Dennis Prager on the radio today: “So redefining marriage for the first time in the history of humanity to include man-man and woman-woman, this is civil rights for a minority? They [leftists] believe that.”
“Marriage is not a civil right. Marriage is defined by every civilization. They’ve never allowed man-woman within a family. Would you allow two brothers to marry? Or two sisters? I’ve never heard them challenged on that question. Is that part of the civil rights? If it is a civil right, then there should be no exclusion. You don’t have an asterisk on civil rights. You can’t exclude by number. If it is a civil right, then you should be able to marry two people.
“It has never been a civil right. It is a defined privilege.”
“You have to be 35 yo to run for president. You don’t make social policy on whether or not it is fair for everybody.”
At LimmudLA, he stormed out of one of his sessions (on his book Kosher Jesus) after 10 minutes because he was asked by a volunteer to keep the noise level down as it was interfering with the session next door.
Ryan Torok writes for the Jewish Journal: “On Sunday, Boteach created a different kind of controversy, during his presentation on “Kosher Jesus,” his new book. Asked by a LimmudLA volunteer if he could stand farther away from the microphone because a neighboring workship could hear him, he was apparently so troubled by the request that he left the room and didn’t return.”
Michael Coren says 3:30 in that he believes that “a majority” of Jews object to Christians. “I have no problem with Orthodox Jews having issues with Christianity. That’s a theological difference which I respect. It’s more secular Jews who are often very liberal and very much on the left and who object to Christians, especially evangelicals, who they think are strange, of the south, ignorant, know nothing and still really if you scratch them, are anti-Semitic. I come across that and I resent that because it is not a theological opposition but a sociological one.”
Shmuley: “That’s an unfair characterization of the Jewish community. To think that Jews look down at Christians or see them as bumpkins is absurd.”
Michael: “That’s the Hollywood depiction that I see all the time.”
Shmuley: “You’re saying that the Jews control Hollywood?”
Michael: “They’re very influential in it. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”
Shmuley: “If we want to engage in an ancient anti-Semitic as controlling the banks and controlling Hollywood.”
Michael: “I didn’t mention banks. We should thank Jews for Hollywood.”
Shmuley: “It’s simply not true that the Jews control the media.”
Michael: “Why are you saying things that I never said? I said Hollywood.”
Shmuley: “You said depictions of Hollywood by Jews of Christians…”
Michael: “I think that still within the Jewish community there is a view that somehow Christians are southern, bigoted, and there’s anti-Semitism there. I think that’s the general view.”
“I think Hollywood invariably does that and far worse. Jewish people are very influential in Hollywood and it is childish to say otherwise. You depict that as anti-semitism and I think it is a great tribute to Jewish people.”
Shmuley: “That they depict Christians as neanderthals?”
Michael: “My personal experience is that it is overwhelmingly the case. And I’m philosemitic.”
“The picture of Christians is one of negativity.”
“Christians have changed the past 50 years. I want a meeting in the middle.”
Shmuley: “Pope Pius XII was one of the most wicked men of the 20th Century.”
Michael: “You know nothing about that period of history.”
Today I had what was probably the most unpleasant TV interview of my life on Canada’s Sun News Network (national). Interviewed by host Michael Coren about my book Kosher Jesus, I expected to be asked about the book’s content. The interview started that way. But then Coren quickly got to a question that seemed to be bursting from within. You’ll have to see the exact show, airing tonight at 7pm, for complete accuracy, and I am writing this about an hour after.
Coren essentially asked me why Jews depict Christians so negatively. He went on about how much the Catholic Church and Christians in general have done for the Jews of late. Yet the Jews continue to be so unappreciative, always questioning Christian motivation, always finding fault with Christians no matter what.
I asked him to justify his claim that Jews depict Christians negatively. He said something like, “What do you mean? Just look at Hollywood.”
Hollywood? I was confused. Weren’t we just talking about Jewish-Christian relations? Where did Hollywood come in, unless, for Coren, Jews and Hollywood were synonymous.
What was the connection between Hollywood’s depiction of Christians and the Jews, I asked. The show went downhill from there, with the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews controlling and influencing Hollywood dominating the interview. I defended my people against this disgusting slur, a tributary of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews control whole segments of society, in this case the motion picture industry, which they use to negatively depict Christians as a bunch of illiterate and primitive bumpkins.
His articles and speeches often include stories of his own personal spiritual journey. Coren’s father was Jewish as was his maternal grandfather, while his maternal grandmother came from a family of Welsh coalminers and converted to Judaism. Coren’s father and uncle were cab drivers. Coren has said that his father’s family left Poland a few decades before the Holocaust.[11] He has also said that his father’s family emigrated from Poland in the 1890s.[12] He said “People have called me an anti-Semite. I thought it quite rich since my father’s family was massacred in the Holocaust”.[2] Michael Coren was profiled on Credo, on Vision TV, and said that his father told him he could not attend his son’s wedding in a Catholic Church without becoming “physically sick.”
He converted to Roman Catholicism in his early twenties while still living in England, but that didn’t last long. He said that he “converted to an institution.” He eventually converted to Evangelical Christianity in the 1990s, after a conversion experience as an adult, greatly influenced by Canadian televangelist Terry Winter.
We knew Rabbi Shmuley Boteach would be a difficult guest when he insisted on a meal being provided, and then kept us waiting for 10 minutes while he worked on his computer outside the studio.
Once inside all began amicably, if a little cliché-ridden from the Rabbi. I then said that it was glorious that post-Holocaust theology had transformed the way Christians see Jews, but wondered if secular Jewish people always had a balanced and fair view of Christian conservatives. He disagreed, and asked me for examples. I told him of my vast personal experience, and then spoke of the Hollywood depiction of Christian characters.
Before I could qualify and quantify, he alleged that I said Jews control Hollywood, the media, and banking. I never mentioned banking or media and never used the word “control.” I could and would not do so. But in my numerous conservations and conferences with informed Jewish experts and friends, it’s clear that there are still solitudes and misunderstandings when it comes to Christianity.
The closest I said to my new best friend about Jews and Hollywood was that “Jewish people do have an influence in Hollywood, and that’s a wonderful thing, thank God for it, and we should congratulate ourselves on the fact.” But by this time the Rabbi was irrational. He became increasingly aggressive, harangued me, and alleged that Pope Pius XII was one of the wickedest men in history.
He obviously knew little about me, about my Jewish background, and about my most recent book — Why Catholics Are Right — a best-seller in Canada as well as the U.S. — in which I devote an entire chapter to Pope Pius. I referred him to Rabbi Dalin’s book , The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, and my good friend Sir Martin Gilbert’s exemplary work on the Church and the Holocaust.
But the Rabbi was a friend of Michael Jackson’s and appears on Oprah; clearly he was out of my league! After the interview he refused to leave the studio, threatened me, insulted a young Orthodox Jewish intern who works with us, and then got down to writing, calling, and tweeting the world about the Jew-hater Coren.
Firstly, the idea of Michael Coren being anti-Semitic is patently absurd. I have known Michael for over a year, appeared on his television show about half a dozen times, spoken to him and corresponded with him on many other occasions. He is outspoken about and proud of his own Jewish heritage, which has made him the target of anti-Semitism from Islamists and fanatical leftists like those who skulk in online ideological cesspools such as rabble.ca.
What Michael said about secular leftist Jews and their contempt for conservative Christianity is something he has said to me about secular leftist Christians. Indeed he was much more harsh in his assessment of them. Perhaps Michael would have done well to bring that point up with Rabbi Shmuley, but given the heat of the exchange and the Rabbi’s constant interruptions, that opportunity never arose.
…Michael Coren is one of Canada’s most ardent defenders of Zionism and the right of Jews to national self-determination. In less than a week, he will be a panelist at an event presented by The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization devoted to combating anti-Semitism. Not only is the calumnious accusation of anti-Semitism against Coren wrong, but it is a shameful disgrace and if Rabbi Shmuley has any sense, he will retract his self-serving publicity release and apologize.
LOS ANGELES, CA—According to witnesses, a tight-knit group of twenty five Alexander Technique teachers spent a wild afternoon in Reseda Sunday, overindulging in emotionally supportive behavior and generally validating the living heck out of each other.
Confirming the women get together at least once a month for an all-out, anything-goes session of nonjudgmental reassurances, 28-year-old Batya Cohen said the afternoon quickly turned into “a total rager,” with the friends sharing excessive amounts of inhibition, direction, admiration, empathy, and encouragement for one another.
“The entire day we just went balls out with the confidence-boosting,” Cohen said of the gathering, adding that by 6 p.m. she had already partaken in seven or eight mutual expressions of positive regard. “It was completely insane. We bolstered the heck out of Jane’s self-esteem, and by the time the darkness came, we had her shouting that the world was a huge asshole for not recognizing all her talent and giving her more students.”
“We just kept telling her how talented and beautiful she was until eventually the police had to ask us to leave,” Cohen added.
As the women moved from chair work to table work, the work exchange reportedly only grew more and more wild, with the friends telling one another whatever they needed to hear regarding callous comments made by students, teachers, AMSAT, boyfriends, deteriorating relationships with family members, pet deaths, or frustrating new haircuts.
“We’ve always been a group of friends that listens hard, and consoles even harder,” said Teri Lange, 28, who admitted that by the end of the night she had lost count of how many thoughtful, heartfelt compliments she had dished out. “Every time I turned around, left and right, there was somebody helping Karen to own the heck out of the frustration she feels toward her fiancé.”
“The girls and I just absolutely let loose with that until Karen had the strength to accept that her emotions are real whether she likes them or not, and she has to let herself feel them if she ever wants to move on,” Lange added.
Sources reported that at approximately 7 p.m., the unruly and increasingly self-accepting Alexander teachers got completely out of hand, respecting and valuing each other to the point that many had clearly had far too much validation. One member of the group reportedly felt so validated she disappeared into the bathroom for a while to cry.
About a quarter of Americans, according to surveys, believe that President Obama is a Muslim.
Obama says he’s a Christian but there’s almost nothing in his behavior or his speech that’s distinctively Christian. By contrast, nobody doubts that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum and George W. Bush are Christians.
Obama evinces a comfort with Islam that he may not show with his purported religion.
On Tuesday, Reverend Franklin Graham gave an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that created a bit of a stir among the political class. At the core of the controversy is what Graham said about President Obama’s Christianity.
When asked directly if the president was a Christian, Graham said, “He’s come out saying that he’s a Christian. The question is, What is a Christian?” At another point Graham said, “If he says he’s a Christian, I’m not going to say he’s not.” But when faced with this direct statement — “So therefore, by your definition, [Obama’s] not a Christian” – the Reverend Graham answered, “You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody.”
Except that in the same interview, when asked if Rick Santorum is a Christian, Graham was able to answer that question for somebody. “Oh, I think so,” Graham said. He added there was “no question, I believe [Santorum is] a man of faith.” The Reverend Graham then chimed in, “I think Newt is a Christian. At least he told me he is.” To which Willie Geist said, “So Newt Gingrich is a Christian, but you’re not sure that President Obama is. And you said based on the way they’ve lived their lives.” And just in case Graham hadn’t said enough, when asked if he could say categorically that President Obama was not a Muslim, Graham said, “I can’t say categorically, because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager said: “When Newt Gingrich is on, he’s the best in speaking of this group. He knows his stuff. He knows the points to make. It’s not wedded to the most stable personality. That’s an issue. That’s what killed him. In brain power and the ability to express what that brain comes up with, he has few peers.”
Posted inDennis Prager|Comments Off on It’s A Shame Newt Isn’t Stable
A few years ago, I wondered about all the flattering things written by leftists journalists about Tzipi Livni. She was without accomplishment yet flooded by favorable press.
Now she’s been shown for what she is — a zero.
Jonathan Tobin writes: “Livni has been a hopeless opposition leader. Having refused Netanyahu’s offer of a coalition and a high cabinet post because she thought she would soon replace him, she now finds her party supplanted in the eyes of the public as the main alternative to the Likud by a resurgent Labor.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni walked to the lectern. Most everybody stood up and cheered. The crowd wanted to like her but the applause died out quickly as Tzipi had little to say beyond cliches.
She was hotter in person than on TV. She looked as healthy as a horse. I would have liked her to be my big sister but she did not strike me as Foreign Minister material. She struck me as a lightweight, like Ehud Ohlmert, the Prime Minister.
Tzipi proclaimed “there is no room for terrorism.”
Usually, you will feel great after an Alexander lesson. You’ll feel more at ease in your body, more balanced, and more tranquil. But there’s also a good chance that once you let go of your body armoring (unnecessary tension), you’ll be overwhelmed with fatigue, emotion and frustration.
Once you notice how much you interfere with yourself through needless compression, you might be frustrated at how much work you have to do. A few Alexander lessons might just open a window onto a bigger problem than you want. You might get angry at the expense and aggravation ahead if you want to rid yourself of needless tension.
Also, when you let go of some tension, you might get flooded with emotions you’ve been repressing.
I can well imagine that, if our hypothetical student has had a particularly tiring or stressful time, they may well make the decision that, for whatever reason, they are not able to allow themselves to rest. They decide to keep going. And in order to keep going and keep concentrating on their work, they turn on muscles (FM writes about this in Man’s Supreme Inheritance too).
And then they keep them turned on. And on. And on.
They forget, in fact, to turn them off.
So now, in addition to the original fatigue, our hypothetical student is expending energy on the needless use of muscles.
When, therefore, they come for their Alexander Technique lesson, and the teacher convinces them to give up the excess muscular energy that they were using to counteract the fatigue, our student is going to feel the full force of the tiredness that they were originally fighting. In the short term, they will probably feel terrible. But if they allow themselves to rest, in the long term they will feel better because they will have stopped the unnecessary muscular activity that was not just masking but adding to the fatigue.
This Los Angeles Times story describes the boys as “victims”. I only wish I had been so victimized when I was a teenager. This woman is hot. Sex with her would be no crime. I wish I had been so victimized.
CMadison comments: “When I was in school, my teachers wouldn’t even let me bang the erasers.”
A 42-year-old teacher at Roosevelt High School has been arrested on suspicion of having sexual relationships with two teenage students.
Gabriela Cortez, of Montebello, was taken into custody Wednesday evening by Montebello police after they interviewed two teenage male students she allegedly had sexual relationships with in recent years, said Chief Kevin McClure of the Montebello Police Department.
One of the alleged victims reported the alleged crime to police after the teacher broke off the relationship, police said. A subsequent police investigation uncovered a second alleged victim, police said. Both alleged victims are now legally adults.
Montebello police investigated the case because many of the alleged illegal acts occurred in the city and her home.
Detectives suspect Cortez may have prior victims and are continuing the investigation.
“Robert Rickover talks with Dr. John H. M. Austin, MD, Professor Emeritus of Radiology at the Columbia University Medical Center and internationally known chest radiologist about a study he conducted with the late Pearl Ausubel, an Alexander Technique teacher in New York City, which showed that lessons in the Alexander Technique improve breathing capacity.”
John: “Alexander lessons are wonderful for improving posture…and increasing the length of muscles throughout the torso. Because Alexander encourages the inhibition of the slouching and slumping, it lengthens these muscles. Longer muscles work better, whether you are throwing a baseball or breathing. Longer muscles can generate more strength. It’s purely mechanical.”
“With Alexander lessons, the muscles of the abdomen become unlazy. You use them rather than just slouching. If you use them, you will have increased strength.”
“Some people come in with tight muscles in the chest. With Alexander lessons, the muscle tension is reduced and you get increased function from those muscles. Think of the chest muscles as a corset. Tight muscles restrict movement. With Alexander lessons, you reduce the corset effect. The military posture is not good for breathing.”
“If you free muscles from unnecessary tension so that they’re longer and more effective, you’re going to have enhanced coordination of the whole musculo-skeletal system.”
Posted inAlexander Technique|Comments Off on The Alexander Technique and Efficient Breathing
"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)
