"Nick" wrote in message
ups.com...
Steven B Dowd (aka ) wrote:
Nick wrote:

Steven B Dowd has snipped nearly
the complete context of my post.

Recently, Steven B Dowd has evidently made it
clear enough that he has no respect whatsoever
for Zsuzsa Polgar 'as a person'.

"Any respect I had for her (Zsuzsa Polgar) as a person
is out the window; subventing (sic) the democratic process
is not exactly something we should encourage."
--Steven B Dowd (1 August 2006, writing as
' in RGCP)

I regret that my earlier quotation of Steven B Dowd's
statement had a typing error that resulted in the
accidental omission of the word 'something'.

That is a true statement. I cannot have respect for
individuals who advocate subventing the democratic
process.

*Again* Steven B Dowd has used the verb 'subventing'
(sic) rather than 'subverting', so I shall assume that he
has used it intentionally rather than as the consequence
of a typing error.

According to Dictionary.com, to subvent
means 'to guarantee financial support of'.

SUBVENT: also means in an American dictionary, the Government coming to the
aid of.

Essentially you are correct, and he intends to write subvert. If he had used
SUBVENE there may have been a better sense, since it can have the meaning of
coming to the aid of, as preventive measure, as in the sense of to cause to
have relief.

It seems though he confused the transitive subvert with the intransitive
subvene.

So, assuming that Steven B Dowd knew the meaning
of his verb 'subventing', Steven B Dowd's statement
(above) means: "I cannot have respect for individuals
who advocate (guaranteeing financial support of)
the democratic process". Does that make any sense?

Or would it make more sense to infer that
Steven B Dowd was ignorant of the meaning of
'subventing' and confused it with 'subverting'?

One is a much more 'clever' word than the other, and therefore...

Sam won, whether she likes it or not.
Her blog is one big whine over Sloan winning and how
we have to make sure he doesn't make it into office.

I did *not* write any comment about Zsuzsa
Polgar's criticisms of Sam Sloan.

Anyone interested can read Susan Polgar's blog
and decide to what extent it's fair and accurate for
Steven B Dowd to describe it as 'one big whine over
(Sam) Sloan winning...'

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/

While I haven't made any personal comment on this issue, it is not a simple
one, and I hope people will comment on it. 2 things are very certain - that
5 major sponsors for chess have already turned down any current
'opportunities' in Chicago, precisely because Sam Sloan is on board.

The second thing to note is that this is pretty much the same as any other
year.

What I hope any continuation of this discussion would invoke is the sense of
the stalking-horse [Sloan] being now sacrificed as the scapegoat for lack of
financial investment in chess.


While I snipped the rest of this interaction, it seemed to rest mostly on
the understanding of the two writers - what will have any long term effect
will be to differentiate what might be objectionable about Sloan from what
has been long-term objectionable about USCF.

Otherwise we will have 12 months of 'personality' discussion which will
resolve nothing at all to the benefit of the future. When I wrote USCF about
standards it was way before the election, and they did nothing. No one here
did anything either, and people wrote that 'they just didn't understand' why
a basis of ethical behavior was even necessary, and when it was pushed up
the nose of the major whiners about Sloan, they were unable to make a
contribution about everyone.

The major absence of comment was for genuine concern about our children.

Phil Innes