My AmazonReview of "The Reasonable Woman," allegedly by Wendy McElroy

[Brant Gaede]

All right! Who is really posting here? George or Jazz?

--Brant

the world wants to know

It depends. I post the good stuff. Jazz writes the crap.

Now, I'm going to save you smart asses out there the trouble of posting the following reply:

"So Jazz writes most of your posts, does he?"

Ghs

Always one step ahead

But one step behind Jazz.

--Brant

I trained Jazz how not to post duplicates. Would you like him to train you?

Ghs

He just drops them.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

I bet Jazz wrote all this stuff that George is bitching about, not George himself.

rde

No animals were exploited during the writing of this manuscript. I gave him chewies.

[George H. Smith]

<a href="http://media.photobucket.com/image/signs/rebbonk/the_signs_are_everywhere_08.jpg?o=7" target="_blank"><img src="http://i796.photobucket.com/albums/yy242/rebbonk/the_signs_are_everywhere_08.jpg" border="0"></a>

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

A new avatar.

This is one of the Vaseline-stained pics from the briefcase that Richard Martin stole from me. It was Richard's favorite.

Ghs

[anthony]

"It's better to have loved, and lost, than to live with the psycho the rest of your life."

LOL - ouch! - lol.

George, do you think such a woman is a rite of passage we men feel we can't miss?

And how do women consider the male equivalent?

I mean, I've been called a bastard* a few times (patently unjustly), with the unsaid sub-text, "I like you that way".

Confusing.

Are we all simple masochists, cruisin' for a bruisin'?

*(never happened to you, I know.)

Tony

Edited June 24, 2011 by whYNOT

[Xray]

I changed my avatar to a pic with me and Jazz. So why doesn't it show up? All that happened is that my old pic looks distorted. The new pic uploaded okay and looks fine on the "change your avatar" page.

Ghs

Ah, works fine now.

That is jazz the day after I got him at around 6 months. He looks pretty much the same now, though a little bigger.

Ghs

I can't see Jazz yet (your picture is still there).

[George H. Smith]

I changed my avatar to a pic with me and Jazz. So why doesn't it show up? All that happened is that my old pic looks distorted. The new pic uploaded okay and looks fine on the "change your avatar" page.

Ghs

Ah, works fine now.

That is jazz the day after I got him at around 6 months. He looks pretty much the same now, though a little bigger.

Ghs

I can't see Jazz yet (your picture is still there).

Really? The pic of Jazz has been visible to me since this morning. Have you tried logging off and then logging back in on OL. ? That worked for me once.

If you like dogs, you will love the pic. Cute as a button. I cropped my head off the pic because I have not been cute as a button for at least 55 years.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Whither Bertie? Several OLers have asked this question.

We may have lost Bertie for good. If so, it is highly likely that Bertie was Richard Martin.

After Michael first suggested this, I followed up with a potentially embarrassing warning shot to Richard Martin, because I figured that it would scare Richard qua Bertie off once again, and that would be an indication of Bertie's identity. I have no way of knowing if this really happened, but Bertie stopped posting after that.

Ghs

[caroljane]

Jazz is adorable. But in reading of Ghs's relationship with him, I saw alarming similarities to my son Andy's symbiosis with his English bulldog Bodie, whom he persists in regarding as a puppy although he is over a year old. I rushed him to the People's Health Adjustment Centre to check for signs of anarchism(Andy, not Bodie - bulldogs are too dumb to get through Rand, let alone Rothbard).

Luckily the tests all showed my dear boy is still solidly lumpenproletariat.

The relief!

Carol

still missing the M and P keys

Edited June 24, 2011 by daunce lynam

[George H. Smith]

Jazz is adorable. But in reading of Ghs's relationship with him, I saw alarming similarities to my son Andy's symbiosis with his English bulldog Bodie, whom he persists in regarding as a puppy although he is over a year old. I rushed him to the People's Health Adjustment Centre to check for signs of anarchism(Andy, not Bodie - bulldogs are too dumb to get through Rand, let alone Rothbard).

Luckily the tests all showed my dear boy is still solidly lumpenproletariat.

The relief!

Carol

still missing the M and P keys

Jazz is now around 2-1/2 years old, but the pics taken at 6 months are the only ones I have of him. But he really hasn't changed much, except his balls have gotten a lot bigger. Thus, given his fondness for spread-eagle poses, a puppy picture was better overall.

[caroljane]

If you like dogs, you will love the pic. Cute as a button. I cropped my head off the pic because I have not been cute as a button for at least 55 years.

Ghs

I think you should put your head back on. The old pic was blurry anyway - you're giving the impression that you look like the Elephant Man or something now! Your real visage must look at least human.

OLers all know your inner beauty anyway.

(Goes for Brant too)

[Xray]

Okay, folks, time for a musical interlude -- an old fashioned sing along. I have written new lyrics for an old standard, "My Favorite Things." Just click for the music and then follow my lyrics below.

Libel and lawsuits and Roman massages

Briefcase and blowjobs and self-righteous causes

Perverts in movies and contracts misread

These are some things that I found on this thread

Shotguns and scandals and Canucks and Bertie

Red headed dancers and tales oh so dirty

Books never written and Vaseline porn

These make me wish I had never been born

Hundreds of postings and no resolution

Motives and theories but no restitution

Endless disputes and betrayals of friends

Oh God please help us will this never end?

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When you're feeling sad

Just say to yourself "I am not on that thread"

And then you won't feel so bad

(Repeat)

Ghs

Cool lyrics that you have written to this melody, George!

I agree with Carol that writing about it all here has had a cathartic effect. This can protect you from letting the whole issue gnaw at your innards too much.

From what I have read of your life via your own posts, you have been through so much which you have survived; you have been on some many "existential roller coaster rides" without perishing, that I'm convinced that the 'Wendy issue' is not going to get you down.

I can't see Jazz yet (your picture is still there).

Really? The pic of Jazz has been visible to me since this morning. Have you tried logging off and then logging back in on OL. ? That worked for me once.

I tried to log off and in again; the avatar next to your posts still shows your picture, but I can see the photo of you and Jazz now when clicking on your profile.

If you like dogs, you will love the pic. Cute as a button.

We have a dog (6-year-old Golden Retriever), and I have become a dog lover since we have her. I originally was a "no dog in my home" person, and finally only gave in because our daughter had kept begging us for years to get one; end of story is that the dog has quickly become the beloved 'queen' in our home.

I had quite underestimated the charm of of these wonderful creatures and how much they give us in return.

I cropped my head off the pic because I have not been cute as a button for at least 55 years.

The nice picture I can see of both you and Jazz in your profile is with your head still on.

You look so different from the previous avator pic where you are standing at the lectern that I can hardly recognize similarities between the two photos.

Here's a video showing you with a cute dog too:

Edited June 25, 2011 by Xray

[Selene]

That's no dog...

that's my ___________

Good pawn structure for white by the way.

Edited June 25, 2011 by Selene

[George H. Smith]

Xray,

Go here for a couple pictures of Jazz that you may have missed when I used them as avatars. You can enlarge them a bit by clicking on the Pic.

http://home.comcast.net/~smikro/site/?/photos/&PHPSESSID=1814987e1f306255ea34fc749fa49592

The video features my earlier Bichon, Herbert (after Herbert Spencer), who was unusually large for that breed.

Herbert died in my arms, while a friend was driving me to an emergency vet, nearly a year to the day that the video was filmed. He died at around 8 a.m. on Dec. 26, 2008 -- the morning after Christmas. I was heartbroken, to put it mildly, for months afterwards. You can become very attached to a dog when you live alone.

Ghs

[Selene]

George: FYI

These two (2) links do not work to the music - they go to Comcast commercial pages.Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Piano Duet by Andre Previn and Russ Freeman)

Saturday Night Fish Fry, with Charlie Byrd (guitar) and Joe Bryd (bass and vocal)

The YouTubes are fine.

Adam

Post Script:

You should read Mark Levin's book Rescuing Sprite - Mark Levin's Pet Corner

Edited June 25, 2011 by Selene

[George H. Smith]

I think I told the story some time ago on OL about how I got Jazz, but even if I did, it bears repeating. It is an altogether remarkable story, one of the most touching things that has ever happened in my life.

I was really broken up when Herbert died on Dec. 26, 2008. I have owned many pets before, so I expected this to some degree, but I had no conception of how intense my grief would be and how long it would last. Even after four months the pain was still bad.

For around two years before all this happened, I had been going on a regular basis to an upscale restaurant/bar in Bloomington called Reality Bites. (The name alone appealed to me.) I started going there because it is less than a block away from Colley's Chess Cafe, and Colley (my best friend in Bloomington) loved the place. I did as well. Aside from the good food and pleasant company, Reality had a jazz combo play once every week, and I got to know the musicians very well.

I became friends with an attractive woman in her thirties named Robyn, who was the girlfriend of the chef (whom I also became good friends with). Robyn was a fellow dog lover who owned a couple, and I would sometimes bring Herbert with me to Reality and sit at a sidewalk table. Everyone there loved Herbert and made a big fuss over him.

Anyway, I stopped going much of anywhere after Herbert died, including Reality Bites, but I did stop by a few times. I mentioned that Herbert had died, and I didn't say much more, but I guess it was obvious how much his death had affected me.

Around four months after Herbert's death, I got an email from Robyn. It included a link to a picture of a six-month old Bichon that was for sale for $300 by a family in Decatur. Now, I had checked the classifieds and elsewhere, thinking that I might get another Bichon (I would never get another breed), but they generally run $500 and up, which was more than I could afford at the time.

In her email, Robyn asked me to take a look at the dog's picture and then call her. (The family had to sell their Bichon because one of their kids was terribly allergic to his fur.) So I called her and said, yeah, the dog was really great, but I couldn't even afford the $300. I could come up with the money in around a month, but there was little chance that the dog would still be available, especially at that price.

Then Robyn said, "No, no, George; I took up a collection at Reality. I have the $300 in cash, and I've already called the people. If you want the dog, I will come over now, pick you up, and we will drive to Decatur to get it."

Three hours later, Jazz ("Snow" was his original name) was home with me.

Is that an amazing story, or what? I am still very touched by it. It is one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.

Ghs

My avatar with the picture of Jazz was taken the day after I got him.

[George H. Smith]

That's no dog...

that's my ___________

Good pawn structure for white by the way.

I mentioned in the video how I had been attempting to teach Herbert how not to get messed up by Evan's Gambit. (I used that a lot in high school with inexperienced players.) I therefore set up the standard position for Evan's Gambit (around six or seven moves in) on the board.

I guess I'm a stickler for accuracy.

I wondered if anyone would ever mention the positions on the chess board. You are the first one who has.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Adam,

I posted this video around 18 months ago, shortly after I made it, but I don't know if you saw it. It is my tribute to Colley Kitson. Those signed boards you will see are amazing. They are signed by everyone from Kasparov to you-name-it.

Colley's Chess Cafe has become something of a second home to me.

Ghs

[Selene]

George:

I know you have posted on this before, but I never get tired of it.

I helped run a chess club for young folks when I was in Virginia. Some of those faces reminded me of the kids I taught there. One particular five (5) year old was just a perfect picture of innocent joy at

learning the game. He was also a natural. Home schooled. His dad was one of the co-directors, with me of the club, a captain in the Coast Guard and a wonderful individual.

I have been teaching chess to folks for decades whenever and where ever I could. I find it to be one of the true joys to share a child's awakening to how wonderful his mind actually is.

I can see that your friend is completely present and that would make him an excellent teacher. Beautiful chess club. I would definitely become a fixture there also.

Thanks again.

Adam

[George H. Smith]

George:

I know you have posted on this before, but I never get tired of it.

I helped run a chess club for young folks when I was in Virginia. Some of those faces reminded me of the kids I taught there. One particular five (5) year old was just a perfect picture of innocent joy at

learning the game. He was also a natural. Home schooled. His dad was one of the co-directors, with me of the club, a captain in the Coast Guard and a wonderful individual.

I have been teaching chess to folks for decades whenever and where ever I could. I find it to be one of the true joys to share a child's awakening to how wonderful his mind actually is.

I can see that your friend is completely present and that would make him an excellent teacher. Beautiful chess club. I would definitely become a fixture there also.

Thanks again.

Adam

Colley, who has five children of his own, is wonderful with young children. He is naturally gregarious, so kids like him instinctively, but he also uses a firm type of discipline. I was once at his shop watching a seven year old girl play a boy of the same age. When the girl lost a major piece, she knocked a bunch of pieces over and started to pout. Colley immediately came over to her and explained that such behavior was unacceptable. He had her reset the board and apologize to the boy.

Around two years ago the best young players in the Bloomington/Normal area (Colley teaches in a number of schools around here) were assembled for a match, via the Internet, with some Russian students of the same age. The Russian kids were coached by a couple grandmasters, etc., so no one expected the local kids to win. But they did, by a narrow margin. The story made the front page of the Pantagraph.

Whenever you play Colley's students, they always shake hands with you after the match, win or lose. Colley is old school in matters of chess etiquette. Many of his young students are from India, and they tend to be the better players.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Back to the topic of this thread.

Brad R. made one of his panty raids on LeftLibertarian2, where I have been discussing the plagiarism issue. His post was full of the usual mendacious lies:

Not true. Visit http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/ghs17may98.txt to read George's initial email to Wendy. His first two options were <a> what can be called criminal extortion, or <b> a threat of legal action -- use of the state. Only when these options failed did he suggest arbitration. Read his letter for yourself to judge how reasonable a negotiator he is.

Wendy's 1998 response is still on her web page at http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/libel.htm Incidentally, Prometheus found no cause for action in the "evidence" presented, and signed Wendy for a second book contract, Queen Silver.

Brad

I replied to Brad in several posts that contained little that OLers have not heard before. Of course, I doubt if Brad will respond to any of my points, since Brendy avoids specifics like the plague, and for good reason.

I know Brad follows this thread, so I am posting a little ditty for him. This one is for you, coward.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Come to think of it, this reply to Brad (from LeftLibertarian2) does have some things that I have not explicitly discussion on OL before.

Brad (Wendy's husband) wrote:

"Incidentally, Prometheus found no cause for action in the

"evidence" presented...."

Prometheus never rendered any kind of judgment in this

matter. Once they learned that I would not sue them, they

stonewalled me in the hope that this mess would go away. (I

still have my correspondence to Prometheus from 1998.) This

is the price anarchists will pay when they pledge not to use

the legal system. Other parties, knowing that nothing will

be done to them legally, will have no incentive to rectify a

situation. When I talked on the phone to the editor-in-chief

of Prometheus in 1999, shortly before I moved from SF to

Bloomington, he he told me straight-out that no one at

Prometheus doubted my plagiarism charge -- the evidence was

simply too overwhleming. But he also told me that he and

others at Prometheus had been told by their attorney not to

say anything publicly about this matter.

Two things are especially relevant here:

1) The first example of plagiarism that I distributed

consisted of passages that Wendy had copied nearly verbatim

(in TRW) from a handout for my Fundamentals of Reasoning

courses. I wrote this handout in late 1974, over a year

before I had even met Wendy. Moreover, I still had a copy of

my handout, and I mailed the original to Prometheus.

So what did Prometheus say? They wrote to me explaining that

my FOR handout had not been copyrighted and was therefore in

the "public domain." Thus, although it was clear that Wendy

had copied this document in TRW, verbatim or nearly

verbatim, she incurred no LEGAL liability for doing so.

In short, Prometheus was concerned only with the legal

issues, whereas my charge all along was that Wendy

plagiarized my writings, i.e., that she had copied my

writings without giving me credit. I didn't give a shit, and

I still don't, about techncial legal matters. Plagiarism

means representing the work of another person as one's

own -- and Prometheus, in invoking the "public domain"

defense in their letter to me, acknowleded that Wendy had

done exactly this in TRW.

2) At one point Prometheus made this offer to me: They would

have THEIR attrorney act as a binding arbiter in this

controversy. I curtly refused, pointing out that Prometheus

was NOT a disinterested party in this mess; they had far

more to lose if they found Wendy guilty of plagiarism, for

they would then need to withdraw TRW from circulation, etc.

I went on to say that I would gladly accept binding

arbitration, but only if the arbiter had no horse in this

race and was truly objective. Prometheus never replied to my

email, and I heard nothing further from them until my

conversation with the editor-in-chief around a year later,

as I discussed above.

Brad wrote:

"... and signed Wendy for a second book contract, Queen

Silver."

Here is what I wrote to Prometheus after hearing about that

book: "My congratulations to the author, whomever that may

be." 8-)

Ghs

[Jonathan]

Wendy and I supposedly co-wrote a book 50-50. Then she did a finished draft, which means our book was ready to be submitted to a publisher. But that finished manuscript is nowhere to be found. Why? Because, as she indicates elsewhere, Wendy inexplicably but oh-so-conveniently deleted that "finished manuscript" from her hard drive in 1994.

Ah, but it gets better, much better. According to Wendy's "moral conscience," the fact that she supposedly wrote half of a book gave her the right to "quote the book in its entirety, should I wish to do so...." (This is a funny use of "quote," is it not? Quotes are put in quotation marks.)

Since we know beyond doubt that Wendy did in fact "quote" extensively from the FOR transcript. she has openly confessed that I wrote at least 50 percent of "our" book. But Wendy's "moral conscience" told her that, having written half of this alleged book, she was morally free to represent the entire book as her book, and her book alone.

So why do I need to prove my charge of plagiarism, which means representing the writing of another person as one's own, when Wendy freely admits it? She has a "moral conscience," after all.

Lastly, not only did Wendy delete a book she had supposedly co-authored, she also deleted a book that, according to her "moral conscience," she had the right to publish in its entirety under her name alone. So why didn't she publish the damned thing, instead of destroying it and rewriting virtually the same book from scratch in 1994?

Welcome to Wendy's rabbit hole!

Ghs

Maybe I missed this earlier, George, but have you explained why you didn't sue to enforce your contract with McElroy? I can understand that you're philosophically opposed to copyright law, and therefore would not want to sue for copyright infringement, including in regard to the lifting of your writings which were not part of the materials that you had given to McElroy to be used in your joint project, but I don't understand why you didn't hire a lawyer to enforce your contract and to tear apart McElroy's various versions of events in a court of law.

I keep thinking in terms of how your situation might have a parallel in the arts. If I were to agree to collaborate on a painting with another artist, and to split the credit and profits, and if I were to then give her a very structured and detailed but somewhat unpolished oil painting of mine (of which I also have photo copies), and then years later I discovered that she was taking credit for having created my painting (to which she added a few minor things of her own and made various alterations to my brushwork), I don't think any judge or jury would find it convincing if she claimed that she had destroyed my original painting (so as not to be influenced by it) and then started over on a new painting of her own, and therefore owed me nothing, could take full credit, and was not in violation of her contract with me.

Forget copyright law, I would think that any competent contract lawyer would be champing at the bit to take a case like yours.

J

[9thdoctor]

Forget copyright law, I would think that any competent contract lawyer would be champing at the bit to take a case like yours.

I suspect there's one key element missing, the thing any lawyer would be looking for first: Deep pockets. Is there anyone involved in this dispute that GHS could collect from? And have something left over after legal fees? I don't know, but I'm doubting it.

[Rich Engle]

Forget copyright law, I would think that any competent contract lawyer would be champing at the bit to take a case like yours.

I suspect there's one key element missing, the thing any lawyer would be looking for first: Deep pockets. Is there anyone involved in this dispute that GHS could collect from? And have something left over after legal fees? I don't know, but I'm doubting it.

It's the principle of the thing, and clearly George got some rough prison sex. But, good point. That is how that rolls. If he had had a "coupla hard, pipe-hittin' niggas to get to work on Homes here with a pair of pliers, and a blowtorch" style attorneys, maybe it would have stopped it.

But still, this possibility remains.

What I wonder about is how the book sales are going. I'm guessing minor. Anyone tracking that? I don't see that bitch hitting the NYT Best Selling List.

Who is buying this book, borne out of such? You don't take a man's work and then make a play. My guess? Failure. The Universe does not allow such functions--the shit goes against everything against It. How much will she make? Is it ever going to be a fiscal triumph?

The marketing pocket is too narrow. She would probably (with the help of some hormone creme, at this point in her career), consider it a victory if she breaks a thousand copies. I dunno, no checked.

She Will Get It<tm>

I like the one picture of Jazz and you in front of the bookshelf. Is that the one that shows the secret door? You know, where you pull the one copy of "Don Quixote" or whatever out halfway and the thing opens to the George Tube? I always wondered how those things worked; how it changes you into your outfit. Sounds rough.

How does it get the hose on?

Regards,

rde

You Will Vanquish The Forces of Eeee-Villlll . . .