Dennis Prager Spoke at CU Boulder - 2

Here's some highlights recreated from my notes during the talk:

Dennis began by saying "God has certainly seemed to have chosen CU". Dennis didn't spend very much time talking about the specific topic which was: "Why are America and Israel the Two Most Hated Nations?"

He did spend a lot of time speaking about the issues of Ward Churchill and the radicalized nature of Academia.

Dennis called Churchill's "little Eichmanns" comment "sick" and the equivalent of saying that blacks who were lynched deserved to be so.

More interesting was Prager's question regarding the response of faculty at Universities. He said in effect , what would be the reaction of faculty if a professor at CU said that blacks deserved to be lynched. The outcry would be great, as it should be. And so the deafening silence of faculty regarding "little Eichmanns" is as morally repugnant as silence in the face of racist comments. But the faculty on university campuses like CU can only muster outrage at sickening comments from the right, and ignore sickening comments from the left.

Hearts and minds present to hear Dennis. (Sorry it's so far away). Also click on any of these photos to enlarge them. 

Here is the man himself: Dennis Prager 

Here is the pre talk scene at the Glenn Miller Ballroom on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. 1100 people attended. 

Dennis Prager Spoke at CU Boulder - 1

Dennis is on KNUS right now talking about his speech at CU last night. Go to www.dennisprager.com right now and click on listen now or find a local station to hear recordings from last night and his life comments.

I'm going to be posting pictures and reports about last nights speech throughout the day.

Truth in Blogging: Full Disclosure

Before I post on Dennis Prager at CU last night. I need to reshape my blog and blogging life.

I have been reading Blog by Hugh Hewitt. It is a harbinger of change to alert the masses of information users that a new day has dawned in the world. The Information Reformation has reappeared, this time with a press that operates at the speed of light, that is available to anyone with a computer and access. The implications may make the Protestant Reformation look like minor episode in the story of the modern era.

I was struck by one idea in particular:

"The key to keep in mind is that trust drives everything. To build and maintain trust is a tremendously difficult thing, requiring patient attention to detail and discipline over long periods of time. Mistakes by bloggers will be forgiven, but not deception and certainly not stubborn attachment to falsehood...

"In a world changing as rapidly as ours is, only those who have earned and continue to earn trust will be in a position to influence the choices of third parties." pg. 155

I realized that I have not created my blog to build trust and create trust. That will change now.

I have changed my "about me" information to more clearly reflect who I am. I will now make my blog a reflection of my life and work, which happens to be Christian campus ministry.

I have feared being fully honest about who I am for a number of reason: mainly cowardice and a desire to control perceptions about me.

Yet in the blogosphere, the truth will come out. If someone wants to find out who I am, they probably can. If I'm not honest and forthright about who I am then I mortgage any trust that might be possible otherwise.

I am what I am. Me and Popeye. I hope you will help me correct the errors in my thinking. I hope I will earn your trust and add to the value of your life.

Blogging on Dennis Prager, speaking at CU, coming soon. 

Fight Club?: Teens Leaping For Thrills In 'Garage Jumping' Trend

local6.com - Problem Solvers - Teens Leaping For Thrills In 'Garage Jumping' Trend: "ORLANDO, Fla. -- Teenagers in Orlando, Fla., are leaping between 80-foot high public parking garages in a new trend called 'garage jumping,' according to a Local 6 News investigation.

Local 6 News reported that the thrill seekers are vaulting themselves between garages in downtown Orlando.

Tim Bargfrede told Local 6 News that he was following friends when he attempted to garage jump and did not make it to the other side. Bargfrede fell six stories and was knocked unconscious on impact.

'I just didn't make it,' Bargfrede said.

Bargfrede survived the 80-foot fall but was injured.

'The first time I came to the garage after my son's accident, I looked over and I just about broke out in tears,' the boy's father Tim Bargfrede said. 'I can't believe he actually survived. He looked like he was near death.'

'He (Bargfrede) is not he first person, he is not the second person, there have been four or five other individuals before him that did this,' family's attorney Vincent D'Assaro said."

I've said for years that Fight Club is the most profound film ever made on modern masculinity and it's problems. Young men with no purpose for their manhood will find foolish places to deposit their courage and strength. I think this story illustrates the point of the film:

" We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

I think 9-11 may have changed this condition for some but clearly not for all.

Boker tov, Boulder!

I found this blog while searching the web for Prage info:Boker tov, Boulder!

Blogging Dennis Prager

I'm going to leave in a few minutes to go see Dennis Prager at CU Boulder. After a lovely dinner with my wife we'll go hear Dennis from the home of Ward Churchill. I got an invite to a special after event reception so hopefully I'll get a chance to meet Dennis tonight. I'll post pictures and thoughts on the lecture later tonight or tomorrow.

Chrenkoff asks Victor Davis Hanson about Iraq and the World

Arthur Chrenkoff posts a fine blog interview with Victor Davis Hanson. I've become a huge fan of VDH because of his immense grasp of History, particularly Military History:

"Look at the unrest in Lebanon, the voting in the West Bank, fear in Libya, pressure to reform from the Gulf to Egypt—all impossible without the removal and humiliation of Saddam Hussein, who, had he remained in power, would be nursing Arab pride by blaming us while he recycled petro-dollars, hand in glove with corrupt UN officials and Euros, for more weapons and his own debauchery..."

"The other scenario that a China or the Arab world, like the Ottomans of old, can cherry-pick Western technology and add its veneer to their own unfree societies to defeat us with our weaponry and their numbers and fanaticism, doesn't have a lot of historical precedent. The key is not 'them,' but us—to what degree will we continue to value freedom, invest rather than merely spend, and pass on stern values not just sensuality to our children?..."

"Thucydides reminds us that, contrary to modern behavioralists, human nature is constant and thus predictable, and thus as well history is useful and not like 19th-century biology that is rendered obsolete by a radically changing technology that allows the discovery of the cell or atom. And he warns us that no people, however wealthy and free, get a pass from history, that they don't have to struggle daily to ensure that they do not lose what was given to them."

mtv.com -- Brian 'Head' Welch of KORN has decided to follow Jesus

mtv.com: "Two months after his first visit to the Valley Bible Fellowship, Brian 'Head' Welch, who announced his departure from Korn last week (see 'Brian 'Head' Welch Explains Why He Left Korn'), held a sort of Christian coming-out party here Sunday in front of an estimated 10,000 churchgoers in three separate services. (Check out photos of Welch at the event.)"

Thomas and his Influence

That's what I figured:

"Naturally I taught my students Thomas Aquinas, but I found it difficult to do so. The problem was that his arguments presented such a strong appearance of truth. For the very beauty of this appearance, I had to exercise strong discipline not to weep. One of my students in those days asked permission to put a personal question. "I’ve been listening carefully," he said, "and I figure that you’re either an atheist or a Roman Catholic. Which one is it?"

You can see why, when I finally returned to Christian faith, I wanted that one foot in Catholic tradition."

And the rest as they say, is history. Aquinas may be among the most underrated thinkers in the minds of modern folk. Oh that's right, we're "enlightened". Calvin runs a very close second.

A suprising conversion

This is interesting:

From relapsed catholic : "'During the 1990s, J. Budziszewski rose to prominence as one of the leading intellectual lights among Evangelical Christians in America. A political theorist with a special interest in the natural-law tradition, he was highly sought as a speaker at conferences organized by groups such as the InterVarsity Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ. (...) 'For some Evangelical Protestants, then, it came as a jolt when, on Easter Sunday 2004, Budziszewski was received into the Catholic Church. After maintaining a public silence about his conversion for several months, Budziszewski agreed to tell the story to CWR...'"

I'll bet it was Aquinas that moved him across the goal line.

Lame

I've been away at a conference that tragically offered no internet access. I'm getting on a plane this morning but I'll be back blogging soon.

Prager comes to CU

If you live in Colorado, you should mark your calendar and come to CU Boulder to hear Dennis Prager on March 2.

He will be speaking on the topic: "Why are America and Israel the Two Most Hated Nations?"

I feel pretty confident that he will comment on Ward Churchill at some point in the evening.

Should be worth $10. Heck, I'd pay per view.

See you there. I'll post pictures if they let me take them.

The New York Newsprint

Jay Rosen has a great take on the way mainstream media like the New York Times, look down their nose at Blogs:

"The Guardian weighs in: 'Jordan's demise may be much more significant than it first appears.'

The Guardian piece has Steve Lovelady's remarks about 'salivating morons' originating in what he told the New York Times, but of course the Times got them from PressThink, a blog that it failed to name. It's happened before: the Times will say 'online' rather than 'PressThink,' as it did Feb. 14: 'The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail,' he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. (Another example.) Next time I quote the New York Times I think I will do it this way: 'As Paul Krugman said in newsprint last week...'"

Corporate Blogs

I find that as I explain what blogs are to people, it seems that blogging is a fringe activity more similar to bomb making than using a cell phone or fax machine. Well in case you needed more proof that blogs are mainstream, behold this blog from General Motors written by the Vice Chairman of GM. There's probably something to learn from this for every organization, whether for profit or otherwise.

I learned about this blog from a great interview with Hugh Hewitt on the second hour of Dennis Prager's radio show.

I just bought Hewitt's book, Blog. I couldn't stand it anymore so it will come tomorrow probably and i'll dive into it.

How to make your Blog popular?

Seth's Blog: "step 3: be controversial. Try to get a CNN VP to resign under pressure. Yell when you can speak, scream when you can whisper. "

Here's a better idea Seth: When you use your blog to make thinly veiled accusations and disparaging remarks about blogs that hurt your philosophical allies, include links to those you are heckling so that people don't assume that your analysis is just bigotry and falsehood.

Oh, and writing stuff worth reading is important too (like you said). Or at least linking to stuff worth reading.

A CU Professor weighs in on Churchill

CU Professor Paul Campos brings candor to CU and Churchill and the culture of Affirmative Action:

"The privileges created by tenure are supposed to insulate faculty from political pressures in general and censorship in particular. Yet those of us in the academy, if we were candid, would have to admit that few places are more riddled with the distorting effects of politics and censorship than university faculties.

Academics claim to despise censorship, but the truth is we do a remarkably good job of censoring ourselves. This is especially true in regard to affirmative action. Who among us can claim to have spoken up every time a job candidate almost as preposterous as Churchill was submitted for our consideration? Things like the Churchill fiasco are made possible by a web of lies kept intact by a conspiracy of silence.

The University of Colorado hired Churchill onto its faculty because he claimed to be an American Indian. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with research universities can glance at his resume and state this with something close to complete confidence.

Churchill thus represents the reductio ad absurdum of the contemporary university's willingness to subordinate all other values to affirmative action. When such a grotesque fraud - a white man pretending to be an Indian, an intellectual charlatan spewing polemical garbage festooned with phony footnotes, a shameless demagogue fabricating imaginary historical incidents to justify his pathological hatreds, an apparent plagiarist who steals and distorts the work of real scholars - manages to scam his way into a full professorship at what is still a serious research university, we know the practice of affirmative action has hit rock bottom. Or at least we can hope so.

As someone of generally liberal political inclinations, I support affirmative action in principle. (And I have surely benefited from it in practice: My parents came to this country from Mexico in the year of my birth, and I spoke no English when I started school.) In theory, the argument that aggressively seeking out persons of diverse backgrounds can enrich the intellectual life of the university has great force.

Affirmative action is based, in part, on the idea that it will help us understand the viewpoints of the conquered as well as those of the conqueror, of the weak as well as the strong, of those far from power as well as those who wield it.

Too often, these sentiments are abused by those who sacrifice intellectual integrity while engaging in the most extreme forms of preferential hiring. Ward Churchill's career provides a lurid illustration of what can happen - indeed, of what we know will happen - when academic standards are prostituted in the name of increasing diversity. "

Wow! That was bracing.