On Apr 19, 4:37 pm, "David Kane" wrote:

It's hard to imagine anyone so dense as to believe
that scholastic members would actually want to
read a column by Evans.

What a silly comment! Scholastic players will
hardly be able to tell the difference between a
column by GM Evans and one by any other
random GM, for the content is focused upon
basic chess, not politics or any of the other
areas in which GM Evans frequently stumbles.
(Please tell me if I'm wrong, and his kiddie
column is filled with attacks on Botvinnik, etc.)

You're not. But if your definition of a good scholastic
ariticle is the absence of political ranting and raving,
you are part of the problem.

Your ad hom. tendency is duly noted.

This leads to the explanation
that the column was continued for the Evans' own
benefit.

No, it doesn't. If you would learn to think, you
would be able to see that if the column was in
fact "continued", as you say, then all that means
is that the editors were either not redoing the
children's mag. at that time, or else they saw no
reason to replace GM Evans column, as it was
not flawed in the same way or to the same extent
as his political ranting column in CL. There may
also be a difference in supply/demand of authors
in the two different mags. I seriously doubt that
kids were writing in complaining about GM Evans,
the way adults would do.

His column has not always been in
CL for Kids.

Like I said, I don't read the kiddie publication.
What I write is based on such things as *your*
claim that the column has been "continued"
(a direct quote of you) and many comments
by such writers as Larry Parr, who through a
hissy fit when, as he claimed, GM Evans was
dropped or "fired" (not my choice of word).


It was not in Aug 2006 but
has appeared in each CL for Kids since
Oct 2006. Compare to the chronology
for his CL column, and it appears to me
that the USCF's motivation for putting
his column in CL for Kids was to keep
Evans happy

That's silly. If the editor wanted to keep GM
Evans happy, he would never have "fired" him
in the first place! Clearly, anything along the
lines of what you are suggesting would have
been motivated, not by any desire to make LE
happy, but to get the Evans "cult" to cease
fire. This is precisely the caving I talked about
before.


after his column was
removed from CL (That it demonstrates
utter contempt for scholastic chess
probably doesn't trouble the USCF insider
gang in the least)

Perhaps they are deluded into equating having
a FIDE GM title with being an instructive writer.
This would also explain why they gave similar jobs
to some of the worthless younger GMs in CL.


I was just pointing out that his QA column has been
restored - and is so uninteresting that the readers
apparently aren't even sending in questions.

This may or may not be GM Evans' fault. It is quite
possible that children simply aren't inclined to write
letters anymore. Send emails, yes. Carry cell phones,
yes. Play video games, yes. But write with pen and
paper? So five minutes ago... .

Email questions are accepted. You are perhaps correct
that it would be hard to do well, but certainly none
could do worse. And I am not aware of any laws
requiring columns in the Q&A format.

Well, it seems to be a tradition of sorts for big
magazines like CL to hand out columns to big
names with big titles, regardless of merit. In order
for this to change, it would take a tsunami in terms
of intellectual thinking, a switchover from fame-
ocracy to meritocracy. It may well never happen.

One answer (well, sort of) is to accept the status
quo and search elsewhere for quality chess writing.
Another option is to get inside the USCF, and blow
it up, so to speak. This may be what Sam Sloan
has in mind.

-- help bot