Why is it a hopeful sign? What’s so great about people spending less money on healthcare? I guess the Left knows the proper amount that people should spend on healthcare and will try to legislate it.
I want people to spend whatever amount they wish on their own healthcare. When it comes to the government providing healthcare, yes, there, as a taxpayer and a citizen, I have an interest in keeping expenditures down, but when it comes to private citizens, I have no interest in whether or not they want to spend vast sums on their healthcare or on their homes or cars or entertainment systems or educations.
The NYT reports: The growth of health spending has slowed substantially in the last few years, surprising experts and offering some fuel for optimism about the federal government’s long-term fiscal performance.
Much of the slowdown is because of the recession, and thus not unexpected, health experts say. But some of it seems to be attributable to changing behavior by consumers and providers of health care — meaning that the lower rates of growth might persist even as the economy picks up.
Because Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest contributors to the country’s long-term debts, slower growth in health costs could reduce the pressure for enormous spending cuts or tax increases.
This week on TJC’s Week In Review, the Brooklyn D.A. makes exception for ultra-Orthodox Jews accused of child molestation; is the shooting by two ultra-Orthodox men of a young black man in Baltimore another Travyon Martin case?; a new YU museum exhibit celebrates the Jewish contribution to modern medicine; one Jewish, Autism-awareness activist is leading a new anti-bullying initiative; and a new book called “The Men’s Section” examines the phenomenon of the Partnership Synagogue and the men involved in these congregations.
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The New York Times is talking about abortion. Quite a euphemism — “reproductive health”.
NYT: “Despite the busy national debate over contraception and financing for reproductive health, Sex Week at Harvard (and elsewhere) has veered away from politics, emerging instead as a response to concern among students that classroom lessons in sexuality — whether in junior high school or beyond — fall short of preparing them for the experience itself. Organizers of these events say that college students today face a confusing reality: At a time when sexuality is more baldly and blatantly on display, young people are, paradoxically, having less sex than in generations past, surveys indicate.”
Dennis Prager on his radio show yesterday: “The euphemisms that are used in the media for abortion are something to behold. It went from ‘pro-choice’ even though you never hear that the choice is to abort. Now it is ‘reproductive health.'”
“There are health issues in life such as what fatty foods you eat, exercise, and whether or not you have an abortion.”
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As a former military man who once wore the uniform during our VietNam campaign I confess I’m embarrassed and ashamed.
It is the responsibility of those of us in uniform to take American values of capitalism around the world. We represent something to the girls in Third World countries, and often what we represent is a free and equitable exchange between cash and services.
I would never have dreamed of trying to bargain down the price with a faithful prostitute. My policy, along with the policies of all my noble confederates, was to zip up and pay up. And sometimes with a tip of the hat and a quick “thank you, ma’am”.
So my feeling is that the Green Berets, the Marines, and the Secret Service personnel in Columbia should do more to show the flag, and if the girls ask for $46, make it an even $50. Give them a smile and part with a firm handshake. This is America we’re representing here, gentlemen. And we should not have our reputation sullied by some cheapskates who are not fully apprised of the American ideal.
So, men, zip up, pay up, salute the flag, and be glad you’re an American.
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I was a spiritual being. I lived in a world of light. All day long, I wrote my blog without a care in the world. I studied the sacred text and I communed with angels. I was like Peter Pan.
Then one day, father came to me and said, “Son, I want you to go down to earth and live among men. Get a job for a Jew lawyer. Personal injury. Chase ambulances. Pay off credit cards. Do without health insurance. See how the other half lives. And take my message to them.”
And so I went down to earth and worked 9-5 as a secretary. Every day my boss would say to me, “Man, what are you doing here?” And I’d say, “I’m living the dream. I’ve never been happier.”
I worked among lawyers and I passed out my Alexander Technique business cards and did my best to embody observation, inhibition and direction.
One evening I was working late. There was a big party. We weren’t invited. A beautiful woman came by looking for the bathroom. I showed her. The boss had me revise documents multiple times. He said I looked tired.
The woman came back out and walked by.
“Nothing could make me happier,” I said to the boss as I did my final revision. “Well, maybe one thing.”
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I’m reading Dennis Prager’s new book. It’s filled with shoddy writing. Dennis keeps using the word “predicated” as in “It [the welfare state] is predicated on collecting money from today’s workers…”
“Predicated” is a pompous word. “Based” is simpler and more effective.
I loathe the way Dennis Prager can’t stop praising himself and his book on the cover. Here’s the intro on the inside flap: “In this visionary book, Dennis Prager, one of America’s most original thinkers…”
Instead of describing your own book as “visionary,” you’d be better served by simply sharing your vision.
“One of the most” is a cliche. It shows you don’t want to think. And yet here it is again in Dennis Prager’s self description: “Dennis Prager is one of the most listened to and respected media personalities in America.” Respected by whom? Rachel Maddow is highly respected by those who agree with her and by nobody else. “Most listened to”? No more than hundreds of other people. Rush Limbaugh is much more “listened to” according to the ratings, but that doesn’t make him necessarily more worthy of our attention. None of Rush’s books are important.
Prager’s self-description continues: “A true Renaissance man…” Oy, give it a rest, Dennis. Let other people praise you. If you feel convinced that you’re a Renaissance man, embody such values rather than explicitly pat yourself on the back for having them.
All of Dennis Prager’s books exhibit these cringe-inducing self-descriptions on the cover.
Out of curiosity, I surfed to DennisPrager.com and found this self-description: “Dennis Prager is one of America’s most respected radio talk show hosts. He has been broadcasting on radio in Los Angeles since 1982. His popular show became nationally syndicated in 1999 and airs live, Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to Noon (Pacific Time) from his home station, KRLA. Widely sought after by television shows for his opinions, he’s appeared on Larry King Live, Hardball, Hannity & Colmes, CBS Evening News, The Today Show and many others.”
Once more with the shoddy “one of the most” constructions. He has been “broadcasting” since 1982. “Broadcasting” is a pompous ten-dollar word. Simpler words would be more effective. He’s widely sought after on television shows for his opinions? Well, that’s important to know. Thank God for that insight! Getting booked on TV is a true measure of moral depth.
Another thing I find annoying about Prager’s new book is the way he keeps quoting himself.
Other than these two minor objections, I love this important new book.
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On his radio show April 16, Dennis Prager said: “The Secret Service has a wonderful reputation for protecting the president and going after counterfeiters… I think every high school kid, if they read, picks a crime that fascinates them. For most, it’s murder. Not for me. I read book after book about counterfeiters.”
“My wife was into crime. She definitely read the crime books, the murder books. She still is.”
“The poor Secret Service… For myriad reasons, I want this president healthy, well.”
“Do you know why this all came out? It’s like a comedy routine. Because this guy haggled about price. Everything is going smoothly and then he thinks he’s being over-charged.”
“I can’t say I lost a great deal of sleep over it.”
On his show April 23, Dennis said: “I tend to be of the opinion that if people do a great job, we shouldn’t bother to find out about their private lives. However, in this case, when you’re on duty on behalf of the United States government and especially to protect the president of the United States, you have to realize that you are representing America.”
“I spoke about this at my synagogue this past Saturday, the concept of representing something higher and therefore being held to a higher standard. I used this as one example.”
“When you wear the symbols of something higher, you are expected to do better because you bring down what you are representing. You don’t only bring down yourself. It’s a bad thing.”
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In the fall of 1986, I took an introductory class in American government from professor Larry Wight at Sierra Community College. I loved the class and I loved the teacher.
And then a funny thing happened.
During each class, I found myself talking more and more. Then my questions turned into statements and I began trying to take control of the room. Once, I even dressed down the teacher for presenting an unfair perspective.
That’s when Larry Wight blew up at me in front of the whole room and said he found me increasingly hard to take.
I felt shocked and never repeated my arrogance with him. Even though I think I deserved an A grade that term, Mr. Wight gave me a B.
I loved Mr. Wight and took two more classes from him (even though I didn’t need the credits). We had no more dust-ups. I had learned my lesson.
In my final semester, in his role as the chair of the Political Science department, he gave me and another bloke an award for Student of the Year in Poli Sci.
When I transferred to UCLA, I wrote him a letter thanking him for his teaching. He wrote me back a short note to the effect that I had a good brain but that I should be careful how I used it or people would hurt me.
Ever since then, I’ve found that when given an inch in the classroom, I feel an irresistible urge to try to take over.
This never ends well.
My self-destructive tendency probably has something to do with my father being a college professor and having to spend thousands of hours of my childhood listening to him and often thinking I could do better.
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It’s not uncommon for me to pour my heart out on Torah Talk (though most of the time I hide behind my cynicism). Tonight was particularly painful. I told the truth about a letch who hit on girls during kiddish and groped them — against their will! — in the kitchen while a guest at Shabbat tables (during 1994, 1995) and made them cry.
On the one hand, I feel I am oh so noble to confess my sins publicly. On the other hand, I know that by spreading word of my cruelty far and wide, I’m recreating the painful ejections of my past.
We train people on how to treat us and I keep training people to reject me.
I am driven to recreate painful dramas from my furthest childhood, no matter what the harm to my present. I feel in the grip of certain self-destructive compulsions.
No matter where I go, there I am.
The one good thing about the frequent moves of my childhood was that they kept giving me a chance to get it right. I’d move to a new country and before the internet, nobody there knew I was a loser. For a few weeks, I could even be a curiosity. I had an accent after all.
Then the ugly truth about me would inevitably reveal itself and I’d be back in the unpopular crowd (or, at best, I’d be the least popular of the popular crowd).
Occasionally good people would adopt me and shlep me along for weeks or months or even years (the Muths at Pacific Union College, the late Lane Van Howd in ninth grade, Shannon Anderson in twelfth grade, Cathy Seipp 2001-2007, rabbis), I had the illusion that I had changed for the good and could now live on a higher plane. But this borrowed functioning always ran its course, leaving me in that familiar slough of isolation and despair.
At age 12, I thought that running marathons would get me lots of attention and transform my social status. I envisioned myself setting world records. I’d be the next Derek Clayton (the Australian world record holder for the marathon).
I finished five marathons in seventh grade, but my fastest time was four hours and fifteen minutes.
Discouraged, I started training twice a day, averaging more than 60 miles a week.
At a race in San Francisco, I met Derek Clayton. “I’m going to break your world record,” I told him. “I’m training twice a day. Ten miles a day.”
“At your age,” he said, “you should be running track. Run the mile. Don’t run long distances yet. Your body can’t handle it.”
In my next race, I was on track for a 3:30 marathon at the 18 mile mark but felt wretched. I dropped out. Knee trouble over the next few years (Osgood-Schlatters disease) ended my running career.
I took away from my 18-months of running long distances an unshakable belief in my ability to discipline myself to achieve anything I wanted.
Running hadn’t led me to prestige or to records or to fame, but I’d gained some friends (one is still my Facebook friend, David Nieman), some focus, and some taste of achieving goals through hard work.
In high school, I thought that by displaying my journalistic talent, I could get lots of attention and transform my social status. It did not work.
I envisioned myself becoming the next Dan Rather but vocal trouble limited my radio career (from 16-21) and I never made the next step to TV.
The more I worked on my voice during these years, the worse it got. I quit in utter humiliation and felt a quiet burn over the next two decades until I started studying the Alexander Technique in 2008. By 2011, my voice troubles were gone and I’d love to get back into radio and give it another shot.
A few years ago, I sent a Facebook friend request to my former news director at KAHI/KHYL radio, Pete DuFour. He’s yet to respond. I find it frustrating that I haven’t stayed in touch with anyone from these years.
I never earned more than minimum wage at KAHI/KHYL. I didn’t get any dates from radio and little fame, but I always had the sense I could be huge if I just conquered my vocal trouble. I was unshaken in my belief about my potential greatness as a journalist and as a scholar.
In college, I thought that by achieving straight As and preaching Marxism, I could get lots of attention and transform my social status. It did not work.
I envisioned that being a Marxist would make me chic on campus and get me laid. It did not happen. Not even a little bit.
Marxism was the greatest acting exercise of my life. For about two years, I acted as though the opposite of what I truly believed was true. I read dozens of books on Marxism and learned to talk the talk (OK, at times I really believed there was something to Marxism).
I was terribly amused when I told people from 1987-1989 that I was an “atheistic communist.”
This ability to enter the thinking of those inimical to me served me well as a blogger when I ventured into hostile territory and spoke to people I hated in their own language and allowed them to feel I was on their side.
After discovering Dennis Prager, I thought that by converting to Judaism, I could jettison an unwanted self and recreate myself as a righteous man who received lots of attention and transformed his social status. It did not work.
I envisioned that converting to Judaism would allow me to let go of my lifelong habit of using people, that I would become righteous and normal and that I would marry and have kids and be a respectable part of a holy community and a blessing to those around me.
I thought that by moving to Los Angeles in 1994 and getting close to Dennis Prager, I could transform my life. It did not work. I just perpetuated my lifelong habit of first idealizing and then devaluing.
Dennis Prager is the most significant of all the substitute father figures I’ve adopted. I’m not quite sure why I do this. My relationship with my own father is perfectly fine. Still, in high school, I noticed myself at times wanting to spend more time with the fathers of my friends (such as Robert McKee, Joe Hamelin) than with my friends (Kevin and Scott).
Dennis was just the ultimate father figure. He was wise and good. A great role model. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to work for him. I wanted to take his values to the world.
My break with Dennis was the most significant rupture of my life. I lost all the friends we had in common. Distraught, I entered psycho-therapy (and have been in it ever since). I wanted to understand why I was destroying my most important relationships.
One day my therapist explained that I had learned so much from Dennis, that I wanted to show him what I could do. From that day on, I stopped wasting my therapy time talking about Dennis and the friends we’d had in common.
By leaving Dennis, I was able to do my own thing, and, at times, to do it brilliantly. I wrote what I wanted without worrying about how my work reflected on Prager.
From now on, my writing would come first for me. That had become clear. I’d sacrificed all my friends to write on Dennis. From now on, I would sacrifice everything to write what I wanted. I would not let anyone or anything hold me back from pursuing my life purpose. All loss would be bearable if I could just craft a true sentence.
I envisioned that working for Dennis Prager would be my path to meaning, to excellence, and to normality.
When that part of me died, other parts of me came alive.
From 1994-1998, I thought that by attending Aish HaTorah, I could remake myself like many of its baalei teshuva (penitents), and transform myself. It did not work.
I envisioned that I might marry and have kids and be a part of the warm, loving Aish community. I dreamed that I would leave my compulsions behind and be 613 all the way.
I didn’t quite make it, but the sweetness of what I tasted was not forgotten, and even though Reform Judaism was easier, I soon made my way back permanently to Orthodoxy because that was where I knew the best people.
And in the various Orthodox shuls of Pico-Robertson, I met many people who like myself had been m’kareved (brought closer) by Aish but had since moved on.
In 1995, I thought that by writing on the porn industry, I could get lots of attention and transform my social status. It did not work.
I envisioned that I would become a best-selling author and quickly move on to other more socially acceptable topics. Instead, I got stuck in the salt mines of porn for most of 1995-2007.
While it was not the topic I wished for myself, and while it was the only way I found to make a living writing, I found many compelling stories during my time in XXX. There was rarely a dull day. Porners may not be polite but they are hilarious.
In 1998, I began years of psycho-therapy. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
For years, my therapy was largely crisis management. It helped to stop me from completely destroying myself by holding me accountable. Every week I had to check in and share what I was doing and we would talk about how that compared to what I wanted for my life. How did my deeds compare to my stated ideals? I had converted to Judaism. What did that mean for my choices?
For years, I used therapy as another forum for showing off. Eventually, however, I reduced the acting out in my sessions, reduced the boasting about the details of my sex life, and began to talk about my true feelings of shame and loneliness.
In 1999, I began homeopathy. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
For the first couple of months, I felt like I was leaving Chronic Fatigue Syndrome behind but then it returned with a vengeance. I kept consulting my homeopathic doctor until about 2003, when I gave up.
In 2000, I began attending Young Israel of Century City and was befriended by a prestigious man. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
I envisioned myself becoming like those around me at YICC — successful in Torah and successful in the world. But I had taken the easy route to infamy and confused it with lasting success. I was not in the same league as these guys.
Booted from Young Israel of Century City in June of 2001, I began attending Beth Jacob. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
In August of 2001, I began attending Chabad Bais Bezalel. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
In August of 2001, I quit writing on the porn industry. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
I envisioned myself making the same impact on Hollywood with my writing as I had made on the porn industry with my blogging. That didn’t happen.
In October of 2001, I began attending Bnai David-Judea. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
By this point, I was so shell-shocked by this point by my multiple shul ejections and from feeling like a pariah around my community of Pico-Robertson, that I retreated from most of those around me and became increasingly isolated in the shul.
In September of 2002, I quietly began writing on the porn industry again. This time I had no illusions and only wanted to get out.
I did not use my full name of “Luke Ford”. I was just “Luke” or “Deep Under Cover” or some other such name.
In October of 2007, I stopped writing on the porn industry. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
In July of 2008, I took up the Alexander Technique. I thought I could transform myself. I thought I could become more successful with women. It did not work.
In January of 2009, I took up Kundalini Yoga. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
In May of 2011, I began 12-stepping for sex addiction. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
In December of 2011, I began teaching Alexander Technique. I thought I could transform myself. It did not work.
How come complete strangers can read my thoughts and know that I am no good?
A doctor emails: “You do realize that from the outside, it appears over the last few days that you had a hypomanic episode followed by today’s depressive appearing posts? Might you require attention for some bordeline bipolar issues? I mean this seriously.”
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
