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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"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) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Tag Archives: avondale college
Step One Of The Twelve Steps
I admitted that my life had become unmanageable. Step Two Step Three Step Four This took me many years to admit. Though I was rarely thrilled with my life, it never occurred to me to 12-step because I thought that … Continue reading
Posted in Addiction, Personal
Tagged 12 steps, avondale college, chronic fatigue syndrome, classmates, married women, morass
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Australian Suspicion Of Adventists
Australia is a secular country and it has a great deal of suspicion of religious people. I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist in Australia. I had no Seventh-Day Adventist friends. I knew that the wider culture viewed us with great … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist, Australia
Tagged avondale college, black sunglasses, evil mothers, flimsy excuse, lindy chamberlain, seventh day adventist
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Have I Ever Known The Love God?
Pastor Jim Fitzsimmons in Australia emails: hi Luke, I wonder if you have ever known The love God? The love that caused Him to send Christ for you on Calvary. The love that sent His Spirit to speak with you, … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity
Tagged adolf hitler, avondale college, bush track, evil spirits, karl marx, living in the shadows
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The Lunch That Changed My Life
In December of 1979, I was part-way through eighth grade at the Seventh-Day Adventist Pacific Union College Elementary school in Angwin, CA, 94508. My father taught in the college’s Religion department but he was being shipped with my mother to … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist, Personal, PUC
Tagged avondale college, bone cancer, double threat, heretical views, napa valley, religion department
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I’ll Never Forget Her Tears
* There was this girl in fifth grade (Avondale College Primary School) who liked me. I couldn’t stand it so I tortured her. I used to leave tacks on her chair. When she sat down, she’d scream and start crying. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged avondale college, bed of nails, biology class, chronic fatigue syndrome, deliberate cruelty, orthodox shul, political science class, sierra community college, smart ass remarks, yetzer hara
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Transgender Rabbinical Students Finding Equality in the Jewish World
This comes as a profound relief to me. For years I’ve worried about the lack of respect Jews show to their transgendered rabbis. You’d think the Holocaust would’ve educated us to be more sensitive. Does not our Holy Torah command … Continue reading
Posted in Homosexuality
Tagged avondale college, gender confusion, girls clothes, gum tree, luke ford, profound relief
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‘We Love You N——‘
Many Seventh-Day Adventist churches divide up by race. There are Korean churches and black churches and the like. I remember that interracial marriages were discouraged at Avondale College in Australia where I grew up (until my parents and I moved … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist, Blacks
Tagged avondale college, korean churches, oakwood college, sabbath program, seventh day adventist churches, six bullets
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Seventh-Gay Adventists
That’s a great title for a movie. I was raised a Seventh-Day Adventist. There were no out homosexuals in the religious communities I grew up in (Avondale College and Pacific Union College). We would’ve dragged them behind a pack of … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist, Personal
Tagged avondale college, church summer camps, gay adventist, lgbt members, remnant church, seventh day adventists
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O My Son Absalom, My Son, My Son Absolom! Would God I Had Died For Thee, O Absolom, My Son, My Son!
I try to imagine my life from my dad’s perspective (Part Two): I gave my life to Jesus Christ as a teenager. That’s a great comfort for me. In the final analysis, it’s all in God’s hands. I did the … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, Personal
Tagged avondale college, bone cancer, religion department, sick wife, son absalom, wife gwen
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Lunch Returns Me To Childhood
I made a new friend over lunch today. He’s a lifelong Seventh-Day Adventist. Our lives have many parallels. Our fathers were SDA ministers who were ejected from church ministry for preaching heresy. I feel light-headed. I feel like I am … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist, Christianity, Judaism, Orthodoxy
Tagged avondale college, freedom fries, seventh day adventism, seventh day adventists, story of abraham, vegie burgers
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