| Not The Dennis Prager Show
Luke Ford is wholly responsible for this site. Dennis
Prager has nothing to do with it.
Lukeford.net provides information and opinions about Dennis Prager.
Luke Ford writes lukeford.net.
While Luke admires Prager and his views, Luke's web site careens
between wildly conflicting perspectives on the Jewish moralist.
On March 4, 1998, Dennis Prager wrote to the now defunct Dennis
Prager Email List:
I have been inordinately busy - virtually every minute - over
the past two months: traveling around America, making radio and
TV appearances and doing booksignings for my new book, in addition
to my winter teaching at the University of Judaism, writing my
newsletter and, of course doing three hours of live radio each
day, not to mention being preoccupied with my family. I have therefore
read few of the postings by Luke and of the responses to him about
me. This is literally the first evening I have had the time to
write a public post.
Moreover, as I try to live by the rule of not publicly commenting
until I actually know what I am commenting about, I have been
unable to respond to Luke's request that I tell him whether I
approve or not of his writings about me on the web or his "biography"
of me. I still have not read enough to precisely react to all
his postings.
Of what I have seen, some are fine and some are offensive. Those
I find offensive, I find so not because he disagrees with me.
If I found all disagreements with me offensive, I would be a depressed
man, and one, furthermore, who has no business doing public work.
What I find offensive are intrusions into my
private life for Internet publication. Why, for example, must
the world know about a private conversation Luke had with my son?
My son feels, understandably, taken advantage of. He can now wonder
whether because his dad is well known his talking to anyone but
a trusted friend or family member might now lead to publication
of that conversation. It is irrelevant that Luke reported nothing
offensive from that conversation. It was a private chat. Every
reporter I have ever known tells people whether a talk will be
reported or is off the record.
I still believe that Luke meant nothing malicious, but I am
not assessing Luke's character here, I am reacting to a wrong
he committed from whatever motive.
And why must the world learn about any miscarriages or physical
ailments in my family or among my friends? That I once years ago
wrote in my own newsletter of miscarriages (and as I mentioned
this but once in all my writings, I had entirely forgotten about
having written about it. I therefore had my belief that this was
never made public communicated to Chris Donald when Laurie Zimmet,
my assistant, asked me. I, not Chris Donald, am therefore entirely
responsible for Chris writing that this was factually wrong).
(One day, hopefully, Luke Ford will marry and will understand
a husband's desire to protect his wife's privacy.)
And then there are the inaccuracies that matter little to me
except when they are used to hurt my name. For example, I received
$250,000, not $500,000 as Luke wrote - and the man who gave me
the money did so solely to help me further my career and work.
Instead of using the money for my own work, however, I used it
to set up the Micah Center for Ethical Monotheism. And I am enormously
proud of the movie on goodness that Micah made. Tens of thousands
of students and employees (like the police leadership of Phoenix,
Arizona) have watched what I believe is the most effective video
of the importance of being a good human being ever made. If Micah
only did that, it would have been worth its creation. As I have
to make a living, I have not been able to do more with Micah since
that film - which, incidentally, I hope will ultimately fund Micah
so that it can engage in more such projects.
Luke writes of his love for me. I value this, as I believe it
to be sincerely felt. On those occasions when we have met, I have
never felt any hostility. I just don't understand how this love
is occasionally expressed - as in the inaccurate and defamatory
description of Micah. Nor do I understand how it is loving to
post details about my personal life, even if, in isolated moments
of public talks, I have alluded to these matters. I often open
my heart in lectures or in personal newsletter writings in ways
that I never expect to see distributed to wider audiences. So,
if Luke needs to hear from me that I do not authorize his work
in these arenas, here it is. Presumably words to that effect from
my trusted and enormously valuable assistant, Laurie Zimmet, did
not suffice.
When Luke offers accurate summaries of my radio shows, on the
other hand, these can be quite valuable - to me and hopefully
to others as well. If he wishes to expand that endeavor, this
might prove to be a real service. And his other participation
in discussions of ideas that I raise are certainly welcome. But
if I have affected his life and values as much as he says, I want
him to know that in my writings and on my radio show, I have said
far less about the private lives of figures that are far more
public figures than I, than he has said on the web about me. Judaism's
strict laws against gossip prohibit me - and Luke - from doing
so.
I wish Luke only happiness and good, and I still believe that
that is all he wishes me. I do not wish to write on this again.
And thank you to all who have desired to protect my private life
and name. It means a great deal to me.
.........................................................................
Luke says: Some of this site offers objective journalism, solidly
fact checked, while some of it is just opinion. The site careen
from vicious criticism of Dennis to fawning praise.
I find it most comfortable to write about Prager from the perspective
of a journalist or critic, seeking flaws. I sit in judgement.
As a human being, I have a different reaction to Prager. I listen
humbly, seeking what I can learn from his words, how I can apply
them to my life, and where I must change.
Listening to Prager is humbling. I am intimidated by his moral
depth. Much of what he says demands painful changes in my behavior
and attitude. Because this is so personal and shattering, I rarely
write about this side of my reaction to Prager's words. It exposes
too much of me.
This dichotomy pervades most of my meaningful interactions. To
truly listen deeply to someone you have to assume that what they
are saying is true. You must seek to understand how what the person
says can be true. In what instances and from what perspectives.
It verges on the impossible to deeply listen to people and actively
disagree with them.
Here's the story of how I encountered Prager.
I found these 1972 comments by critic Harold Bloom a chilling description
of my relationship to Prager (though I do not claim to be a poet):
"Strong poets tend to achieve an individualized voice by first
all-but-merging with a precursor and then by pulling away from him,
usually by way of a complex process of fault-finding and actual
misinterpretation of the precursor. All post-Enlightenment poetry
in English tends to be a displaced Protestantism anyway, so that
the faith in a Person easily enough is displaced into an initial
devotion to the god-like precursor poet. This, to understate it,
is hardly a very Jewish process, and yet something like it seems
necessary if poets are to continue to be incarnated."
Who is Luke Ford? Luke is an eccentric journalist in the grand
Australian tabloid tradition who's appeared in the New York Post,
in the New Times (Los Angeles) cover story (1/28/99), Los Angeles
Times (7/8/99), Rolling Stone (8/19/99), Village Voice (3/4/99),
The Independent on Sunday, GQ (12/99, British edition), Salon.com
(7/13/99), Online Journalism Review (6/98), Composite (9/98), Forward.com
(1/7/00) and numerous other publications. He appeared on the TV
shows "Entertainment Tonight" 2/8/99, "Fox Files"
3/25/99 and such Los Angeles radio stations such as KFI and KLSX.
Born 5/28/66, the youngest son of a Christian evangelist, Luke
grew up in Australia until moving to California in 1977. During
the 1980s he wrote for various newspapers including the Auburn Journal
and worked as a reporter in the news department of KAHI/KHYL radio
in Auburn/Sacramento. He studied economics at UCLA but dropped out
short of his undergraduate degree.
In 1992 Luke converted to Judaism. That same year he served as
the Placer County Coordinator for Parents For Educational Choice
(the school vouchers initiative). Ford moved to Los Angeles in 1994.
"...he breaks legitimate stories that have a huge impact."
Online Journalism Review
"...aggressive, eloquent, he's a kind of shaggy-haired, acid-washed
Brad Pitt [who] serves as the industry's Matt Drudge." The
Weekly Standard
A friend of Luke's, Chris Donald, writes about him in early 1998
on the Dennis Prager Email List:
Look for his first book to be published...by the same irresponsible
publishers that brought you, "Hard to Find Facts for the Amateur
Mail Bomber", and "The Idiot's Guide to Being a Successful Hitman".
There is not a single responsible organization, that I am aware
of, that has not finally had to ask him to stop attending their
functions. That list approaches double digits in the LA area alone.
He converted to a religion that he has since leached off of for
weekly meals, preyed sexually on their women, regularly disrupted
discussion groups, and behaved in social situations so innappropriately
that he is on "Black Lists" in his chosen Jewish neighborhood.
Can you imagine joining a religious group, only to (actively)
become their most continually innappropriate and biggest butt-pain?
Why yes, he did so with regards to DP's friendship as a matter
of fact. Was respectful for years, actively restrained and friendly,
seeking DP out by going to Temple where DP did, only to become
Hyde (now) once he had gained DP's friendship. The first person
that DP has EVER, in 49 years, had to sue. Fancy that. See a trend
here?
Anyone else you can name that is so widely viewed as a pariah
on a personal AND a professional level? A "religious" Jew that
makes a living running a porno web site and and a gossip web site,
both overwhelmingly contrary to the Jewish Laws he freely took
an oath to follow.
Luke Ford is not deemed appropriate nor responsible by a single
reputable source that knows him well to my knowledge. (If I am
wrong, please provide me verifyable evidence to the contrary.
I will gladly look into it. I can document MY claims, but won't
here unless forced to.)
He is, on the other hand, banned from *several* conservativly
religious social/singles groups that he has infiltrated and who's
hosts and female members he has repeatedly abused over the years.
Interestingly, his behavior came up at Shabbat dinner this week-
quite by accident.
My host, a very fine, religious man who regularly has unknown
guests to their home for Shabbat dinner in the spirit of outreach
(and whom I'd known not at all prior), was re-telling a "Shabbat
Disasters of the Past" story.
It was a tale of the most innappropriate, obnoxious behavior
by a GUEST you can imagine. Overtly sexual and homosexual innuendo
and dialogue the entire night. The host was so shocked and upset,
he ended up going into his kitchen to do dishes to get away from
this "guest".
No other guests that were at his home that night have since returned.
You can imagine why.
My host was not using anything in his description that would
ordinarily be deemed identifyable about the subject. It was just
a story. Yet that fact that he was describing Luke Ford was not
only *obvious* to me, it was painfully so.
I asked two quick questions to ensure for myself that I was not
mistaken, and of course, I was not.
That enough for you?
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