I just wonder if the same thing would have
happened to the grandson of an ex-president...

At 04:37 PM 11/19/96 -0500, Peter Soltesz wrote:

>I would also find it highly suspicious that this boy was "forced" to
>resign and sent back to Hungary. Perhaps there was MUCH  MORE to this
>than is yet public.

        Cheating, of course, is taken very seriously in most American
schools, but at the same time the school authorities are very careful about
investigating the case properly and proving, beyond the shadow of the doubt,
that the accusations are not baseless. Moreover, in this case, the school
authorities must have been doubly careful: after all, it was a foreign
student who arrived only two weeks before in this country, and the test was
an English test, not his native language. The student claims that he glanced
at the exam of his neighbor and he saw only one "short word." Moreover, he
says, he himself reported his inadverted glance to the teacher. First of
all, I can't believe that copying one "short word" is enough  to expell
someone, and I don't believe that any school would act on such flimsy
evidence. There had to be a very substantial similarity between the two
tests. Second, although the article doesn't mention it, I am almost certain
that the American private school in question employed something called "the
honor code." The honor code is a fairly obnoxious code, in my opinion. It
means that if a student notices that another student breaks one of the rules
of the school, he is "honor bound" to report it to the authorities. If that
is the case, the whole story makes a little bit more sense. According to our
student a classmate of our student came up to him after class and told him
that he had seen what he had done. In the light of the above this can be
interpreted as follows: a classmate saw that he had been copying his
neighbor's exam and told him that he was honor-bound to report it. Our
student at this point decided that it was safer to report the incident
himself to the teacher. The teacher might have been a bit surprised at this
point, just as the student tells us that he was, but surely when he went
back to his room and compared the two exams he realized that there was a
serious problem and reported to the executive committee.

>One might assume that (at least once in a while) a famous school like
>this has other expulsions that are kept quiet.  How many others were
>dismissed as such?

        I am sorry but I don't think that I was quite clear. It was the
boy's old Hungarian principal who said to the journalist that it was
"embarrassing" for a school to expell a student. This is a fairly surprising
announcement. Most American principles in similar circumstances would play
the "tough guy." They would say that, of course, they themselves consider
cheating a very serious crime but they would add that they don't quite know
the circumstances, etc. etc. But no, the Hungarian principal expresses total
astonishment that for something like that such a severe punishment is metted
out. And then he practically tells the whole world that they wouldn't do
such a thing because it is embarrassing (unpleasant) to the school
authorities. Maybe Tamas Suchmann was right, after all, the whole world is
corrupt!

        Eva Balogh

At 10:39 PM 11/19/96 -0500, Ferenc Novak wrote:

>>
>>        But you can ask other people's opinion as well. Somehow I don't
>>think that too many people would call you a social democrat.
>>
>>        Eva Balogh
>
>Ok, here is my opinion.  I believe it is plain silly to label somebody as a
>rightwinger (or left-winger, for that matter) on the basis of his "utterances
>about religion and homosexuals" as Eva Balogh does.

        Well, I think that it is more than "plain silly" to deny that there
are such things as right and left of the political spectrum. Thousands of
books and articles were written about both in the fields of history and
political science. And, yes, there are certain beliefs which are held by the
right but not by the left, among them I find such things as hatred of
homosexuals, fundamentalism, or at least very conservative religious
beliefs, dislike of the women's movement, nationalism, anticapitalism,
antisemitism, and so on and so forth. I am not saying that all right wingers
profess all these features but put it that way, these features/beliefs are
rarely found among those we call left-wingers, be that socialists or
left-liberals.

>Apparently, her intense
>hatred/antipathy/dislike toward Zoltan Szekely overcame her reasoning
>ability.

        I don't hate/dislike him personally. I have never met him. But I
sure dislike his ideas, practically every one of them. And I don't know
about my own reasoning ability but one thing is sure: Zoli's is extremely poor.

        Eva Balogh

At 12:23 PM 11/20/96 +0000, Eva Durant wrote:
>I just wonder if the same thing would have
>happened to the grandson of an ex-president...

        Certainly a legitimate question. On the other hand, Edward Kennedy
was kicked out from Harvard from cheating. Admittedly, he was not the
grandson of a president but the Kennedy family was terribly influential by
then. His brother Jack might have been senator already, although I am not
sure about that.

        Eva Balogh

At 08:25 PM 11/19/96 GMT, Sam Stowe wrote:


>Eva, I have some slight familiarity with Woodberry Forest since several
>high school and college acquaintances wound up putting in some time there.
>While most of its students undoubtedly come from upper-class families and
>are trying to get an educational edge, a significant portion of its
>student body is composed of wealthy screw-ups fleeing criminal records and
>poor academic performances at public high schools in their own home towns.
>A former neighbor of mine who, not coincidentally, owns a thriving auto
>dealership in a Piedmont town in North Carolina is a perfect example of
>the kind of Woodberry product I'm talking about.

        Thanks for the info. Although I am familiar with the names of quite
a few prep schools I haven't heard of Woodberry Forest.

>Ge'za Sa'pi probably would have been better off had he simply applied with
>a foreign exchange program for placement in a public high school. And Mr.
>Soros would be better off spending his money to put Hungarian teenagers in
>those high schools. Pardon my language, but these kids aren't going to
>learn diddly-shit about American society and culture from a year in an
>upper-class prep school. Why Mr. Soros would waste $20,000 on sending one
>kid to one holding pen for pubescent elitists rather than using it to send
>five kids to public schools where they might actually come in contact with
>real, average Americans is beyond me. I doubt he spends his time
>monitoring this list, so we're not likely to get an answer from him
>anytime soon.

        I fear I must agree with you and I am afraid that the Soros
Foundation does send ten Hungarian students to American private schools
every year. The first time I heard about the program was two years ago when
it turned out that one of my Internet correspondence's high-school-age
sister received one of these scholarships to an all-girls private school in
Georgia. I hadn't heard of that one either. I also agree with you that by
attending one of these private schools, be it even the most prestigious
ones, like Andover, is not the best way to learn about American society. A
good public school, and there are many of them, believe it or not, would be
a much better place for them with a real, honest-to-goodness American family
to live with.

>Ge'za, assuming he's telling the truth about the events leading up to his
>expulsion, got caught in the classic bind that comes with the prep school
>territory. The teacher and administration knew someone in the class was
>cheating on the test. Based upon a long history of Woodberry students with
>felonious predilections and fat wallets, they no doubt knew that several
>someones were cheating. So they dropped a hammer on the foreign
>scholarship student with the funny accent to, as the British used to say
>when they'd shoot the odd admiral, encourage the others. Keeps the bottom
>line perking right along and sends a clear message that cheating will not
>be tolerated unless the perpetrators can be more subtle about it. Now that
>I think about it, Ge'za may have gotten a master's degree in the sociology
>of what passes for morals among the monied class in American society these
>days.

        Of course, it is very hard to figure out exactly what was on the
mind of the administration. However, because I have had a few cases of
plagiarism and resultant expulsion myself, I am more or less familiar with
the proceedings. At Yale at least all the cases were handled extremely
judiciously. The cases normally were reported by the professors. The first
port of call was the college dean. Discussion between professor and college
dean followed and if the professor actually wanted to press charges, the
college dean had to report the case to his/her boss, the dean for academic
affairs. The dean for academic affairs ex officio was the chairman of the
Executive Committee which actually conducted hearings: the professor, the
student, and his/her college dean had to appear. The college dean had to
write a letter to the chairman of the Executive Committee outlining the case
and saying a few words about the student's past conduct and character. If
there was no question that plagiarism had occurred there was no way of
saving the student's skin. Expulsion was immediate, but a year later the
student could reapply and readmission was almost automatic. The only problem
was that the fact of expulsion remained on his record for ever. So, two
years later when the student was applying to law school, for example, it was
rather hard to "sell" him. Every law school in the United States demands a
recommendation from the dean (in our case from the college dean) because
they want to be sure that the applicant has a clean record. I had a case
once when a freshman copied out paragraphs and paragraphs from a very well
known book on Blake (the author happened to be a Yale professor), he was
expelled, and opted not to return. Ended up at some other institution and
four years later he was applying to law school. Out of the blue I received a
request from such and such law school asking for the student's record at
Yale--all five months of it. I had to tell, of course, that he was expelled
for plagiarism.

        Now, when it comes to moral standing of the sons and daughters of
the American rich, I know exactly what you are talking about. I had a couple
of no-goods whose fathers were household names in the American government.
They were stupid, unthinking, belligerent, big drinkers, noisy creatures. I
remember one especially "fondly" who in his drunken stupor (he was a
freshman) attacked a Hispanic student of ours, knocked his camera out of his
hands, and threatened him. When I called him in and I gave him a talk he
most likely will never forget he acted in a most supercilious manner. When I
warned him: "Don't supercilious with me," he announced that he didn't know
what the word meant. I inquired how did he manage to get into Yale in that
case and shoved the dictionary in his hands, saing, "Here is your
oppportunity to get educated." He was one of the products of a prestigious
Washington prep school.

        Eva Balogh

Eva B said:

> >        Zoltan Szekely tries to convince us that he is a social democrat. I
> >claim that he is not a social democrat but rather a rightwinger. Zoltan
> >Szekely thinks that I am basing this *faulty* opinion on GENERAL IMPRESSION
> >(emphasize [sic!] by Zoltan Szekely) and this general impression is totally
> based
> >on nothing. I am basing my opinion on your utterances about religion, about
> >homosexuals, about politics, and I found nothing which reminds me of a
> >social democrat. Your opinions on many subjects are associated with the
> >right and not the left.
> >
> >        But you can ask other people's opinion as well. Somehow I don't
> >think that too many people would call you a social democrat.
> >
> >        Eva Balogh

N. Ferenc replied:

> Ok, here is my opinion.  I believe it is plain silly to label somebody as a
> rightwinger (or left-winger, for that matter) on the basis of his "utterances
> about religion and homosexuals" as Eva Balogh does.  Apparently, her intense
> hatred/antipathy/dislike toward Zoltan Szekely overcame her reasoning
> ability.
>
> Ferenc

My reply:

Well, if someone declares themselves to be of one political category but their
expressed opinions are contrary... what do you expect? How would you politicall
y
label someone, if not by their expressed political opinions???  Does letting
someone say one thing then sugar-coat themselves another seem more reasonable?
It's like racists saying they're not racist... they just don't like.....

Ciao,
Mark

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>
>But Agnes, that's the American way (I'll bet you Sam sells Amway!).  It's
>what they've done in Cuba, too.  Their Presidents don't like Castro, so
they
>punish all Cubans with a trade imbargo.  And now, because more and more
>non-American companies are doing business in Cuba, the Americans want to
>punish/blacklist them also.  But let's not get too deep or we'll lose
Sam.
>
>Joe Szalai
>
>

You're being hypocritical. You usually rant and rave against the
commercial sector, but the first time it'll help you stoke your
anti-Americanism, you become Armand Hammer. May we assume, then, that the
next time el maximo jefe decides to clean out his prisons and put them on
rafts and inner tubes in the Straight of Cuba, the U.S. Coast Guard can
pluck them out of the water and ship them to Ontario along with the death
row inmates from all of our own prisons?

By the bye, I'm all in favor of repealing the Helms-Burton Act, which is
what you find so objectionable. I don't think Castro can withstand a major
infusion of American capital investment. God knows, though, why the
American business community would want to do business in Cuba. It's like
Haiti without all the widespread affluence and public order. And I'll bet
once the embargo does end and Americans start doing business in Cuba,
you'll be running your yap at top speed about how capitalism has ruined
that socialist paradise.
Sam Stowe

"Tourism probably changed our culture
as much as anything did. To attract tourists
you don't necessarily give them the true
history. Sometimes you have to compromise
and make those little tomahawks and
set a chief up on the street."
-- Joyce Dugan, Principal Chief of the
Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation

At 04:07 PM 11/20/96 GMT, Sam Stowe wrote:

<snip>
>You're being hypocritical. You usually rant and rave against the
>commercial sector, but the first time it'll help you stoke your
>anti-Americanism, you become Armand Hammer.

First of all, being anti-American is a virtue everywhere except in America.
And secondly, I don't rant and rave against the commercial sector.  I rant
and rave about the loss, or the reduction, of social services.  Do you think
the commercial sector has anything to do with that?

>May we assume, then, that the
>next time el maximo jefe decides to clean out his prisons and put them on
>rafts and inner tubes in the Straight of Cuba, the U.S. Coast Guard can
>pluck them out of the water and ship them to Ontario along with the death
>row inmates from all of our own prisons?

So, because you label me anti-American, you want to pull a Castro on
Ontario?  That's too clever by half.  But at least I know who your mentor
(or is that tormentor?) is.

>By the bye, I'm all in favor of repealing the Helms-Burton Act, which is
>what you find so objectionable. I don't think Castro can withstand a major
>infusion of American capital investment.

Nobody can!  It's certain cultural death.

>God knows, though, why the
>American business community would want to do business in Cuba.

I'm not God, but I think they'd do business in Cuba for the same reason they
do business anywhere - to exploit, to take more money back to the US than
they brought.

>It's like Haiti without all the widespread affluence and public order.

Yeah, pity eh?  At one time, and I guess you're too young to remember,
Havana was referred to as America's whorehouse.

>And I'll bet
>once the embargo does end and Americans start doing business in Cuba,
>you'll be running your yap at top speed about how capitalism has ruined
>that socialist paradise.

In this world an iconoclast never rests.  You guys make that impossible.

Joe Szalai

"Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power
thereto in his own hell."
          Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm sorry if it is not clear, I thought the "over history" bit
clarifies that I was trying to describe a development, a continuous
change, a progress from caring for larger and larger groups
of people. The obligations we feel is stronger
for the smaller units - at present -, but not not in every case, and this is
 also
changing very rapidly, with some  people feeling more empathy for
a group far away, than their own family or country, such as
some pop-group fans or anthropologists etc.
I don't think that is bad. People clinging to the past images of
family and nation (and religion) seem to be more prone to
accept ideas based on hatred.

:
>
> Eva Durant At 03:50 PM 19/11/90 +0000, you wrote in response to J. Zsargo:
>
> >I think the "human nature" arguement is not valid.
> >
> >1. The progress of human society is actually based on cooperation,
> >    and over history people tend to feel a duty towards the others
> >    in the same family, than the same tribe, than the same state, and
> >   now  - most of us - even for people on other continents.
> In all honesty, the last part of your statement throws me off;  it appears,
> that prior to it, you are saying that people tend to feel duty towards their
> family members over that of the same tribe, state - the rest, I lost - for
> me, it contradicts the prior.  Am I alone?  (btw - this is not to say, that
> I am in agreement either - I am questioning my abilities interpretning
 English).
>
> Upon clarification of this; I will come back to the rest.
>
> Thanks,
> Aniko.
> <snip for now>
>

> Eva -- for creative thoughts, for improving our lot, for just about
> everything, except picking up garbage, paving streets, patrolling the
> streets, we turn to ourselves, not the government.  The less government we
> have, the better.
>

You need creative thoughts to organize the most mondane things
in some circumstances.  (You need a society for creative thoughts,
otherwise you cannot even define creativity.)
I agree with you about less government, when society is efficient
enough to democratically organise itself, so there are no groups left
out, such as todays underclasses. When all communities have enough
resources for this, such as the means of communication and material
goods, the role of government can diminish.

The international mail service functions without a central
organisation, because it has the resourses in each country to do the
job, and has effective technology/communication to negotiate problems.

What I am keep repeating is, that we can provide now all these
conditions for working democracy - but not in the confines of the
capitalist framework of chaotic production and distribution.


In a neighbourhood where
people don't feel as positive about themselves and their place in
society, things don't work like that. People there cannot organise
the garbage picking and the pavement fixing themselves, as they
haven't got the resources - to even communicate, not to mention
the materials. Compare a rundown inner city area (UK) with a block of
flats in Hodmezovasarhely (the poorest place I've seen in Hungary
in the 90's). In the later even though it was populated by unemployed
and poorer people, their self-image, confidence must have been intact
and there were still some assistance from the local council I presume
- to keep the place clean and friendly even in the middle of the dusty
small town outskirts. I wonder if things got better or worse there
since 1994.


> I am not sure what you mean about being "empowered" from voting, as it were
> some kind of mystic or religious experience that cleanses the soul.
> Nonsense.  I vote. Then I go to work. I go home. I go sailing.  I go skiing.
> I live my life.  Its something you do, like brushing your teeth -- just less
> often.
>

Well, I was told that elections are the most  precious thing you can have in
the "free world"...   I agree. They are nonsensical. You can miss
them out between your everyday activities. Nobody notices.
Though I think the people who don't bother are mostly the ones who
missed out on sailing and skiing.  They know best, that it won't make
a difference for their lives.

> On the other hand, when things happen in my neighborhood that I don't like
> and affect me and my neighbors, I have the freedom and the opportunity (far
> more than I ever had in Hungary) to go down to Town Hall and voice my
> opinion.  Twice a month we have open Town Board meetings and anyone can
> speak.  (You can even view the meeting live on TV and call in on the phone
> and speak to everyone through a speaker phone, if you don't feel like
> getting dressed.  Dial-in Democracy.)  Most of the time you can see the
> results, too.

That's great. I can see a practical aspect  of the society I envisage
in existance. However, I suspect, that there is more say on behalf of
the comfortable and powerful people, than the others, and that
not all towns have the same facilities.


> Does it make any difference if the politicians involved were Democrats or
> Republicans?  Would it have been better resolved had they been elected on a
> sharply defined  ideological party platform?   Would the issues have been
> more clarified if they were extreme left-wingers and right-wingers?  I
> doubt't it. If they were, most likely they would be still arguing about it,
> each side outshouting the other and waving their well-thumbed copies Marx
> and Adam Smith, while missing the point that all the neighborhood wanted was
> a little bit of peace and quiet.
>

So why pay the millions into the party coffers, why bother with those
parties?  Same argument went for the stalinist regimes - what's the
point having more parties, when this one is doing it's best for The
People?  And those who actually thinking about changing the systems
are anti-american/reactionary (take your pick) whinging
troublemakers...

> Admittedly, American politics would be a lot more exciting, especially to
> those who watch it from afar, if we had 6 (at least) political parties, each
> of them uniquely qualified to solve all problems on earth, diametrically
> opposed to everyone else, fighting for every scrap of "truth", taking no
> prisoners in the process.-cut-

Yes, it would be interesting to see ANY ideas sometime for solutions
for very worrying problems, not just the marketing slogans.
 Oh sorry - in your beautiful dreamland
there are no problems to be solved...   I think there are problems
even in the US, and people need to think up ideas about solving them.
The solutions usually involve change, and as you are comfortable, you
think any change would involve you loosing out.   It is not
necessarily so. Even if it were, you would (I hope) feel more
relaxed, if everyone else on this Earth has a chance to be as content
as you are.




> Better yet, fully convinced of our right and our might, we could declare the
> dictatorship of the (proletariat,middle class, women, left handed people,
> animal research laboratory assistants -- choose your pick), and simply rule
> in their name by edict.  Or, wait, even better!  How about a "People's
> Democracy"?  Cool name, eh?  We could nationalize all land and factories by
> government regulation alone, actually execute our rule, and then
> subsequently pass a law in the National Assembly sanctifying what we have
> already done.  (Sounds a little bit too familiar to us Hungarians?)
> Creative democracy --  finally something to give creative accounting a run
> for its money.

... and you managed to run amok with the usual strawman - please,
discuss the ideas I present, and point out any flaws in those.   I
emphesised , that only a democratic system would function and
what safeguards would be necessary to avoid deformity,
though in a society with  literacy and material abundance the task
should be a lot easier.


>
> Maybe after 220 years of occasionally shaky but well honed practice,
> American  democracy is boring.  I like it that way.  It works.
>
>
>>

It works for you. There are a few millions who disagree.
And the future looks shaky.
But - why should you care?

At 08:41 PM 11/19/96 -0800, Charlie Vamossy, responding to Eva Durant, wrote:

<snip>
>I am not sure what you mean about being "empowered" from voting, as it were
>some kind of mystic or religious experience that cleanses the soul.
>Nonsense.  I vote. Then I go to work. I go home. I go sailing.  I go skiing.
>I live my life.  Its something you do, like brushing your teeth -- just less
>often.

Sorry Charlie, but this is too smug, too Philistine.  A lot of well-off
Soviets could have said the same thing.  "I vote.  Then I go to work.  I go
sailing.  I go skiing.  I go to my dacha on the weekend.  I live my life..."

Joe Szalai

At 11:47 PM 11/20/90 +0000, Eva Durant wrote:

>I agree with you about less government, when society is efficient
>enough to democratically organise itself, so there are no groups left
>out, such as todays underclasses. When all communities have enough
>resources for this, such as the means of communication and material
>goods, the role of government can diminish.
>
>The international mail service functions without a central
>organisation, because it has the resourses in each country to do the
>job, and has effective technology/communication to negotiate problems.

Yeah, functions, but how? Resources, yes they have them, occasionally these
resources machine - gun each other. And when was the last time that you
spent a few minutes watching a "resource" arranging the three pieces of
paper in front of here, before saying: NEXT! Please, not the post office as
example, I prefer Marx (it is that bad;-().

Gabor D. Farkas