Is it possible that the new U.S. Public TV Mystery: Brother
Cadfael has been shot in Hungary?  This is a British-produced
series about an 11th century Benedictine monk (Derek Jacoby in
the title role) who solves crimes.

Production credits include a number of Hungarian names from the
technical crew, but also some Hungarian actors in minor roles.
Cadfael's abbey looks like the double-spired, Romanesque church
of Jak in Hungary.  Am I on the right track with this?

Victor F. Marx

>of people across the globe. Witness the beginnings of such a
backlash taking
>place in California against the massive influx of immigrants.


it is one of the "ironies" that until last century, california was
part of
mexico and that many of the new immigrants have a much closer
historical
and ethnic connection to california than those who settle there from
the
eastern or mid-western or southern states. i presume you do not
consider
these latter settlers to be "immigrants".

>Such a reaction is viewed as racist by liberal elements, and as
xenophobic
>by immigrant groups. However, it really is neither.

it is, in fact both, for what your use of the terms "immigrant" and
"foreign" seem to be is the precise reversal of the historical
situation!

>It is a natural reaction of
>discomfort and alienation of the "native" population, which is
confronted by a
>seemingly huge masses of non-American (read foreign language
speaking, and
>strangely dressing) people.

i presume that by "non-american" you mean non-euro-usa,
non-anglophone.
but of course the original inhabitants of california, as well as the
original european or europeansed settlers do not fall into that
category.
until last century, the european language of califotnia was spanish,
as
so many geographic names still attest.

>The reason for the aversion to these new
>immigrants is here, not in the money that is being spent on the
financing of
>their assimilation into America. (And this is the reason why
immigrant groups
>who quickly adapt the local culture in favor of their own manage to
become
>'native' within a single generation)
>
>Well, that is my two cents worth. As an assmilited immigrant to
this country,
>I feel somewhat qualified to make this statement.

the difference is that many of these "new immigrants" are people
returning to where their ancestors were born. i doubt tat that is so
in
your case.

d.a.

In article > Norb the Hungarian,
 writes:
> Tibor Benke writes:
> >  I'm cognitively challenged...

>         Does this mean that you will stop arguing with people on
this list who
> aren't?  I mean, if you make such a major admission, why would you
want to
> continue dwelling on things you don't understand?

>        Norb

>        P. S. I will be overjoyed if this public confession will
inspire more
> people to "come out of the closet."

could you please list the people on this list who, in your opinion,
are
not "cognitively challenged".

d.a.

Sorry if I'm butting in on a wrong thread, but the hotels
mentioned below are up to date, modern and money-making
bits, not delapidated, and not in need of capital investment.
And fairly big. 

>
> According to the HVG the three hotels in question are: Forum, Flamenco and
> Beke Radisson. By the way, according to one of the correspondents to the
> Hungarian-language Forum, a Budapest newspaper (and not a rightwing one
> either) was putting forth the possibility that Horn is planning to pass the
> hotel chain on to the trade unions. I don't know a thing about this but even
> the HVG mentioned that the local governments expressed an interest in
> purchasing the hotels.
>
> Eva Balogh

I am still puzzled - how Paul intends to identify and keep separate
the "races" without any racism...


>
> Charles, I think you misunderstood one point when you wrote:
>
> >You are on safer ground to argue that there are ethnic differences in
> >ehavior, values, food, music, etc. than if you attribute these
> >differences to race.
>
> I don't attribute such differences to race.  Ny point was that there
> are both cultural and ethnic/racial diffeences among peoples, and just
> as everyone on the list thinks that it is good to preserve cultural
> diffences, I think racial/ethnic differences are wonderful and should
> be preserved.  Maybe maintaining ethnic differences (Polish vs Italian)
> is impractical due to proximity of ethnic groups within a race (Europe,
> Africa, Asia) maintaining racial differences might be a more practical
> thing to propose.  Again, for those with bad memories, I do not
> propose that any race/ethnic groups is better than another, just that
> these differences are wonderful and should be valued.
>
> >Zukie was born in this country .... Her parents made no attempt to preserve
> >Japanese culture ... Following your argument logically, this must be an
> >offensive example of denial of one's heritage.
>
> The US being a 'new' country (ignoring the destruction of Indian
> civilization for simplicity), people coming here to start/build a new
> country would not be destrying the cultures from which they came.
> People coming to the US should become Americans, as there is no
> American ethnic groups as such.  The US and Australia would be
> exceptions or this 'rules' would need more refinement, given that
> people settling new land is older than the Hungarian settlement of
> the Carpathian Basin (No, I don't want to get into the arguement
> about conquest/settlement).  Remember the goal I was proposing;
> Preservation of cultural, ethnic and racial diversity for it's
> intrinsic value.
>
> >My Chinese students are better than your Chinese students!
>
> Are not, so there.  :-)
>
> Paul

Does it have to rhyme? No matter, we can do it!
(Your e-mail address is not shown on my set-up.)


>
> Hello, Netters
>
> I would be appreciated if someone could give me a hand to translate
> a song for my friend ( from Hungarian song into English).
>
> Thanks.....
> Montri S./ Mahidol University

>
> >If I have to make a living (I haven't got capital/investment/
> >business, I HAVE to work for whoever is giving me a job, unless
> >I am one of the lucky few, who has unique skills.
>
> --Interestingly enough, there are a number of ways to make a living
> without working for someone else.  Actually, a fair number of people
> work independently in the underground economy.  I'm not talking about
> illegal occupations--drugs or prostitution, either.  A lot of welfare
> recipients work as beauticians, in child care, or as day workers.
> This is technically illegal--although the occupation is legal--but
> it is necessary and it is kind of an open secret.  Of course, one
> doesn't get rich.
>

The original point: I have small chance of starting up a business
(my definition of a capitalist business is one which is big enough
to employ managers, so that the investor/shareholder is not
obliged to work) without capital; therefore I have to work for
somebody else.
No choice. (And I have such good ideas...)


> >The choice you want to do away in "rich countries" is being
> >"idle" - which is legitimate in my opinion, if the offered renumeration
> >is humiliatingly low.
> >
> --I'm afraid that you are right.  I don't think that people should
> have the option of living at public expense if work is available.
> Low wage work can lead to a better job as one gains experience.

That is (123..) silly. If it says in your CV you worked
as a full time unskilled hand for 5 years, you won't get
a supervisor job elsewhere, and small chance of getting it
where you're working, especially if you stand up for your
rights and not prepared to lick arses. Just plain working well
unskilled gets you nowhere ... nowhere near capital investment...

> I see no moral reason why I should support a person who is able
> to work.  Further, I don't see that it is good for a person to be
> idle if work is available.

I rather do an OU degree at home, than doing a mondain job
which could be done better by a machine, thank you very much.
Your money is better spent! What about freedom of choice, oh
I know, that only applies if you have money...

The fly in the ointment is that often
> there is very little available.  Here is a place where I think
> it is legitimate for government to intervene.

To invent more mindblowing jobs not fit for humans?

But I part company
> with many in social policy who want to see government as the
> employer of last resort.  I have argued that government could
> subsidize or contract out socially useful work to companies who
> would have to hire unemployed people as a provision of the contract.
>

Interesting, my husband lost a driving job (70pounds/week at the time)
when a govt. youth subsidy scheme was introduced) it was given to
a "trainee" to whom the company only had to pay 20pounds...
I wonder who gained in this?

> --If it makes economic sense, workable pits can be reopened.  The
> Jim Walter Corporation here is negotiating with some British pits,
> most of them near Nottingham.  I don't know where the negotiations
> are just now.
> >

The point was, Scargill was right, the govt. wanted to close mines,
and the govt. lied.

> --Well, I don't know how to make people watch the news or read
> the Guardian.  Or even the Independent, which is a more balanced
> paper, although the Guardian isn't as flagrantly biased as it
> used to be.
> >

The point was, that these voices you think are well heard of aka
democracy, are not  well heard of.


> --Nonsense.  There are plenty of creative alternatives.  But drug
> use was popularized by a lot of public figures in the sixties, and
> it became the "in" thing to do.
>

What is the creative alternative in a home with no money
and the only stimuli/information from TV?
I doubt if most young people on drugs have the slightest idea
about the identities of 60s idols.  My kids are in a  small
and sober minority who heard about them and even like them.


> --And skilled and literate, too?  Well, we'd have a lower unemployment
> rate.
>
I hate to upset you, but hopefully surprise you:
There are a lot of skilled and literate people unemployed, too.
More than ever before I think.

Charles Gal ) wrote:
: Magyarositani = to make sound ( as like) Hungarian
square= ne'gyszo:glet  circle=karika
tolma'cs=translator

: Magyarazni = to explain
ami ne'gy oldalos e's ko:ze'pontol egyen ta'volsa'gu'
ami egyenes ne'lku:l, e's ko:ze'pontol egyen ta'volsa'gu'

: and finally magyarozni is not a word!
right!

(See Carnap/Popper/Neigel/Wichtenstein re: to explain is to predict.)

Let's try it again. Hungarian has NO WORD for "to explain".
This is not a statement of linguistic absence, but rather to emphasize
the simple/obvious fact that an agglutanive language without the copulative
verb "is" would probably accept explanation/prediction as a matter of
being, and in course to accept phenomenon as language bound (see Worf).
When we "magyara'z" something we explain it in our language, we make it
magyar to understand. It becomes part of our language. We analyze it to
be understood by ALL members of our culture. Try to "magyara'z" the workings
of the archaic 8086 chip without getting into "Ez az egyenes... ez a go:rbe...
fa karika..." architypic models.

Finally, my point was/is to raise our awareness that every language
determines the mold of how we think. Universality (or value-free) lingustics
is something we all would like to see, but we (as all cultures) are bound by
the delimiting factors of our history. The sooner members of this chat group
accept this simple fact, the sooner we'll communicate better betw ourselves
and with those that argue out-of-context historical/enyclopedic events of our
history.

great post Charles! :)
emil

Well - he has a Hungarian first name... and I liked this
article, it proves a few of my points. If you are not
interested - delete here.

>
> The following is transmitted with the permission of Gabor Levy,
> consulting editor of American Laboratory, probably the highest
> circulation publication in the field of analytical chemistry.
> This editorial appeared in the December 94 issue and is most
> unusual in such a publication.  It is highly relevant to
> current issues that are addressed xxx  Dr. Levy has a
> history of interesting editorials, but this one is his most
> interesting. I though it would be useful to pass it on, so I
> obtained his permission to do so.
>
> Mike Epstein
>
> =============================================================
>
> EDITOR'S PAGE
>
> In the defense of reason
> by Gabor B. Levy
>
> These are again times to try men's souls. We hear many voices
> denigrating rational humanism. A lead article in the July 11,
> 1994 Wall Street Journal reports the breakup of "secular
> rationalist humanism" because "chaos theory seeps into ecology
> debate." Such arguments remind me somehow of the times when the
> novel relativity theory was trivialized and quoted like the
> relative merit of a Ford vs. a Chrysler_or the uncertainty
> principle invoked, whether it would rain or not. Chaos theory is
> an interesting new concept but it has a defined meaning, and
> chaos is not a synonym for randomness. It teaches that in very
> complex systems, small changes in initial conditions have large
> consequences in later outcomes. In ignorance of the details of
> beginnings, no valid predictions are possible. It is not that
> such complex systems are capricious, but that we may be
> ignorant. Cosmology is an example. Because we cannot hope for a
> reliable report on the conditions at the initial "big bang," we
> shall stay ignorant of the eventual outcome. So be it!
>
> --Technobabble of this type that pits reason against chaos will
> be, to quote Thomas Paine in this context, "words of sound only,
> and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind."
> Of course, we need not accept the Wall Street Journal as the
> fountainhead of philosophy, but it behooves us to pay attention
> to it. It is the voice of the financial and industrial
> establishment that runs the country. It also carried a review of
> a book by Nobelist Steven Weinberg that was characterized as
> "[a] last flicker of the dying flame of Enlightenment
> rationalism." These are not isolated voices. Irving Kristol, for
> example, talks about the collapse of secular, rationalist
> humanism. So do religionists turned politicians, although
> Jacques Maritain, the Roman Catholic Philosopher, finds humanism
> compatible with religion. Then again, David Ehrenfeld, in his
> The Arrogance of Humanism, ascribes the destruction of our
> ecosystem to humanism. This is quite a stretch since "human
> arrogance against Nature" left traces already in the Stone Age,
> and our Bible commands "be fruitful and multiply and replenish
> the earth and subdue it and have dominion over fish...and every
> living thing...."
>
> --Arguments, of course, always hinge on the definition of terms.
> It has been said that we live in "an era of midget
> philosophers." Let me join up too, and give a definition of
> humanism. We now know that Homo sapiens shares 99% of its
> genetic information with the chimpanzee, and a visitor from
> outer space (so beloved by modern day mystics) could classify
> humans as a third species of the chimpanzee. A humanist, as I
> define it, is a person who cultivates and promotes this measly
> 1%. Introspection, abstraction, logic, and spoken and written
> communication are the things that distinguish us. It is not
> irrelevant that the study of Greek and Roman literature is
> called "humanities," because they are the origins of philosophy;
> the love of rational thought. However, today's humanist knows
> that Homo has a biologically fixed and limited nature that will
> never yield to some theoretical, ideal perfection. Moreover,
> perfection is in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty cannot be
> recognized without comparison to ugliness. Good only shines in
> contrast to bad. And human judgment is even more complex. Love
> not only contrasts with hate but also with indifference, and so
> on. Evidently, most important facets of human existence are
> connected with the 99%, i.e., our animal nature. However, the
> input of the 1% is decisive for civilized living. Of course, the
> modern humanist is well aware of limitations embedded in the
> human mind.
>
> --Infinity, for example, is an abstract construct. It is most
> useful in mathematics, but it is impossible to feel because it
> is contrary to all of our sensory experience. Another important
> limitation is the explanation of consciousness; the most human
> attribute. My consciousness is self-evident to myself, but I
> know of no logical method to prove anybody else's. There is also
> the sheer complexity of things that can defy simple rational
> analysis. The mental processes themselves seem mysterious
> because of the complexity of the billions of neural connections.
> Psychology can only discover small isolated bits such as the
> Freudian slips and parapraxes that seem rationally explainable;
> the rest is so chaotic that it even allows the conclusion that
> the brain is a dual organ composed of substance and of spirit,
> although there is no evidence of that. Such are the things that
> abut our rational thinking and lead to fantasy. Psychologists
> tell us that a degree of fantasy is a healthful escape from the
> stresses of reality. Some judge that fantasizing is a positive
> thing that contributes to psychological well-being. This may be
> true, but I fear the return of mysticism that is widely
> popularized in its extreme irrational forms as petty miracles,
> extraterrestrial abductions, and a grab bag of extrasensory
> happenings. To discard human reason altogether because of its
> limitations is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
> Yet, there is a pervasive trend to discredit science, logic, and
> reason and to promote pseudoscience, fear, ignorance, and
> mysticism.
>
> --When it comes to social sciences, the picture becomes even
> murkier because we are dealing with interactions between many
> individuals whose behavior is largely unpredictable. Humanists
> of the 18th century fancied that social systems would yield to
> simple rational analysis, but this proved to be naive. If we
> worry about chaos in physics, we should be even more concerned
> with social organization, economics, and politics, which are
> chaotic in every sense of the word. Humans are social animals
> driven by instincts of self preservation and preservation of the
> species, but there is often conflict between self interest and
> public interest. Thinkers such as Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, and
> others struggled with finding a reasonable balance. Empirical,
> quasi-rational solutions to such conflicts proved possible in
> the past. Today we should strive to refine and intensify such
> efforts. Particularly so because instead of calm reason, emotion
> and passion are blatantly promoted.
>
> I don't know whether the mayor of Newark, NJ is considered a
> rational humanist, but his comments on a social problem were
> reasonable when he stated that "Kids don't go out at 2:30 in the
> morning to steal cars because the public libraries are closed or
> there are no basketball courts open." We don't know the details
> of their thought processes, but it is clear that the car thefts
> are due in part to a lack of training in reasoning and in
> thinking things through. However, instead of the laboratorious
> task of changing the mindset through education, anger and
> revenge are the predictable reactions. It pits passion against
> passion, which will surely prove to be dangerous. It would not
> take much to make a Beirut out of New York or a Sarajevo out of
> Los Angeles.
>
> --And there is more to this. History has shown that when the
> social fabric is loosened, oppression and dictatorship follows.
> I strongly suspect that the rising humanism-bashing has little
> to do with scientific philosophy but is a prelude to a dark age
> of repression. As the antisocial habits are spreading in our
> land, autocratic leadership is just waiting in the wings.
> Senator Moynihan of New York voiced such an apprehension, and
> his predictions have been on the mark in the past.
>
> We must be wary of those who oppose rationality, and not be
> fooled by the babble and propaganda. It is certainly not modern
> and surely not post-modern to cite the founders of our republic.
> But I am not afraid to be considered conservative in this
> respect and advocate that we hold fast to the ideals of the
> founders who valued education and rational humanism. Most of
> those who oppose it now don't give a hoot for chaos theory or
> philosophy. They want our body and soul, our vote, and our
> money. We may readily abandon the labels "secular rational
> humanism" or "free thought," which have been besmirched, and
> just hold fast to our common sense and reason.
>
> Reprinted with permission
> International Scientific Communications, Inc.
> Shelton, CT
> Publishers of "American Laboratory"
> Gabor B. Levy, Consulting Editor
>
>
>     > ======================================================== <
>     >                     Mike Epstein                         <
>     >      Research Chemist, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland      <
>     > [Opinions expressed are mine ... not necessarily theirs] <
>     >   PHONE: (301) 975-4114            FAX: (301) 975-3845   <
>     >                 <
>     > ======================================================== <
>     > "From tomorrow on, I shall be sad - from tomorrow on!    <
>     >           Not today; no! Today I will be glad.           <
>     >  And every day, no matter how bitter it be, I will say:  <
>     >     From tomorrow on, I shall be sad, not today!"        <
>     >                             Motele - Theresienstadt      <
>     > ======================================================== <

In article
>
 writes:
>From: 
>Subject: Szoba/Lakaskeresis Budapesten
>Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 12:54:10 LOCAL

>Februar kvzepetvl keresek szobat vagy lakast Budapesten kb.10 honapra.
>Minden infoirt halas leszek.
>Tudnilik Becsbvl stipendiummal Budapesten mrom meg a diploma munkamat.
>Ha valaki tud segiteni jelentkezzen az kvvetkezv IMAIL cimen:

>      
>          vagy
>      

>elvre is kvszvnem mindenkinek
>                           ROBERT

>ui. valaszt angolul, nemet|l vagy magyrul is megertem!!

On Mon, 23 Jan 1995 10:42:29 +0000 Eva Durant said:
>
>The original point: I have small chance of starting up a business
>(my definition of a capitalist business is one which is big enough
>to employ managers, so that the investor/shareholder is not
>obliged to work) without capital; therefore I have to work for
>somebody else.

--For what it's worth, Apple Computer was started by two guys working
out of a garage.  And Microsoft was a one man operation when Bill Gates
started it.
>
>                       If it says in your CV you worked
>as a full time unskilled hand for 5 years, you won't get
>a supervisor job elsewhere, and small chance of getting it
>where you're working, especially if you stand up for your
>rights and not prepared to lick arses.

--Any person with five years work experience--even at a low wage
job--has an advantage over a person with no work experience.  And
not everyone wants to become a capitalist.

>I rather do an OU degree at home, than doing a mondain job
>which could be done better by a machine, thank you very much.
--Sorry.  Never had the luxury of being able not to work.

>> it is legitimate for government to intervene.
>
>To invent more mindblowing jobs not fit for humans?
>
--Doesn't have to be that way.

>Interesting, my husband lost a driving job (70pounds/week at the time)
>when a govt. youth subsidy scheme was introduced) it was given to
>a "trainee" to whom the company only had to pay 20pounds...
>I wonder who gained in this?
>
--As I said before, I'm not sure that the British have figured out
how a market system works.  I would argue that the East and Central
Europeans may end up getting it right, since they have a chance to
make a fresh start.

>The point was, that these voices you think are well heard of aka
>democracy, are not  well heard of.
>
--Well, as I said, one cannot make people read and listen.

>What is the creative alternative in a home with no money
>and the only stimuli/information from TV?

--I grew up in a home with no TV and no money.  There was a
public library about a mile away and we used to fish and
play various ball games.  We also had chores to do--grass to
cut, animals to feed, and vegetables to grow.  It is harder
for city kids, but most cities have parks and libraries.  I
remember People's Park in Budapest which was a nice, natural
park in a working class neighborhood.  Nobody seemed to be
using it except for a few lovers under the trees.

>I doubt if most young people on drugs have the slightest idea
>about the identities of 60s idols.  My kids are in a  small
>and sober minority who heard about them and even like them.
>
--This is no argument.  One doesn't have to know the identities
of persons who start trends in order to follow them.
>I hate to upset you, but hopefully surprise you:
>There are a lot of skilled and literate people unemployed, too.
>More than ever before I think.

--More so in Europe than here.  Partly due to the enormous expense of
the fringe benefits in Europe.

Charles

I think in "developed" countries only less than 40% of the
working population is actually in manufacturing/industry
of this 5% or less are producing food. So if you have no place
in the manual workforce, and not skilled/needed for those
service industries - you better not to have Charles's
protestant/jewish work ethic and try to enjoy yourself
whatever way is humanly possible on the pittance you
supposed to survive on in dignity - while it is an option.



>
> On Thu, 19 Jan 1995 07:32:38 -0800 > said:
> >Charles writes:
> >
> >>  I see no moral reason why I should support a person who is able
> >>  to work.
> >
> >What?  Even if the decision to support such people was democratically arrive
d
> > at?
> >
> --That's a political decision.  And I know of no country, including
> Sweden, that takes the position that work is optional for those able
> to work.  I used to have a publication by an economist in the pre-
> 1988 Soviet Union which stressed the necessity of work as a duty of
> the citizen to the state.  Sweden has a public assistance program whose
> official pamphlet read something like--"limited assistance is available for
> those who cannot work."  Even if a country democratically arrived at the
> policy that one could live as well whether working or not and that
> one simply had to exercise the option, I wouldn't find the policy
> MORALLY--caps for emphasis, not shouting--compelling, although I might
> have to live with it.  There are many people in my business who
> claim to believe that the state should support people whether they
> make a contribution to the society or not just as a right of
> citizenship.  This isn't even good socialism.
>
> Charles

>         How common is the name Ragasz in Hungary?

>         Norb
I only knew a lake named that.

Regards,Jeliko

Eva Durant writes:

> Didn't work for me and I even tried a Stalinist country, not a socialist
> one...   There again I tended to be an employee in both systems,
> not an employer... I have to admit, being an employee in
> a Capitalist country made me a more active  and better socialist...
> 

Of course some people never learn.
Jeliko

Greg quotes and writes:
> Tibor Benke writes:

> >  But poets, if they are great,
> >  have been free of moral obligations to us lesser folk since at least
the
> >  Greeks...

> Now I've heard everything.

> --Greg
You wanna bet?

Regards,Jeliko

Greg asks:

>Tibor Benke writes:
>
>>  I'm cognitively  challenged...
>
>What does that mean?
>


It's hard to say.  The notion is just now being formalized beyond the
general term, 'stupid'.  The currently fashionable technical terms are:
'dislexia', 'attenetion deficit disorder', 'learning disability'.  Even
these terms are in my view biased.  The frequency of the problem is high
enough to justify speculation about whether it should not be dubbed
'teaching disability', i.e. certain differences in cognitive functioning
are counter selected for by current pedagogical methodology.  When I was in
high school it was termed 'underachivement', meaning that scores on IQ
tests predicted better scholastic achievement then the subject actually
produced.  When I was in elementary school in Hungary it was called
'bamba', 'u"gyetlen' meaning 'distracted' 'lacking skill'.   I was more
then seven years old by the time I learned to tie my shoes properly.
Symptoms include having difficulty with linear sequencing in space or time,
orienting of shapes that would distinguish a 'p' from a 'd' from a 'b', for
example.  There are also memory problems:I had trouble with spelling even
in Hungarian, which is pretty silly because the orthography is almost
completely phonetic - if you can 'hear' where a double consonant should be
used, learn when to use a 'j' or an 'ly' for the sound English writes with
the consonant 'y' and can remember to use the proper diacritical marks on
the vowels, that is all you need. I keep my address and phone number on a
label pasted to my cane because I tend to reverse digits and forget the
street name.   Because these little problems cause considerable frustration
in life: you have trouble keeping your clothes neat, your school books from
getting dogeared, your pencil is always broken, you loose things, gadgets
never work for you, it causes emotional problems as well.  By the time the
Hungarian revolution broke out I was seriously considering  suicide (as
seriously as a fifth grader can get).  I was a problem child and my middle
class parents who were being persecuted for being "oszta'ly idegen",  (of
the estranged classes) were considerably worried  about my future, one
might even say, 'they were at wit's end'.  Though they had me tested, the
tests available in those days didn't identify these things yet (it is one
reason why I am obsessed with epistemology and theories of measurement).  I
was then considered lazy and obstinate and treated accordingly.  I didn't
realise what was wrong with me until I studied to be an elementary school
teacher after I could no longer do factory work safely because of the
multiple sclerosis, (I was diagnosed with MS in 1975, when I was 30, but
the problems in cognition are independent from that).

Tibor

T>>  >>  The third world isn't poor because its backward
T>>  >>  and less 'civilized',  it is poor because Europe has been robbing
it for
T>>  >>  some four centuries and is continuing to do so.
>>  >
G>>  >I'd like your opinion on whether, in the last 50 years, any formerly
poor
G>>  > nations
G>>  >"made it" out of poverty, and how they did it.
>>
T>>  I imagine you are alluding to the Asian "little tigers'" or whatever
they
T>>  are called now.  These paragons of respect for human rights,
(especially
T>>  that of indegenous peoples), and practicioners of sustainable
development
T>>  are often cited as examples of pulling onself up by one's bootstraps
and
T>>  using one's "comparative advantege" wisely.  But it is a mistake to
imagine
T>>  that every country could do the same thing.
>
G>Perhaps.  But if these countries were once poor because of European
robbery,
G>when did the robbery stop, and how was it stopped?
>

It's not as simple as that.  Metropoles can rise and fall.  Korea was once
a metropole.  Malaysia was a periphery and has managed to exploit parts of
itself so that it is becoming a semiperiphery.  There are other factors,
innovation, natural disasters which alter power relationships.  A detailed
economic history is needed in each case, and I've read about the Carribean,
South America, and Canada but not East Asia.  Canada is an interesting case
because even though much of it is a hinterland (a source of one 'staple' or
another) the population is so small relative to the reasources and land,
that the 'backwardness' is almost invisable and just becoming apparent now.
 Anyway, the short answer is: I don't know, I'm not an economic historian
and I'd have to study the case.  You tell me.

Tibor

Norb the Hungarian wrote:


>Tibor Benke writes:
>>  I'm cognitively challenged...
>
>        Does this mean that you will stop arguing with people on this list who
>aren't?  I mean, if you make such a major admission, why would you want to
>continue dwelling on things you don't understand?
>
>        Norb
>
>        P. S. I will be overjoyed if this public confession will inspire more
>people to "come out of the closet."

No, I will not stop arguing with 'smart' people.  As I pointed out before,
just because someone might know more then another, does not logicaly or
practicaly entail that the later may not know some things the former does
not.  Being cognitively challenged only meAns I'm a bit more error prone
than average, it does not mean I'm stupid or that my opinions our
automatically invalidated.  I merely have a uneque perspective on the world
because I don't take as much for granted. I am curious to hear substantive
counter arguments to anything I say and it's pretty easy to change my mind
with a good argument.  Sometimes I think everyone is cognitively
challenged, some of us are just more aware of it than others.

If you are annoyed by my contributions you can:

1. Use your 'delete'  key.
2. Tell me to get off the list and get others to do so.

Cyberspace is very big, I won't hang around where I am not wanted.  But if
you'll open your mind, you may yet learn something from me. (regu"l
rejtem).

Tibor

On  Sat, January 21  Jeliko wrote:


[snip]

T>  I'm cognitively
T>>challenged, as I mentioned before.
>
C>--I'm not sure what this means.  You appear to have the usual facility
C>with language and you know how to look up sources.  Clearly, you are
C>not stupid.  Well, your viewpoint is a bit naive, but one expects that
C>from anthropologists!

See my post to Greg, called "challenge".


T>
T>  As for your second point,  even if the
T>>numbers are absolutely flawless, the indeces can always be faulted, and
T>>there is no politicaly neutral way to pick indeces.
>
C>--But my point is that if one understand statistics, he or she knows
C>exactly what they do and how far one can trust them.  I will confess
C>that I have chosen statistical procedures that make the numbers come
C>out in favor of the argument I am making.  Editorial reviewers are not
C>always sophisticated enough to understand what has been done, right in
C>front of their eyes, and they have accepted the piece for publication.
C>There is no need to lie.  Just use the procedure that works best.  But
C>a really knowledgeable person would have known what was done.


I think we just have different definitions on 'lie'.


T>> I got everything I know about Go~dell from there.).
>
C>--Huh?

I only said Piaget's book _Structuralism_ was interesting, and as support
for that claim I added the above sentence.

T>>
T>>              Official rates of unemployment (which vastly
undercalculate the
T>>actual number of those who have no work), however, continue to hover
T>>between 9% and 13% with 20% or more in,  Newfoundland.

C>--Well, most people who deal with these things are well aware of the
C>problem in unemployment statistics.  The reason they continue to use
C>a faulty statistic is that it is constant.  But nobody with any knowledge
C>of the problem is deceived.  The same is true of the American poverty
C>measure.  It has serious shortcomings, but to adopt a less flawed
approach
C>would make comparisons more difficult.  We continue to use it, knowing
its
C>flaws, and therefore are cautious about it.  This is not a major problem.
>

I have this paranoid feeling that reluctance to refine the measuring tools
is caused by more then just technical obstacles.


T>>   The average real
T>>wage is way downfrom even a decade ago.  Supposedly, there was no
T>>inflation this year; nevertheless, if your "basket of goods and
services" is
T>>different from what Stats Can uses you might experience a rise in your
T>>cost of living, as I have.

C>--Again, to change to a more realistic measure would confuse more than
C>help.  The basket of goods and services has the argument for continuity
C>going for it, and people who use the measure know of its shortcomings,
C>but to change would engender more confusion.  If you understand what is
C>going on, it's not a serious problem.  By any measure, inequality is
C>increasing, and there is little academic dispute about that.


I have this paranoid feeling that reluctance to refine the measuring tools
is caused by more then just technical obstacles.



T>>terms  like: 'advanced', 'bakward', 'civilized', 'primitive', etc.  as
T>>unscientific and ideological.

C>--Sure.  This is why it is important for people to make their values
C>explicit.

[snip -something about value free]

T>>No, but I don't go out of my way to allow more ideology into my
labeling
T>>then must remain after I have done all I can to compensate. (Theory of
T>>measurment again)

C>--Well, I almost posted a note to Eva Balogh on this issue.  I would have
C>said that she should remember that you are a post-modernist.  I was
C>trained in analytic philosophy.  This is a forerunner to what is now
C>called deconstruction.  The difference is that deconstructionists accept
C>sociological Marxism without applying their own criterion to it.  Most
C>of your postings reek of the post-modernist world view, which is quite
C>anti-Western.

I think this is the third time I've been accused of being a Post Modernist.
 To repeat, I cannot be a Post Modernist because I find their writings too
difficult and have not been able to read even one primary source.  I came
to my present intellectual position based on my life experiences and the
following : The anthropological ideas of Boas and his disciples, Ruth
Benedict and Margaret Mead,  also Gregory Bateson and what he brings from
The British Isles and his dad's evolutionary biology; The linguistic ideas
of  Saussiere as well as Sapir, I found the distinction between discriptive
and prescriptive grammar particulary enlightening when I was a freshman;
the structuralism of Piaget and Levi-Strauss,  also the cognitive
development work  and genetic epistemology of Piaget and the psychological
ideas of R.D. Laing; finally and most recently, Karl Mannheim's Sociology
of Knowledge.  You will note that Marx isn't even on my list.  If I
sometimes sound like a marxist, it is because I read a bunch of stuff like
that when I was studying economic anthropology and political anthropology,
mostly studies of traditional versus modern markets and "dependency
theory".  It was during this time that I learned about H.A. Innis' work as
well as the marxist Ernesto Laclau.  Eric Wolf and Peter Worsley came to my
attention here too.  I am aware that all this represents a skewed sample,
but I think it is underrepresented in the hegemonic discourrse (in
Gramsci's sense) that rules everywhere but in academe.  I really don't want
to upset anyone, least of all Eva B.  But  I think you could all use some
information from someone nearer the bottom then you and looking up.

C>The problem as I see it is that post-modernism is a Western view as well,
but C>most post-modernists don't seem to know it.


Of course it is a Western view, how could it possibly be anything else?
Marxism is a bourgeois ideology, so what?  I think you confuse me with Post
Modernists because I share with them my critical attitude to Western Civ
and because they too are talking about points of view and the importance of
understanding subjectivity.  But this is nothing new.  I seem to remember
passages in the New Testament about beams and specks as well as the right
way to compare the value of sacrifice sacrifice.
As for my own view of Western Civilization, I liked the scene in the movie
Ghandi, were on arriving in the London Airport to negotiate India's
independence, a reporter asked him, " Mr Ghandi, what do you think of
Western Civilization". And he said, "I think its a good Idea."


Regards,

Tibor

Eva Durant writes:
> Just that I've never met or heard about anyone, who built up capital
> from wages earned. Even with overtime... At best perhaps a fish-n-chips
> shop, but that is not what I call capitalist.

Well, I know I am not formally introduced to you, but I is one. I also had
several people working for me, and some still do who came here as refugees
also from other countries, who while working for me full time, started with
their families small restaurants, carry outs, drove cabs and one even
started a laundry. They all did OK. Their children go (or went) to the
university and their children also do better than the whiners. And yes,
some who worked for me left and started businesses partly in competition
with me and they are doing well also. What differentiates them from others
is that they work hard and learn a lot from everybody. Non of them were
whiners.

> I think this is an urban legend, I am sure less than 5% of people
> can make capital from nothing like that. Most inherit it or posh
> enough to get a bank to lend to him/her,
It is obvious that you never went to a bank and tried to borrow capital for
starting a business.

>or earns more than his/her worth.

When I was thinking of starting my own business and old friend told me: If
you think they pay you more than you are worth stay, if you think the
company you work for is making money on you then you will have a chance to
survive by yourself also. It took me six months before I could hire the
first employee and by then my wife's kitchen was converted to a Lab and the
living room was an office. I did not draw any salary just paid bills that
had to be paid and not spent a penny on anything else. Starting a business
is not easy, just the decision that there will be no one else to blame for
failure is weighing on your head. There is no more "them" to bitch about,
the them are me now.


> 90% of mankind 10 hours/day and has barely enough at the
> end to eat.
I have had a chance to travel about 90% of the world and that statement is
BS.

>Their own fault - doing the same in the US makes you a
> millionaire appearently... No wonder they break their neck to
> get there, Jeliko, please let them in, give them the chance you had.

I am happy if they come here the legal way and even happier if they succeed
in whatever business they start or whatever work they pursue.

Jeliko

Charles in response to Eva Balogh writes:
> --I always enjoy your postings and never have any quarrel with
> their accuracy.  I must say, however, that you are playing a losing
> game.  Most of your antagonists are post-modernists.  They have
> accepted as an article of religion that the West is the great villain
> of history.  In the name of what they call "multiculturalism," which
> is a misnomer, they tend to give credence to any point of view which
> is critical to the West.  The ironic thing is that they use a set of
> Western values to do it!

Hmmm. Didn't this same idea come up in Rome by looking back on Greek
thought as the postmodern (read post Roman) evaluation of ideas. It did not
get them far either.

Regards,Jeliko

Tibor Benke wrote, inter alia, about speaking "rather old fashioned"
Hungarian, and about having received his "smart person's certificate"--
I thought I was the only one whose Hungarian, learned from a courtly gentle-
mean at Columbia U, was redolent of the days of the Archduke Otto, so I'm
glad to hear of another one.

And "smart person's certificate" is a great American version of a "nyelvu'ji-
ta'si szo', worthy of "Sesame Street" or the former "Electric Company" on
PBS.  Keep it up!

Udv.,
Be1la

Tibor Benke wrote:

T> The third world isn't poor because its backward
T> and less 'civilized',  it is poor because Europe has been robbing
T> it for some four centuries and is continuing to do so.

G> if these countries were once poor because of European robbery,
G> when did the robbery stop, and how was it stopped?

T> It's not as simple as that.
T> Anyway, the short answer is: I don't know, I'm not an economic
T> historian and I'd have to study the case.

Perhaps, in future, this realization will come to you before you post
your cliches.

--Greg

Csaba wrote:

>(There are a lot of people whose name is Deak in this world.) references
>a symposium in Pozsony (Bratislava) but missing are the editor
> of the proceedings, if one is available, as well as the publisher.

The Proceedings of the III.rd Bratislava symposium on History and Politics
were edited by Dusan Kovac and published under the title of the symposium -
History and Politics - III.rd Bratislava symposium held on Nov. 12-15, 1992;
publisher was Cesko-slovensky vybor europskej kulturnej nadacie, Bratislava,
1993. The excertps cited were from Ladislav Deak's paper.

>Finally, one still would be interested in Tony Pace's opinion on the
>minority policy of the successor states to the A-H Monarchy. At least,

Seems to me that the minority policies should be given consideration
in the respective Parliaments of the respective successor states, however
it would appear that minorities in Hungary have yet to achieve Parliamentary
representation *of their own choosing* (that is an elected Parliamentary
representation). It is in this respect that Hungary deviates from the other
successor states in that minorities in Hungary have not as yet been able
to achieve an _elected_ Parliamentary representation, whereas in the other
successor states the minorities are represented in Parliament.
An amendment to the electoral law passed on 1 November 1993 and raised
the number of seats to 399, to provide Parliamentary representation
to Hungary's national minorities. However, RFE/RL Daily Report reported
on March 24th 1994:

MINORITIES IN HUNGARY COMPLAIN. According to the "minority
roundtable," a group comprising minority representatives, there
has been no substantial improvement in the situation of Hungary's
minorities following the adoption of a law on minorities last
July, MTI reports. Acting "minority roundtable" chairman Pero
Lasztity told a press conference on 23 March that the main reason
for this was that minorities failed to gain parliamentary
representation. (A recent amendment to the electoral law that
would have granted minorities parliamentary representation failed
to pass in parliament.) Lasztity also complained that there was
still no ombudsman for minorities, and that minorities still
lacked self-governing bodies that would have granted them
wide-ranging autonomy at the local level. The chairman of the
Federation of Germans in Hungary Geza Hambuch said that Hungary's
minorities are disillusioned, and urged basic changes in Hungary's
minority policy.  Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.

Eva Balogh just mentioned a news item involving my two favorite
politicians and a leak of some sort.  I confess I missed this.  Would
anyone care to fill me in, briefly, please?

--Greg

Szervusz Eva...


Eva Wrote...

>I have began contributing to this list about a year ago and I always thought
>that it was one of the best discussion groups on the Internet. But lately
>more often than not we are not really talking about Hungarian affairs past

 I rarely find myself agreeing with you Eva but I like to think I undrstand
 the value of hearing other than just my own point of view.  On this occasion
 I do indeed agree with the Idea that we should make an effort to steer towards
 Hungarian matters of discussion.  .

>and present, most likely because some of the most vocal contributors either
>don't know anything about the country or they are not really interested in
>it. Right now there are a score of interesting current topics: the hotels;
>the leaked briefing of President Clinton on Horn; the Shell Oil Company's
Could you briefly touch on the Clinton Briefing leak as I seem to have missed
that totaly...  Thanks...

>announcement that it is planning to leave Hungary because of unfair practices
>by their competitors; the discussion about the election of the president,
>whether it should be done by popular vote or by indirect vote by
>parliamentary representatives. And this is just to mention a few. Perhaps
>some of the people on the list don't realize that most of this news is
>readily available either in Hungarian or in English, or both. Even if you
>don't know Hungarian there is quite a bit a news in English. Subscribe to
>Mozaik, one of HIX's excellent programs where the news is exclusively in
>English. If you can handle Hungarian, there are Hirmondo and Kepujsag, both
>through HIX. If people on this list followed the news from Hungary our
>discussions would be more meaningful. As it stands I know that long-time
>contributors are leaving the list because they are fed up with the way things
>have been going for the last couple of months.

My understanding is that these news groups tend to be somewhat fuid in content
and contributers.  For that reason would it not be the norm for the content
matter
user list and heat of discusion to ossilate from time to time. I would have
expected
long time contributers to be comfortable with this factor.


Regards Palko...

###################################
         Pal Gyoni  (  )
                 \/\/arm Greetz Everyone.......
***********************************
           Lost somewhere on the InterNet.......
         If you should find me, tell me....hehe....
###################################
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  _/       _/_/ _/  _/    _/  _/  _/    _/  _/
_/       _/    _/  _/ _/ _/ _/    _/   _/_/

Tony Pace has joined the discussion on relative backwardness and in his
discussion he claims that

>the proponents of historical backwardness weren't even
>acquainted with the existance of

a number of colleges, mostly in the territory of today's Slovakia in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

First of all, if I recall the earlier discussion on the establishment of
universities, it was I who was the only "proponent of historical backwardness"
 and I am certainly acquainted with the date of the establishment of the
institution which became the leading Hungarian university now situated in
Budapest. First of all, if I may correct Tony the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences was established in 1827 after Istvan Szechenyi's offer of 60,000
forints, that is, the amount of his income for a year. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with the university which is known today as the ELTE (Eotvos
Lorant Tudomanyegyetem). That university was indeed established in Trnava
(Nagyszombat) by Peter Pazmany, prince primate of Hungary and the leading
spokesman for the Counter-reformation. Indeed, it was transferred to Buda in
1777. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was known as Peter
Pazmany University, but it was changed after the communist takeover.

May I remind Tony that the discussion on universities began by my saying that
there were two earlier attempts at establishing a university on the territory
of the Kingdom of Hungary. One in the fourteenth century and one in the
fifteenth. Neither institutions survived. Establishing the first university
which actually functioned longer than a few years in the seventeenth century
actually supports my position and not my opponents'. Just for a fuller
understanding of the question here are a few dates. Padua = 1220; Pavia =
1361; Rome = 1303; Florence = 1349; Naples = 1225; Bologna = 1076; Paris =
1150-1170; Montpellier = 12th century; Toulouse = 1229; and several other
French medieval universities like Avignon, Grenoble, Orange, etc. The first
Spanish university was established in 1243; first first Portugese one, the
University of Lisbon, in 1290; the first Oxford college, University College
was founded in 1249. University of Cambridge was organized between 1231 and
1233. University of Edinburgh was established late: 1583.

Now, let's go to Central Europe. Prague = 1347; Cracow = 1364; Vienna = 1365;
Heidelberg = 1386; Cologne = 1388; Leipzig = 1409; Tubingen = 1477; Konigsberg
 = 1544; University of Vilnius (Polish) = 1579; University of Dorpat/Tartu
(German) = 1632; University of Moscow = 1755; University  of Sofia = 1888;
University of Iasi = 1860; University of Bucharest = 1864.

And, one more word for Tony. Just because Thomas Breed comes up with this
rather unique observation that before the Enlightenment it is anachronistic
to talk about comparative economic backwardness, it doesn't mean that it is
true. Tony being touchy about this matter found Thomas Breed's unsupported
claim handy. But let's not fall for it and let's just admit that Eastern
Europe was considerably behind Western Europe in practically all aspects of
life. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Instead, we should all get inspired
and do our darndest to change it in the twenty-first century. Slovaks as well
as Hungarians.

Eva Balogh

I have just received the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development's
document "Lasting growth as the top priority:macroeconomic tensions and
government economic policy in Hungary" written by Janos Kornai.
I highly recommend it as a reading of non-government view of the problems.
Just to build up sufficient interest the following quote is from page 40:

"The ideas I have been voicing in the past few years were most prominently
represented in the political arena by the political arena by the
politically liberal Young Democrats (FIDESZ). Slightly similar ideas were
stated by some economic politicians of the more conservative Hungarian
Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Christian Democratic National Party (KDNP),
probably under the influence of their own staff, rather than my advice. On
the other hand, monetarist doctrines have had a great influence on the
economic advisors of both the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) and the
liberal Free Democrats (SzDSz), which are now the two coalition parties. If
I mention this abroad, people say it is an enigma."

While one may gat this document from your bank's international dept, it is
available from:
The Documentalist
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
One Exchange Square
London EC2A 2EH
UK

Above excerpt is unauthorized, it is inteneded solely to publicize the
document and Harvard University, where the distinguished author is the
Allie Freed professor of economics. (I personally authorize some family
pride also. :-)) I have heard that working paper # 17 will be on credit
card debt handling.

Regards,Jeliko

Regards,Jeliko

Tibor Benke writes:
>
> T>>  >>  The third world isn't poor because its backward
> T>>  >>  and less 'civilized',  it is poor because Europe has been robbing
> it for
> T>>  >>  some four centuries and is continuing to do so.
> >>  >
> G>>  >I'd like your opinion on whether, in the last 50 years, any formerly
> poor
> G>>  > nations
> G>>  >"made it" out of poverty, and how they did it.
> >>
> T>>  I imagine you are alluding to the Asian "little tigers'" or whatever
> they
> T>>  are called now.  These paragons of respect for human rights,
> (especially
> T>>  that of indegenous peoples), and practicioners of sustainable
> development
> T>>  are often cited as examples of pulling onself up by one's bootstraps
> and
> T>>  using one's "comparative advantege" wisely.  But it is a mistake to
> imagine
> T>>  that every country could do the same thing.
> >
> G>Perhaps.  But if these countries were once poor because of European
> robbery,
> G>when did the robbery stop, and how was it stopped?
> >
>
> It's not as simple as that.  Metropoles can rise and fall.  Korea was once
> a metropole.  Malaysia was a periphery and has managed to exploit parts of
> itself so that it is becoming a semiperiphery.

      Hey, wow... someone who has actually studied Harold INNIS. I
love it.  Haven't heard margin-periphery theory discussed in
years.

  There are other factors,
> innovation, natural disasters which alter power relationships.  A detailed
> economic history is needed in each case, and I've read about the Carribean,
> South America, and Canada but not East Asia.  Canada is an interesting case
> because even though much of it is a hinterland (a source of one 'staple' or
> another) the population is so small relative to the reasources and land,
> that the 'backwardness' is almost invisable and just becoming apparent now.

          A few more comments like this and we in Canada are going to
unleash our nuclear arsenal on you.  You think Russia was dangerous?
Hah. Wait till your metropoli are eaten to the ground by hordes of
radioactive beavers.

    Jan George Frajkor                      _!_
 School of Journalism, Carleton Univ.      --!--
 1125 Colonel By Drive                       |
 Ottawa, Ontario                            /^\
 Canada K1S 5B6                         /^\     /^\
       /   
  o: 613 788-7404   fax: 613 788-6690  h: 613 563-4534

Imi Bokor writes:
>could you please list the people on this list who, in your opinion,
>are not "cognitively challenged".

        List those who are.

        Norb

Charles writes:
>
> On Sat, 21 Jan 1995 13:35:13 -0800 Tibor Benke said:
>
> >   Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx
> >believed in something called  "the labour theory of value".
>
> --Smith?  Where?  I don't recall it by that name.  Smith believed
> in paying laborers well, and I can locate his discussion on that
> if you want it.
>


  Charles is right. Smith did not believe in the 'labor theory of
value.'  It was Ricardo who invented that theory and Marx who took it
up and made it the cornerstone of his capitalist exploitation theory.
  (for those not in the know... Ricardo's theory is that all resources
are free, as you just have to find them. The value in commerce is not
in the resources but in the labor put into processing, transporting
and marketing them.  Wild apples cost nothing, but if you want to sell
themyou have to pick, pack, and promote them.   Marx then took this
farther and said ALL value is created only by the workers and the
capitalist rips them off because he has appropriated the tools the
workers need to pick, Pack and promote.)



> a good living selling anti-pollution technology.  I think that our major
> problem in this area is population pressure, and the faster we develop
> technology, the sooner the birth rate falls.

        In the modern world and the strict sense, this may be true.
Highly prosperous countries almost always have low birth rates.
Highly prosperous countries these days usually are prospoerous because
of technology.  But the correlation is with prosperity rather than
technology.  Many a technologically backward island inthe Pacific has
had stable population levels because the islands were prosperous
without needing technology.  This is just as valid a model as the
modern techological one.


    Jan George Frajkor                      _!_
 School of Journalism, Carleton Univ.      --!--
 1125 Colonel By Drive                       |
 Ottawa, Ontario                            /^\
 Canada K1S 5B6                         /^\     /^\
       /   
  o: 613 788-7404   fax: 613 788-6690  h: 613 563-4534

On Mon, 23 Jan 1995 06:59:53 -0800 Tibor Benke said:
>On  Sat, January 21  Jeliko wrote:
>
--Actually, it was Charles, not Jeliko, but he and I often think alike.
I think that he is a nice man, but has a dirty mind.  I am a nasty man
but I have a clean mind.

>See my post to Greg, called "challenge".
>
--Thanks.  I read it.  You seem to have overcome the problems of your
early years, and I'm not sure that you currently qualify as cognitively
challenged.  The MS is a separate problem, as you say.  Damned
inconvenient.

>I think we just have different definitions on 'lie'.
>
--Maybe.  But I am pretty cynical, especially about journal editors,
most of whom are the offspring of camels and humans anyway.

>I only said Piaget's book _Structuralism_ was interesting, and as support
>for that claim I added the above sentence.
>
--It was the word Go"dell that threw me.  Is that an electronic glitch?

>
>I have this paranoid feeling that reluctance to refine the measuring tools
>is caused by more then just technical obstacles.
>
--I'm afraid that this is real paranoia!  People who work with this
stuff ritually confess the shortcomings of the statistics in most
articles.

>I have this paranoid feeling that reluctance to refine the measuring tools
>is caused by more then just technical obstacles.
>
--Same comment.
>
>I think this is the third time I've been accused of being a Post Modernist.
> To repeat, I cannot be a Post Modernist because I find their writings too
>difficult and have not been able to read even one primary source.

--Doesn't matter.  It is like the Dickens character who was told that he
had been speaking prose all his life.  One can arrive at Post-Modernism
by a different route.

             The anthropological ideas of Boas and his disciples, Ruth
>Benedict and Margaret Mead

--I discussed Mead with a member of our Antro department recently.  In
his opinion, Mead was sold a bill of goods by the "natives."  I always
liked her stuff.  I note that the critics of her material waited until
she was dead to raise questions about it.

                                                 Karl Mannheim's Sociology
>of Knowledge.  You will note that Marx isn't even on my list.

--Mannheim is an interesting character.  He was a Marxist until he moved
to England and then he decided that Marx was wrong, and that England
was the best of all possible worlds, Eva Durant notwithstanding.  I,
on the other hand, consider the English as interesting and a bit
quaint, which is stereotypical, I know.  I like the English and can't
wait to go back.

                                           hegemonic discourrse (in
>Gramsci's sense) that rules everywhere but in academe.

--See?  There's that Post-Moderninst phrase.  And you claim that you
haven't read any Post-Modernists!

                                       But  I think you could all use some
>information from someone nearer the bottom then you and looking up.

--Always a useful perspective.  But not necessarily correct.
>
>Of course it is a Western view, how could it possibly be anything else?

--I'm happy that you see that.  The Tlinglit do not think this way.

                                                        I seem to remember
>passages in the New Testament about beams and specks as well as the right
>way to compare the value of sacrifice sacrifice.

--It is a common response to cite Scripture and I am unscarred by this
reference.

>As for my own view of Western Civilization, I liked the scene in the movie
>Ghandi, were on arriving in the London Airport to negotiate India's
>independence, a reporter asked him, " Mr Ghandi, what do you think of
>Western Civilization". And he said, "I think its a good Idea."
>
--I have some reservations, myself.  Recently, two Tlinglit youths were
marooned on separate islands because they had committed a crime.  Frankly,
this action made more sense to me than putting them in a juvenile
detention facility.  Maybe we can learn from the so-called "primitives"
who deal more directly with bad behavior.

>Regards,
>
Charles

On Mon, 23 Jan 1995 10:38:56 PST JELIKO said:
                                       What differentiates them from others
>is that they work hard and learn a lot from everybody. Non of them were
>whiners.

--And this is the secret of the free enterprise system.
Now everybody knows!

Charles
>

In article >  writes:
>Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 14:20:06 -0500
>From: 
>Subject: Istvan Kertesz

>I learned from the Hungarian-language Forum that Istvan Kertesz who has been
>an active member of HUNGARY died after a long illness on January 9, 1995. He
>was thirty-eight years old.

>Eva Balogh

The conductor Istvan Kertesz??
He was recording in the 60's.
Or do you have a different Istvan Kertesz in mind?

****************************************
Early to rise, and early to bed
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead.
****************************************

On Mon, 23 Jan 1995 18:44:34 -0500 George Frajkor said:
>        In the modern world and the strict sense, this may be true.
>Highly prosperous countries almost always have low birth rates.
>Highly prosperous countries these days usually are prospoerous because
>of technology.  But the correlation is with prosperity rather than
>technology.  Many a technologically backward island inthe Pacific has
>had stable population levels because the islands were prosperous
>without needing technology.  This is just as valid a model as the
>modern techological one.
>
--Correct!  But I didn't think anybody on this list understood the
flaws in the Theory of Demographic Transition, and I thought I could
get away with it!

Regards,

Charles, the Old Deceiver

Text item: Text_1


File item: hhprog.txt 1/23/95 5:05P
          Attached.

Upcoming events at the New York Hungarian House
213 East 82nd Street, New York, NY  10028
 (between 2nd and 3rd Ave s in Manhattan)
for information call 212 249-9360
     e-mail:  
*****************************************
       ** The Social Circle **
Every Thursday Night starting at 6 PM
  enjoy a simple, good Hungarian meal
 at a reasonable  price (usually $5-6)
     meet friends, play bridge,
     enjoy a good conversation
   Annual Membership:  $35 per year
 for information contact: 718 - 448-1975
******************************************
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      Central European Folkdancing
every Friday night starting at 7:30 PM till - ?
                 Cost: $7
     for information call 212 942-3768
******************************************
The Hungarian Library and Historical Society
          is open to the public
       every Thrusday 3 PM to 7 PM
large collection of Hungarian book, historic
    documents.  A haven for book-lovers!
        -- lending library --
   for information call:  212 744-5298
******************************************
Announcing the start of a new, exciting lecture
      series -- in English -- entitled
            HUNGARY 2000
 Hungary and Central Europe at the Millenium
our first speaker is the recently appointed
      Ambassador Dr. Istv an Na thon
Permanent Representative of Hungary to the United
                   Nations
            -------------------
      Ambassador Na thon s topic is
     HUNGARY AND THE FAMILY OF NATIONS
 A question and answer session will follow his
                     remarks.
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1995 AT 5 PM
       Tax deductible donation: $10
         ($7 seniors and students)
******************************************
If you are not on our mailing list yet, send
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******************************************

Shamelessly stolen from the usenet group soc.history.moderated:


CEP is wrapping up another year of recruitment and I thought it would
be appropriate to send out a 'final warning' about the program.  If
you are interested in teaching in the social sciences in Eastern
Europe or the former Soviet Union, please read the short description
below. The deadline is fast approaching so you should contact me as
soon as possible.

A longer description of CEP can be obtained automatically by sending
email to .  To find out how you can obtain
an
application (including several online options) send email to
.  In both cases you will receive an
automated reply.  To speak to a human ;-], contact me directly at


Chris Owen
Program Officer
Civic Education Project

> -------------------------------------------------------------

Civic Education Project is an international not-for-profit
organization devoted to the strengthening of democracy in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union through the revitalization of the
social sciences in universities and institutes of higher education.
Through its visiting professor program, CEP sends Western-trained
scholars to teach and advise at universities in Albania, Bosnia,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.  Teaching assignments
are initially for one year, during which lecturers teach
university-level courses in economics, history, law, political
science, public administration, and sociology, and also work on
outreach and research. Lectures are conducted in English, and
transportation, housing, insurance, teaching materials and a living
stipend are provided to program participants.  Faculty and advanced
graduate students are encouraged to apply.  Write for a
brochure/application packet.  Applications are currently being
accepted for the 1995-96 program year.  An Equal Opportunity
Employer.

For more information on the Civic Education Project and its
activities,
please contact:

Civic Education Project
P.O. Box 205445 Yale Station
New Haven, CT  06520
Tel: (203) 781-0263
Fax: (203) 781-0265
E-mail: 
Automated info: 

---
Civic Education Project       
P.O. Box 5445 Yale Station    http://www.cis.yale.edu/~cep/cep.html
New Haven, CT  06520
         ftp://capstan.cis.yale.edu/pub/civic-education/