Interesting list of the items found in Sherzer's Hotel Room.

One of the notebooks was supposedly written by Scherzer in
"Hungarian" [sic]

(the language is known as Magyar)

The black Doctor's kit bag is a nice touch...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

News
Article from the Mobile Register

Prosecution rests in juvenile sex case against doctor

Closing arguments could be made Monday afternoon


http://www.al.com/news/mobileregiste...9391245911.xml


Among the items found in the hotel room and introduced as evidence
Friday:

A black bag similar to an old-fashioned doctor's kit, containing
tweezers, a stethoscope, a statuette of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek
"father of medicine," and two sex toys -- "tools for degrading and
humiliating this ninth-grader," Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Murphy
called them in her opening statement.

Stabler acknowledged that while playing the part of the girl, he
broached the idea of Sherzer buying the sex toys for the hypothetical
encounter.

Several bottles of liquor and two shot glasses, as well as two books
of cocktail recipes.

At least two dozen unopened condom packets.

Three bottles of Viagra with the prescription in Sherzer's name.

Several notebooks containing meticulous entries on moving from
Baltimore to Shreveport by way of Miami and Mobile. One notebook
contained lists of goals, written in Hungarian, that showed the
writer's desires to become a doctor, be responsible, have a wife and
family, socialize well and have sex with "lots of pretty girls," an
FBI linguist testified.

Boxes of books, including philosophy, poetry, Harper Lee's "To Kill a
Mockingbird," works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the playwright Henry
Miller, chess manuals and medical journals. Prosecutors highlighted
several other titles like "Secrets of Seduction," "How to Be the Best
Lover a Girl Ever Had," "A Guide to Picking up Girls," a psychology
treatise subtitled "How We Change After We Lose Our Dads" and a copy
of "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel about a man's sexual
fascination with a 12-year-old girl.

(Isidor Gunsberg) wrote in message . com...
Interesting list of the items found in Sherzer's Hotel Room.

One of the notebooks was supposedly written by Scherzer in
"Hungarian" [sic]

(the language is known as Magyar)

This was by no means a howler: 'Hungarian' and 'Magyar' are both
acceptable names of the language in English, and the former is more
commonly used by far.



The black Doctor's kit bag is a nice touch...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

News
Article from the Mobile Register

Prosecution rests in juvenile sex case against doctor

Closing arguments could be made Monday afternoon


http://www.al.com/news/mobileregiste...9391245911.xml


Among the items found in the hotel room and introduced as evidence
Friday:

A black bag similar to an old-fashioned doctor's kit, containing
tweezers, a stethoscope, a statuette of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek
"father of medicine," and two sex toys -- "tools for degrading and
humiliating this ninth-grader," Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Murphy
called them in her opening statement.

Stabler acknowledged that while playing the part of the girl, he
broached the idea of Sherzer buying the sex toys for the hypothetical
encounter.

Several bottles of liquor and two shot glasses, as well as two books
of cocktail recipes.

At least two dozen unopened condom packets.

Three bottles of Viagra with the prescription in Sherzer's name.

Several notebooks containing meticulous entries on moving from
Baltimore to Shreveport by way of Miami and Mobile. One notebook
contained lists of goals, written in Hungarian, that showed the
writer's desires to become a doctor, be responsible, have a wife and
family, socialize well and have sex with "lots of pretty girls," an
FBI linguist testified.

Boxes of books, including philosophy, poetry, Harper Lee's "To Kill a
Mockingbird," works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the playwright Henry
Miller, chess manuals and medical journals. Prosecutors highlighted
several other titles like "Secrets of Seduction," "How to Be the Best
Lover a Girl Ever Had," "A Guide to Picking up Girls," a psychology
treatise subtitled "How We Change After We Lose Our Dads" and a copy
of "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel about a man's sexual
fascination with a 12-year-old girl.

(Isidor Gunsberg) writes:
One of the notebooks was supposedly written by Scherzer in
"Hungarian" [sic]

(the language is known as Magyar)

Hello??? Among English speakers, that language is known as Hungarian.
Just like among English speakers, the language they speak in France is
known as "French". It's not known as "Francais".

(Larry Tapper) wrote in message . com...
'Magyar' is *a* correct word for the language, but the editors of the
Mobile paper made the right choice: it would have been pretentious
(and also obscure to many readers) to use 'Magyar' instead of 'Hungarian'.

Have you heard the anecdote about the American tourist who checked his
bilingual 'English - Swiss language' dictionary and found out that he was
really visiting Helvetia? :-)

--Nick

NEW YORK TIMES 1913

By Larry Parr

While pondering weak and weary over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore, I nodded nearly napping. So I took a break and looked at some
old NY newspapers on microfilm, coming across this interesting story.

DURANT SUSPENDED, ARRESTED

By R. Bauer

NEW YORK, Dec. 25, 1913 -- New York City teacher Will Durant, 28, has
been suspended from his position at a local school here and arrested for
seeking sex with Ada Kaufman, 15.

Durant has been charged on a 227-point indictment by federal
prosecutors for writing letters to Miss Kaufman with the intent of outraging
modesty, corrupting morals, and seeking intimate contact.

Federal prosecutors say that Durant's references to Boccaccio and
Electra before Miss Kaufman was replaced by a federal undercover agent in their
correspondence suggests that he was attempting to entice the girl into an
"inappropriate" relationship.

Under federal law "inappropriate" relationships carry a mandatory
sentence of 20 years in prison, followed by employment disqualification for a
further 15 years.

In a written statement Durant admits that his intentions went beyond
wishing to read books with Miss Kaufman.

Federal agents entered the case after learning that Mr. Durant had
taken Miss Kaufman across state lines from New York City to Newark, New Jersey,
for dinner on the evening of December 24.

THE HOLIER-THAN-THOU CROWD

By Larry Parr

"I pray your children are seduced and raped by a 50 year old
man over the internet .... " -- Drahmiel (to Parr Sept. 24, 2003)

They do rage, don't they. Those, holier-than-thou, who would
transmogrify thoughts into crimes.

My view is that the federal government has no business concerning
itself with anything other than crimes that occur -- and even then, crimes that
are clearly federal in nature and crimes with victims.

Thank heavens that Drahmiel or Randy Bauer weren't around in 1913 when
a 28 year old school teacher named Will Durant was sparking a 14 or 15 year old
student of his. The Durants' History of Civilization would never have gotten
written. (Mind you, one of the volumes on the Middle Ages might better have
gone unwritten, but their picture of Ancient Greece is alive on the page!)

One somehow figures that Will had his hands where an older man should
not be placing them on a younger girl, given the morays of our temporays.
Yeah!

Americans are heading into the great experiment of creating, on the
one hand, Robespierre's Reign of Virtue in private lives even as they, on the
other hand, support an ever more licentious and vacuous public culture.
Federal and local bureaucrats have as their first goal to open up the home by
getting their foot across the threshold and as their second goal, to macerate
what people permit inside their minds. Not only must every word be weighed,
every action examined beforehand, but the bureaucrats want to make sure that
even thoughts are pruned accordingly.

Alex Sherzer committed no crime. He had some dirty thoughts and
probably hoped to put them into action. That's all.

My view is that the federal government has no business concerning
itself with anything other than crimes that occur -- and even then, crimes
that
are clearly federal in nature and crimes with victims.

Well, I will say this AGAIN. If Mr. Sherzer had cut off all contact as soon as
the emails became sexual in nature, he wouldn't be in the situation he's in now
would he? If Mr. Sherzer hadn't traveled to Alabama with the INTENT of acting
out those email correspondances with WHAT HE THOUGHT was a FIFTEEN year old
girl, a GIRL, he wouldn't be in the situation he's in now would he? How come
nobody who is sympathetic to Mr. Sherzer has answered these questions?

Alex Sherzer committed no crime. He had some dirty thoughts and
probably hoped to put them into action. That's all.

I'd also like to know if you'd feel safe leaving Mr. Sherzer alone and
unsupervised with YOUR fifteen year old daughter, if in fact you have one?
If Mr. Sherzer would have acted like the SUPPOSEDLY intelligent man he is, he
would have simply discontinued the emailing once the emails became sexual.
ANYONE with even the TINIEST bit of COMMON SENSE would have cut that sort of
correspondance off IMMEDIATELY once it turned sexual. Slice it up any way you
want to, the fact remains that he DID NOT cut off communication once the
communication turned sexual. Another fact is that he was so enthused by this
communication that he traveled with the INTENT of having sex with a FIFTEEN
YEAR OLD GIRL. So please SPARE me your sympathy for this man. I'd like to know
how YOU would have felt had it been YOUR fifteen year old daughter. How
sympathetic would you be then?

(Parrthenon) wrote in message ...
THE HOLIER-THAN-THOU CROWD
By Larry Parr

"I pray your children are seduced and raped by a 50 year old man over the
internet .... " -- Drahmiel (to Parr Sept. 24, 2003)

Mr. Parr:

In the thread, "Sherzer Trial" (19 September 2003), drahmiel wrote:
"...I'm an atheist." So it's your call.

They do rage, don't they. Those, holier-than-thou, who would transmogrify
thoughts into crimes.

Was Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) really 'holier-than-thou'? :-)

My view is that the federal government has no business concerning itself
with anything other than crimes that occur -- and even then, crimes that are
clearly federal in nature and crimes with victims.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) might well have concurred.

Thank heavens that Drahmiel or Randy Bauer weren't around in 1913 when a
28 year old school teacher named Will Durant was sparking a 14 or 15 year old
student of his. The Durants' History of Civilization would never have gotten
written. (Mind you, one of the volumes on the Middle Ages might better have
gone unwritten, but their picture of Ancient Greece is alive on the page!)

"Never have gotten written"? Could Will Durant not have married a slightly
older female literary collaborator? :-)

One somehow figures that Will had his hands where an older man should not be
placing them on a younger girl, given the morays of our temporays. Yeah!

Perhaps you should read "A Dual Autobiography" by Will and Ariel Durant.

Americans are heading into the great experiment of creating, on the one hand,
Robespierre's Reign of Virtue in private lives even as they, on the other
hand, support an ever more licentious and vacuous public culture. Federal
and local bureaucrats have as their first goal to open up the home by getting
their foot across the threshold and as their second goal, to macerate what
people permit inside their minds. Not only must every word be weighed, every
action examined beforehand, but the bureaucrats want to make sure that even
thoughts are pruned accordingly.

American minds being "pruned accordingly"? Surely not by the "National Razor"
(the guillotine)? So where's Madame Defarge? :-)

'Mr. Square regarded all virtue as matter of theory only.'
--Henry Fielding (Tom Jones)

--Nick

LYSENKO AND THE DURANTS

By Larry Parr

Was Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) really 'holier-than-thou'? :-)
--nickbourbaki

Right, Trofim Lysenko was not holier than thou, though he may have
started out that way.

Zhores Medvedev wrote about Lysenko many years back, and my recollection,
which I do not insist upon, is that Lysenko began as a true believer who ended
up a bureaucrat protecting his intellectual turf.

Indeed, I have not read the Durants' Dual Autobiography. Is Mr.
Bourbaki suggesting they were chaste before and, perhaps, after marriage?
Such would not surprise me in the least.

America's National Razor will be nothing so clean-cut as the French
National Razor, though the needles for the fatal injections will be sharp.

(Parrthenon) wrote in message ...
Indeed, I have not read the Durants' Dual Autobiography.
Is Mr. Bourbaki suggesting they were chaste before and, perhaps,
after marriage? Such would not surprise me in the least.

William James Durant was born on 5 November 1885; Chaya ('Ida' in English)
Kaufman was born on 10 May 1898. They were married on 31 October 1913,
when Mr. Will Durant was not quite 28 years old, and Mrs. Ariel Durant was
15 years old (and still a virgin).

Here are some excerpts from their book, 'A Dual Autobiography' (1977):

Ariel Durant wrote:

"I found him preparing his lecture. I broke in upon him with outlandish
suddenness: 'Would you live in free love?' He blushed; a hurried word from
him might lead this child of fourteen into surrendering herself to the first
itching male. He dodged. 'I'll answer you when you're three months older.'...

Day after day, as a pupil in the school, I came to admire this thoughtful rebel,
who seemed more a poet than a teacher. I noticed so many instances of his
patience, kindness and sensitivity that I, who had long resented the rough men
of our neighborhood, warmed to him with every new experience until, not quite
knowing it, I was in love. All the hidden forces of youth and growth coursed
in my excited blood. I had no sense of decorum. Once, taking advantage of a
lively moment of play in the yard, I tried to embrace him. He reproved me.
I brooded for a day, and then wrote him a letter...I kept his reply."

Here's an excerpt from Will Durant's letter to Ariel:

"It is beautiful of you to feel for me as you do....Whether your affection will
last long is doubtful; but while it lasts I am grateful for it. Our first love
affairs are almost always with persons much older than ourselves....Most girls
and boys go through such experiences; and these feelings almost always pass
away with the lapse of a few months' time....So for four months let us study
each other. Meanwhile try to remember that I am in a rather difficult situation
because I am defending you against everybody; remember that every time you try
to kiss me or embrace me you will arouse a world of talk endangering the very
existence of the school....

You have been very unhappy of late; so many different people have turned against
you despite the things you did for them. I want you to be happy now, caring
nothing about these others who do not understand you. Those who understand
you know your worth, and think the world of you."

--William Durant (15 January 1913)

Ariel Durant wrote:

"And here I was, close at hand, crazy with life and energy, and physically in
full bloom. Five weeks after that letter his resistance had quite broken down.
He took me for private walks in Central Park, and ventured upon an occasional
kiss. One day, as we sat on the grass below a secluded tree in Bronx Park,
he stooped so low--or rose to such courage--as to kiss my unresisting breasts.
He still remembers that day--February 22, 1913--and celebrates it with ritual
repetition....

Maurice (her uncle) remained, and tried to soothe me. 'Foolish child, don't be
unhappy. It is for your own good that I have stopped you from keeping this
appointment. Your teacher is not one of our people. He would seduce you and
leave you.' Then, as if he proposing to take my eduation into his own hands,
he jumped into bed beside me. I rolled myself up in the blanket, and moved as
far as possible away from him. He came closer, and tried to embrace me. I
stepped over him to the floor, still holding the blanket around me....

Shortly thereafter word was brought to me that my father positively forbade me
to see my teacher outside of school; to which was added a warning from my
brothers and sisters that Will would forfeit his life if he were caught alone
with me...."

So Will Durant wrote a letter to Ida Kaufman's father, who dismissed it:

"...She came to me a few months ago and told me that she loved me. I admired
her for her frankness, but I told her that I did not love her, and that I was
too old...to have any more 'love affairs'. I knew that she was passing through
a period--the age of puberty--at which it is customary for girls to 'fall in
love', usually with men much older than themselves, and I expected the matter
to pass over in a month or so....today Ariel seems to love me more strongly
than before. Meanwhile, my own affection for her has increased daily; I can't
help admiring her for her courage, her honesty, her independence of character,
and for a hundred other beautiful traits. Several persons have said of her
that she was the kindest and most generous girl they had ever met....

Now I fear that you have been worried of late by my relations with Ariel; and
I am writing this to try to make you understand that you have no reason to
worry. Remember that I am twenty-seven and that she is only fourteen. As
she comes to know a greater variety of young men her fancy will change...it
will not be long, I am afraid, before Ariel will give to someone else the place
that I now hold in her affections. Meanwhile I ask you to believe that I am a
gentleman, and that I should be the last man in the world to take advantage in
any way of Ariel's love. I want you to trust me, and to feel that I love her
as a brother whose only desire is to keep her from bad influences, help her
in her mental and physical development, and make her as happy as I can."

--Will Durant (15 March 1913)

On the next day, Will Durant wrote to Ariel:

"...I love you so much....No more classroom kisses, dear; we must kiss outside
when not too many of the world are looking. Love thrives on difficulties.
I love you, dear, for what you are and what you are going to be--my wild,
sweet, radiantly healthy, divinely terrible, Walt Whitman girl!"
--Will Durant (16 March 1913)

Then Will Durant wrote to a director of his school, offering to resign his
teaching position after the term's completion:

"...I said in that letter that my feelings for Ariel were those of a fatherly
or brotherly interest; I say now that I love the girl....I am aware of the
face absurdities of the matter, and I have made Ariel understand that, love
her as I do...I trust that they (the school's officials) forbear believing
that the only motive that a man of my age can have in professing love for a
girl of Ariel's age is the desire of sexual intercourse; I protest that such
an assumption would do me wrong, and would do Ariel wrong. That these and
other imputations will be made I am--sentimental as I may appear--too
disillusioned a man to doubt. But the inevitable has lost its power to make
me unhappy, and I put up with these little things as small price to pay for
this second springtime of my soul...."
--Will Durant (March 1913)

Ariel Durant wrote:

"The discovery that my teacher had become my lover brought me a strange
mixture of happiness and doubt....But I asked myself was I (not yet fifteen)
ready for marriage, or for the sexual experiences that seemed imminent? What
could I bring to Will except my body and my eager but ill-furnished mind?...

Summer came, and Will ended his teaching at the Ferrer School....He proposed
that I should accompany him, and I readily agreed. I knew nothing then, and
perhaps Will had forgotten, about the Mann Act by which Congress (1910) had
made it a federal offense to take a woman across a state border 'for immoral
purposes'....No one will believe me when I say that Will went no further on
that trip than some warm embraces...Will assured him that I was still intact."

On 31 October 1913, Will and Ariel Durant were married at New York City Hall.

Ariel Durant wrote:

"I came out radiant with happiness. I had no clear conception of the
responsibilities I had undertaken. Gaily I proposed, almost in sight of City
Hall, to teach my husband how to roller-skate....We spent our wedding night
in my mother's apartment, having as yet no rooms of our own. Everything went
well until Will took me into his bed and asked for his marital rights. I was
not quite prepared for this, and raised objections, until my mother, hearing
my protests, came to us and assured me, 'It's all right, my child; don't be
afraid.' I could never resist my mother."

'Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.'
--Jane Austen (Persuasion)

--Nick