Dr. Laura Schlessinger appeared in the QL episode "Roberto" (as herself) and after that episode she went on to national fame as a talk radio personality.

Nitpicking Dr. Laura:


We all know what Dr. Laura Schlessinger preaches.
Let's take a look at how Dr. Laura leads her life as reported in the media.

Laura and the Sanctity of Marriage

Laura started dating her current husband, Lew Bishop, while he was still married.1

Laura divorced her first husband after 2 years of marriage.2

Laura had premarital sex in college.6

Laura had sex with Bill Ballance within hours of meeting him. Ballance recalls, "We used to thrash around like a couple of crazed weasels. I used to call her Ku Klux, because she's a demon between the sheets. Dynamite!" 9

Laura "shacked up" with Lew for nine years before they married.9

Laura told a friend that she was pregnant at the time of her wedding9


Laura and Family Values

Dr. Laura has not spoken to her mother in 15 years.8

Dr. Laura is estranged from her sister.1

"She not only is estranged from her mother, but, according to her husband, "doesn't see much" of her younger sister."7 "When Bill Ballance, who actually met Cyndi [Laura's sister] before the rift, asked Laura about it, she just said, 'Oh, she's so much prettier than I am!'"9

Laura's mother once worked for Laura as a secretary. She walked out the day Laura told her that she should learn how to type.1

"My husband HAD a prior family. And I figured I went through 12 hours of labor and a C-section. I figured, I'm going to name this thing anything I want, and I said, 'Lew, do you have any problem with the last name Schlessinger? ' He said, 'No.' "5 (emphasis added)

When Deryk was young, Laura took him to the studio with her where he ran around unsupervised. He was such a terror, other employees complained9


Laura and the importance of a single family religion

Lew Bishop, Mr. Laura, has not converted, because "there are some things about it
[Judism] that I'm still struggling with."1(Lew finally converted in the Summer of 1998)


Laura and Ethics

She promotes her show as if she has a doctorate in a therapy related field, yet her degree is in physiology.3

After taking $30,000 in speaking fees, she treated her hosts rudely.4

After she was exposed for acting rudely, she failed to accept responsibility for her actions. Instead she lashed out.4

She has undermined many of her colleagues at work. Marilyn Herman noted, "Tracey
Miller, Marilyn Kagan, Barbara De Angelis, Mother Love - she systematically set out to destroy each of these women. She was the most vengeful, evil person." 9

She directed Lew and Shelly Herman to make phony calls to her show when the lines were empty.9


Laura and her Ideas about Truth

Dr. Laura calls herself a "shrink", but she is not a psychiatrist or psychologist.8

She claims that she had trouble conceiving her son, Deryk, but Deryk was born within nine months of her marriage. 8

She says that they struggled when Deryk was young, because she was a stay at home
mom and her husband had lost his job. Her husband can't remember being out of work at that time and Laura was an adjunct professor at Pepperdine.8

A few weeks before Deryk left to visit his grandfather, Laura told a caller that he "wasn't blessed with grandparents".10

"I am a prophet"5. "I have never, ever said that I was a prophet! That's a total, complete lie," she tells me. ("She said it twice," reports the writer, Janet Wiscombe.)9


Footnotes

1. Johnson, Rebecca, "The Just Do-It Shrink" The New York Times Magazine, 17 Nov. 1996.

2. Minor, Emily J., "Radio's Dr. Laura Tells it like it is," Lexington Herald-Leader

3. Smith, Lynn, "Dr. Laura: Some Lessons in Morality from a Tough Talking Therapist," Good Housekeeping, March 1996.

4. Schwartz, Maryln, "Dr. Laura, it's the attitude, not the allergies" The Dallas Morning News

5. LA Times, 3/13/94

6. King, Patricia and Kendall Hamilton, "Listen up callers: No Whining Allowed. Tough Love from Moralist Laura Schlessinger," Newsweek, May 27, 1996: 75.

7. Washington Post, 7/26/95.

8. Wiscombe, Janet, "I Don't Do Therapy," L.A. Times Magazine, January 18, 1998.

9. Bennetts, Leslie, "" Vanity Fair, September, 1998--Transcript

10. "The Doctor Laura Show". 5/28/98, 2:22:27:00.


http://www.achilles.net/~guy/laura/vanity.htm
http://www.tomleykis.com/altnypost.html
http://members.aol.com/surfpanda/index.html

The Dr. Laura Article from Vanity Fair

By Leslie Bennetts

By 5:30 A.M., Laura Schlessinger is already working on her syndicated column or her latest book, lifting free weights and doing squat thrusts. Then she puffs her bouffant blond-frosted do and heads for the San Fernando Valley studio where her call-in show - the fastest-growing program in radio history - originates. She moves fast, charging past staffers who beseech her for a moment of her time. Her followers are waiting. And when she goes on the air at 11 A.M., hordes of them are already on hold, hoping for two or three minutes of her precious wisdom. "Need some help, advice, a kick in the butt?" intones the announcer. "Dr. Laura!" Although the 51-year-old Schlessinger concedes that she's not a psychotherapist and that what she's doing isn't therapy, those distinctions seem lost on the 60,000 people who call in every day, asking tremendously for the "doctor." They don't care that she got her Ph.D. in physiology (although she also earned a license in marriage, family, and child counseling). They just want her to fix their sorry lives. Schlessinger's diagnosis of what's wrong with the country is simple: "Too much freedom and too little values!" Her cure? "Preaching, teaching, and nagging." The demand seems insatiable. Since her program was nationally syndicated in 1994, her rise has been meteoric; she has close to 20 million listeners, an audience that is quickly surpassing Rush Limbaugh's and has already topped Howard Stern's. She is now heard on 450 stations in the U.S. and 35 in Canada. A year ago Schlessinger, her husband, Lew Bishop, and their partner, John Shanahan, sold her show to Jacor Communication Inc. for $71.5 million. Television beckons, although Schlessinger is skittish. Last spring, she abruptly backed out of a deal with Eyemark Entertainment (CBS's syndication arm), saying she didn't want to be associated with the company
that syndicates Stern. He retaliated on the air, according to Schlessinger, declaring that she slept her way to the top (a charge she dismisses as evidence of his moral turpitude). After all, Schlessinger has standards - and millions of disciples who expect her to uphold them. When a Dr. Laura Web site was established, 310,000 people clicked onto it at once, crashing the system. No matter; they an always buy one of her books. The first, Ten •••••• Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, was a New York Times best-seller for 26 weeks; the next, How Could You DO That?!: The Abdication of Character, Courage, and
Conscience, held on for 34 weeks. Ten •••••• Things Men Do To Mess Up Their Lives catapulted Schelessinger's total sales to more than 2.2 million. Her latest arrives this month. The Ten Commandments: What's In It For Me?, which Schlessinger co-authored with Rabbi Stewart Vogel, reflects her evolution, over the last several years, from a non-believer into a Conservative Jew and now an Orthodox Jew. She believes in religion - any religion. "I've probably sent more people back to Catholicism than the Pope," she says. But her followers aren't really seeking religion: they want a taskmaster to stiffen their spines and tell them what to do. And Dr. Laura is happy to oblige, dispensing her advice in doses that land as hard as a cane on the back. Today, Dr. Laura's sinewy little size-two body is clad in a cornflower-blue Escada blazer and matching skintight jeans cinched around her taut waist. Diamonds glitter at her ears, in the Star of David around her neck, and on her manicured fingers with their blood-red nails. Despite her diminutive size, Schlessinger is a commanding presence. A black belt in karate, she seems tense, coiled, and ready to pounce: "I'm like a panther," she says. Her callers provide ample opportunity. To a woman
whose boyfriend wanted her to have an abortion, Schlessinger snaps, "You got knocked up by a guy who wanted to kill your child?" (Furiously anti-choice, Schlessinger refers to abortion as "sucking it into the sink.") The caller had the baby anyway and moved in with the louse that wouldn't marry her. "You've really blown it badly," snarls Dr. Laura. "Get a backbone transplant here!" Then there's Valerie, who is reluctant to leave her boyfriend. "You're lying!" Dr. Laura explodes when Valerie denies she's afraid of being alone. "You're wrong! You don't want to face that it's your inadequacy!" Between callers, Dr, Laura grumbles. "I don't know why women complain about their lives; they're the architects," she says irritably. "Let's not try to find a decent man: let's wait till he turns into one!" she scoffs. "My answer to women who complain about their men is: Pick better!" She loathes weak women who choose victimhood. "I love women who volunteer," she says witheringly. "There is no oppression of women in this country. We volunteer. Nobody's going to send you to the Gulag if you don't marry somebody." Schlessinger hates feminists too, but admits she used to be one. "They nauseate and sicken me," she says. "They've destroyed the sanctity of


motherhood." But men - nearly half of her audience are pilloried, too, particularly if they've had children with women they've left. One caller divorced his wife, with whom he has a seven-year-old, a four-year-old, and 18-month-old twins, because she is manic-depressive and suicidal. Dr. Laura has no sympathy for his custody problems: "Your ••••• helped create this," she says. Although Schlessinger has become a poster girl for the Christian right ("They love me!" she exults), she doesn't completely toe the party line. She is tolerant of homosexuality, which she believes is not unusually an individual's decision. Moral choices are what interest her. Steve, another caller, is married with children but believes he is gay. Tough luck,
says Sclessinger" "You made a decision to hide, to deny, get married, and have children. You made a covenant. Now be man enough to live it!" Although Schlessinger is almost always riled up, some days she's on a real tear. "How •••••• can you be and still be able to chew your food!" she berates one listener. "Don't be so gutless!" she reproves another. Schlessinger calls one man's wife a "loose woman" and tells a 20-year-old her best friends are "drunken sluts." On other days, particularly with callers who grovel sufficiently, she can be less ferocious. "Since you're so smart, maybe you could be our judge and jury," implores Wendy. "Ohhhh - lubricate me," Dr. Laura purrs lewdly. At times she even jokes about her own sadism. When Dennis says, "I'll try to listen to your questions carefully and answer them," Dr. Laura replies grumpily, "That's no fun. Then I can't jump on you." When Lita makes it through her first question unbloodied and wants to know if the guru has time for another, Dr. Laura unexpectedly relents, because "I haven't had to yell at you yet." Pause. "I'm hoping." Often Schlessinger weighs in with a diagnosis before callers have a chance to explain the facts. Before it's established that one woman actually wronged her
sister-in-law. Dr. Laura tells her curtly to "eat dirt." Nor does she consider social context. A man whose girlfriend was date-raped wants to confront the perpetrator. "How do we even know it happened?" Dr. Laura demands. "Women accuse men unfairly!" Then she attacks the victim for not reporting the incident, which occurred more than 20 years ago, when most teenagers didn't understand that forced sex, even with a man you know, is rape. There is a similar absence of medical and legal context. Worried about paying for her children's orthodontia, a divorced mother asks whether to seek help from the grandparents. Dr. Laura never mentions that the woman is legally entitled to child support from the deadbeat dad. To her
listeners, such lapses don't matter. The more autocratic Dr. Laura is, the more they prostrate themselves. She hates it when they try to clarify matters with relevant facts. "You called for my opinion," she says, "Why would you argue with me?" And the testimonials keep coming. "Dr. Laura, you are my hero," Shaynee says abjectly. "I think you have a great program." Alison says. "It's helping the world." Linda, whose first adulterous affair was with her therapist, quavers, "You may have saved my life." A grandmother offers, "I wish I had heard you when I was bringing my children up. I've learned a lot from you morally." And in an age of moral relativity, Dr. Laura's certitude compels. Who could find fault with her message of personal responsibility? Do the right thing! Put your children first! Honor your commitments! She is like having an avenging fury, come to reveal the path to righteousness. "I am a prophet," she crowed to the Los Angeles Times early this year. After some found that grandiose, she claimed she was misquoted: "I have never, ever said that I was a prophet! That's a total, complete lie," she tells me. ("She said it twice," reports the writer, Janet Wiscombe.) But Schlessinger's fervor is indisputably evangelical, and her listeners believe her to be a paragon, a beacon of hope and rectitude in a dissolute, degraded world. She gets faxes asking her to run for president. "The country needs you!" Dr. Laura's old friends and colleagues listen to all this with mirthless amusement. "Everyone who's known her hates her - and on some level she knows it," says Marilyn Kagan, a radio host who incurred Schlessinger's enmity. "She is probably the unhappiest woman I've ever met," says Shelley Herman, a writer who has worked
with Schlessinger and been a closest friend for many years. "She doesn't appear to have a guilty conscience, even though we all know the road is littered with people. Maybe that's why she's not happy: she knows from whence she came." She's writing a book on the Ten Commandments?" asks Dr. Laura's original mentor, veteran Los Angeles radio personality Bill Ballance. He snorts derisively. "She's broken them all." Clearly, he is joking: Schlessinger is undoubtedly innocent of polytheism and idol worship. But the others seem to be up for grabs, since she insists that the commandments must be understood metaphorically
as well as literally. Dr. Laura maintains that character assassination is tantamount to murder; in that case she may have some explaining to do on Judgement Day, which she firmly believes in. On the surface Schlessinger's life appears exemplary: Lew Bishop, her adoring husband, serves as her manager, and their 12-year-old son. Deryk, is so smart and poised that she has put him on the air to answer kids' questions. She


observes the Sabboth and keeps kosher. (Actually, it's Bishop who keeps kosher; he does all the cooking.) Lew Bishop used to be Episcopalian, but Dr. Laura doesn't believe in mixed marriages, which she
calls "interfaithless marriages." So he obligingly converted to Orthodox Judaism, too. Sclessinger even has friends, although not many. "She doesn't have time for friends," says Patti Edwards, one of Schlessinger's closest friends. "But when she does become your friend, you've got a friend for life," adds Rhoda Marcovitch, a psychologist who says Schlessinger is "the most loyal person." However, before the happy family and the best-sellers and the dream house with its 30-foot ceilings, there was another Laura Schlessinger. Scratch the surface of the radio industry and the ill will toward her bursts like a festering boil;
former co-workers describe a Schlessinger her listeners can't even imagine. "You want to talk to me about Laura?" says Bill Ballance, who is often called the inventor of modern talk radio. "This ogre I created?" Schlessinger's official life story is studded with odd conflicts and critical omissions. She grew up in Brooklyn and on Long Island, the daughter of Monroe Schlessinger, a Jewish civil engineer, and his Italian war bride, Yolanda Ceccovini. Laura's hostility toward mixed relationships has primal roots; when her parents married, her father's family reacted poisonously because Yolanda wasn't Jewish. "Every member of his family cut him off and would have nothing further to do with him from 1945 on," says Ballance, who knew both Yolanda and Monty. Laura and her sister, Cyndi, were raised in a home where there seemed to be little love. "She was brought up in a quarrelsome family, so her idea of human communications is shouting, screaming, bellowing, and screeching," says Ballance. The Schlessingers eventually divorced, and Monty died of stomach cancer in 1990. Some of Laura's intimates didn't even know that she had a sister. "She always told me she was an only child," says Shelly Herman. Schlessinger has been estranged
from her sister, who is a marriage and family counselor, apparently since the 1970s. Her friends don't know why. When Ballance, who actually met Cyndi before the rift, asked Laura about it, she just said, "Oh, she's so much prettier than I am!" Laura's own attractiveness has always been an extremely sore subject. "Her daddy told her she was ugly when she was little," explains Herman. Laura, who had brown hair and big glasses back then, remembers this assessment as totally devastating. Although Schlessinger admonishes her callers to mend family rifts, she hasn't seen her own mother in 14 years. The rupture amazed her friends, who say that Laura's mother was devoted to her. "Laura is a very needy person, and her mother was instrumental in helping her function on a daily basis," explains Herman. "Her mother lived for Laura and would have done anything for her." Schlessinger claims that her mother walked out on her job as her secretary after Laura suggested she learn to type. "She just evaporated." Laura told People magazine four years ago, in an interview in which she also described her mother as "filled with negativity.....She blamed everyone for her unhappiness." But back in 1984, Schlessinger explained the breach somewhat differently: "I retired my mother from my office," she said in a letter to Ballance. These days Schlessinger refuses to talk about her family at all, insisting that gossip is against her religion. The subject of divorce sends Dr. Laura into public paroxysms of anger, but many listeners don't realize that she herself is divorced. She had no children in her brief, early marriage. "It was a mistake, and I corrected it," she says coldly. When she arrived in California in the mid-1970s, she was only separated; Ballance says he had been dating her for months before he discovered she had left a husband back East. By then Laura had succeeded in launching a new career. One day, listening to Ballance's radio program, she had called in to answer the question "Would you rather be a widow or a divorcee?" A widow, she said, because then everyone feels sorry for you. Her wit was so quick, her repartee so ready, that Ballance, who is 29 years older, was enchanted. He says he met her the next day and they went to bed that very afternoon. ("That's not true," says Laura, who insists Ballance "was just mentoring me.") Balance complains that their ensuing relationship has also been subject to Dr. Laura's penchant for revisionist history. "We went together for two goddamned solid, passionate, throbbing years, although she has now reduced that to a couple of lunches," he says sardonically. "We used to thrash around like a couple of crazed weasels. I used to call her Ku Klux, because she's a demon between the sheets. Dynamite!" Schlessinger also turned out to be dynamite on the air. In her first major appearance, she started off badly, "with a faint, quivery voice and a lot of disclaimers, like 'I really haven't had a chance to give it much thought....,'" Ballance reports. During a commercial break, he told Schlessinger she had to project more authority. "By the end, she'd practically taken over the show: 'Bill, let me handle this!'" he says, mimicking her brisk, I'm-in-charge voice. At the time, Schlessinger was working in a lab at the University of Southern California next to Lew Bishop, a tenured neuro-physiology professor and father of three. They are vague about when their relationship began; first


they insist Bishop was already divorced, but later Schlessinger concedes he had just separated. Friends have a different recollection. "Laura always used to complain about how they had to sneak around," says Ballance. Dr. Laura is now a passionate opponent of pre-marital sex: she particularly disapproves of unwed couples "shacking up." But according to Shelly Herman, "Laura lived with Lew for about nine years before she was married to him." Schlessinger blames the influence of the 1960s for such lapses. "There are things I
did that I wouldn't dream of doing now," she says. Nor was she interested in children back then: she had even undergone a tubal ligation. "I didn't want to have kids because my mission in life was to be very successful and brilliant at something," she says. But in her 30s she began to feel "a big empty space: something missing," she recalls. "I wasn't happy. I kept churning, not knowing what my problem was." On her show, Schlessinger disparages would-be parents who insist on bearing biological offspring rather than adopting needy children. But after deciding she wanted a baby, she herself underwent protracted fertility
treatments to conceive, enduring a traumatic ectopic pregnancy before getting pregnant with Deryk. Herman says that Schlessinger told her she was pregnant at her wedding, which Herman recalls as a particularly joyful because of the happy news. But Schlessinger adamantly denies that she conceived either pregnancy out of wedlock. Her son inspired her best-known slogan, "I am my kid's mom." "He is the most important thing in my life," says Schlessinger, who gave Deryk her own last name rather than her husband's. She believes fervently that mothers should care for their children rather than work outside the home. Part-time work is O.K. after the kids are in school.) She claims she stayed home for 10 years after Deryk was born, although when I ask Bishop he says his wife returned to work when Deryk was "five or six." By this time, Bishop had left U.S.C. for medical-technology sales. But he lost his job, and he and Schlessinger hit hard times. When I ask him about that period, he tears up, then turns his head away in embarrassment. "Six years ago, our house was in foreclosure," he says, staring at the floor. "We had no money. We were in terrible trouble." The family's problems were compounded when Bishop nearly died after cardiac arrest. Schlessinger took the blow badly. In the hospital, she tells me, "I was down on my knees in the hall, screaming in terror and anguish." But much of her concern seemed to be for herself. "She would say, 'What am I going to do?' It was all 'I, I, I,'" says Herman. Then Schlessinger began to suffer incapacitating panic attacks - "terror and pounding and thinking I'm going to die," she says. These included a dramatic episode moments before airtime. "She actually had a nervous breakdown right in front of all of us," marvels a former colleague. "She got in an argument with her screener, and all of a sudden she was down on the ground vibrating like a carp out of water." Schlessinger was taken out on a stretcher by paramedics. Her husband has recovered, thanks to a sextuple bypass and a defibrillator, but he and Schlessinger never talk about his heart. "It scares me too much," she says in a small voice. Schlessinger's reliance on her husband is the flip side of her aggressive displays of strength. "She's totally dependent on Lew for validation," says Herman. Tall, bearded, and bespectacled, Bishop looks like his wife's opposite, but he seems equally dependent. "Lew became the wife; Laura became the breadwinner," Herman explains. "I think Lew is so blindly devoted to her that he has completely lost his sense of self. Lew has morphed into Laura." Bishop no longer has an independent career; he and Schlessinger decided several years ago that he would manage hers instead. Deryk often went along for the ride, even when his mother worked the late shift. "You'd have to dodge him in the hallways; he was always running around the station unsupervised," reports Laurie Sanders, whose show ran from 6 to 10 P.M. at Los Angeles's KOST, while Dr. Laura took the 9-to-midnight shift at its sister station, KFI, housed in the same building. "One night I was on the air
and Deryk ran into the studio with another child and screamed and laughed at the top of his lungs. I called my program director and said, 'This has got to stop.'" Schlessinger was livid. "From that point on she ignored me," says Sanders. "When I was released from the station, allegedly because of budget cuts, she ran around overjoyed, singing, 'Ding, dong, the witch is dead!' She just reveled in the fact that I was let go." When asked about Sanders, Laura claims not to know who she is, and says she "would never rejoice in anybody else's pain." But another staffer remembers the "ding, dong" comment, too: "She said it to me."
Sanders doesn't know whether Schlessinger had anything to do with her termination, but other women have found her a formidable enemy. "Any woman she came in contact with, she would view as a threat," says Shelly Herman, adding that on-air personalities were at particular risk. "Tracey Miller, Marilyn Kagan, Barbara De Angelis, Mother Love - she systematically set out to destroy each of these women. She was the most vengeful, evil person. She had me making calls, trying to find out things about these people. Now she's against gossiping, but she was very much in that trap of finding out things about her colleagues


and using the information to undermine them. She would go to management: 'How can this person be giving advice - they're not a therapist!'" Herman sighs. "At the time, I didn't realize that Laura's doctorate was from a biological science rather than a behavioral science." Schlessinger denies having tried to undermine her rivals, but she admits that when she worked nights at KFI, she coveted the noontime slot held by Barbara De Angelis, who had a doctorate in psychology from Columbia Pacific University. De Angelis, whose call-in show was highly rated in Los Angeles, was already a best-selling author, and at first
Schlessinger cultivated her. "She called me and said she wanted to write a book. That was the last time we ever spoke." "Laura found out that Dr. De Angelis was not a doctor," says Tracey Miller, who is now at KLSX in Los Angeles. "She informed the entire building." Laurie Sanders adds, "She was always bad-mouthing Barbara. To go out and discredit someone to get what you want - is that ehical? She was always looking at it like 'This should be mine - and I will do whatever it takes to make it mine.'" Colleagues were appalled by Schlessinger's tactics. "If you're the best, earn the job - don't go digging up dirt," says one.
(Schlessinger denies asking De Angelis how to write a book, but admits she complained to KFI management about the other woman's credentials.) De Angelis ended up leaving KFI, but her problems weren't over. "The California state board is very strict about who can call themselves 'doctor,'" De Angelis explains. The board contacted me and said, 'Unless you have a clinical license you can't use "doctor'" They said they had a complaint, but they wouldn't tell me from whom. I haven't used 'doctor' since." (Schlessinger says she did not file the complaint.) Schlessinger also allegedly targeted Marilyn Kagan, a
psychoanalytic psychotherapist who inherited Dr. Laura's time slot when Schlessinger replaced De Angelis at noon. "When I first got there she was saying, 'Well, finally we have a real therapist! Marilyn really knows what she's doing,'" recalls Kagan. "She befriended me; she would call me every day. People at the radio station were saying, 'Just be careful. Watch your back.'" Kagan confided to Laura that she was undergoing fertility treatments. Then a co-worker informed her, "Laura went to your boss and told him you're very ill, that you were going through lots of things that would put you in the hospital, and that you'd be out a lot," Kagan reports. "Laura had a guy she told them they should replace me with; she's less threatened by men. I went to my boss and he said, 'Don't worry about it.'" David Hall, her former boss, is still program director at KFI, which carries Schlessinger's show. Asked about the incident, he says, "I don't remember." But from then on, Schlessinger was a declared enemy. "Everything I would say, she would put me down on the radio or challenge me," says Kagan, who now appears on KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. "She would constantly zing me and berate me on the air. She has s

Whoa! The size of this board just increased by over 60k! I really don't care one way or the other about Dr. Laura, except I would like to know why she thinks she is qualified to give people advice on their lives as if she were some sort of therapist when, IIRC, she has a degree in something else. But I do find her amusing (and some of the people who call in) so I listen occasionally.

Anyone remember that "Dr. Nora" character they had on Frasier that one time? It was a perfect parody of Dr. Laura! ven the voice sounded a bit like her! Unfortunately, the dialogue is too inappropriate to post here, but I have to say, if you missed that episode, you really need to catch a rerun before it's too late.

Heh, heh. Why didn't Al have Sam use all that
against her. I mean, Al's in 1999...so he should
have known all this stuff.

Nitpicking Dr. Laura (Part II), [Part of the VF article was cut off due to the length.]:

"She would constantly zing me and berate me on the air. She has said really horrible things about me; she slanders me right and left." Although other co-workers remember such comments, Laura denies attacking Kagan: "What a lying •••••," she says angrily. Kagan adds, "The sickest thing about Laura is how she ingratiates herself to you, with a plan: If I kick your ass, then I can stab you in the back. The minute she didn't need people anymore, she would •••• on them. She is such an evil, vicious human being. This woman is very ill; her envy is so perverse. I can't believe how she hurts people. I guess even $71.5 million doesn't heal a wounded psyche." Schlessinger attributes such accusations to envy of her success. The
problem with that explanation is that so many people disliked her before she ever became rich or famous. "Even before she was a star, she had the attitude that 'the rules don't apply to me,'" says one former colleague. Dr. Laura is not pleased that I have asked her if she is being hypocritical. "I live my values," she says, and offers one of her favorite quotes: "A hypocrite is somebody who says, 'Do as I say, not as I do.' A teacher is someone who says, 'Do as I do, not as I did.'" She admits there are "things I regret and have shame for." But she is not about to enumerate them. "With the mindset I have now, There are certain things I would not have done." she says evenly. "I am repentant; I have moved on; I see no reason to embarrass myself." Particularly now, when things are going so well. After 22 years of bouncing from one radio station to another, after all the shows when her husband and Shelly Herman had to call Dr. Laura with fake problems because nobody was calling in with real ones, she now has her own, custom-designed studio and can buy a Mercedes whenever she wants. She attributes her success to her own enlightenment. "This show parallels my personal growth: it evolved as I evolved,"she says. Petty quibbles about her own life merely serve to distract from her crusade to change the world, a task she believes she is accomplishing. In front of her new, California Mission-style house is an exclusive gated community in the San Fernando Valley, her husband has placed a sign that alludes to Schlessinger's lofty goals: ON A MISSION, it says. I am getting people to stop doing wrong and start doing right," she says. Schlessinger may not be calling herself a prophet these days, but "rabbi" will do. "Rabbi means teacher; I are one," she says. She ignores the fact that Orthodox Judaism doesn't permit women rabbis, and insists that the strictures Orthodoxy imposes on women are not sexist. "The clarity of the roles is wonderful," she says. (Several days later, I turn on the
radio and hear her ridiculing my "ignorance" for asking about the concerns of Jewish women who believe that Orthodox Judaism is sexist.) Schlessinger doesn't like it when you don't agree with her. One day I question her interpretation of an on-air exchange. Her green eyes blaze. "You missed the point again," she says. "That's the difference between a civilian and me. Listening to the pieces of the puzzle, we're not equal. Sorry; that's not arrogance, that's just a fact." Her admirers ascribe her certitude to devine providence. "I think her show is one of God's blessings," says Patti Edwards, who became a friend when she persuaded Schlessinger to be honored by Childhelp U.S.A., a charity Edwards supports. "To call her America's conscience is not an exaggeration," says Reuven Bulka, an Orthodox rabbi from Ottawa, Canada, who has become Schlessinger's latest spiritual adviser. But many mental-health professionals doubt whether her obey-me approach is truly constructive. "A good psychotherapist helps people find their own answers," says Salvatore Maddi, a professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of Southern California at Irvine. "Basically Dr. Laura is about: I'm right, everyone else is wrong. The hostility behind that is very tangible in the way she interacts with everyone. The more followers she gets, the more she's sure she's right. She needs very much to be in control." And her acolytes arc are happy to hand over the reins. "A lot of people feel overwhelmed," Maddi explains. "People want there to be simple right-and-wrong answers: 'Spank me some more, Mama, and I'll do whatever you want!'" It seems to be a surefire formula; the money is rolling in. In addition to Schlessinger's books, audiotapes, and videos, there is a magazine, a new line of gifts and collectibles, and the Dr. Laura Collection of clothing. Never shy about merchandising - she used to have Deryk read on-air commercials - she now hawks an "I am my kid's dad" tie in two styles, the conventional boardroom version and the showbiz one. She has formed her own production company and written a children's book. And Ten Commandments goes on sale September 9, she reminds her listeners. But all this activity is not about the money, she assures me. She loves to quote the Bible, and one day she tells me about the time she read the words "You shall be unto me a nation of priests." "I stopped dead," she says. "So the point is that, by virtue of what I do and how I live, I give evidence of God's presence on earth! That was the deal at Sinai: that was the job given to the Jews!" She tilts her head back and closes her eyes beautifically, as if basking in an invisible light. "I like having a job." says Dr. Laura.


We now have the exclusive story about Dr. Laura Schlessinger's ill-spent youth!

There are 12 pictures that IEG has acquired and they are hot!

When Dr. Laura wrote a book about the "Ten •••••• Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives," she probably didn't mean that there were only ten things. Especially since we now have proof that there are at least Eleven •••••• things!

These photos were taken when she was in her 20s by a prominent California radio personality that is credited with launching her career as a radio shrink - none other than Bill Ballance!

"There is something ironic about Dr. Laura and all that she preaches posed naked for a boyfriend when she was married to someone else at the time. This is an opportunity for all of those hundreds of thousands of callers to Dr. Laura to see her as she really is - literally." -- Seth Warshavsky, head of Internet Entertainment Group

DR. LAURA'S DIRTY DOZEN - 12 PHOTOS IN WHICH SHE BARES
ALL GO UP ON THE INTERNET.

SEATTLE, October 22, 1998-- A dozen fully nude photos of Dr. Laura Schlessinger taken by an ex-mentor have made their way to the Internet, revealing "My Kid's Mom" in poses that will stun her 18-million radio fans.

The photos and an accompanying news story Friday 8 a.m. PDT, on the notorious clublove Website operated by Internet Entertainment Group (IEG), the company that has gained fame for posting photos and videos of celebrities, including the "Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee: Hardcore and Uncensored" videotape.

The photos of Dr. Laura, were taken when she was in her 20s by Bill Ballance, a prominent California radio personality who is accredited with launching the career of the radio shirink.
Ballance, who will be 80 on October 27, told IEG that Dr. Laura willingly posed for the photos and insisted that they show full frontal nudity, including some extremely revealing closeups.

Schlessinger, now 51, is married to Lew Bishop, who manages her career, and the couple has a 12-year-old son. She converted to Judaism and is allied with the strict Orthodox branch of the faith, and she frequently is seen wearing a Star of David around her neck. At public
appearances, she has been known to pass out buttons reading, "Character Does Matter."

"With these photos she could become a poster girl for her own best selling book, 'Ten •••••• Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives,'" according to Seth Warshavsky, President of IEG. "Here's a case of a woman who sets herself up as a paradigm of virtue and it turns out she has had a few salacious moments in her own life."

An article in the September 1998 issue of Vanity Fair says Dr. Laura admits doing things "I regret and have shame for" and says she is "repentant: I have moved on: I see no reason to
embarass myself."

According to the article, when Ballance was told she was writing a book on the Ten Commandments, he jokingly replied: "She's broken them all." Ballance, who is credited with
inventing modern talk radio, is also quoted as saying: "You want to talk to me about Laura?
This ogre I created?"

There will be a new question to ask $70.1 million radio shrink and author, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, on her radio show tomorrow: Why did you pose naked on a bed in pigtails
for boy friend when you were married to someone else?

The chances are the caller will already have seen a good deal more of the esteemed doctor than she could ever have wished for.

For a handful of very sexy, very naked, and very attractive photographs of a much younger Schlessinger will be available for the entire world to see.

They have been acquired by young entrepreneur, Seth Warshavsky, head of Internet Entertainment Group, for his exotic hardcore sex site Club Love.

"We paid tens of thousands of dollars for these photographs and I fully expect them to be a sensation.


There are a dozen color photos showing Dr. Laura topless and in blue jeans, topless and in panties, and totally nude.

Just what the 51-year-old Dr. Laura, who dispenses advise to some of the 60,000 people who call her every day on subjects ranging from sex, rape, abortion, marriage and family,
will have to say about the photographs may never be known.

But she might want to reflect on the title of one of her books, 'The Ten •••••• Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives', and ask herself whether her nude pictures fall into
that category.

Maybe the first person she will call will be former boy friend and veteran Los Angeles radio personality Bill Ballance who now claims he jumped into bed with her the day after she called in to his radio program years ago.

She denies this.

It was Bill, a sprightly 80-year-old (but he says "my birth
certificate was lost at Valley Forge"), who was persuaded to first take the photographs to shock-jock Howard Stern - a sworn Schlessinger enemy - and then to.
He says: "Laura and I were very much a couple in bed for
over two years, although she now tells her friends that it was more like a couple of weekends. We used to thrash around under the sheets like a couple of jack rabbits. Let me tell you this girl is something else in bed. She's dynamite!"

Bill's exciting affair with the woman who became Dr. Laura was in 1975, 1976 and 1977.
Except when Bill was a decorated marine captain and combat officer fighting in World War II, he says the most action he has had was with Laura during those years. He's glad he
survived both experiences.

The photographs were taken at his Hollywood apartment, in the Palm Canyon hotel in Palm Springs, at the Grand Canyon, and at her apartment. And they were taken at her request.

Says Bill: "I knew that Laura was married but her husband was on the East Coast and she was in Los Angeles. She told me that she was planning to divorce him. I was already divorced.

"For some two and a half years we had a wonderful relationship. She was absolutely marvelous in bed, we were frenzied lovers. We did not have an exclusive arrangement
and I often suspected she was cheating on me.

"I always looked forward to the times we were together and she kept telling me she was going to divorce her husband anyway.

"On one occasion I had bought a state of the art camera. She was wandering around my apartment naked, as she often did, and admiring her very fine figure in the mirror.

"She said to me, 'God, I've got a good figure'.

"I reminded her that it would not always be like that and would eventually start sagging.
She agreed and she said, 'I'd like you to take some photographs of me the way I am now at the age of 28 so that I can look back one day and see that this is the way I once was'.

"She struck some fairly professional poses and I took the first of several photographs of her.

"Whenever I look at the photos I am now reminded of this very attractive woman who was an absolute demon in bed. She gave the All-American b--- job. I know that if I had married her I would have been dead 20 years ago, death by exhaustion!

"But since those days I have learned many things about Dr. Laura. She is an incredibly bright woman, but manipulative, conniving and lies constantly. I think I can say, looking back, that I had the best of Dr. Laura."
All with a woman who is now a passionate opponent of pre-marital sex.

Clearly, Bill is no longer a Schlessinger boy friend. He calls her 'this monster I created' and when he heard she was writing a book on the Ten Commandments he snorted, 'The Ten Commandments?' She probably doesn't know what book they came from."

Schlessinger, who lives with husband and manager Lew Bishop and their 12-year-old son Derek in a million dollar plus dream house in a gated San Fernando Valley, California, community, lives in a world which at times seems to have more personal conflicts than
many of her callers have ever dreamed of.

She berates her radio callers to mend family strife but reportedly hasn't seen her own mother in 14 years, according to a Vanity Fair article. Divorce is another of her pet subjects. Many a phone caller has wilted under her withering attacks about divorce.

Yet she is herself divorced from a brief, early, childless marriage.

"It was a mistake and I corrected it," she says.

She berates callers who jump into each others bedrooms and live together before marriage, yet reportedly she lived with second husband Lew Bishop for nine years before they wed.

But psychotherapist Marilyn Kagan told the magazine that she is an "evil, vicious human being - this woman is very ill."

She caused a stir on a visit last year to Dallas when a columnist reported that she was "demanding, turned down three luxury hotels and made special kosher food demands."

Then she complained that the limo she was being chauffeured around in "smelled", someone had worn perfume, and she suffered from allergies.

She insisted on getting out and hailing a cab. She went through three cabs before one smelled good enough for her.

A woman who attended the Jewish fund-raising event, Joyce Schiff, said: "The worst was how unpleasant and irritating she was in her speech. Before the evening was over, she had offended almost every woman in the room.

There was barely any applause, some people walked out."

Another, Myra Cohen, told the Dallas Morning News: "She was nasty, arrogant and
insulting. Her remarks were disgusting. She was putting down everyone in the audience."

For this Dr. Laura received $25,000!


Dr. Laura Nekkid on the Net

There are several frightening things you hope never to hear in life. The first might be, "It's malignant." But next up would have to be, "Nude pictures of Dr. Laura are now available for download."

Just in time for Halloween, the Internet Entertainment Group-yes, the same company that brought you video evidence of Pamela and Tommy Lee's genuine affection for one another-has dropped another bomb.

On Friday morning, IEG put up 12 nude photos of syndicated radio shrink Dr. Laura Schlessinger, 51, on its Web site. The pics, dubbed "the dirty dozen," were allegedly taken when she was in her late 20s by her former mentor Bill Ballance, 79, who is credited with launching her career.

Schlessinger promptly had her attorneys go to court, where they won a temporary restraining order barring the site from showing the photos of her. IEG vows to fight for its right to expose the moralizing radio host.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2.

Ballance tells IEG that Dr. Laura, whose radio show reaches nearly 20 million people a day, willingly posed for the shots, and even insisted they show full frontal nudity, including-prepare yourself-"extremely revealing closeups."

Dr. Laura, in a recent Vanity Fair profile, admitted that before she got
on the path to success she had done things "I regret and have shame for," but added that she is "repentant: I have moved on. I see no reason to embarrass myself."

The on-air personality, known for her holier-than-thou family values
attitude and tough-love approach that can reduce callers to tears, is married and has a 12-year-old son. She has also converted to the strict Orthodox branch of Judaism.

In the unflattering VF piece, Ballance was only too happy to dish about
his former protégé, insisting that they were lovers who fell into bed together the afternoon they met. "We used to thrash around like a couple of crazed weasels," he told the mag. Schlessinger denies this.

Dr. Laura, the author of The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life, is keeping mum about the pictures.

"She will not have anything to say about the photos because there are no photos," her rep tells the New York Post. "If there are, then they are most likely fake."

But IEG president Seth Warshavsky isn't letting the good doctor off the
hook. "With these photos she could become the poster girl for her own best-selling book Ten •••••• Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives," he says. "Here's a case of a woman who set herself up as a paradigm of virtue, and it turns out she has had a few salacious moments in her own life.… This is an opportunity for all of those hundreds of thousands of callers to Dr. Laura to see her as she really is-literally."

And, do you share any of these opinions, or are you just posting these articles to drive up the size of the board?

I agree that the "Dr. Nora" episode of Frasier was very funny. They matched Dr. Laura exactly (her past co-workers disliking her, her alienation from her mother, etc.). They only thing they didn't bring up was the nude photos thing but they probably didn't want to risk a lawsuit. Although, as a parody, it should have been OK.
Rene, I tried to make your point in the "Roberto" board although I think you phrased it better. Isn't it great that nitpickers don't have to deal with reality (i.e. there was no way for the QL producers to know that Dr. Laura would become famous or about her past coming to light)?
Yes, Mr. Fesser apparently DOES share the opinion of the articles he posted. Just check out the 1998 topic "Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls" under the Kitchen Sink.

Oh...sorry, Mike. I forgot you made the same
point.

And about that point that the QL producers couldn't have known...are you saying Quantum
Leap isn't real? Sam isn't really leaping
around in time?!!!! I feel so....fooled!

At the risk of being told to "get a life", here is more stories to nitpick Dr. Laura:

Another Embarrassment For Dr. Laura Her Grass-Roots Supporters Aren't What They Seem

By Tom Looney

Has Premiere Radio Networks and Dr. Laura Schlessinger set up a Richard Nixon-style "Enemies List" and "Dirty Tricks Committee" with the sole purpose of destroying adversaries, namely Tom Leykis?

Buried on page 11 in the letters section of the latest edition of the magazine Talkers, a fabulous behind-the-scenes industry magazine about talk radio, it is revealed that there is an organization calling itself "Friends of Dr. Laura." The purpose of this group is to basically harass radio stations that carry The Tom Leykis Show by spreading vicious lies and gossip - a big Dr. Laura no-no - and by demanding stations that carry Leykis to drop the show because of its "highly offensive material."

The Tom Leykis Show was the program that first revealed the existence of the nude Dr. Laura photos. Leykis had been suggesting for years that these nude photos existed. Bill Ballance, Dr. Laura's ex-squeeze, also granted only one interview to promote the public display of the fully nude Dr. Laura photos, and that interview was with Tom Leykis, heard across the country via the Westwood One radio network and residing in Los Angeles on 97.1 "The FM-Talk Station."

Leykis has regular Dr. Laura updates on his show, complete with the "New Attitude" bumper music. Whenever Dr. Laura has a public appearance, Leykis lets the country know precisely where the Queen of Mean will be, and he offers money to anyone who happens to snap a photo showing a friend or relative indecently exposing himself to Laura and/or her teenage son, Derek.

The fulminating "Friends of Dr. Laura" missives, sent out to stations carrying The Tom Leykis Show, threatened to "move forward with our plan to publish the names of your sponsors supporting this perversity in an advertisement in The News & Advance" should these outlets not blow up The Tom Leykis Show.

In these letters to radio stations all over the country, this "Friends of Dr. Laura" directive also included a nasty piece of fictional gossip about Leykis. "Mr. Leykis is not in a strong position to criticize the morality of others, given his own scrapes with the law," vents the letter. "We have attached verification of Mr. Leykis' record of domestic violence as well as transcripts of the programs in question."

Of course, there was nothing attached, since Tom Leykis has never been convicted of anything related to domestic violence. One program director - Gary Burns of WLNI/Madison Heights, Va. - told the organization in writing to go screw itself. Cool it with the threats, warned Burns, or he'd pull the Dr. Laura show off of his station.

Seems like Mr. Burns had Smithers do a little research as well. It was revealed by Burns in Talkers that the organization calling itself "Friends of Dr. Laura" is actually one person: Nicole Raven, the promotions manager at Premiere Radio Networks - the syndicator of the Dr. Laura program.

Raven works on the fifth floor of the Sherman Oaks office of Premiere Radio Networks. Dr. Laura also broadcasts her show from the fifth floor of the Sherman Oaks office of the Premiere Radio Networks.

Cowabunga, dude! Damned if the "Friends of Dr. Laura" isn't actually a friend of Dr. Laura. (Presuming, of course, that Nicole Raven is a friend of Dr. Laura and wasn't requisitioned to head up the Dirty Tricks Committee due to an order from the law offices of Haldeman, Erlichman & Schlessinger.)

In all fairness, Raven may have actually found herself mired in a genuine moral dilemma. If she said no to the Premiere Dirty Tricks Plumbers, she may have lost her job.

Now that Lauragate has been exposed, Raven no doubt feels like Bebe ReBozo the Clown.

Premiere Radio Networks was contacted for the purposes of this literary masterpiece. Sources at Premiere would only comment on the condition of anonymity.
"There is a cancer growing on the Premiere Radio Networks," offered one Premiere deep throat. The Lewinsky also mentioned that the late President Richard Nixon called from down under on his hell phone to encourage Dr. Laura to "hang in there," and that Nixon mentioned that he was "looking forward to meeting Dr. Laura in the future."

Talkers is available on the Internet at www.talkers.com. You can also contact the magazine the old-fashioned way by punching up (413) 567-3189.

Nice try, Doc.


http://www.latimes.com/CNS_DAYS/990805/tCB0055029.html

Thursday, August 5, 1999

Store demands apology from Dr. Laura Owner of South Coast Plaza's Beach Access wants a retraction from the radio talk show host, or his day in court.
By STACY BROWN


SOUTH COAST PLAZA -- The attorney for Beach Access surf shop in South Coast Plaza issued a warning to Laura Schlessinger Wednesday: Publicly apologize or face a prescription that includes a lawsuit claiming defamation of character, slander and trade libel.
"We're demanding a retraction because there is damage being done, and the sooner it's taken care of, the better things will be for my client," said Andrew Guilford, the attorney for Beach Access owner Tom Moore and manager Ryan Scheiber.
The controversy began about two weeks ago when the popular radio personality known by her fans as "Dr. Laura" walked into the Beach Access surf shop in South Coast Plaza.
After noticing a Big Brother skateboarding magazine, published by Hustler magazine boss Larry Flynt, and talking to Scheiber, Schlessinger left the store vowing never to return.
Schlessinger then told her radio audience, estimated at 18 million people, that the store had a porn magazine on its shelf and urged them not to shop there.
"My goal was to protect children from exposure to [pornographic] material," Schlessinger said.
However, Guilford said, Schlessinger was out of line.
"Schlessinger's stated purpose of protecting children is commendable," Guilford said. "But people like her who are provided with powerful forums have a high calling to act responsibly.
"If you have a bully pulpit, you don't have to be a bully. Dr. Laura acted like a bull in a china closet, and the china closet is the Beach Access store." Guilford said if the comments were not retracted within a "reasonable" amount of time, he would file a suit
seeking damages for defaming the store, its owner and manager and for libelous and slanderous statements.
Schlessinger's spokeswoman and the general manager of her show, Keven Bellows, said the entire episode is "ridiculous" and that the talk show host has attempted to reach Moore.
"We both have left messages for him," Bellow said. "He's having lots of fun. This is Tom Moore's 15 minutes of fame, and he's milking it for all it's worth." Shock jock Howard Stern and colleague Tom Leykis of KLSX radio last week blasted Schlessinger's comments. Stern said Schlessinger should "stop picking on the little guys," while Leykis railed at her for militant actions.
"Dr. Laura is using a nuclear weapon to kill a bug," Leykis said.
Stern and Leykis both urged listeners to patronize the store in support of Moore and Scheiber, who was confronted by Schlessinger about the magazine.

She's just a radio therapist, you really should relax.

Correction: She is a vindictive person who abuses her power (i.e. using her national show to try to destroy a small business, tellling lies about your rivals). That is just mean. I have another story where she fired a single mom from being the webmaster of her website.

Has she ever done any great personal harm to you? I mean, really, if you don't like her, don't listen to her. I think it's funny to hear people that can't figure things out for themselves call in and expect some sympathy, but I don't particularly agree with what she says. It's a diversion, nothing more.

Dr. Laura fires a single mom

Check this out:

Joyce Haggard is a hard-working single mother who knows the wrath of Dr. Laura Schlessinger all too well. She was hired to be the webmaster of Dr. Laura's official Web site, but one month into her two-year tenure, the honeymoon phase of working with the famous Dr. Laura was over. RadioDigest.com's Tomm Looney has the exclusive story.

http://www.radiodigest.com/

Webmaster Feels Dr. Laura's Wrath

By Tomm Looney

Joyce Haggard is a hard-working single mother who knows the wrath of Dr. Laura Schlessinger all too well.

Haggard was hired by Dr. Laura to work for Her Kid's Mom's Internet site in January 1996.

"When I was offered to work for Dr. Laura, I was told that Laura specifically wanted a single mom to get the work so that she would be supporting a stay-at-home mom," Haggard explained to RadioDigest.com exclusively. "That way I could stay at home with my daughter but still make a living. Laura explicitly asked for a single mother to be hired to type transcripts of her shows and log them into a database."

"Before I was hired, I met with Laura at her studio in L.A. a couple of times," Haggard recalls. "I didn't have too much interaction with her until later, when I became the webmaster of Dr. Laura's Internet site. Laura and I then had much more interaction. The webmaster duties could also be done at home, but I interacted with Laura via phone and fax on a regular basis. Most of our interaction was because she began posting questions on her Web site for her book research. Laura would have me fax all of the responses to her, and she would call me whenever she wanted a new question posted.

"Laura and I always got along very well," Haggard explains, adding, "I'm sure that's because I did whatever she wanted immediately and because I wasn't in the office with her."

After approximately one month, the honeymoon phase of working with the famous Dr. Laura was over.

"A person sent her a fax complaining about something that was posted on her Web site, and she called very upset with me for it," says Haggard. "And, just like in her radio show, I found that she wouldn't listen to what I was saying. I just had to let her rant and rave with no defense."

Ironically, even though Dr. Laura makes her living as a talk-show host, Haggard found out that faxing Dr. Laura was the preferred method of communication rather than calling her on the phone.

"I learned that if I wanted to get something through to her, I would put it on the fax cover sheet when I sent her faxes," says Haggard. "I found that she would read those and respond diplomatically. If I talked to her on the phone, she would formulate opinions before hearing the entire story. Suffice it to say, I just tried to do what I was told and stay in the background as much as possible."


Haggard said that as far as Schlessinger was concerned, the webmaster was out of sight, out of mind. Haggard didn't get invited to Laura's holiday parties and didn't get a bonus when everyone else on the Dr. Laura staff received one.

"It made me feel bad when I'd find out that everybody got a bonus but me," Haggard lamented. "Although I was an independent contractor, I was still working more than full time for her."

And "full time" doesn't begin to describe Haggard's 18-hour days.

"My duties ended up including typing the transcripts of the show, maintaining the Web site, and maintaining two separate databases," explains Haggard. "Site maintenance became a huge job because the Web site contained a forum, which was like a chat room but it was moderated. All of the messages submitted went into a holding area, where each one had to be read and approved or deleted. I was reading 200 or so e-mails a day. I finally had to recruit help, so I had a friend helping me transcribe the tapes and my brother helped screen forum messages."

"One database I maintained was the transcripts that I copied into the database and filled out all the search fields," says Haggard. "I also maintained a database that was downloaded from the Web site of all the people who signed the guest book on the site. Every now and then I was asked to do a search, usually by zip code range, of the guest book for a particular radio affiliate. I also updated information on other areas of her site, like updating her appearance schedule, putting in new letters and faxes that had been read on the air, and such."

But there was even more to Haggard's schedule.

"I was the contact for everyone needing anything on her Web site, so I received calls every day from her affiliates, advertisers, and all different people with the Premiere organization," recalls Haggard. "Screening forum messages was the biggest part of the Web site job. Between my brother and I, we updated the messages every single day, weekends and holidays included. Even Christmas Day, I was at the computer screening messages so that they could be posted in a timely manner."

"I took my job very seriously, and I felt a responsibility to Laura's fans, which benefited the company because the quicker messages were posted, the more people participated, which kept the number of hits up on the Web site," says Haggard. "That results in more potential advertising revenue, since it's based on number of hits."

Haggard was run haggard by all this work. "I never complained about the workload though," Haggard said.
"The people I had working under me never complained about it either."

The work wasn't easy, and collecting paychecks from Dr. Laura apparently wasn't an easy task for Haggard either.

"An ongoing problem I had was getting paid," Haggard moaned. "I would send in my invoices, but I would sometimes wait a month to six weeks before receiving a paycheck. Sometimes there were two or three unpaid invoices at a time they were sitting on. This became a major hardship for me, since I'm the only source of income for my household. I was paying my bills l late and incurring late charges and black marks on my credit because Dr. Laura wouldn't pay me on time. But I kept doing my work, day in and day out."

Haggard thought it would be a good idea to update the Web site, especially outdated areas that needed to be redone.

"After her show was purchased by Premiere, they started holding meetings about the Web site there, which I was actually invited to," Haggard recalls. "I did a lot of research on what exactly needed to be upgraded. I even posted a webmaster message on the site forum asking for feedback from the users on what they would like to see. This really helped form a bond between the fans and me because I valued their opinions. Besides, by then Laura had mentioned my name on the air a few times so people knew the webmaster was named Joyce."

Haggard says she then began posting webmaster messages letting people know that improvements were forthcoming.

"By then I had a great rapport with the fans as they knew that I was trying to take care of their needs," mentions Haggard. "People would request items read over the air to be posted, and I would contact Laura's office and try to track down the items. As soon as I received them, I would put them on the Web site. So people learned that I tried my best to please them, which I thought reflected the best on Laura for being so diligent with her Web site."

Haggard claimed that for all the research she did for site improvements, she never received as much as a thank you or any recognition. Haggard also noted that it seemed as though Dr. Laura hadn't been to the site and was under the impression that Schlessinger didn't even have Internet access.

"Dr. Laura didn't really see the need for the Web site," says Haggard. "She's pretty much computer illiterate, and in one meeting I attended she even asked why we needed to keep the site! She felt it was more hassle than it was worth."

Haggard and visitors to the site felt slighted one day when Dr. Laura said on the air she hadn't been to the Web site. What's worse, Schlessinger then made disparaging remarks about those who surfed the web!

"She said on the air one time that the people who visit her Web site were losers who needed to get a life because she thinks that people who spend time on the Internet should be spending time with their families instead," Haggard lamented.
"That started a lot of controversy on her site! People were really angry that Laura referred to them as losers. I forget if she used the exact term 'losers,' but her comment had the same connotation."

"She's her own worst enemy as far as Web site PR goes," added Haggard.

In February 1998, when a haggard Haggard went with her family to Colorado for some overdue rest and relaxation, she took her work with her.

"Taking my work as seriously as I did, I told Laura that I would take my laptop computer and continue to update her site while I was on vacation," Haggard recalled. "The one thing I asked Laura was if I could not fax her any book research responses during those two weeks. Updating the forum was easy because it was all done online, but I wouldn't have easy access to a printer or a fax machine. Laura was agreeable to not receiving any faxes during my vacation."

But all of the sudden, Haggard received word that some research and faxing would have to be done during her two weeks on vacation.

"It was decided that they absolutely had to have some research done for an upcoming speech Laura was giving, so it was urgent to post some questions on the Web site and have me send the responses to the office daily," recalled an aggravated Haggard. "She didn't care what we had already arranged. It was decided that this particular research had to be done during my vacation time. So instead of faxing, I was forced to take on the task of sending lengthy e-mails every day to Laura's secretary Lisa, containing all of the responses to the online questions while I was on vacation. This was in addition to screening all of the forum messages."

While relaxing, sort of, in Colorado, Haggard again was forced to work the phones to find out what was up with her paycheck, which still seemed to be having trouble finding its way to her mailbox.

"While on vacation, I was supposed to receive a paycheck. I had left my bills made out with my mother, and she was going to mail them in when my check arrived," remembers Haggard. "Once again, I didn't receive my check. This was an ongoing problem month after month. So there I was in Colorado, expecting a paycheck that hadn't been sent."

"I asked my mother to call out to Dr. Laura's office at Premiere Radio Networks, Dr. Laura's syndicator, to ask about the paycheck," continues Haggard. "They were totally rude to my mother. They told my mother I would have to wait two more weeks until the next one. When my mother said that wouldn't do, the person in Dr. Laura's office said, 'Why is it such a big deal? Is Joyce's house in foreclosure?'"

Haggard noted that the entire time she worked for Dr. Laura, she never had a formal contract.

"I just did the work, invoiced them, and got paid on an hourly basis," Haggard recollected. "At some point, Dr. Laura's assistant phoned and wanted me to give them a proposal for a flat rate for my services. I told her I could do that, but it was difficult because the workload varied month to month. But she said they really needed to have a flat rate, so we began the process of creating a flat-rate contract. I knew all she wanted was to get something that she could bid against to get rid of me. I put great detail into the contract about how much work I did, and how I updated the forum seven days a week, 365 days a year."

Haggard says while they were going back and forth trying to reach an agreeable number of hours and pay rate, Premiere started putting advertising on the Web site. Prior to the improvements, there was no advertising, but management had decided to start displaying ads to pay for the maintenance of the site.

"The ads were not done well and displayed as large banners on the screen, leaving the Web site area much smaller. Many complaints started coming in on the forum about the advertising, and I started forwarding the complaints to the staff at Premiere," Haggard told RadioDigest.com.
"The fans knew I was doing what I could."

At some point, Haggard posted a webmaster message that resulted in her termination. The content of the message? She let visitors know that she was forwarding all of their complaints to the production company.

"That Monday afternoon, Dr. Laura's office called and left a message on my recorder that the contract we had been working on had been signed and was being sent to me," Haggard remembers. "The contract also contained a clause that I had to be given 30 days notice upon termination."

It was seemingly a bluff. Haggard never received the signed contract.

"Instead, the following Wednesday morning, I got up to find a nasty fax sitting in my fax machine, letting me know that effective immediately I was being terminated," Haggard recalls. "Attached to it was my webmaster message from a couple nights prior. The fax was very terse, and it said that I had been terminated and that 'everyone' was in agreement with this decision. It said that it was obvious from my webmaster message that I no longer considered myself part of Dr. Laura's 'team.'"

"I guess that siding with Laura's fans made me an enemy to the production company," concludes Haggard. "And since I never received the contract, they didn't have to pay me for that 30-day notice period. I was paid through the prior day, and that was it. No severance pay, no nothing. Effective that day, the only single parent, stay-at-home mom to work for Dr. Laura was without an income."

"I was really upset to say the least," Haggard bemoans. "All I could think of was how was I going to pay the bills and support my daughter and myself. Being an independent contractor, I couldn't even apply for unemployment. Of course, I checked the Web site right away and they had already changed the password and locked me out."

When complaints came into Dr. Laura's Web site, Schlessinger's Moral House plumbers seemingly started a dirty tricks campaign.

"At one point, somebody in Dr. Laura's office contacted a former employer of mine and told them I was behind a hate mail campaign," Haggard charged. "That really irritated me that her office was trying to badmouth me to a prior employer, especially since I was looking for work. I happen to know it's illegal to do that since it's undermining my possible job options, but Dr. Laura obviously doesn't care about that. She just wanted to smear my name all she could within the industry."

"After a couple of weeks, I wrote Dr. Laura a long letter letting her know my side of the story," remembers Haggard. "Laura called me after receiving my fax and said she was really disturbed by some of the things I wrote about and she wanted me to come immediately to the office and talk to one of the vice presidents. She said we needed to talk about some of these things, so I assumed she would be there. I dropped everything and drove up to Sherman Oaks to meet with Kraig Kitchin, CEO of Premiere Radio Networks. He was a vice president at the time.

"Laura wasn't there, so it was just Mr. Kitchin and me," says Haggard. "He gave me 45 minutes of lip service, I'm sure to appease Laura, but nothing ever came of it. At the end of the conversation, he said he had to do some talking to other people involved, and he would get back to me within 48 hours. That was the end of June 1998, and I've never heard any more from him. I was really disappointed that he didn't even bother calling when he said he would, even to say there was nothing they could do."

"During our conversation, Kitchin acted like he knew nothing about my situation," Haggard scoffed. "But then he would slip up and say something that told me he knew exactly what had happened. He said that Laura valued me and wanted me back in some capacity. I told him I couldn't consider coming back in any capacity. I said she had made my life miserable, and if I came back I would always be wondering how long it would be before I wouldn't have my job again. Maybe I shouldn't have been so stubborn, but I really couldn't see working for her again."

"Since my termination from Dr. Laura's group, I've been doing temp work wherever I can," Haggard
grumbled. "I've really been strapped financially by the turn of events."

Suffice it to say, Haggard is available for work. She specializes in running Web sites and can be reached via e-mail at OnTheSpot1@aol.com.


No, she has never "done any great personal harm to" me. She is Dr. Yenta B*tch.

Dan,

Just a suggestion, and this is NOT a "get a life" thing... There's already a board for Dr. Laura over somewhere on the Kitchen Sink. Maybe this belongs over there.

ScottN, believe it or not, I agree with you. It should be here:

Bulletin Brash Reflections: The Kitchen Sink: 1998 Topics: 981017 - Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls

Bulletin Brash Reflections: The Kitchen Sink: 1998 Topics: 981206 - Sci-Fi Mags and Dr. Laura Cameos

By Phil Farrand on Tuesday, December 29, 1998 - 08:09 am:

More clean up!

If you are interested in continuing a discussion about Dr. Laura please take it to "Ask Not From Whom The Bell Tolls"!

However, both of these topics are closed and my request to re-open 981017 was ignored. So, since Dr. Laura was a "character" on Quantum Leap, I placed my "nitpicks" of her here. Don't worry. I am done. I don't anticipate any more LONG posts. I just wanted to spread some info on her to counter her propaganda.

Dr. Laura Forced to Publicly Apologize. Somebody must have some shark attorneys that put the fear of Jaws in Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Dr. Laura has been issuing on-air apologies to Marianne Williamson, whom she apparently slandered on July 16. Apparently, Schlessinger flippantly claimed that Williamson supported pedophilia.


http://www.radiodigest.com/los_angeles/news/1999/la_082399_looney_2.htm

Click on the below link to see some funny comics:

http://www.pjcomix.com/drlaura1.html

The Dr. Laura Pronouncement Magazine


Yes, Dr. Laura now has her own magazine. For a mere $398.98 a year, you can have your own copy delivered to your home each month. This is a quality magazine printed on the best newsprint available. How can you know what to do in your life if you don't have it?

An excerpt from the current edition appears below.

In the current issue...

"I eat, breath, and sleep with God. I'm a Jew but you never really know what the truth is for sure. That's why I had Lew carve the Star of David into my buttocks. I'm covering all the bases. Now, go take on the day."

Dr. Laura Burned By Viacom-CBS Deal

By Jason Jackson
If I may be so bold, might I suggest that you put yourself in Dr. Laura Schlessinger's shoes for a minute?

Here she is, the most popular syndicated radio host out there right now. Fifteen million people and counting listen to the good doctor every day. And although Laura hardly practices what she preaches all the time — don't forget those photographs — give her some credit. She tries her best.

For example, consider this: When Schlessinger was shopping around her idea for a syndicated television talk show with her as host, she was courted by a gaggle of major players within the industry. One of those players was Eyemark Entertainment — the syndicated television wing of CBS.

Now, most of us would leap at the chance to sign a deal with The Big Eye faster than you can say "Dick Van Dyke." But not our beloved doctor. She said no thanks, because CBS is responsible for distributing Howard Stern's radio and television shows. Laura wanted no part of the same outfit that brought Stern to the masses, and she didn't mind saying so to anyone that would listen.

So in May, she signed with Paramount instead. They are also pretty powerful folks in the whole television game, bringing us high-brow programs like "Hard Copy" and daytime talkers "Leeza" and "The Montel Williams Show." I've been to their theme parks. They’re fun.

There, it's all settled. The King of All Media is with CBS, and My Kid's Mom heads to Paramount. And everyone is happy, right?

Not quite. Earlier this week, a really big media company bought another really big media company. Viacom decided to expand its portfolio, and coughed up almost $35 billion to purchase CBS to call its own.

That's quite a portfolio that Viacom has now. Let's see. There's CBS, and there's MTV, and there's VH-1, and there's Nickelodeon, and there's Showtime …

Oh yeah. And there's Paramount.

Turns out that after all was said and done, Dr. Laura and Howard Stern just may turn up at the same company picnic anyway.

So far, there has been no official comment from Dr. Laura's compound. As it turns out, she was too busy filing a lawsuit against the owner of a surf shop to bother with little things like corporate mega-mergers. But once the smoke clears, might Schlessinger pack up and leave again? Or will she just stay put, ignoring the fact that she and Stern are now on the same organizational flow chart?

Right now, it is safe to assume that Howard Stern is smiling — and that Dr. Laura Sclessinger is steaming mad.

September 10, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by RadioDigest.com. All rights reserved.
http://www.radiodigest.com/columns/1999/091099_jackson.htm

Dr. Laura Sues Owner Of Surf Shop

By Tomm Looney

Sir Thomas More was no fan of King Richard III, and this 1999 version of Thomas Moore obviously is no fan of the Queen of Mean.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who has a reputation for filing lawsuits, has filed another one. She is now suing the owner of a small business for slander.

Thomas Moore allegedly called her a liar when he publicly denied putting a pornographic magazine in front of young customers in his Southern California surf store.

If you'll recall, in late July Dr. Laura went with her teenage son Deryk to the Beach Access surf shop in Costa Mesa, Calif.

She was outraged when she found that the store displayed the skater magazine Big Brother Skateboarder, which she claimed contained pornographic images. The Queen of Mean complained to the store manager, then repeated her outrageous claim on her show - the most-listened-to talk show in America!

By the way, Big Brother Skateboarder is published by Larry Flynt, who also publishes Hustler. Hustler is the magazine that published nude photos of Dr. Laura last spring. See where this is going?

Further, few believe that Big Brother Skateborder is a pornographic magazine. Within its pages, everybody is wearing clothes. The magazine, believe it or not, is about skateboarding.

"My guess is this is a counter suit to get (the owner of the surf shop) off her back," said somebody with inside knowledge of the battle between the shop and Laura. "Right after she spouted off on the air about the store and magazine last July, the Beach Access folks were looking for attorneys. If you look into this deeper, I bet you find out that this is a counter suit or a suit to scare them away from suing her."

Like so many Americans, Dr. Laura seems to enjoy filing lawsuits. Just ask fellow radio advice giver Dr. Toni Grant! Schlessinger and Grant have been catfighting - and lawsuiting - for years. On May 2, 1997, Laura filed a whopper lawsuit against Grant.

In 1994, she filed one against Sylmar Medical Center. Also in 1994, she filed one against Daily Planet Publishing Inc., over an apparent article in the Inland Empire Business Journal.

Even when she was poor, she was filing lawsuits. In 1982, in her leaner days when she owned a sewing business, Dr. Laura filed a lawsuit against "Pals Vacuum & Sewing." This lawsuit had that small business sitting on pins and needles for some time.

With her most recent lawsuit, Dr. Laura seemed to chant a common mantra these days. She reportedly claims that her goal is "to protect children." Dr. Laura has not only made a name for herself off the air in the lawsuit department, on the air she has made a name for herself by preaching family values and morality on her talk radio show.

Schlessinger is reportedly suing Moore for damages of more than $1 million. In published reports, Moore's lawyer calls the suit "a complete shock."

"It is not moral when you have this much power and reach and money and you drag a poor person though court like this," said Dr. Laura's former co-worker, KABC talk show host John Kobylt. John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou - of "John & Ken" show fame - both worked for years with Dr. Laura at KFI and addressed this latest lawsuit on their KABC morning show this week.

"That guy is a struggling businessman, and he's going to have to spend a fortune defending himself in court," John ranted. " Last I checked, being a bully is not moral."

Defense Fund Established To Assist Owner of Surf Shop
RadioDigest.com has learned that a defense fund has been established to help Thomas Moore pay for legal expenses that he will likely incur in his battle against radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
If you are interested in making a small contribution to the fund or would like to send a letter of support, the address is:
Beach Access Legal Defense Fund
3333 Bristol Street, No. 1064
Costa Mesa, CA 92626

September 11, 1999


Copyright © 1999 by RadioDigest.com. All rights reserved.

http://www.radiodigest.com/news/1999/nat_091199_laura_sues1.htm

Just watched the Emmys. Too bad Christine Baranski didn't win for playing "Dr. Nora." I really thought she had the character dead-on. She even used the same phrases and inflections as Dr. Laura.

Dr. Laura vs. Big Brother

It was interesting watching everyone jump all over Dr. Laura for counter-suing the surf shop owner. But it looks to me like the central issue on everyone's mind is to find out whether or not Big Brother magazine is pornographic or even offensive or not. As I recall, Dr. Laura had heard of the magazine before, but when she saw it on display at the surf shop, she did NOT immediately throw a temper tantrum. Instead, she calmly picked up the magazine and began reading the articles inside to see if what she'd heard was true or not. It was AFTER she had read the magazine for herself that she launched into her tantrum. (I didn't hear all this second-hand, by the way. I was listening to her show live back home in Florida the day she talked about it on the air.)

Dr. Laura frequently quotes from news articles and surveys on her radio show, but on numerous occasions I've heard her follow up the quote by telling her listeners NOT to just believe it because she said it, but to also go and check it out for themselves.

Up until now, I've refrained from making any comments on Big Brother magazine. Why? Because I've never seen it before. I'd never even heard of it before hearing her talk about it on the air several months ago. So, I have to wonder... out of all of the people who instantly came down on Dr. Laura like a ton of bricks, how many of you have gone out to your local bookstore, bought a copy of Big Brother magazine, sat down, and read it? And I don't mean skimming it, either. I mean READ the articles word for word, the same way you would read the latest Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele novel. I'm talking to you, MD, G, Sean, and Jim Walsh. G even accused Dr. Laura of "not knowing all the facts," even though she didn't say a word on the air or to the store owner until she had the magazine in her hands and was reading the articles for herself. I don't see how she could have collected any more facts than that!

I stated before that I have not read the magazine and thus have not formed an opinion. Will you Dr. Laura bashers be so honest? I guess we'll find out.

By the way, whenever the heck Floyd gets out of here, I'll make my way down to Borders and see if they have an issue of Big Brother for sale. I'm not sure I like the idea of putting more money in Larry Flynt's hands, but I figure in this case, it's worth it. I'll keep ya posted...

From her website:

Subject: Stealth Pornography Aimed at Our Kids: Big Brother Skateboarder
Comments
Date: 1999-09-15


Talk about this in Dr. Laura's Forum: Stealth Pornography Aimed at Our Kids

I want to talk about the issue today that's very important to me as "My Kid's Mom." And I know it's just as important to all committed and concerned parents. And the issue is the slow and steady advance that obscenity and vulgarity are making-permeating all aspects of our society.
And, one thing I have discovered is that the very nature of pornography, itself, allows it to fly under the radar screen of mainstream media.
Because broadcast television and community newspapers are bound by common decency standards (hard as that may be to believe), they are not able to show or tell us in any detail how unbelievably disgusting this stuff really is!

What I'm particularly upset about today is pornography passing as "innocent fun" aimed at our children in a magazine called Big Brother Skateboarder. Some of you have communicated your outrage about this magazine, a barely disguised effort to recruit kids who love to skateboard to the real hard core pornography published by the same publisher who brings us Big Brother Skateboarder-none other than Larry Flynt.

In the spring, Guy Kemp, a talk show host on National Public Radio, talked about how horrendous this so-called "kids magazine" was. He reported that the editor, Dave Carney, boasted about the fact that they were duping parents into thinking this was an innocent sports magazine.
Kemp said to him, "Now, be honest, is the cover marketed so that parents won't know what's inside the magazine? " Carney said, "Yes, definitely, it's definitely what we're doing. The kids that are reading our magazine are 14 and 15, even as young as 12, and they're gonna learn this stuff anyway. I don't care what people think" Kemp's interview with Carney was printed in the American Family Journal and carried in World Net Daily, which is where I saw it, and took up the subject of the publication on air May 13.

Imagine my surprise when, a few months later, I actually saw a copy of the magazine. I mentioned this experience on the air--about how shocked I was as a parent, shopping with my son, to see that magazine in such a nice local store in a very upscale shopping center.

But that experience demonstrated for me how deeply this stealth pornography has permeated our society-right into the heart of family-oriented, politically conservative Orange County, California!

In bringing this to the attention of the public, I have been discounted as a bully who is picking on a small business owner and dismissed as a hypocrite who's trying to stir up controversy to get ratings. These accusations have come primarily from those who have never even bothered to look at the magazine!

Most egregiously, I have also been branded a liar for saying that the magazine is pornographic. However, I would like to play for you now a recording of Larry Flynt, himself, responding to an allegation that Big Brother Skateboarder is full of four-letter words, nudity and pictures depicting sex. Far from denying it, he says, quote " I think that's largely the appeal of this magazine. That's why it's so popular. I can't see sugar coating what life is all about." So there you have it. My interpretation of what Mr. Flynt said is that life is all about crudeness and vulgarity.

Last May, before I described the contents of the so-called "Kid's Issue" of Big Brother Skateboarder-aimed at eight-year-olds, I told you to get your own children out of hearing range. And I ask you to do the same today, because, unlike newspapers and television reporters, I am going to attempt to tell you what is in this magazine, hopefully, in a way that won't get me fined by the Federal Communications Commission.

The nature of pornography is in the details and in the celebration, even veneration, of the kind of behavior most of us can't even conceive of.
Your squeamishness lets pornography proliferate. Others' reluctance to appear prudish or unhip, allows Big Brother Skateboarder magazine to circulate in stores where your children buy their clothes. Even flipping through the pages, much less reading the articles and seeing the pictures, trains our children to be consumers of obscenity and filth and educates them to believe that pornography is acceptable and quote, "no big deal".

Big Brother Skateboarder is a magazine whose idea of humor is to suggest that the way to respond to a girl who says something you don't like is to tie her up, assault her sexually, and punch her in the face a couple of times.

Actually, that's pretty mild compared to some of the magazine's other content. Among other things, recent issues have contained:

Articles that ask young boys to think about having sex with their mothers or to compare their genitals to their fathers'.
Articles that encourage young boys to masturbate.
Articles that suggest to young girls that a cool way to "steal the show" at a party is to take off their clothes and have sex with whomever happens to be around, even with animals.
Photos of young women simulating performing oral sex on young men and having objects inserted into their backsides.

What's most insidious about this garbage is how cleverly it's presented.
As a colleague of mine put it, Big Brother Skateboarder is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It seems deliberately designed to fool casual browsers into thinking it's no different from any other skateboarding magazine. A parent who idly flips through it probably won't notice anything but photos of skateboarders and articles about skateboarding. It's only when you sit down and actually read it cover to cover -- which is what kids do -- that you realize its true nature.

Families must educate themselves about the pornography that surrounds our kids. Then we must mobilize to fight it every way we can. I urge you to join me.

Yes I've seen the magazine, and despite some salty language, I do not consider it pornographic; it's a magazine about skateboarding and the skateboarding lifestyle. Now, a couple of questions: 1) how do you define "pornographic," or "offensive"(I go by the standard Supreme Court definition); and what is YOUR source on the good doctor's actions. My sources are inside industry people who I trust. Regardless of what it is or isn't, apparently Dr. Laura doesn't understand the first amendment any better than she understands the severe limitations of internet filtering -- this based on her own limited statements. I fault her on that point. The facts on this matter are, as you point out, not yet obvious. On the suit itself, proving "damages" of $1 million dollars is quite difficult, as this tale does not seem to explain what the damages are. It all sounds mighty contrived to me. Even Dr. Laura is not -that- hysterical! A pre-emptive counter-suit is a false concept. One can't counter-sue until one has been sued. You have made a very minor point, Yes she did read the contents of the magazines very carefully - Big Deal!! She still decided to defame this guy publicly, without any instant rebuttal from Mr. Moore to refute or counter her claims. This whole episode is the epitome of a bully and exhibits the hallmark of a true scoundrel. Any rational person who has a complaint about a particular item(s) would calmly go to the owner/manager and discuss that with him/her. Although I am not privy to this facet of the incident, I am guessing that she did not. That is where "I" would get my "facts" -direct from the source. Not from a rather innocuous non-pornographic magazine. You mean to tell me Vince that one 'non- pornographic' magazine sitting in the middle a skate shop in a small town somewhere in California is going to bring down Western Civilization as we know it? (Whattya smoking there kid and do they have any left?) But that's how Dr. Laura acts (all of the time) and behaves. It is certainly different to complain about a small local business on national radio versus a large public entity, whether one feels the complaint is right or wrong. The question that I have, is who instigated the lawsuits -- Dr. B*tch or her lawyers. I have known many people who had no interest in suing anyone but their lawyers went ahead for reasons like this pre-emption of a damages suit. Since I doubt that many on the left coast take her seriously [grin], and fewer of them frequent this business or can even recall the comments, it would seem that it would have been difficult for the businessowner to have sued anyway, since related damages would have been hard to prove. What I find stranger, is that the complaint is not about the business, but what reading matter was left out. Now tell me -- how many kids read? There must have been lots of "pornographic" pictures in that mag. I can't wait for Vince's library report. This is probably much ado about nothin...

Judge Throws Out Dr. Laura's Lawsuit

http://www.radiodigest.com/news/1999/nat_120999_laura_lawsuit.htm


By Tomm Looney

RadioDigest.com has learned that a judge Wednesday dismissed the $1 million slander suit brought in September by Dr. Laura against a surf shop owner she accused of calling her a liar.

Dr. Laura, known to her detractors as "The Queen of Mean," had said on the air that Tom Moore, the owner of Beach Access, questioned her morality when he publicly denied her on-air rants and allegations that he was providing pornographic materials to kids who shopped in his store in Costa Mesa.

While Schlessinger's suit was deemed to be frivolous, the judge did leave in place a defamation suit Moore filed against Dr. Laura.

This whole mess started last summer when Dr. Laura and her son Deryk were shopping at Beach Access, and Schlessinger noticed that a skateboarding magazine on the stands there was published by Larry Flynt - the same Larry Flynt that published Dr. Laura's nude photos in Hustler.

All hell broke loose after that. Dr. Laura called Moore a smut peddler on her show, heard on over 400 stations nationwide. Moore sued DL, and she countered with this suit.

December 9, 1999

Here is another link:

http://www.bigbroskateboarding.com/


No info on the whole Dr. Laura/Big Brother controversy on this site, however.

Here are a couple of relevant articles from World Net Daily:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990406_xex_sex_and_mode.shtml

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990319_xex_sex_and_mode.shtml

Big Brother Thanks Dr. Laura

In the current issue of Big Brother Skateboarder magazine, the cover says: "Bigger than Ever Thanks Dr. Laura".
While at Borders, I looked through it and it also had a paragraph about the Dr. Laura/Big Brother controversy. I didn't buy it as I am reluctant to put any money into Larry Flynt's hands. I signed up for a subscription on some magazine website. I figured I would get the first FREE issue and then cancel. However, I have yet to receive it.
Here is an interesting article:

"Surf Shop Rocked by Radio Waves"
by Andre Mouchard
The Orange County Register

"Larry Flynt was on the radio the other day, offering support for Tom and Leslie Moore.
The Moores cringed.
They don't know Flynt, and they say they can't dislike somebody they're never met. Still, they aren't thrilled by the connection.
'I don't have anything against him, but to have people think we're in the same ... world, is misleading,' Tom Moore says.
'When this all started, I had no idea it would be such a life-altering experience.'
Neither did Ryan Scheiber, who was managing Beach Access the day Schlessinger walked in while shopping with her son and husband.
Schlessinger named Scheiber on the air. She described the 22-year-old, who wears braces and two earrings, as a 'new-wave looking dude.'
She also said he 'sneered' when she asked him about Big Brother and its contents.
'He just gloated, basically, in the fact that they knew it, they ordered it, they wanted it,' Schlessinger said of Scheiber during her show of July 26.
'And he starts flipping through (the magazine) with a big smile on his face and says, 'Nobody else has brought this up,' ... He laughed in my face,' she added on air.
Scheiber denies the radio version of events, saying among other things, that the magazine had been sent to the store unsolicted, and that he wasn't particularly familar with its contents. He also says he took the magazine out of the store right after Schlessinger left, and was in the process of removing it when she was still in the store, talking to him. He says she never asked him to remove the magazine.
'She never gave me a chance,' he says.
The magazine has not been in the store since.
Schlessinger's spokesman, Mayer, says the Los Angeles-based radio host stands by her story, adding, 'It boils down to a he-said, she-said situation.'"

In The Blair Witch Project, an unseen witch hunts and kills three hitchhikers lost in the woods. In this real-life The Dr. Laura ••••• Project, the ••••• tries to destroy a small business for not immediately obeying her commands.

I close with this tidbit:

Suits In The Hall. A caboodle of lawyers were gathered outside of Kraig Kitchen's office at Premiere Radio Networks recently, trying to explain to KK, who rules over the Premiere empire, and Dr. Laura the truth, consequences, and differences between libeling a public person on the air and a slandering a private person on the air.

http://www.radiodigest.com/los_angeles/news/1999/la_112999_looney_2.htm

Dan (ahem) you're welcome to post this much stuff to the board about Dr. Laura, but please delete all NC-17 stuff from it. I have to heavily edit your posts beacuse of this. Sorry.

Moderator A. Sinclaire, my apologies (really). Looking over this board, I think I may have gone overboard. Since Dr. Laura could only be considered, at best, a minor "character" on QL, I think I should email a request to have The Kitchen Sink: 1998 Topics: 981017 - Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls topic reopened. I don't anticipate any more looong posts about Dr. L from me. However (if I do), the Kitchen Sink is probably a more appropriate board for it. If 98017 is reopened, go ahead and close this board. I seem to be the only one who is interested in this topic.

Before this board gets CLOSED, let me answer the post from Vince. I finally was able to get a free copy of Big Brother Skateboarding magazine. I agree with Jim Walsh. The issue I read (yes, cover to cover) was definitely not "porno". Crude? Yes. Sophomoric? Yes. Silly? Yes. Dull and boring? Oh, YES.

Does anyone believe Dr. Laura actually sat in a surf shop and read a magazine from cover to cover? I mean, how long was she in there? Does she have that much time to waste?

Back to QL, maybe Sam said something (in a scene we didn't see since we didn't see the whole show) on the "Roberto" show that changed history and led Dr. Laura to become a national talk radio success. If so, the surf shop owner should sue the government and the QL Project too.