Joe emails: I am hearing that the AIPAC conference is going about as well as a Wagner concert at a Hadassah banquet.
Lots of AIPAC donors are absolutely convinced that Obama is about to announce a plan to condition aid payments and other benefits for Israel on agreements to a George Mitchell imposed timetable, with real deadlines. And there is simply no one of any power who will oppose him on this. Not Clinton, Biden, Emanuel and nobody in Congress. With the Republicans completely castrated, there is, for the first time in a very long time, almost complete single mindedness on foreign policy, and not in favor of Israel. Even George H.W. Bush at his worst had to worry about domestic implications when taking on Israel. Obama has no such issues.
illgal use of my face and name to advertize for yourself
I have already e mailed you about the illigal use of my picture,you have no signed release ,it is under Brenda Dickson tom kennedy book signing., my atty. will be contacting you, with the demand letter, for the cost of my face and name to be used $30,000.00 is my present computation, take off the picture 2nd warning, the next will be from my atty. Brenda&
I replied:
Hey Brenda Baby, How is it going? It is always good to hear from a fan!
Love you,
XOXO
Luke
I made a Facebook friend through Brenda, receiving this email: "I have quite a few of these Brenda missives. She is sweeping the internet single handedly. Curious… will you take the photo down? I was glad you did post the fax because your website/blog is fascinating."
Luke: "Why do you think you didn’t marry earlier?"
Elizabeth: "The right guy didn’t come along. I always had a boyfriend. I had about ten boyfriends for about a year each. I was always the woman who hung in the relationship for as long as possible to make things work until I got dumped and I got my heart broken. I never thought I deserved anything perfect. I thought you could work it out. I’ve dated all types of individuals. I didn’t marry because I didn’t have that feeling that it was the right person. All women I know who have a happy partnership or marriage, they all say the same thing, that person just feels right. It just feels like home. I never had that before."
"Women are a little bit disposable in this society. My husband is seven-and-a-half years younger. I think he does truly desire and love me but hey, there’s always the chance that I’ll be looking really old in ten years and he might be looking pretty youthful. I hope that won’t be a problem."
Luke: "I was thinking while I was reading your book that first dates are a horrible way to meet people as opposed to you happen to fall together doing an activity you both love."
Elizabeth: "Yes. It felt like an interview."
Luke: "What was the hardest part of writing this book?"
Elizabeth: "Aside from people saying, ‘Hmm, I don’t think that what you wrote will sell…’ When you sit down to write a book, people aren’t always naturally encouraging… Random males…would say stuff like, ‘What are you thinking?’ ‘What makes you think you are so special that you’re not sleeping with the guy on the first date?’ ‘What’s your problem?’ I got that sort of negativism that I was out testing men.
"I realized that my spelling and punctuation isn’t as good [as she thought]. I went to a school here in Oregon which is considered the Stanford of Oregon (Linfield College). I thought that getting a degree from the school meant that I had excellent journalism skills. It was interesting to find out that I don’t. My writing needs lots of tweaks and lots of help."
Luke: "I was often struck when I was writing a memoir, and some people came out and said this, what makes you think that you are so interesting, what makes your life so special that it is worth reading about in a book?"
"What percentage of men do you think have considerable hatred of women?"
Elizabeth: "I’d probably say, oh, not many, but now that I am savvy with the internet and see what is written out there and the blogs that men have, let alone having gone on 77 dates and having some angry daters, I would say that a good 20% who have been hurt or scorned or misunderstood or feel disenfranchised. I’m curious, from a man’s point of view, what do you think it is?"
Luke: "I’m not saying that is the only emotion they have towards women, but I’d say that virtually every man has substantial fear and hatred of women."
Elizabeth: "Yeah, that’s probably pretty accurate. We’re very screwy characters. Men are very basic. If we only understood how they thought, it would make our lives easier. We complicate them."
Luke: "Most of the hatred men have for women, from my own perspective, I’m not immune from fear and loathing of women though I would not regard it as the primary emotion I have towards them, I place the locus at — we men have to be the pursuer so we’re constantly getting rejected."
Elizabeth: "My female friends think that men are such dogs and that men are so unfair to them. I say to my friends, women have spoiled men. Women have spread their legs so easily, they hound men so much, they don’t allow men to be men and do what they want to do as men, therefore women feel like they are treated poorly… We have messed up the dating process so much that what we think is normal is not getting anybody to the place they want to be."
Luke: "Why is it a red flag when a man wants to go dutch on a date?"
Elizabeth: "When a man picks up the phone and asks to take you some place, he should pay. What I have found is that if I have to pay halfway, I will continue to have to pay halfway, and then what happens is that I continue paying all the way. I’ve had men I’ve financially taken care of. I don’t need a guy with a big bankroll to take me out and buy my some steak, but it is nice if the guy does open up the wallet because I haven’t had that that much. I’m talking little gestures."
Luke: "How often have you asked a man out on a first date?"
Elizabeth: "I think in college I did it a little bit. I don’t really pursue men. I want to know that he really likes me."
Luke: "I agree with that."
Elizabeth: "Is that because men are hunters and need to do something?"
Luke: "Yes."
"You seem very Oregonian to me. How much have you been shaped by the state in which you’ve spent much of your life?"
Elizabeth laughs. "I am very Oregonian. I have a natural look. I have a peaceful approach. …In Oregon, people are more into being kind to each other and taking care of the earth and being sustainable."
Luke: "I’ve been to Oregon twice. I just loved it. I met a girl in synagogue on the Sabbath and the next day we climbed Mount Hood."
"How much do you think the niceness of Oregon is overwhelmingly a homogeneous group of people?"
Elizabeth: "Oregon has the highest caucasian population and the highest land mass for that population and no secular-religious situation. Yeah, pretty homogeneous. Is that why we all get along? That’s interesting. You’ve really stumped me with that one. That’s a great question. I would like to think no, just because we’re all white folks who are pretty middle of the road, that’s why we see along the same lines. That quite possibly could be it."
Luke: "You don’t want to answer that question. It will only get you in trouble."
Elizabeth: "Yes. I’ve seen his website. I think it’s all true. A lot of it is knowing how someone else thinks and maneuvering and angling."
Luke: "What do you think of the book ‘The Rules‘?"
Elizabeth: "I think there’s a lot to be said for that too. It’s all about supply and demand. People want what they can’t have. If you’re not always easy to reach by phone, if you are not always available to hang out with somebody, you become special."
Luke: "How has marriage changed you?"
Elizabeth: "It has made me a lot more selfless. You have somebody else to consider."
Ultra-orthodox bachelors over the age of 20 must move out of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, head of the Hazon Yaakov yeshiva and son of Shas’ spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled this week.
According to the rabbi, who publishes a weekly column on the Eretz Israel Shelanu leaflet, in the past it was customary to banish "older" single men from the capital as punishment for their refusal to marry and provide for a family.
In recent generations, Sephardi rabbis decided to annul this regulation, but according to Rabbi Yosef it should be reinstated. "Only a yeshiva student who studies Torah has an exceptional permission to postpone marriage, if he fears that marriage might distract him from his studies.
"But normally one must not delay marriage till after 20, and those who do had better leave Jerusalem and go study somewhere else," he wrote.
…Luke Ford is an Australian immigrant of Seventh Day Adventist heritage who has converted to Orthodox Judaism (apparently in 1992, when he was 26). From the site it is clear that he has sunk enormous effort into studying his new faith.
But – and not wishing to be offensive – one does not have to have read Kevin MacDonald to know that doing to others as one would be done by is a precept found in Gospel according to St Luke, not The Ten Commandments. Might it be an echo of Christianity remains?
Chaim Amalek emails:
I’ve always thought you were the natural successor to Dr. William Pierce. Or, as we learned from "StarShip Troopers", "To destroy the bug, we must learn to think like the bug."
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of "A History of X" and Luke’s arrival on the scene as a force to be reckoned with in Journalism. TEN YEARS.
Any new books in the pipeline?
Khunrum emails: "May I suggest a biography of father DES?…That’s right. The Jews aren’t buying into your output, why not try the Christian Mujahideen? There’s many more of them than there are Hebrews anyway. Try and keep yourself out of it you ham. Remember it’s about Des. Just refer to yourself as his whacko black sheep son in America."
Bob emails: Was just reading VDare (one of my favorites, naturally) and noticed they’re discussing you. Interesting topic you’ve broached. Puts me in mind of a particular essay by Leo Strauss, "Why We Remain Jews", published in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity — a seminal book which you ought to have as bedside reading!
It also puts me in mind of a book on black racism which I — or some other white person using political philosophy — should write. In radically simplified form: abolition of natural rights = identity politics/multiculturalism/nihilism.
I was lying down in yoga the other night watching the rest of the class crumple their lower backs by bending backwards 20 degrees. Then I watched them thrash about in all sorts of exercises that debauched their kinesthesia while I lay there as cool as a cucumber, lengthening and widening without breaking a sweat. My mates were engaged in all sorts of strenuous activities but they were not doing them in accordance with the teachings of the holy F. M. Alexandre and were therefore doing themselves more harm than good.
"This is the essence of Alexander Technique," I thought to myself, "this cool calm sense of superiority. This deep conviction that you are better than everyone else. This is where it’s at. I am one of the unique, one of the Chosen Ones. I have the best use in the room. I know more. I’ve studied more. I’ve practiced more. I’m a more advanced and elevated human being. I carry myself more lightly and gracefully and humbly. I am an ubermench, the type of bloke prophesied by the prophet Friedrich Nietzsche. I am God’s servant. I deliver divine karma."
As I go through life, I see that the great sweaty masses of people use themselves abominably. Their shoulders are arched and their backs are slumped and their footsteps are heavy and awkward. They tense their necks and thrust out their chests and this makes them gulp for air when they talk.
It’s all most distasteful. So many people have such poor use of themselves and then there’s me, the personification of grace and beauty.
But it’s not me I’m thinking about right now. It’s the great sweaty masses. How do we thin them out? As I drive around Los Angeles, I am continually held up by the sheer numbers of the ignorant ones. They are too many. I find it distasteful to look at them hunching and pushing and shoving themselves about. And for those that are left, the ones we need to mow our lawns and keep Social Security solvent, how do we herd them into camps and forcibly re-educate them to free their necks and let their backs lengthen and widen?
The five Muslim immigrants who’d plotted to kill American soldiers at Ft. Dix in New Jersey have been sentenced, four to life and one to 33 years. I wrote a while back on how the many weaknesses in our immigration system contributed to this conspiracy.
Excerpt: This report finds that immigrants have been hit somewhat harder by the current recession than have native-born Americans. Immigrants (legal and illegal) now have significantly higher unemployment than natives. This represents a change from the recent past, when native-born Americans typically had higher unemployment rates. The picture is complex, with the least and most educated immigrants experiencing the largest increases in unemployment relative to natives. However, the least educated immigrants still have a lower unemployment rate than their native-born counter parts. (All figures in this report are seasonally unadjusted).
Excerpt: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s April 20, 2009, comment agreeing with a reporter that the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. from Canada was more than a minor gaffe. It was a serious blunder. Whether or not the Canadian press was baiting the DHS Secretary is irrelevant; what is relevant is that any DHS Secretary who fails to have sufficient grounding in the facts surrounding 9/11 – the most serious breach of our homeland security in history – to refute the press upfront is raising serious questions about this administration’s interest in actual homeland security, versus some other agenda.
Ignorance, Ms. Secretary, is definitely not bliss. Magnifying the blunder is that Secretary Napolitano has made clear through her statements and actions up to this point that she has little interest in 9/11 or in the 9/11 Commission’s findings and recommendations. Review her comments and there is no reference anywhere. Offensive, perhaps, to 9/11 victims and lessons learned? Counterproductive, perhaps, to U.S. national and economic security?
Excerpt: The threat was a handwritten letter in Spanish threatening judicial and law enforcement officers with the bombs with the ‘intent to kill the most number of Americans,’ according to a press release.
Excerpt: Alan Greenspan, whose unswerving opposition to financial regulation as Fed Chairman steered the national economy steadily toward the abyss, has been invited to share his thoughts about immigration with the Senate. Greenspan heads the witness list for Thursday’s immigration subcommittee hearing titled ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009; Can We Do It and How?’
"Rav Elazar Schach was opposed to kiruv (outreach). That was the standard charedi position. The Brisker Rav spoke about this… It’s not so much that Rav Schach is against people becoming religious, he was against the ideal that kiruv was something that everyone should focus on and organize around. No, for people in yeshiva, Torah study is the organized thing. You don’t go out and mix with the non-Jewish culture. It’s not that you don’t seek to make people religious, but there’s a limit. This was always understood in the charedi world and the yeshiva world until about 20 years ago.
"The analogy is to chesed (kindness). Chesed is important to, but as anyone who has been to yeshiva knows, there is no organized chesed in yeshiva. I remember when I was in yeshiva, we asked our rebbe, why don’t we devote one day of the week to help the poor? He pointed out that that is not what yeshiva bocherim do. You spend your time devoted to Torah study. Other people do chesed. You can do chesed too in your spare time and on Shabbos. Not everyone has to do everything. Obviously other yeshivas disagree and they devote themselves to chesed. When you leave yeshiva, you can devote yourself to chesed."
Luke says: If you become a Reform Jew, then you can devote yourself to davening with black people and civil rights.
In his first lecture on Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook for Torah in Motion, Dr. Shapiro says: "What were R. Meir Kahane‘s accomplishments? How did he influence the state of Israel? He got his party banned. Had he remained in the knesset and achieved numbers? He had no lasting contributions. Gush Emunim had enormous contributions. Right before Kahane was killed, polls showed he was going to get ten seats in the Knesset, which is why they had to ban him.
"Kahane was the first one to call attention to the demographic threat.
"I went with my father to interview Kahane in Israel in the 1982.
"Kahane had no real Israeli following. He had more influence in America. He was the one who brought Soviet Jewry to wide attention. He started the shomrei patrols. Even that was an influence for 10 or 20 years, but it doesn’t live on.
"He lives on in Igrot Moshe. One of the responsas about bat mitzvas is addressed to Meir Kahane when he was a rabbi in Bensonhurst."
In a recent listing of the top ten people who have influenced the modern state of Israel, only one rabbi made the list — Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook.
Dr. Shapiro says that the religious Zionists account for twice the number of Israelis of voting age as the charedim yet it seems that the charedim hold all the cards.
You would think the Spinka downfall would have put it to a stop. I’ve heard that even though only a few people have been named so far in that case, there is a long list of major donors in the hands of a federal grand jury who are going to be doing plea deals or facing indictment.
It is no coincidence that so many of the characters in Pico-Robertson’s latest fraud drama seem to pass through Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy — Rabbi Batzri, Rabbi Ben Zaken, Rabbi Toledano… Rabbi Gottesman was their man. They all have had similar arrangements with the Sephardic Academy (Maimonides Academy) and R. Ganev Kopfered.
The odds are better than even that a yeshiva is engaged in massive financial fraud such as money laundering and tax cheating.
When the Vietnam war was going on, yeshivas popped up all over Pico Blvd so that many orthodox Jews could avoid doing military service. The same thing happened in New York during World War II.
"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)
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