SIMPLE FACTS

What you refer to as "cold war rhetoric" I view as the simple facts. -- John Savard

"That's your mistake right there. Judgements derived from false
premises will also be false. -- Karpov apologist David Kane

Phil Innes makes an interesting point about what
occurs today as opposed to Soviet times. One notes,
though, that the Red Square demonstration in August
1968 (if memory serves, at Lobnoye Mesto, but I could
be wrong),against the Soviet attack on Czechoslovakia
was the first known demonstration of the kind in
decades, just as the great coal miner strikes in the
summer of 1989 were the first major labor actions in
over 60 years.

My point re the Czech demonstration is that
virtually no one for more than a half century imagined
that such a gesture could ever have substantive
meaning. The very idea of demonstrating disappeared
for more than a generation.

And then, one day, Pavel Litvinov (the son of
Maxim Litvinov, Stalin's foreign minister during the
phony Collective Security years of the 1930s) Larisa
Bogoraz, poetess Natalya Gorbanevskaya (later to be
tortured brutally in Soviet mental asylums) and three
or four others unfurled banners and sat down, waiting
for what would come.

What would come came within minutes, but it did
not include summary execution of the demonstrators and
their families. Instead a trial, long sentences that
were written beforehand and so on.

But the world took note that if the Soviet state
did not exactly blink and certainly did not wink, it
nodded. Nothing would be the same thereafter. Ut
was the beginning of the celebrated dissident movement.

A Spassky was on the side of those people in Red
Square. A Karpov, whatever his interior convictions,
had no doubt that as a Caissic godyonesh, to employ
Korchnoi's favorite word for the man, he was a
Brezhnev boyo.

A fascinating historical footnote is provided by
Bertram Wolfe re Maxim Litvinov, who probably died
a natural death, though a Jew and likely in bad odor
with Stalin after he was dropped as foreign minister
in favor of Molotov in preparation for signing the
Non-Aggression Pact with Germany on August 23(?),
1937. Years later, Litvinov had a rare private moment
in the Kremlin with CBS news correspondent Richard
Hottelot. Litvinov, who was near the peak of the
Soviet hierarchy, proceeded to beg Hottelot to tell
American leaders that Stalin was intent on conquering
Europe and the world.

For Greg Kennedy's edification, Bertram Wolfe is
the author of "Three Who Made a Revolution" which is
still in print more than a half century after it first
appeared. It is still the best single volume history
of the lives of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. The book
is one of those that I would have Greg read, if he
were of a mind to undertake serious independent study.
Which, alas, he is not and, by this point in his life is
is likely never to be.

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

wrote in message
...

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.

One has to laugh. When faced with an unpleasant
reality, Parr comes up with the defense that Larry
Evans was not technically "on the payroll" but rather
an independent contractor! I stand corrected. LOL

Of course, that detail has little to do with anything,
and does not resurrect the Evans mythology (of
someone bravely takes on a corrupt establishment) that
Parr has been assigned with promulgating.

GM Evans, a player I admire and an author of chess
works of which I am a satisfied customer (believe it
or not, he actually wrote about chess at one time!),
chose to make his chess name writing for the USCF's
"government" periodical. As such, his survival was not
related to excellence or even competence, but rather
his skill in negotiating the political winds of the
federation. He's done that in admirable fashion -
and I don't deny that in part that relates to having
a group of loyal followers, mostly of the Sam Sloan
variety.

Of course, when CL made it mandatory for
every article to have a red-baiting angle, Evans
complied with his wild, fact-free allegations - often
contradicting his own prior writings. But I will grant that
Parr does have a point in that the USCF
does not speak with a single voice and
at times he's been at odds with certain factions
within the organization. Perhaps the wily politician
is a more apt image than apparatchik, which
emphasizes conformity above all else.

On Apr 26, 5:28 pm, " wrote:

Now we come to the crux of the matter. Despite good-faith efforts and
even the challenger's apparent folly, Kasparov is not absolved from
his pledge to give Shirov a title shot for $2 million as announced to
the world at Linares in 1998. Kasparov put his trust in a person who
proved unreliable, but he also put his credibility and prestige behind
the WCC (which went the way of his GMA and PCA). These facts can't be
evaded. It turned out, perhaps, that he unwittingly treated himself
more shabbily than he did Shirov.

I still believe Kasparov has a debt of sporting honor to play Shirov.
If he should do so, you can rely on me to celebrate in bold type and
capital letters. As it stands, however, Shirov never got paid for
beating Kramnik or a title shot -- both are Kasparov's obligation.

Sorry, but I disagree with your analysis.

Garry Kasparov did not refuse to play a match with Shirov. Kasparov
was ready and willing to play. Shirov refused to play because he
wanted more money.

One of the reasons more money was not available was that Kasparov had
easily beaten Shirov many times and Shirov had never beaten Kasparov.
Nobody gave Shirov any chance at all to beat Kasparov in a match.
Thus, sponsors were unwilling to put up much money for such a match.

None of this was any fault of Kasparov.

The prize fund being offered Shirov was generous in spite of these
problems. I believe that the amount offered was $250,000. This is more
than the amount initially offered for the Kamsky Tapolov Match more
than ten years later. Shirov was a fool not to take the $250,000.

The claim that Kasparov had a moral obligation to pay Shirov out of
his own pocket has no basis.

Sam Sloan

On Apr 29, 12:12*pm, samsloan wrote:
On Apr 26, 5:28 pm, " wrote:

Now we come to the crux of the matter. Despite good-faith efforts and
even the challenger's apparent folly, Kasparov is not absolved from
his pledge to give Shirov a title shot for $2 million as announced to
the world at Linares in 1998. Kasparov put his trust in a person who
proved unreliable, but he also put his credibility and prestige behind
the WCC (which went the way of his GMA and PCA). These facts can't be
evaded. It turned out, perhaps, that he unwittingly treated himself
more shabbily than he did Shirov.

I still believe Kasparov has a debt of sporting honor to play Shirov.
If he should do so, you can rely on me to celebrate in bold type and
capital letters. As it stands, however, Shirov never got paid for
beating Kramnik or a title shot -- both are Kasparov's obligation.

Sorry, but I disagree with your analysis.

Garry Kasparov did not refuse to play a match with Shirov. Kasparov
was ready and willing to play. Shirov refused to play because he
wanted more money.

He only wanted what was promised to him, and guaranteed by signed
contract.

One of the reasons more money was not available was that Kasparov had
easily beaten Shirov many times and Shirov had never beaten Kasparov.

Quite irrelevant to the ethical problem. And there are plenty of
cases where the challenger has won a world title match despite having
a poor record against the champion beforehand. For example, Capablanca
was +0 -1 =2 vs. Lasker before 1921, Alekhine was +0 -5 =7 vs.
Capablanca before 1927, Euwe was +3 -6 =8 vs. Alekhine before 1935,
Smyslov was +2 -7 =10 vs. Botvinnik before 1954, and Fischer was +0 -3
=2 vs. Spassky until 1972.

Nobody gave Shirov any chance at all to beat Kasparov in a match.
Thus, sponsors were unwilling to put up much money for such a match.

Quite irrelevant to the ethical problem, which stems from the fact
that Shirov was indeed promised much money.

The prize fund being offered Shirov was generous in spite of these
problems. I believe that the amount offered was $250,000. This is more
than the amount initially offered for the Kamsky Tapolov Match more
than ten years later. Shirov was a fool not to take the $250,000.

Nonsense. The final offer to Shirov was nothing like $250,000 -- as
I recall, it was closer to $50,000, peanuts considering the work
involved in preparation, the expense of paying seconds, etc. And in
any event even $250,000 would be insultingly low compared to initial
promise of a $2 million purse.. The initial contract called for Shirov
to be paid $200,000 if the match was cancelled -- but Rentero simply
refused! What nerve! Utter faithlessness.

The claim that Kasparov had a moral obligation to pay Shirov out of
his own pocket has no basis.

Somebody sure as hell had a moral obligation to pay Shirov
something. If not Kasparov, then certainly Rentero.

"Jürgen R." wrote in message ...

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.

Jurgen finds the right point: there are several points.

Even English usage various considerably over time. The original word in
'English' is from A. Sax; STRICAN; with the usual sense of 'to go directly'.
In fact from the normative verb form there are given some 21 definitions of
the word - earlier spelled STREKE. Earliest rendition I can find is from the
Anglo Saxon:

He sall noght eftyr hys lyfes ende
Weende strycke to purgatory,
Bot even to helle withowten mercy.

// Hampole, MS Bowes, p. 105.

STRICAN: to go rapidly in a straight course
ASTRICAN: to strike, to smite

D. strijken; to stroke
G. streichen;
Icel. strykja; to stroke, to flog
['stroke' is a derivative]

In England there is also STRETT; a straight way, and even STRAIT; meaning
/to straighten, to puzzle/ [as if to say, to straighter one's thoughts or
ideas].

It is a fascinating observation that many "Americanisms" are actually older
than current English ones; since the early 1600's American English often
recorded words which were latterly superceded in England itself.

Receding a thousand years there is also: STRAKE: to go; to proceed, 'to
strake about, circumcere,' [MS Devonsh. Glossary]

The stormes straked with the wynde,
The wawes to-bote bifore and bihynde.

// Cursor Mundi, MS Coll. Trin. Cantab. f. 12.

An original sense can also be that of latter usage - as in the 1960's people
were called 'straights' in exactly the same way as here below [severe,
straight-laced, strict]:

Of his ordres he wol streit, and he was in greete
fere
For to ordeini eni man bote he the betere were.

// Like of Thomas Beket, ed. Black, p. 14

I think the sense of strike with a meaning to eliminate from consideration
is of British Naval usage, as in, to strike the colors is to cease
resistance, to contest no more, and this is relatively late, circa 1700.

Phil Innes


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

"David Kane" wrote in message
. ..

wrote in message
...

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.

One has to laugh. When faced with an unpleasant
reality, Parr comes up with the defense that Larry
Evans was not technically "on the payroll" but rather
an independent contractor! I stand corrected. LOL

Not the point I took, which was that Larry Evans was independent of
employment and also the need for a few hundred bucks a month, since he is a
millionairre.

Of course, that detail has little to do with anything,
and does not resurrect the Evans mythology (of
someone bravely takes on a corrupt establishment) that
Parr has been assigned with promulgating.

Who else has bravely done so? There are few truly independent voices. The
inverse of Larry Evans is Jerry Hanken, eg.

GM Evans, a player I admire and an author of chess
works of which I am a satisfied customer (believe it
or not, he actually wrote about chess at one time!),
chose to make his chess name writing for the USCF's
"government" periodical. As such, his survival was not
related to excellence or even competence, but rather
his skill in negotiating the political winds of the
federation. He's done that in admirable fashion -
and I don't deny that in part that relates to having
a group of loyal followers, mostly of the Sam Sloan
variety.

My opinion is that people use their own judgement rather more than an
weighted attention from Sloan, who, after all, is only known to chess
politicians and the reader of the New York Times, if that is a distinction
worth making?

Of course, when CL made it mandatory for
every article to have a red-baiting angle, Evans
complied with his wild, fact-free allegations - often
contradicting his own prior writings.

These facts, you know, like judgement at chess, are not always communicable
to those with not the slightest sence of the culture addressed. Soviet
bashing is relatively easy, since there are now plenty of facts to support
it, in fact, to assume innocent action from a Soviet-era figure would be the
exception, and facts would be required to explicate that person from the
system.

Korchnoi was certainly such an exception to corruption to the degree that he
could still exist in the SU and say anything at all. A bit later Boris
Spassky was the same. They both got the hell out of there. Gulko was merely
a refusenik and was persecuted for his religion and culture.

Are there ex-Soviets chess players in the West who actually contest this as
a basis?

But I will grant that
Parr does have a point in that the USCF
does not speak with a single voice and
at times he's been at odds with certain factions
within the organization. Perhaps the wily politician
is a more apt image than apparatchik, which
emphasizes conformity above all else.

Like in the SU, non-conformity is treated the same way - by being
frozen-out; by being ostracized by the burocratic class in chess who rather
like it the way it is.

Phil Innes

On Apr 29, 2:32 am, "David Kane" wrote:

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.


That's true, but what if the government sometimes
makes exceptions to their usual policies? Well, of
course this has a serious drawback in that the
"criminal" is in essence rewarded for having
defected.


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


Not all their stories are of a simple nature, but
those two certainly cannot deal with any facts
which don't neatly "fit" into their bizarre fairyland
world. For instance, having long cast Gary
Kasparov as a hero who fights a never-ending
battle for Justice, they must painfully struggle
to somehow deal with the man's cheating poor
little Judit Polgar with his infamous take-back.
Nutters don't have it so easy as you might
think... .


-- help bot

KENNEDY'S NEW LIE

Not all their stories are of a simple nature, but those two certainly
cannot deal with any facts which don't neatly "fit" into their bizarre
fairyland world. For instance, having long cast Gary Kasparov as a
hero who fights a never-ending battle for Justice, they must painfully
struggle to somehow deal with the man's cheating poor
little Judit Polgar with his infamous take-back. Nutters don't have it
so easy as you might think... . -- Greg Kennedy

As this writer noted when this thread began: I realize that setting
the record straight won't do much good when it comes to the "bots" of
this world because they will just continue inventing new lies.

This thread is about Shirov, but that doesn't stop Greg from
changing the header or the subjet to beat dead horses. As soon as one
charge is refuted (Evans is USCF apparatchik -- then Kane withdrew it
and instead called him a wily politician) a new one pops up. One would
fill a book refuting all of their fabrications.

I will answer David Kane later. Needless to say, contrary to Greg's
new lie, GM Evans did report on the Polgar-Kasparov incident in his
newspaper column as well as in his new book, giving both sides of the
story.

THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans (page 266)

Touch Move!
April 25, 2005

Chess is perfect. People aren’t.

The rules of the game are clear, concise, and consistent. If you touch
a piece, you must move it. If your hand quits the piece, the move
stands. If your hand is still on it, then you can change your mind and
move it elsewhere. But move it you must.

Enforcing touch move in the heat of battle isn’t always easy. A case
in point was the first encounter in 1994 between Judit Polgar, then
17, and world champion Garry Kasparov, then 31, at a major tournament
in Linares, Spain.

After a tough fight Polgar threw in the towel because 47 Kg1 e2 49 Re1
Qd4 49 Kh1 Nf2 50 Kg1 Nh3 51 Kh1 Qg1! 52 Rxg1 Nf2 leads to smothered
mate.

Afterwards she complained that Kasparov took back a move. At first he
played 36...Nc5 but then saw it refuted by 37 Bc6 and instead he
placed the knight on f8.
[Note: As it turns out, his initial 36...Nc5 probably didn't lose --
LP]

Since the rules specify that a protest must be lodged during play,
nothing could be done after the game was over. "I didn’t want to cause
unpleasantness during my first invitation to such an important event,"
she explained. "We were both in severe time pressure. I was also
afraid I would be penalized on the clock if my protest was rejected."

"Kasparov did not take his hand off the knight, so he had a perfect
right to change his move," said the chief arbiter. "My conscience is
clear. I have the feeling my hand was still on it," added Kasparov.

Yet we all know the naked eye can be fooled. A camera crew was filming
the game and a replay revealed that Kasparov removed his hand for
exactly ¼ of a second! Deliberate foul or did he try to change his
grip in order to reverse direction? Who can say for sure?

His enemies promptly called it cheating. But Robert Solso, a noted
cognitive psychologist, said that a time span of 250 milliseconds
might be too short to make such a conscious decision.

POLGAR vs. KASPAROV
Sicilian Defense, 1994
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 f4 e6 7 Be2 Be7 8
0–0 Qc7 9 Qe1 Nbd7 10 a4 b6 11 Bf3 Bb7 12 Kh1 Rd8 13 Be3 0–0 14
Qg3 Nc5 15 f5 e5 16 Bh6 Ne8 17 Nb3 Nd7 18 Rad1 Kh8 19 Be3 Nef6
20 Qf2 Rfe8 21 Rfe1 Bf8 22 Bg5 h6 23 Bh4 Rc8 24 Qf1 Be7 25 Nd2
Qc5 26 Nb3 Qb4 27 Be2 Bxe4 28 Nxe4 Nxe4 29 Bxe7 Rxe7 30 Bf3
Nef6 31 Qxa6 Ree8 32 Qe2 Kg8 33 Bb7 Rc4 34 Qd2 Qxa4 35 Qxd6
Rxc2 36 Nd2 Nf8 37 Ne4 N8d7 38 Nxf6 Nxf6 39 Qxb6 Ng4 40 Rf1 e4
41 Bd5 e3 42 Bb3 Qe4 43 Bxc2 Qxc2 44 Rd8 Rxd8 45 Qxd8 Kh7 46
Qe7 Qc4 White Resigns



help bot wrote:
On Apr 29, 2:32 am, "David Kane" wrote:

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.


That's true, but what if the government sometimes
makes exceptions to their usual policies? Well, of
course this has a serious drawback in that the
"criminal" is in essence rewarded for having
defected.


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


Not all their stories are of a simple nature, but
those two certainly cannot deal with any facts
which don't neatly "fit" into their bizarre fairyland
world. For instance, having long cast Gary
Kasparov as a hero who fights a never-ending
battle for Justice, they must painfully struggle
to somehow deal with the man's cheating poor
little Judit Polgar with his infamous take-back.
Nutters don't have it so easy as you might
think... .


-- help bot

On Apr 29, 8:31 pm, " wrote:

The rules of the game are clear, concise, and consistent. If you touch
a piece, you must move it. If your hand quits the piece, the move
stands. If your hand is still on it, then you can change your mind and
move it elsewhere. But move it you must.


While I don't agree with Mr. Evans regarding the "concise"
part, he at least seems to be familiar with the basic rules of
chess.


Since the rules specify that a protest must be lodged during play,


Nonsense. The proper thing to do is recognize that
Mr. Kasparov is a low-down good-for-nothing cheater,
and then treat him accordingly.


"Kasparov did not take his hand off the knight, so he had a perfect
right to change his move," said the chief arbiter.


Unbiased sources told a very different story. One
had it that the arbiter claimed he could not "see"
the infraction, because he was standing behind Mr.
Kasparov (a GK "backer"?).


"My conscience is clear. I have the feeling my hand was
still on it," added Kasparov.


Okay, make that dirty, low-down, good-for-nothing,
*lying* cheater.


Yet we all know the naked eye can be fooled.


Ah, I knew there would be a "twist" in the plot. As
with the Fox spin-zone, if you remove the spin, you
are left with nothing but dead air.


A camera crew was filming
the game and a replay revealed that Kasparov removed his hand for
exactly ¼ of a second! Deliberate foul or did he try to change his
grip in order to reverse direction? Who can say for sure?


The subject is changed to this or that, deftly avoiding
the actual cheating. It makes no difference if anyone
can guess GK's motive, nor the length of time it took
to enact the cheating, nor what color the sky may be
when viewed from outer space. A typical Larry Evans
ploy is to ignore the facts, and change the subject to
something else; in fact, I'm a bit disappointed that he
failed to attack Judit Polgar's character or religion. The
old man seems to be slipping.


His enemies promptly called it cheating.


Ah, now THAT'S more like it! Ad hominize the folks
who want the rules to be enforced, even upon faves
like GK. The problem, you understand, is not that GK
is a cheater-- no sir! It's that he has "enemies" who
stalk him, just waiting for a chance to point out when
some errant camera may try and make it appear that
he did something wrong-- which he never ever could.

Apparently, to the Evans ratpack, Gary Kasparov is
a sacred cow-- almost like Bobby Fischer. He can
do no wrong, and if Judit Pogar gets run over, well,
she ought not to have gotten in his way... .


-- help bot

THE GOD THAT FAILED

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. -- Jurgen

Juergen is a throwback to a simpler, more evil
time. His attack on Korchnoi was standard fare among
pro-Soviet types in the 1930s and 1940s. The idea was
always to find imperfections and shortcomings on the
part of defectors so as to discredit their message.

Perhaps the most famous instance of this ploy was
in the case of Victor Kravchenko, who wrote the 1946
bestseller "I Chose Freedom." The attacks on him in
the communist and fellow-traveller press were legion.

Finally, the French communist newspaper,
L'Humanite, charged that Kravchenko's very powerful
book was written by an OSS agent named Sim Thomas.

There was a libel trial that became a major cultural
cause celebre. On one side you had the likes of Andre
Malraux and Albert Camus, who had moved away from
Stalinism decisively, and in the other camp you had
Sartre, Duclos and others of that ilk.

The Soviets brought in witnesses from the USSR,
including Kravchenko's wife. Kravchenko's lawyer
eviscerated these people on the witness stand, and
Kravchenko won his libel suit decisively.

Decades later, a new edition of "I Chose Freedom"
appeared in French, with an admiring introduction
written by the editor of "L'Humanite" who initially
libelled Kravchenko. The editor admitted his role in
the falsehood. Over the years he had become yet
another recruit to that army of intellectuals who
regretted following, the party line as in the title of
the eponymous book of essays by former Communists
called "The God that Failed."

Juergen would have been among those screaming
about Kravchenko's imperfections.

KENNEDY HITS HEAD ON NAIL

"Nutters don't have it so easy as you might think" -- Greg Kennedy.

Based on Greg Kennedy's testimony about his
tribulations working in an Indiana factory and his cri
de coeur that he coulda been a contendah, the man
has certainly hit his own head on the nail.

For several years Greg complained about a faulty
spellchecker, and he kept telling us that he would one
day become a real power player on this forum after finding
a better electronic crutch.

Another theme that kept him going was that he
coulda been anotha Bobby, if he had grown up in
Brooklyn rather than in the cultural wasteland, as he
described it, of Indiana.

Greg moaned that others such as yours truly and
Larry Evans were writing all of the books and winning
the awards. He coulda done that, too, if he had not
been deprived in Indiana. He coulda been a contendah,
maybe a champ. But Indiana made him an assembly-line
working chump instead of a champ..

Another Greg theme was that he would one day
read history and refute what this writer offered here
and elsewhere. Readers of this forum have sampled
his erudition, and perhaps you will agree with Greg
himself that living in Indiana prevented him from
reading history.

Our response has always been that Indiana is not
a cultural wasteland, possessing numerous large
university libraries as well as, no doubt, many
impressive new and used bookstores. The knowledge
was there if Greg had been willing to pursue it during his
youth. As he once wrote, he read Ratman or some such
comic books instead, which were more accessible, say,
than Xenophon.

If one accepts Greg's testimony, he has never
had it easy and suffered mightily and experienced
emotional and intellectual sorrows,through no fault
of his own.

"Nutters don't have it so easy as you might
think." Greg is telling us that while he may not know
much about Pope Urban II or anything else much
further back than last week, he has finally gained
self-knowledge.

He has finally hit his head right on the nail.

And so it goes.

Yours, Larry Parr





help bot wrote:
On Apr 29, 8:31 pm, " wrote:

The rules of the game are clear, concise, and consistent. If you touch
a piece, you must move it. If your hand quits the piece, the move
stands. If your hand is still on it, then you can change your mind and
move it elsewhere. But move it you must.


While I don't agree with Mr. Evans regarding the "concise"
part, he at least seems to be familiar with the basic rules of
chess.


Since the rules specify that a protest must be lodged during play,


Nonsense. The proper thing to do is recognize that
Mr. Kasparov is a low-down good-for-nothing cheater,
and then treat him accordingly.


"Kasparov did not take his hand off the knight, so he had a perfect
right to change his move," said the chief arbiter.


Unbiased sources told a very different story. One
had it that the arbiter claimed he could not "see"
the infraction, because he was standing behind Mr.
Kasparov (a GK "backer"?).


"My conscience is clear. I have the feeling my hand was
still on it," added Kasparov.


Okay, make that dirty, low-down, good-for-nothing,
*lying* cheater.


Yet we all know the naked eye can be fooled.


Ah, I knew there would be a "twist" in the plot. As
with the Fox spin-zone, if you remove the spin, you
are left with nothing but dead air.


A camera crew was filming
the game and a replay revealed that Kasparov removed his hand for
exactly ? of a second! Deliberate foul or did he try to change his
grip in order to reverse direction? Who can say for sure?


The subject is changed to this or that, deftly avoiding
the actual cheating. It makes no difference if anyone
can guess GK's motive, nor the length of time it took
to enact the cheating, nor what color the sky may be
when viewed from outer space. A typical Larry Evans
ploy is to ignore the facts, and change the subject to
something else; in fact, I'm a bit disappointed that he
failed to attack Judit Polgar's character or religion. The
old man seems to be slipping.


His enemies promptly called it cheating.


Ah, now THAT'S more like it! Ad hominize the folks
who want the rules to be enforced, even upon faves
like GK. The problem, you understand, is not that GK
is a cheater-- no sir! It's that he has "enemies" who
stalk him, just waiting for a chance to point out when
some errant camera may try and make it appear that
he did something wrong-- which he never ever could.

Apparently, to the Evans ratpack, Gary Kasparov is
a sacred cow-- almost like Bobby Fischer. He can
do no wrong, and if Judit Pogar gets run over, well,
she ought not to have gotten in his way... .


-- help bot