I am perversely proud to bring you this little media tidbit, courtesy of my husband Ari L. Goldman, the publicly Orthodox former New York Times staff reporter, author of one book with the word GOD in the title, one book with the word JEWISH in the title and another book with the word, KADDISH in the title.
In other words, a guy who projects a RELIGIOUS vibe.
This same guy, currently a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is quoted in the pages of the newest issue of New York Magazine using a very irreligious word to convey his opinion of New Media that ignores the underpinnings of journalistic craftsmanship.
That word begins with an F, ends with a U-C-K and is NOT Firetruck.
In any case, here’s our family’s little moment of naches, accessed through this handy-dandy link:
Since it first ran two days ago, it has gotten picked up on a dozen or so sites, not the least of which is my own blog, Bungalow Babe in the Big City, whose url appears below.
1 p.m. I get the last seat inside the Westwood Presbyterian Church for Jim Bellows funeral.
I forgot to wear a belt so my parents keep falling down.
Gonna rock this place wigger-style!
It’s filled with uptight goyim all well-dressed and restrained (where are the black people? Why aren’t they mourning Jim in South Central?). I see few tears and hear no sobbing. That’s the way of the goyim. It’s all that faith in Christ, it tends to hold back emotions.
After the obligatory Scripture readings (Psalms 139, 121, 23 by Pastor Charles L. Orr and John 14, Romans 8 and something from Ephesians by Reverend Peggy Krong), Jim’s granddaughter Sofia Gleeson kicks things off with a guitar solo (Preludios Nos. 4 & 5 by Heitor Villa Lobos).
She performed without a mic and it was hard to hear.
Twenty minutes in, Pastor Charles L. Orr gave a smooth but heartfelt homily.
"Jim was a very moral man," he said. "He was not moralistic. He welcomed us all."
"Jim lived his faith."
After his Sunday sermons, Pastor Orr often encountered "Jim’s famous mumble" when The Last Editor offered critiques and commentary.
Pastor Orr quoted Jim’s favorite saying, "Begin at once and do the best you can."
Two of Jim’s four daughters Priscilla and Justine paid tribute (wearing identical black dresses that stopped six inches above the knee) to their father, followed by his son-in-law Michael Sohigian (an attorney) and capped appropriately by the regal Mary Anne Dolan.
Priscilla recalled sending her father a letter about a decade ago telling him how much she loved him. She then read from Jim’s letter in reply.
Jim’s widow then read a poem of her’s titled "Buddy," after Jim’s first dog.
Tenex is supposed to reduce narcissism but if my website is any indication, I’m not taking enough.
If I tripled my dose, I’d become meek and mild and think about others.
For the second time this week, I went to a cool party with people much richer, more successful and socially well adjusted than myself.
If I could only whip my memoir into shape, I could really belong to these movers and shakers.
I’m the most transparent and inept social climber.
Author Dennis McDougal (I want to be Dennis McDougal when I grow up) invited me to a swanky party 10/10/02 in Bel Air to celebrate the publication of his new book (written with Mary Murphy of TV Guide) on the Bonny Lee Bakley murder "Blood Cold: Fame, Sex, and Murder in Hollywood."
"Dennis such a great journalist," says a great journalist friend of mine. ‘Why doesn’t he do something worthy with his talents rather than writing these pornographic true-crime books that appeal to sickos?"
I left my hovel at 5:15PM and pack my neuroses in my van. I crawl up the 405 to where the rich people live. I’d glanced at Yahoo maps and had a rough idea of the location, but as is my bent, I did inadequate preparation and get lost, heading towards Woodland Hills on Mulholland Drive.
My self confidence is as shakey as my van. And my van is totally out of whack. It shakes, rattles and rolls. The alignment or something is so bad, I open the door at a traffic light and check my tires, thinking I have a flat. I don’t. A couple of people honk me. I figure it’s because I’m a bad journalist.
I’m feeling incredibly insecure. I worry my van will break down at any time. That I will make a fool of myself at the party. That I will never find it, or that when I do, all the cool people will have left. That nobody will talk to me.
I finally find my way to the party, arriving at 6:20PM. The room is filled with my social betters. The caterers are from this homeless shelter Midnight Feed in downtown LA.
I have two glasses of water, about ten pieces of watermelon and several pieces of pineapple.
This is a posh crowd. Dennis McDougal (no jacket, Hawaiian shirt) introduces me to former LA Times journalist Pat H. Broeske who introduces me to William Knoedelseder, a former LA Times business and entertainment writer who published an investigative look at MCA in 1993 who introduces me to ABC News Nightline correspondent Judy Muller, a live wire. Judy published her autobiography Now This: Radio, Television… and the Real World.
Booklist writes: "Muller, a correspondent with ABC News and a commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, recounts her career path through radio and television and as a single mother raising two girls following a divorce. Muller, from a family of storytellers, is engaging in this honest look at the impossibility of having it all, particularly in a business as competitive and consuming as electronic media. She recounts the challenges of juggling a grueling graveyard shift on the radio and childrearing duties, a brief custody battle before settling into a life of demanding career schedule with little sympathy for the demands of parenting. Muller conveys the pecking order of media that puts radio at the bottom of the prestige ladder and television at the heights. She recalls irascible television personalities and offers a behind-the-scenes look at newsgathering–the frantic digestion of the news before writing up-to-the-minute commentary on stories from the O. J. Simpson trial to the shooting at Columbine High School. This is an engaging look at the media and the real-life management of parenting and career."
I’ve been wondering about the big strapping black man who’s all over this blonde woman in her seventies. Now that’s truly kinky, I think. They’re always holding hands. She lovingly bosses him around. He must be a kept man.
Judy points out it is Rodney King, who’s gone sober and lost a lot of weight. He’s an amiable chap. This woman must be his guardian. She proudly introduces him all around. The only other black people here are the help.
Judy is a smart quick-witted woman. She graciously talks to me. It is here I make my major foupe of the night.
Quotes reconstructed from my flawed memory.
Bill: "How are things at ABC News?"
Judy: "They’re awful… I’ve been through so many regime changes.."
Luke: "How was it when it looked like Letterman was going to replace Nightline?"
Judy: "Horrible."
I had to ask that because I couldn’t give a hoot if Letterman replaced Nightline. In my mind, TV journalist is trash and inherently superficial, relying on captivating pictures.
Luke: "Do you view Nightline as a sacred trust?"
Judy: "Yes."
Luke: "It’s one of the few places where you can still do substantive TV journalism."
Judy: "Yes, and 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday morning. I don’t even count 20/20."
Luke: "I think part of the problem is that people on a high level don’t watch TV."
Judy and her friend Mary look at me with horror.
Mary: "I think I’m on a high level and I watch a lot of TV."
There’s no recovering from my foupe. I’m finished. Mary and Judy passionately disagree with me and launch into their own conversation. I fervently hope that they are the only two people I’ve alienated tonight.
It was at this home a few years ago that Jim Bellows threw a party for Judy’s autobiography.
I wander around, eating bits of fruit and hoping for someone to talk to. When I was writing on my previous beat, I didn’t think I was worthy of hanging out with real journalists. Now I’m meeting a ton of them. I will have lunch with Jill Stewart Friday, dinner with Rick Barrs Monday…
Charles Champlin, frail former of editor of the LA Times Calendar section is here. He saw to it that the Times did not investigate the 1978 David Begelman check-cashing scandal at Columbia finally reported in book-form (Indecent Exposure) by David McClintick. The LA Times was way behind the story in its own home town, exemplifying how out of touch the paper has been with showbiz coverage.
I can tell Pat H. Broeske is one tough woman. She doesn’t take nonsense. She wrote many sharp pieces for Calendar, when it revived in the early ’80s under Irv…
Pat Kingsley, the hated head of publicity firm PMK, told the LA Times Calendar editor Irv that any of his staff could interview Tom Cruise but Pat H. Broeske. Irv called Pat and assigned her the story. Pat didn’t write celebrity profiles but Irv was damned if he’d let Kingsley push him around.
Pat showed up at Tom Cruise’s hotel room at the appointed time. Tom almost had a fit. But he still did the interview.
Today’s LA Times entertainment coverage is dictated by publicists to the paper. Back then, Irv had the attitude that "if we don’t catch you on the way up, we’ll catch you on the way down," and publicists can go to hell.
Pat and former LA Times business/Calendar journalist William Knoedelseder now works in TV. Bill is working on a three hour Bravo documentary on US presidents and their favorite movies. It sounded like a yawner to me but then Bill explained it and it sounded great. A technician at the White House from about 1945 -1986 kept track of the presidents’ viewing habits.
Did you know that the one film that John and Bobby Kennedy saw together was The Manchurian Candidate (about the assassination of a president)?
The favorite film of presidents? High Noon. They must identify with the protagonist. They’re all alone.
Part of me wonders how these high-level journalists can sell out to do TV. I thought there was a natural snobbery and hatred of TV among real writers. But not in LA, I guess.
Print journalists should stop fighting amongst themselves and get together to hate TV and film people.
I thought smart people didn’t watch TV. Certainly anyone who gets his news from TV is a moron.
But I could be wrong. It’s happened before.
I don’t think I offend as many people with my opinions tonight as I did Tuesday night.
I have my eye all night on a tall slender brunette but I fear hitting on her at a classy place like this. She’ll just see what a twerp I am and then I’ll be outed.
I’m around smart successful people. I could learn from them. I should shut up and ease off with expressing my offensive stereotypes. But my psyche best knows only two moods – sheer frozen abject terror and loud preaching of my views.
I want to meet Dennis’s wife Sharon. Pat finally introduces us. We schmooze. Sharon and Dennis have five kids. Sharon introduces me to three of them. And yes, one of them is the brunette (Andrea) I’ve been eyeing all evening. I spend the rest of the night talking to her.
Dennis’s family call him "Mac." His friends call him "Dennis." I want to call him "Mr. McDougal." I don’t think any of his kids are writers.
As I’m walking out, I ask a question of McDougal’s co-author Mary Murphy, a smart-looking blonde. Mary and Dennis investigated the CNN Tailwind scandal and concluded that CNN had the essential story, but they didn’t have it nailed down and ready to broadcast.
I have an intense 15-minute conversation with Jim. I must read his book. He’s registered the domain name LAObserver.com, like the New York Observer. He wants to give LA an interesting read.
I lament to him how the NY publications kick the ass of their LA counterparts. How New York Magazine is so superior to LA Magazine. It turns out Jim started New York Magazine.
Jim, like Matt Welch, Ken Layne and Richard Riordan, seeks wealthy investors to give LA a lively paper rather than the somnolent LA Times and LA Weekly, both improved. These guys should all get together and do something. Riordan has the contacts with the money, Jim has the newspaper experience, and Matt and Ken have their youthful impetuosity (but best of all, they have really hot looking wives, Emmanuelle and Laura).
I talk about Matt and Ken with Jim and emphasize that best of all, these two men have really hot looking wives. There’s no more important a quality for somebody starting a newspaper or beginning any other endeavor.
I forget to tell Jim that the first time I met Matt, I asked him what he liked to think about when he masturbated. Our relationships has only improved since then.
Sheesh, if I could pull my memoirs together, I could snag a hot looking wife too.
Rodney King and his guardian are leaving. We introduce ourselves and shake hands.
Luke, worried: "Who’s driving?"
Nobody laughs.
Former real investigative journalist Bill wants to put Rodney King and Reginald Denny together. "Great television," he says.
I know. I can hear your screams from here. There’s an appalling lack of Orthodox Judaism in my report. What would the Talmud say about a bunch of goyim getting together to eat trafe and celebrate a book on whore murder?
An Orthodox rabbi friend leaves me a message: "There’s something charedi (religious) about you that you don’t live in luxury, which is a big point of credibility with certain type of rabbis, compared to more modern rabbis. Even among the ultra-orthodox [many live in luxury]. You sleep on the ground. That’s reminiscent of the dictum in Pirke Arvot – when you toil in Torah, you lie on the ground."
Jacqueline writes: "Luke, this is so entertaining. Matt is reading it too and laughing out loud. Matt and Ken met Jim Belows back in June I think, with Tim Blair. Jill Stewart AND Rick Barrs? Wow. Did you meet Jill at Tuesday’s party? She’s actually at every party, a good friend of Cathy and good pal of us. She even visited Prague when Matt has his paper Prognosis there. She’s awesome. I hope she gets to do what she wants: a great talk show."
AFTER READING JIM’s book after the party, I talked on the phone to Bellows about his plans to start a monthly Los Angeles magazine. He was interested in me writing for him but he never got the funding he needed to get his project off the ground.
He told me he was working on a book about the accomplishments of people after they’ve turned 80.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish officials in New York are mounting an intense lobbying effort to block a bill before the State Legislature that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of children.
But while the Catholic Church is leading the opposition, in recent months a loose coalition of disparate groups has also joined the effort. They include leaders of the Hasidic and Sephardic Jewish institutions in Brooklyn, which could face equally costly abuse claims. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the criminal defense bar oppose lifting statutes of limitation as unfair to the accused, who must defend themselves against claims of transgressions decades old.
Fred’s item (b) interests me, where he wonders if I am “aware that there are very few who share (my) opinions." Ignoring the
fact that in some cases, such as 9/11, there are millions who share my beliefs, let me say to Fred:
Truth is not established by a vote. At the time of copout Galileo and courageous but foolhardy Giordano Bruno, a vote of the public and authorities would have established that the Earth does not go around the Sun. People believing otherwise would have been deemed “delusional” by people with Fred’s mindset.
I have a cleverly named website—- http://areyoumythguided.bravehost.com
Haven’t done much with it lately but Fred will find a partial list of my “delusions” that he was “interested” in. Holocaust denial, more properly called Holocaust Revisionism, is not there because I became interested in it only a few years ago.
You will also find nothing about my newfound disdain for Lincoln or dislike for Ike. I read The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked and am satisfied that Lincoln was a racist, dictator, war monger, war criminal, lawyer and master of English prose. I read Other Losses by Canadian author James Bacque and consider Eisenhower a war criminal for his murderous abuse of German military prisoners after WW II. According to West Point records, Eisenhower was Jewish. You’re welcome to him.
My website opens with a quote from psychologist Charles Tart. He says that people like Fred who “think” what most people “think” are, in Tart’s brilliant phrase, living in a “consensus trance.” Snap out of it, Fred! Five cents, please.
I’m getting as long-winded as Fred. Nice to know we have something in common!
Let me close by suggesting that:
#1: Fred and I get together to discuss and defend our “delusions.” (You have some, Fred. You just don’t know it.)
The discussion could be videoed by Luke and posted on the blog.
#2: Luke, Fred and any other interested bloggees attend one of the illustrated talks I give: one on crop circles as true mysteries and the other on the Apollo missions. The second one is titled “Americans Walked on the Moon—-Don’t Bet on It!”
Don’t have any talks booked at the moment but interest on your part could spur me to book some—–OR someone reading this could come up with a venue.
Delusionally yours,
Zan Overall
FRED EMAILS:
Luke:
Zan’s effort to compare himself with Galileo is off base. Galileo based his views on personal observation. I think it’s clear that Zan does not base his views on personal observation but rather a cocktail of the web conspiracy theory echo chamber and his own emotional needs.
Zan argues that there are millions who think that 9/11 is a great big conspiracy. Apparently, Zan subscribes to several delusions, some of which are the province of a small band white supremecists (holocaust denial) and some having a wider following. Zan’s subscription to delusional beliefs that have a large following does not erase the fact that he also subscribes to delusional beliefs that have at most a tiny and discredited following.
As I suspected, Zan has several delusional beliefs, and he goes to great lengths to convince others of his beliefs (e.g. his web site, handing out flyers, etc.) There is a substantial emotional investment in his prosyletizing. Nobody goes to these lengths unless it satisfies an emotional need. It would be interesting to know more about this emotional need(s), and its source. Does Zan feel that he has been denied proper credit in some of his past dealings? Does he have a grudge? Is there a cabal that is busy denying him his true stature?
One final note: There are two kinds of people who eschew common wisdom: those who actually have some kind of insight that others lack, and those who are deluded. As I mentioned above, Galileo falls into the first category. I see no evidence suggesting that Zan falls into anything other than the second category.
What precipitated his outburst? Watching Jay Leno interview young people about history.
Various people called in and said they thought the Leno segment was representative of the younger generation.
I’m not so sure. Jay Leno is only going to show people who are funny. People who accurately answer his questions about history are not funny, ergo they will not air. Also, where are the incentives to answer these questions accurately? There are no incentives. You know you will not get on TV if you answer correctly.
This same analysis holds true for pollsters and survey takers. If someone calls you up and asks if you can locate Afghanistan, what incentive do you have to answer correctly? None.
Dennis Prager has often said that his math skills are abysmal. Why isn’t he ashamed of this? I assume his science knowledge is similarly retarded. History is something Prager loves. It is one of his strengths. It is very easy to lambast people who are weak in areas where you are strong, but what about things where you are weak compared to most?
Dennis: "Not to know what the Iron Curtain is is to be illiterate about modern history. The man thought it had something to do with the Pittsburgh Steeler defense."
The Iron Curtain is not in existence. The Iron Curtain was the line between Communist Europe and free Europe.
Dennis: "There is a body of data you expect literate people to know."
You could say a similar thing to criticize Prager’s abysmal math skills.
Dennis: "What do you know when you get a high school diploma? Knowledge of some algebra equations, the use of which I am dubious about. But what do you actually know?"
If Prager’s math skills are representative, not very much is the answer to his question.
Prager doesn’t waste any of his time berating himself and his own education. Instead he questions whether knowing algebra has any importance. Prager doesn’t seem to know much algebra. But I guess that doesn’t matter.
American school districts are getting $100 billion from the stimulus bill. "Children will not learn any more," says Dennis. "We spend more pupil than any nation in the world. The district that spends the most per pupil has some of the worst results — Washington D.C."
At the end of his second hour, Prager said (with the background being a discussion of Iran’s threat: "Every generation has to fight evil. That has always been the case… Why would we be immune? Why would we be the first generation that did not have the terrible problem of human evil? Because there’s a United Nations? Because people are enlightened? Because people are ‘better educated’? Why? We are the least prepared for it because we have been duped that there is no real evil except for natural ones like Global Warming. We fight non-evil in decent places such as America as a substitute for fighting evil."
Prager looked at Amazon.com to read reviews of a new book on Chairman Mao and how many people were upset that the book described Mao as evil. "If Mao is not evil, then the word has no meaning."
Happiness Myth No. 9: Spending some time alone will make you feel better.
Wrong. Although it can be tempting to take a “personal day” when you’re feeling blue or to isolate yourself until you feel better, you’re better off doing just the opposite.
Connecting with other people, even if you don’t feel like it, is more likely to improve your mood—and that’s true even for introverts. Any kind of engagement gives you a lift.
In fact, researchers reported that out of 15 daily activities, such as exercising, commuting, or doing housework, everything is more fun with company. They found only one activity during which people were happier alone rather than with other people—praying. To my mind, that’s no exception; the point of praying is that you’re not talking to yourself.
LUKE SAYS: Half of my weekends the past two months, I have not left my hovel. I am just so tired, I want to hole up with a good book, a good movie, and just recover. I feel overwhelmed by life. According to this blog post, this is a recipe for unhappiness. Since the beginning of January, my life has felt unbelievably full and social. I think I enjoy solitude more than most people because I feel a sense of connection through reading. But in retrospect, I think this Slate column is right. I’m not the happiest person around, but I am at my happiest when I am regularly spending time with people enjoy.
Roger Cohen says the Iranian regime is pragmatic. They don’t plan to do anything nasty. They’re growing into a responsible power. Don’t demonize those who demonize the Jewish state.
I’ve heard Mr. Cohen interviewed on Dennis Prager’s radio show. He’s extremely civil and comes across as the most reasonable and open-minded man in the world.
His columns generally strike me as bland restatements of the conventional wisdom.
He strikes me as a reporter first and an opinion-monger second.
Cohen’s response to the furor over his positive portrayal of Iran and its treatment of its Jews shows how lacking the man is in moral perspective: ""I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one — the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results. It’s worth recalling that hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand, may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not. Nor should racist demagoguery — wherever — prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it. "[8]"
Avigdor Lieberman has never called for the destruction and annihilation of any country or group. It is a hateful and odious comparison that could only be made by one who’s morally blind.
The program at Sinai Temple is superbly moderated by David Wolpe and the stream quality remains excellent.
Cohen is taking many sips of water. He must find the heat he’s taking is making him thirsty.
The authors get inside the lives of the leading characters in the mortgage meltdown and explain what makes them tick and what makes their business work (or fail).
Arnall was a big funder of Orthodox institutions such as Shalhevet and Chabad. His son Daniel lives in Pico-Robertson (he got semicha from Rabbi Abner Weiss).
At Long Beach Mortgage, Arnall’s secondary market manager was Yankee Dinovitz, an Orthodox Jew who liked to shoot guns.
Arnall loved technology. He pioneered the placing of borrowers into various risk categories (more detailed than just prime and subprime). Your rates and fees were determined by your risk.
Arnall was zealous about staying out of the media. He never gave interviews.
He was born in Europe in 1939.
Arnall was the godfather of subprime lending with Ameriquest and related businesses.
From the perspective of mortgages, recessions are good for refinancing booms and creating more subprime borrowers. Arnall’s Ameriquest took off in 2001 and boomed through 2004.
Arnall pioneered stated-income loans aka liar loans aka no documentation loans (starting in 2001), whereby Ameriquest accepted the income stated by potential borrowers as long as their credit scores checked out.
Loan officers for Ameriquest got paid on the volume of loans they made. They had little incentive to worry about a person’s ability to repay a loan. When a lenders make loans without concern about being repaid — because he sells those loans to an investor in the secondary market — this is called predatory lending.
It’s what Roland Arnall was doing.
By 2005, Arnall was seeking an ambassadorship. His first choice? Israel. He ended up in the Netherlands, returning to the United States a few weeks before his death.
At his funeral, politicians from all over came. The focus was on Arnall’s achievements with humanitarian work, with the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Remembers Terry Rouch, a former employee of Arnalls, "It was a touching Jewish ceremony. You could say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place — but it wasn’t necessarily for the passing of the father of subprime. It was for our own futures."
A Hasidic rabbi who defended himself against charges of molesting his daughter over a seven-year period was convicted on all counts Wednesday by a jury in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The victim, now 27, was escorted into the courtroom by U.S. marshals for the verdict, and sat in the front row opposite six siblings, ages 13 to 23, who support their father Israel Wein.garten.
Showing no emotion after he was found guilty of transporting the victim to Belgium, Israel and New York to commit sex crimes against her, Weingarten complained to the judge that he did not have time to prepare for the trial.
Weingarten faces up to 50 years in prison when he’s sentenced by Judge John Gleeson on April 3.
Los Angeles — On the day known as Ta’anit Esther — when observant Jews fast before Purim — more than 150 members of Los Angeles’s close-knit Orthodox community gathered for a protest rally outside the family home of a man they claim has refused to grant his wife a Jewish divorce, known as a get. They chanted and prayed, and held signs that read “Stop the Abuse” and “Give Your Wife a Get.”
The hour-long demonstration, the first of its kind in L.A. since 1979, was staged in an effort to publicly humiliate Meir Kin, a member of Monsey, N.Y.’s Orthodox community who now lives here. While Kin’s defenders contend that he has granted a get, advocates for his ex-wife, Lonna, say that it was not issued by a valid beit din, or rabbinic court, leaving her among the ranks of the agunot, or “chained women.”
“It’s a horrible situation to leave a woman in,” said one protester, Jill Reichman. “We can’t let these men get away with it.”
The plight of the agunot has long been a thorny subject within the Orthodox community, where adherence to religious law mandates that a woman without a get cannot remarry. Moreover, if she were to remarry, any children of that union would be considered illegitimate. There are varying reasons for a husband to refuse to grant a Jewish divorce, ranging from financial — wherein a husband will demand money in order to grant the get — to sheer malice.
"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)
