On Nov 17, 4:25 pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 17, 8:20 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

Given the history of the thread, and the ongoing flame war, I do not
hold out a lot of hope for a civil discussion of the topic you prefer.
Just the same I offer this much in support of the idea.

Rev. Walker, while I have occasionally defended myself here against
Parr's smears, I hope you have noticed that I have been responding to
most of your historical queries with relevant and substantive
information. I much prefer such exchanges to "flame wars," and am
quite happy to engage in such a dialogue with you.

Taylor Kingston

Mr. Kingston,

As I have said before, I believe that all of the published authors in
this discussion know more about the Keres-Botvinnik controversy than I
do. On this topic I am happy to accept my role as a member of the
various author's audiences. So as a 'fan' let me pose a few questions...

1) Do any of you consider the topic played out? Or is there more to be
considered?

2) Are any of you considering or engaged in new work(s) based on or
related to it?

3) How about the counter proposal of Russian GMs about the materialistic
influence of the West on chess? It seems it would require a different
approach. I doubt that the FBI has much on chess players with the
exception of Fischer. How could an author tackle this topic?

warning, tangent with speculation ahead...

I suspect that if an author tried to seriously investigate the impact of
American culture on chess they would walk a precarious path through a
mine field between the Left and the Right. To my mind, from a American
perspective, scholastic chess has made great strides in proving its
worth to the mental development of young minds. I also think that chess
makes an excellent hobby.

Beyond that -- what segments of American chess have proven worth that a
Yankee capitalist would recognize? What is the value of a high quality
grandmaster game on Wall Street? What is the rationale for professional
chess in a capitalist society? What is the value of a USCF bureaucrat?

Well, feel free to tune out the previous two paragraphs if you must, but
I do wonder about these things, and invite comments -- in another thread
if need be.

Not a bad batch of questions, Rev. (I hope you don't mind that
informality -- we rgc regulars are on mostly a first-name basis here,
even those antithetical to each other.) I may have a few answers. I
will transfer your query to another thread, a new one, when I've had
time to write them down.