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According to the 3/98 The Prager Perspective, the newsletter has 5038 subscribers (paying $48 a year - total income about $250,000). Time to take TPP to www.dennisprager.com...

Dennis Prager prayed "gomel" Saturday morning (10/3/98) at SSW, a prayer for those who've escaped serious harm. On Yom Kippur he took ill and was in the hospital for three days. He's ok. He said at the beginning of his sermon Saturday that he understood it as a sign from God, as the attack arrived on Yom Kippur. He did not elaborate on what the sign meant.

He then launched into a passionate sermon describing how fortunate Jews are to have a religion that emphasizes action more than faith, and how Jewish rituals lead us back to God and Judaism, rather than away. He contrasted this with the religious/faith dilemmas of a Roman Catholic friend.

Sgil46@yahoo.com writes on the Prager email list about DP's 10/13 show:

Starting ca. 10:50AM, carried over the break, caller David says he hates the religious right, as one reason he gave was that he says abortion clinics bombers "demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the religious right."

Extremism is catching. Extremism is what I identify as the "electric fencing" of the Ideological Corral. If you're tired of being frustrated by those who exploit the Corral, don't work to their benefit. Don't rationalize the extremism.

DP "Those who disagree with us [the Left] are responsible for murder," for which DP pointed to editorials appearing yesterday and today. "The Left essentially says 'Truth doesn't matter, compassion does,' when they " inflate the numbers to make their case that there is an epidemic of homosexual hate crimes. To which he gave the numbers - 600 hundred some odd last year, only 11% attributed to non-fellow homosexuals, as reported by a gay group.

This call grew out of DP's subject about the "liberal media response," and Clinton's opportunism to pass more laws on the back of the tragedy rather than call for the logical and human outrage that would call for the execution of the "human monsters" who tortured the Wyoming college student and left him to die.

One point that DP says is telling is that he and those like him on the right want the killers to be executed, but those on the left, who want to write more laws ("let's expand the definition of hate crimes" -- Bill Clinton), want the killers to live (i.e., the left is predominated by anti-capital punishment sentiment -- for instance, the anti-CP N.Y. Times and its editorial board, which, respectively, put the Wyoming murder on the front page, and made it the subject of a lead editorial calling for inclusion).

10/26/98:

Dennis Prager is not upset with low voter turnout, the column one subject of today's Los Angeles Times:

Increasingly, Americans don't vote. We feel guilty about it, we get nagged about it, but more and more, we simply won't--or can't--make time for it.

Elections in some parts of urban Los Angeles this year have seen fewer than 1 in 12 potential voters making decisions for everyone.

Culturally, our anemic voting is so accepted that it's become a punch line for Hollywood: "No, I don't vote," sniffs a character in the film "Wag the Dog." "I don't like the rooms. Too claustrophobic."

In a week, it will be election time again. Nationally, some forecasters have been predicting turnout could dip to historic lows. California will be choosing a new governor Nov. 3, but fewer than half of the eligible adults are expected to cast a ballot.

What happens when so many people choose not to exercise their right to vote? Does our political system chug merrily onward, or begin to sputter and stall? What is the minimum electorate required to run a democracy?

A look at academic studies, campaign strategies and the behavior of incumbent officeholders yields findings that defy some conventional assumptions:

* Turnout levels may have little--if any--impact on the outcome of some elections. National surveys of each presidential race since 1952, for example, conclude in almost every case that the winner would be the same even if 100% of the eligible voters had taken part.

* Even though political competition is known to stimulate turnout, most of California's 172 legislative and congressional districts are so heavily Republican or Democratic that the winners in a general election are essentially known before a single ballot is cast.

***

Prager noted how that people become more conservative as they grow older. They become more law abiding, more wise, more religious, and generally more kind as well as moving to the right politically.

Stephen Harris stopped listening to Prager because Prager:

1. He hangs on his every word. When callers agree with him, he interupts them to tell them so. Conversely, when they disagree with him--he does the same thing.
2. His show is not so much a talk show as a chance for him to pontificate about everything that irritates him. I call him radio's resident yenta. All that bothers him becomes a chance for DP to use his broad brush to paint the so-called left and Democratic party as the
causes of all that is wrong with this country. (The right is not racist (who commits the most hate crimes?), narrow (they have their own political correctness), or immoral (witness the recent attacks on abortion doctors and the lack of compassion for those who are not of the same culture, religion, race or ethnicity.)
3. Mr. P needs to learn to listen more and generalize less if he wants to keep those who disagree with him listening.
4. He rarely had guests on his show (probably because they would take away from his talking time) and when he does, they tend to echo his viewpoint.
5. He is guilty of violating truth-in-advertising when he calls himself a centerist. 90% of his political views are consistent with those on the far right. (Exceptions: divorce--because he has done it, pornography because he likes it and premarital sex because he did it.)
6. Finally, I resented the throne room approach to his callers. It was as if they were being granted an audience rather than a chance toexpress their views.
7. I am willing to bet that Dennis will do no better than Michael Jackson in the 9-11:45 timeslot. Diversity of opinion and guests are not a hallmark of Prager, so his audience and appeal will always be limited.