On Apr 28, 10:03 pm, " wrote:

KANE'S VERSION OF HISTORY

Don't get your history from Larry Parr. Refusing
emigration requests for families of defectors has little
do with chess and less to do with Karpov. It was
routine Soviet practice.
Karpov and Korchnoi have been cordial in later years - hardly
what one would expect if Karpov had been behind some evil plot.
-- David Kane


Long-winded rant snipped.

It certainly appears that Mr. Kane struck a nerve
by correcting another of Mr. Parr's innumerable
fallacies.

In ratpacker world, the Soviet Union was supposed
to allow Victor Kortchnoi's entire family to emigrate
as a sort of public relations stunt. Well, in the USSR
chess was immensely popular, so perhaps this pig
could fly; to hell with our totalitarian principles! Let's
set everybody VK knows free, and then hope that AK
wins. Wait-- there is a problem; Mr. Kortchnoi is a
genuine Russian-trained chess powerhouse. What
if we abandon our evilness, our principles, set all
those people free, and then we *lose*? Yikes.

Mr. Kane's point was that (he says) the Soviets'
*routine practice* was to deny such emigration
requests as those by family members of defector
Victor Kortchnoi. Now, while I don't know about
such things, I do know that Mr. Parr studiously
avoided addressing that issue, instead doing
another of his ad hominem dances, with both feet
flying this way and that. It must be concluded then
that Mr. Kane struck a nerve.


-- help bot

GREG GOT SOMETHING RIGHT FOR A CHANGE

For once, Greg Kennedy got something right.
David Kane did strike a nerve. For one always
reprehends those who are, to employ Trotsky's term,
fellow-travellers. Vladimir Nabokov has some nice
pages devoted to these Kanester types.

Greg appears to be on a roll in his brief
posting. It is also true, as he suggests, that he
knows little about the history of the Soviets and
their activities in either the larger world or in our
little world of chess.

Families of defectors often ended in slave camps
or in the cellars of the Lubyanka or Lefortovo. Their
bodies would then be shipped to assorted hecatombs.
Perhaps some of Gouzenko's relatives ended up in, say,
one of the 1,500 or so mass graves around Kuropaty.
We shall never know for sure.

The consensus among the Kane-Gregs here
appears to be that holding Korchnoi's family hostage,
while not ideal, may be usefully compared with
Korchnoi complaining about such treatment. Torturers
are wrong to rip out human organs, but those who are
being thus treated are wrong to scream too loudly.

SOME APPARATCHIK!

You cannot rely on Evans for unbiased information.
Evans is the classic USCF apparatchik. When the
Chess Life "bosses" demand cold war rhetoric - he
complies. Say or write anything to maintain lifetime
employment, that's the ticket. -- David Kane

David Kane is becoming quite the big liar in
retailing the big lie. His latest effort comes in a
response to John Savard.

The Kanester calls GM Larry Evans (a millionaire)
an apparatchik" who needs lifetime employment by
the USCF (even though the current editor eliminated
Evans On Chess to please his new bosses). The
Kanestar evidently has as little respect for Mr. Savard
as this writer and others have for the Kanester.

Mr. Savard: for the record, no columnist in
the history of Chess Life had a rockier road than GM
Evans. He was fired and rehired many a time; and he
was typically the subject of Policy Board and
policy board discussions about how to get rid of
him. He angered chess politicians when he attacked
Bobby's match conditions; later, he angered the
politicians and editor Hochberg when he broke the
ludicrous ban on mentioning Bobby's very name in CL.
The second time around, he got fired.

The problem -- and how the likes of Greg Kennedy
and Kanester hate the fact -- was that in every Chess
Life reader survey ever conducted, GM Evans was either
at the top or second behind Andy Soltis in reader
approval. One of the surveys had over 3,000 responses.

Among GM Evans' political enemies was Gary
Sperling, who served a number of terms on USCF
governing boards. During his final stint, when he was
treasurer, a discusson about GM Evans was conducted in
a public Board session. Unlike your Kanester or Greg,
Sperling had an intelligence that readily recognized
facts as he set about trying to work his will. During
this Board debate, when Evans' supporters pointed out
the 5-time U.S. champion's high popularity among readers,
Sperling did not try to deny the known evidence of both
surveys and his own anecdotal experiences.

Not at all.

Sperling conceded Evans' popularity and then
pointed out, "But he is not the kind of writer we want
in Chess Life" or words very close to that effect. His
point was that as members of the governing Policy
Board, his colleagues and he had an obligation to seek
writers of the kind that they preferred, if such were
their considered judgment that changes should be made.

And it was Sperling's judgment that Evans should
go, popular or not. He could not summon a majority
or, possibly, a consensus in that debate, but he
always kept trying.

I usually enjoyed talking with Sperling. because,
although he was devious, he was devious in an
intelligent and, to a degree, honest way. He did not
serve up the intellectually scrofulous stuff about
Evans offered here by Kanester and Greg. Sperling
was the frank type who said that far from being an
apparatchik (the kind of writer Sperling wanted in
CL) Evans was a thornchik in their political
posteriors. Sperling and Don Schultz (who sued
Evans unsuccessfully for $21 million) were enemies
who worked long and hard to fire the famous GM.

So, then, one says to Mr. Savard that Evans'
long-time political enemies hated him and wanted to
destroy his career in chess precisely because he was
NO apparatchik. They wanted him to write as they
pleased, but he never would. No American writer has
been more critical of the USCF as attested by chapter 31
("How America Was Betrayed") in his new book
THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS.

Mr. Savard also needs to know that in the debates
over Karpov, Evans was NOT spouting the USCF line.
Far from it. The USCF political class, quietly led by
Ed Edmonson at Caracas, helped Karpov get back the
rematch clause for title matches, a far bigger edge
than any advantage ever sought by Bobby Fischer.
Federation politicians, while publicly condemning
Campomanes for stopping KK-I, privately hoped to
downplay what happened. When Campo came to
America for the 1985 U.S. Open, this writer was told by
then USCF President E. Steven Doyle not to attack
Campomanes for his decision because although Doyle
himself had publicly announced at that year's Amateur
Team East that the USCF reprehended Campomanes for
making such a decision, the real, behind-the-scenes
policy was to support Campo and FIDE.

The USCF political heat always was on Evans to tone
down his comments on Karpov and Campomanes, which
he would not do. Several of his comments were censored.
He was fired for a brief period in 1990 over this issue.

In short, Mr. Savard the truth is 180 degrees
the opposite of what Kanester wrote.

Most lies have an element of truth and are not
diametrical inversions of what was or is the case.
Most liars have enough respect for their audience to
know that lies must contain elements of truth. Our
Kanester is, in this sense, not so much a liar as
something even worse -- an inverter of fact and truth.

Yours, Larry Parr




help bot wrote:
On Apr 28, 10:03 pm, " wrote:

KANE'S VERSION OF HISTORY

Don't get your history from Larry Parr. Refusing
emigration requests for families of defectors has little
do with chess and less to do with Karpov. It was
routine Soviet practice.
Karpov and Korchnoi have been cordial in later years - hardly
what one would expect if Karpov had been behind some evil plot.
-- David Kane


Long-winded rant snipped.

It certainly appears that Mr. Kane struck a nerve
by correcting another of Mr. Parr's innumerable
fallacies.

In ratpacker world, the Soviet Union was supposed
to allow Victor Kortchnoi's entire family to emigrate
as a sort of public relations stunt. Well, in the USSR
chess was immensely popular, so perhaps this pig
could fly; to hell with our totalitarian principles! Let's
set everybody VK knows free, and then hope that AK
wins. Wait-- there is a problem; Mr. Kortchnoi is a
genuine Russian-trained chess powerhouse. What
if we abandon our evilness, our principles, set all
those people free, and then we *lose*? Yikes.

Mr. Kane's point was that (he says) the Soviets'
*routine practice* was to deny such emigration
requests as those by family members of defector
Victor Kortchnoi. Now, while I don't know about
such things, I do know that Mr. Parr studiously
avoided addressing that issue, instead doing
another of his ad hominem dances, with both feet
flying this way and that. It must be concluded then
that Mr. Kane struck a nerve.


-- help bot

"help bot" wrote in message
...
Mr. Kane's point was that (he says) the Soviets'
*routine practice* was to deny such emigration
requests as those by family members of defector
Victor Kortchnoi. Now, while I don't know about
such things, I do know that Mr. Parr studiously
avoided addressing that issue, instead doing
another of his ad hominem dances, with both feet
flying this way and that. It must be concluded then
that Mr. Kane struck a nerve.


The bigger point really was that no rational person
could expect a chessplayer to influence the
emigration policies of the Soviet government.

The Evans and Parrs of this world are simply
not capable of dealing with facts which get
in the way of their simplistic stories.

wrote in message
...


The Kanester calls GM Larry Evans (a millionaire)
an apparatchik" who needs lifetime employment by
the USCF (even though the current editor eliminated
Evans On Chess to please his new bosses).

I never claimed that Evans' motivation was financial.
Having long since given up competing at chess, I
suspect that his reason for clinging to the column
over the years was emotional - it connects him
(however remotely) to his glory days as an
exceptional chess player. That he has written so much
false and embarrassing stuff in pursuit of that
connection is a shame but hardly surprising.
Mediocre outfit + mediocre people (e.g. Parr) =
mediocre output.

And Parr distorts again. Evans is still on the payroll.

On Apr 29, 1:36 am, " wrote:

The Kanester calls GM Larry Evans (a millionaire)
an apparatchik" who needs lifetime employment by


As usual, Mr. Parr changes the subject from one
he cannot handle to something else entirely; here,
the poor fellow slaves away at building a straw man
--Larry Evans' imagined "need for money" ( a need
which Mr. Kane never even mentioned).


[Larry Evans] angered chess politicians when he
attacked Bobby's match conditions


I expect he also angered a lot of fans-- not just
evil politicians.



So, then, one says to Mr. Savard that Evans'
long-time political enemies hated him and wanted to
destroy his career in chess precisely because he was
NO apparatchik. They wanted him to write as they
pleased, but he never would.


Well then, if this is true, why the need to slave
away at building straw men? (Perhaps Mr. Parr
enjoys it, and that is reason enough for him.)


No American writer has
been more critical of the USCF as attested by chapter 31
("How America Was Betrayed") in his new book
THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS.


It's not spam! It's called "free advertising".

Even though Mr. Kane often seems a lot smarter
than Larry Parr when it comes to thinking skills,
he sometimes falls flat on his face, as here. Just
about everybody knows that Mr. Evans has his
own agenda, and it's not the USCF's-- not even
close.


Mr. Savard also needs to know that in the debates
over Karpov, Evans was NOT spouting the USCF line.
Far from it. The USCF political class, quietly led by
Ed Edmonson at Caracas, helped Karpov get back the
rematch clause for title matches, a far bigger edge
than any advantage ever sought by Bobby Fischer.


Mr. Parr seems to have -- temporarily -- corrected
his usual mistake, that of carelessly tossing in the
term "mathematical" as an adjective for "advantage".

This goes back to an old article in Chess Lies-- an
article which purported to demonstrate how the
rematch clause somehow nullified a challenger's
winning the title, by pretending he didn't win it
unless he later held onto it. The whole idea was
wrongheaded, and it is a simple matter to come up
with a superior approach to criticizing the rematch
clause; simple that is, for those who can reason
and think.


Most lies have an element of truth and are not
diametrical inversions of what was or is the case.
Most liars have enough respect for their audience to
know that lies must contain elements of truth.


It's good to know that Mr. Parr is so um, well-
informed about his chief occupation. But consider
how much /work/ and /effort/ could be saved if a
different approach were to be tried. Liars, as you
must know, need to keep careful track of all their
fibs, and just whom they were told to. Compare
and contrast to the easy, laid-back life of an
honest person, who doesn't have to remember
anything at all! Sometimes, I feel kind of sorry for
the liars... .


-- help bot

On Apr 28, 10:03*pm, " wrote:
* * YUSUPOV BROKE THE BOYCOTT

* *Taylor Kingston is right about the number. *It
was the ninth Lone Pine Open. *On the other side of
the coin, Korchnoi rubbed no salt in any posited wound
that Artur Yusupov supposedly suffered.

I should have phrased that differently. The "they" I had in mind
when I said "Korchnoi rubbed salt their wounds" was the Soviet
authorities behind the boycott, but instead it was phrased so that
"they" referred to Yusupov and Romanishin.

Korchnoi beat
him in a very good game, but Yusupov did a big, brave
thing when playing Korchnoi and breaking the boycott.

* * *Yusupov was and is no Karprov. *Indeed, Yusupov
detested the boycott against Korchnoi and was
delighted to be the man who broke it.

I am glad to know that about Yusupov.


wrote:
On Apr 28, 10:08?am, " wrote:

THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans (page 100)

The matter did not stop there. The Soviet Union suddenly pulled out
two of her players from the Nineteenth Lone Pine Open in America after
learning Korchnoi was competing.

* Either Larry Parr did not copy this correctly from Evans' book, or
Evans made a small mistake.There never was a "Nineteenth Lone Pine
Open." There were only 11, running annually 1971-1981 (see for
example:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Pine_International). Evans
is correct that two Soviet players, Tseshkovsky and Romanishin, who
planned to play in 1979, did indeed pull out (or were ordered to pull
out) when it was learned that Korchnoi would play. That was the 9th
Lone Pine Open, so perhaps "nineteenth" is just an inadvertent typo.
* At Lone Pine 1981, Korchnoi arrived only at the last minute,
catching the two Soviet GMs Yusupov and Romanishin by suprise. This
time they went ahead and played, and Korchnoi rubbed salt in their
wounds by winning the tournament.

"David Kane" wrote in message
...

"help bot" wrote in message
...
Mr. Kane's point was that (he says) the Soviets'
*routine practice* was to deny such emigration
requests as those by family members of defector
Victor Kortchnoi. Now, while I don't know about
such things, I do know that Mr. Parr studiously
avoided addressing that issue, instead doing
another of his ad hominem dances, with both feet
flying this way and that. It must be concluded then
that Mr. Kane struck a nerve.


The bigger point really was that no rational person
could expect a chessplayer to influence the
emigration policies of the Soviet government.

No rational person would credit any objective sense whatever to Soviet
Government.

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.
- Viktor Chernomyrdin,
- Russian prime minister, 1992-1998.

But David Kane might appreciate the particular sensitivity displayed by all
totalitarian regimes to the // appearance // of things, in contradistinction
to the difficulty of reporting what actually goes on in closed societies,
which is to contrast the appearance with the practice. If Mr. Parr's
commentary related to either individual pressure put on chess players, or to
other individuals whose intelligence and ability was valued by the Soviet
State, then his is /not/ an exceptional point of view.

In chess one would only have to read Boris Gulko's testimony to understand
that specifically; not only was the Russian champion duffed-up by KGB but
his wife was also beaten.

It is getting that news out of the country which is the difficult bit - not
just the anecdote, but records establishing its extent and probity.

Therefore while it is unusual to have then found such samizdat in the West,
almost all such records as Gulko's, each made independently of each other,
and necessarily without knowledge of each other; these records all accord
with each other.

I think to perhaps innocently blame the reporter for inventiveness, or some
such thing, is an attitude that is relieved by knowledge after even a little
study.

The Evans and Parrs of this world are simply
not capable of dealing with facts which get
in the way of their simplistic stories.

JUST ANOTHER MASSACRE

The stories are simple. They are often brutal, so brutal that it is hard to
believe that, for example, even in the post-Soviet era one's own head of
state will appear on camera smiling and shaking hands with the perpetrators
of repression, and make 'simplistic' statements expressing their feelings
they could 'do business' with them.

On February 5, 2000, the mass murder of civilians took place during a
passport inspection by sub-units of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry
of the Interior of the Russian Federation in the village of Novye Aldy,
Zavodskoi District, Grozny. This was reported by;

- T. A. Murdalov
- Investigator for Especially Important Matters,
- Office of the North Caucasus Prosecutor General of the Russian
Federation.

Those refer to OMON units. The issue was not further investigated because of
jurisdictional 'problems' of troops from Petersburg and Ryazan, and in 2002
"it came quietly to rest." says Andrew Meier, who continued his report in
Black Earth with...

...Not long after the dead in Aldy were reburied for the final time,
Yuri Dyomin, Russia's chief military prosecutor, told an audience of Western
human rights advocates in Moscow that he regretted "the time I have wasted"
investigating reports of abuses "based on disinformation." He went on to
accuse Chechen refugees of spreading // skazki //, fairy tales.

This ended the affair for catch-phrase Western apologists of the Regime in
the post-Soviet era, since it was just another [unexplained] massacre,
despite contravening Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, on internal
conflicts.

And that Mr. Kane, I suggest to you is emphasis //post// Soviet era.
Those who reported things even earlier gained less attention in the West,
since for many people, such behaviors by a state were literally
'unbelievable.'

Phil Innes

DAVID KANE INVERTED THE TRUTH

You cannot rely on Evans for unbiased information.
Evans is the classic USCF apparatchik. When the Chess
Life "bosses" demand cold war rhetoric - he complies.
Say or write anything to maintain lifetime employment,
that's the ticket. -- David Kane

When Greg Kennedy wrote that David Kane is
smarter than this writer in "thinking skills," he
wrote another of his typical redundancies, without
quite realizing it.

Still, one concedes that Greg will never know
how much he wounded me with that cruel comparison.

Meanwhile, David Kane babbles about this writer
changing some subject. I've stayed directly on point,
which has been to examine the meaning of a
statement that Korchnoi was treated in typical fashion
by the Soviet state re his family. Therefore, if
Kanester has any point at all, Karpov is no less a
sportsman for playing Korchnoi while the latter's
family was held hostage (during the first match) and
no less a sportsman for sitting down at the board in
the second match even as the Soviet state ratcheted up
the ante by arresting Korchnoi's son, sending him to a
labor camp and then arranging for his beating on the
eve of the 1981 title match to send his father a message..

As for Karpov, he no longer sports that Order of
Lenin, and one can make a shrewd guess at how he
regards his own person.

One reckons that nearly every reader on this
forum knows that Kanester inverted truth when calling
Larry Evans an apparatchik of the USCF. He has
been an independent contractor, never a USCF employee.

Given that Kanester told something worse than a lie by
turning truth literally inside out, my comment about Evans
having no financial interest in toeing any line was by
no means off-topic. After all, there was no topic except
except an inversion of truth that had, therefore, no
substantive content.

Once again, for the record: anyone who knows
USCF political history knows that GM Evans has been
a thornchik in the side of USCF politicians for decades,
fighting them repeatedly on dozens of issues. Indeed,
on one occasion the politicos even hired a Pinkerton
detective to go after him. Later, when the hot lead
turned out to be false, the politicos who voted USCF
money to pursue Evans reimbursed the Federation
out of their own pocket for the Pinkerton costs.

Our Kanester is not going to admit that he
inverted truth in his name-calling directed against
GM Evans. However, he will continue his geyser-like
gushing of evident hatred toward the five-time U.S.
champion and famous author.

Yours, Larry Parr




Chess One wrote:
"David Kane" wrote in message
...

"help bot" wrote in message
...
Mr. Kane's point was that (he says) the Soviets'
*routine practice* was to deny such emigration
requests as those by family members of defector
Victor Kortchnoi. Now, while I don't know about
such things, I do know that Mr. Parr studiously
avoided addressing that issue, instead doing
another of his ad hominem dances, with both feet
flying this way and that. It must be concluded then
that Mr. Kane struck a nerve.


The bigger point really was that no rational person
could expect a chessplayer to influence the
emigration policies of the Soviet government.

No rational person would credit any objective sense whatever to Soviet
Government.

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.
- Viktor Chernomyrdin,
- Russian prime minister, 1992-1998.

But David Kane might appreciate the particular sensitivity displayed by all
totalitarian regimes to the // appearance // of things, in contradistinction
to the difficulty of reporting what actually goes on in closed societies,
which is to contrast the appearance with the practice. If Mr. Parr's
commentary related to either individual pressure put on chess players, or to
other individuals whose intelligence and ability was valued by the Soviet
State, then his is /not/ an exceptional point of view.

In chess one would only have to read Boris Gulko's testimony to understand
that specifically; not only was the Russian champion duffed-up by KGB but
his wife was also beaten.

It is getting that news out of the country which is the difficult bit - not
just the anecdote, but records establishing its extent and probity.

Therefore while it is unusual to have then found such samizdat in the West,
almost all such records as Gulko's, each made independently of each other,
and necessarily without knowledge of each other; these records all accord
with each other.

I think to perhaps innocently blame the reporter for inventiveness, or some
such thing, is an attitude that is relieved by knowledge after even a little
study.

The Evans and Parrs of this world are simply
not capable of dealing with facts which get
in the way of their simplistic stories.

JUST ANOTHER MASSACRE

The stories are simple. They are often brutal, so brutal that it is hard to
believe that, for example, even in the post-Soviet era one's own head of
state will appear on camera smiling and shaking hands with the perpetrators
of repression, and make 'simplistic' statements expressing their feelings
they could 'do business' with them.

On February 5, 2000, the mass murder of civilians took place during a
passport inspection by sub-units of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry
of the Interior of the Russian Federation in the village of Novye Aldy,
Zavodskoi District, Grozny. This was reported by;

- T. A. Murdalov
- Investigator for Especially Important Matters,
- Office of the North Caucasus Prosecutor General of the Russian
Federation.

Those refer to OMON units. The issue was not further investigated because of
jurisdictional 'problems' of troops from Petersburg and Ryazan, and in 2002
"it came quietly to rest." says Andrew Meier, who continued his report in
Black Earth with...

...Not long after the dead in Aldy were reburied for the final time,
Yuri Dyomin, Russia's chief military prosecutor, told an audience of Western
human rights advocates in Moscow that he regretted "the time I have wasted"
investigating reports of abuses "based on disinformation." He went on to
accuse Chechen refugees of spreading // skazki //, fairy tales.

This ended the affair for catch-phrase Western apologists of the Regime in
the post-Soviet era, since it was just another [unexplained] massacre,
despite contravening Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, on internal
conflicts.

And that Mr. Kane, I suggest to you is emphasis //post// Soviet era.
Those who reported things even earlier gained less attention in the West,
since for many people, such behaviors by a state were literally
'unbelievable.'

Phil Innes

schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

BLAMING THE DEFECTORS

How many families do you think Korchnoi wanted? Why do
you think he ditched his family in the first place? -- Jurgen

Jurgen checks in. Defectors are now those who
"ditch" their families.

I did not say that. However:

You don't know and never will know why Korchnoi
stayed in the West.

You also don't know and will never know, whether
his family was happy to see him go, nor whether
he was glad to be rid of them.

It is generally known that he got involved with
Petra Leeuwerik very soon after his defection,
and that he divorced his wife shortly after she moved
to the West in 1982.

It is also well known That Korchnoi is a difficult
character - impolite, unsophisticated, paranoid,
definitely not somebody easily made into a hero.

Korchnoi was an excellent chess player in his
day - second only to Karpov.
The rest is none of our business.

[...deleting standard anti-Soviet fantasies]

schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
On Apr 28, 1:10 pm, Jürgen R. wrote:

The clock will soon have stricken 12 for chess journalists
without a command of the irregular verb forms.

I believe "stricken" is quite proper here. I've seen hundreds of TV
and movie courtroom scenes where an attorney says "I move that
statement be stricken from the record." By the same token, a rule may
be stricken from the books.

Fowler: 'stricken' - this archaic p.p. of strike survives chiefly in
particular phrases, & especially in senses divorced from those
now usual with the verb; then gives examples: poverty-stricken,
etc.

However, it is possible that English and American usage
differ sufficiently to make 'stricken', as used in the
original quote, acceptable to many.