: when we left...he went and had his fun.
XXX: kind of sickening.
XXX: he loved those copies of PlayGoy...
XXX: luuke ..did you becaome a yid because of your awkward attraction to hebrew harlots?
Luzdedos1: no
XXX: just in it for the babes?
XXX: or the bucks?
XXX: or the babes with the bucks?>
XXX: take care luke.....i wish you well with your various self tortures.
XXX: ;-)
XXX: have a good weekend.....try not to emotionally injure yourself too bad.
XXX: how come 60 minutes never repeated your segment?.
XXX: good enough for sweeps..two segments..and not good enough for a repeat/..kind of odd.
XXX: eh whatever..at least you looked good on TV...not overly fem...and thats all that really matters.
XXX: good news for luke getting babes..I was on 60 minutes....bad news...it was about xxx....damn karma...damn.
XXX: but you enjoy hanging with all of those LA literary fags.
XXX: bunch of lameO's being lead around by the ladies.
XXX: dont be like them luke....
XXX: youre better.
XXX: youre more interesting
XXX: you're crazier
XXX: they want to be crazy and hip..and your like the real deal..like MC hammer...they cant touch that...they cant touch you.
XXX: but sadlt your life story film will have to end with you being shot down in the streets of beverly...much like JFK....
XXX: back and to the left.....back and to the left.
XXX: not forward..and to the right....like that grand leader dennis P.
XXX: you'll need to do some prison time so that we can add in that luke gets raped in prison scene.
XXX: you;ll come out of jail all hard and mean...rushing over to the mall for a smoothie/
XXX: do you ever go by the temple that kicked you out and throw rocks at them?..
XXX: i would.
XXX: scream at them to search their walls for dirty hardcore.

I wonder how many female rabbis like to take the pulpit feeling the wind beneath their sails? Or did I mean three sheets to the wind?

Would it be inappropriate for me to ask this of female rabbis in my new book (Embracing Reform Judaism) ?

A prominent swashbuckling West Coast NYT journalist snorts prodigious amounts of cocaine.

Warning: The following story is not modest and should not be read by religious people.

"Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins stumbles during a fashion show at Westfield shopping centre in the Sydney suburb of Miranda yesterday, snagging her dress on her shoe and losing the lot. While her modesty was saved by a g-string, she immediately scurried off the stage."

Westfield is owned by Orthodox Jews.

The Toronto version of Gawker or LA Observed or whatever.

Luke emails Rob Eshman: Jason Maoz, editor of the Press. Do you regard him as a peer?

It seems that few journalists for the mainstream Jewish weeklies accord The Jewish Press any respect?

He complained that The Jewish Press was not taken seriously for AJPA awards. He regards the AJPA as in the thrall of Gary Rosenblatt.

Would prefer an on-the-record response but will settle for anything.

................

Rob Eshman, editor of the Jewish Journal, replies: I've read it all the way through maybe twice, so it wouldn't be fair for me to offer an opinion. (Now, here comes
my opinion): The times I have flipped through it, my impression was it seems to cater to a certain niche of American Jewry, and it seems to do that quite well. I have no idea what its verified circulation is out here. I'm just no authority.

I don't think anybody is in Gary's thrall, handsome and funny and brilliant as he is-- uh oh, maybe I AM in his thrall. Seriously, Gary's a very good editor and he puts out a very good paper. There are a lot worse role models out there for editors of any paper, but he's not the boss of anyone at AJPA.

The Jewish Week serves its audience, and certainly has taken on tough stories in a responsible way. No one editor or one community Jewish paper is going to please all the Jews all the time. Papers like The Jewish Week and The Jewish Journal have to appeal to a large and broad Jewish audience to fulfill their missions and stay solvent. We don't have big backers, endowment, niche Jewish markets or relatively Jewish populations. We try to serve the needs of hundreds of thousands of Jews in each issue: smart Jews, simple Jews, wise and ignorant, right, left, rich, poor, traditional, freaky. The result can be articles that are sometimes too safe and
predictable and middle of the road, but all of the good editors I know push
beyond that as much as possible.

From Defamer: We hear a rumor that Hollywood reporter Kim Masters is out at Esquire after they failed to renew her contract. Says a source, "From what I hear, Esquire felt 1) she couldn't write and 2) wasn't generating any buzz with what she did write. Also, she kept complaining to them about everything, and they just got sick of her." Another source offers a capsule review of Masters: "Good reporter, bad writer, unpleasant person." L.A. Press Club members, start firing out those resumes! You might want to play up your cheery disposition if you're going to apply for the job.

Most people would say that I am, that outside of this tight little world of mostly humble people whom I've surrounded myself with, I'm not quite as big a man (a "Gadol," for those of you not in the know) as I imagine myself to be. Case in point: my effort to bring my life story to the silver screen. A famous Gadol in New York wrote up a cracker-jack screenplay based on the life of a man very much like me, a man who undertakes a Haj that transports him from radical Marxist-Leninism to Jewish Orthodoxy, all while writing about the flesh-pots of LA. I endorsed his work, and would have it made into a movie of some sort. In fact, part of the reason I bothered showing up at my own book party was the hope that I'd make connections with people who might be interested in seeing me or someone else act out my life story on the silver screen, and to that end I made sure that lots of interesting industry people were in attendance for me to shmooze with. (That is, in addition to my actual friends, some of whom happen to work in the field, and who I have never and would never hit up on for this sort of thing.)

All for naught. Not even the young women at the party who aggressively flirted with me by expressing interest in such a project have expressed any such interest once they've sobered up. And to the woman who told me she wanted to study a page of Talmud with me every day from now until forever I say, you broke my heart. Days like this make me wish I were a gay man or a liberal Democrat.

Gary Rosenblatt writes: "Most important, then, is to recognize and value that while the younger generation may not want to duplicate their parents’ ways, it doesn’t mean their interest in bringing Jewish ideals into their lives is any less."

Put me down as skeptical about these types of things, and the Birthright Israel trips etc. Unless Jews have a vibrant relationship with Judaism, I don't think these conferences and gimmicks will count for much a generation or two down the line.

Another reason I am skeptical: What people say doesn't matter much. You have to analyze what people do. When Jews in their 20s give reasons in focus groups about why they are not more involved in Jewish life, it doesn't matter much because most people don't have clarity about their motivations.

Which group of Jews in their 20s is doing the most to perpetuate the Jewish people? The Haredim without doubt. Most importantly, they are getting married and having kids. They are the teachers in our day schools. They are sacrificing the pleasures of our secular society to lead fervently Jewish lives. We should be learning from them, not from Jewish secularists in their 20s. Secular Jewish life, though it produces some terrific art, is condemned to the toilet bowl of history. When the prophets spoke about leading a Jewish life, they probably didn't mean folk dancing, says rabbi Mordecai Finley (R).

Anonymous writes: I blame the decline in America's educational system for your lack of popularity. My suggestion is that you sneak in some pics of a few hot chicks under the guise of some political discussion.

Why don't people Yahoo me instead of Google me?

If you Yahoo me, my old site lukeford.com (which I sold in August 2001) does not come up in any of the 60 plus results I scanned through.

If you Google me, it comes up number one. Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and Lukeford.com comes up.

I went to a "Spiritual Bootcamp" at Temple Sinai (C) in Westwood Wednesday night.

At 7:05, only Sinai rabbis David Wolpe and Sherre Hirsch (eight months pregnant) appeared present. Then Reform rabbi Richard Levy walked in.

The panel began.

At 7:15 p.m., Orthodox rabbi Elazar Muskin walked in.

I thought something had to be wrong. Rabbi Muskin is a yekke (of German descent). He is normally punctual and organized.

It turns out he was told yesterday by an organizer that the program would not begin until 7:15 pm or so.

As is the trend in these interdenominational dialogues, the rabbis all agreed and complemented each other. Unless the evening is pitched as a debate, rabbis these days seem terribly eager to get along.

There was one disturbed man in the audience who'd clap and speak out at the most inopportune moments.

Rabbi Levy always looks tired and distracted. He's not a compelling speaker. Rabbi Wolpe was witty and eloquent. Rabbi Muskin passionate.

Every seat was filled.

It's a frightening thing to watch social darwinism at work, to see low status guys trying to hit on hot young women who had no interest in them.

I've been away in Palm Springs playing Big Daddy Luke. I'm booking playdates now!

A rebel without his coffee.