User talk:Slrubenstein/archive 1

Slrubenstein, thanks for the feedback regarding my changes to Evolution. The changes were big and I thought that they'd either be loved or hated. I guess that since they have survived this long, no-one seriously objected! adam -

Thanks! ;-) JHK

Thanks! In general, I have a big problem with all the Bible articles, especially those taken from old, agenda-ridden encyclopedias. If you think it does what you say though, I guess it should stay. My big worry is that it is both too detailed and not sufficiently detailed. Oh, well. Danny

As I think I said somewhere (here or elsewhere) recently, I think Christopher Columbus has become a proxy for one or more of the following issues: genocide, racism, slavery, imperialism, not to mention general criticism of Western Civilization and its values. Maybe we can show some of the mental connections people make between Columbus and various issues which have their own articles. --Ed Poor

That's fine. I was just pointing out that since there is more than one proponent of method acting, it's not especially fair to list just one of them as "owning" it. :-) --KQ

Hey, Slr. Please take a look at the following: Yeshivish, Yeshiva, Kollel, Shabbos, Rabbenu, Yinglish, etc. Also note that a new article, Yidden, is in store for us too. I am really at a loss here. Danny

Slr and Danny: It is now clear that Ezra Wax is vandalizing Wikipedia. He is totally out of control, writing pro-Ultra-Orthodox Jewish polemics and proselytization. We have attempted to work with him, but he continues to override the Wikipedia project, and refuses all attempts to maintain any type of NPOV. He is now emarking on what I can only term vandalism by inserting a large number of deliberately non-NPOV entries based on his own person view of what Judaism should be. He needs to be banned, and immediately so. He simply is writing factually false material, errors, and non-NPOV polemics faster than we can correct them. We need to ask the moderators to ban his address.

Slr and RK. I am going to go ot on a limb here and say that Ezra is so far off that he is not serious, nor do I even think he is a so-called Torah Jew. His work is reading more and more like a parody that I would do with certain friends when discussing the Orthodox community. It is not genuine. As for you Ezra, I don't know what your kavanos are and I'm not going to pasken that it's a chillul hashem mamesh, but writing narishkeit like that really is pass nisht. I refuse to be misya'esh (a major Yinglish construction you totally ignore) and will keep on editing your stuff out. Danny

I agree that Ezra Wax is a vandal. Look at the edit history of Relationship between segments of Judaism.... I just can't see how certain other people can't see this... -- Mon.


 * Hey Everybody! I haven't gotten this many notes since high-school.  And although it almost makes me feel popular, what can I say?  I think everyone who knows me knows that I have never called for a person to be banned or an article to be blocked, and very seldom have called for an article to be deleted, but I will make changes when I think something is wrong or dumb.  This has been hapenning a lot lately with the Ezra Wax articles, and I fully support the changes and comments made by RK, Danny, and a few numbers.  But I am not a sysop (nor do I want to be).  I left a message on Ed's page, and if anyone thinks I can help by leaving a message on another sysop's page, tell me and I will do so.

Hey, Slr! I am a sysop, but it is a tool that I really hesitate to use and will not use in a debate in which I am personally involved. The problem is that Ezra's writing is teetering on the bizarre--yingl, yidden, toireh, yeshiva bochrim drive a jalopy ... Reb Aharon Kotler founded Lakewood?Sorry, I know that world too well and I don't buy it. He is parodying that world, not describing it. Danny

Thanks, and no prob. Ortolan88

Hey, Slr! It's been quite a week. Like I said above, I thought he was parodying the style, though I was a bit taken aback about him doing it to offend me. I will be writing two new articles over the weekend: Mussar and Luzzato. It'll be interesting to see his response. If you want to discuss it directly, if you have suggestions, or if you think I will only be adding fuel to the fire, you can email me at my new temporary address Danthesheigetz@aol.com. Danny

Regarding vampirism, please do Lir the courtesy of copying disputed text to the talk page before deleting it. This also will set a good example for her (and others) who need help learning NPOV. --Ed Poor

Also, you are needlessly antagonizing Lir with your cold-hearted and insulting remarks. Think of her as your best friend's daughter. If you spoke to your best friend's daughter like that, would he smile at you -- or tell you never to visit his house again? I am considering locking the vampirism page, or simply reverting all your edits -- if you don't start treating Lir like a lady. --Ed Poor

Hey, Slr. I just noticed a bunch of comments by 203.79. etc. Not very friendly, if you ask me. Danny

I agree. Not worth getting into a spam war over it. Lets keep an eye on anti-defamation league as well. He commented there too. Happy Hanukkah Danny

Hey, if you like Talk:CE be sure to check out Talk:Common Era!!! ;) --Dante Alighieri 10:56 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Looks like the copyright thing's not really an issue after all; I half-wondered at the time if I wasn't jumping the gun. Not sure about the redundancy between articles; anthropology's not really anything I know a lot about. Hephaestos

---Unless you have some reason to think my version is so bad-why not edit that instead of bothering with 172? You can edit mine-thats fine. vera cruz

Pleasant travelling with you in New Imperialism and Talk:New Imperialism. Ortolan88

With regard to yourk work on the Gender roles article, since those roles have continued post the feminist revolution (there are still tomboys etc) shouldn't that be mentioned?

Sinitic Western comparative philosophy just sort of throws you into the article without any preparation. It really needs some background explanation. -- Zoe

Vera Cruz is back on New Imperialism and seems very ambitious in a devious sort of way. I offered to stop revising that article permanently if he stops permanently. That would leave it to you, Ortolan88, and Tannin. Try to get him to agree to that. First though, we need to stop him from deleting Ortolan88's paragraph explaining what New Imperialism is.

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Brion Vibber tracked Lir and Vera Cruz to the same IP address (or some similar indicator). Also, there are several items on VC list of things worked on that do not have VC in the history but do have Lir. I hate these feuds and all that. It's hard enough dealing with people who are sincere. Ortolan88

Hey, Slr. If you get a chance, please take a look at timeline of Jewish history--incl. Talk pages, etc. Danny 17:07 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the note on the gene page. I'll wait till it seems like the elephants have all gone past (see editor) before cleaning up again. -- Marj
 * Actually, I've got paying work to do now, but I'll get to it :-) -- Marj

Thanks for the kind note. You are right, of course. I got carried away in the heat of the moment. I will try to rise above it, perhaps by staying away from any of the Jewish history pages for a while. Now, what's this about you not thinking your wise? Danny 23:19 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. It's funny, but I had a long tedious argument about "new" with 172 before he became an advocate for my paragraph, and in fact elevated it to the top of the article. I do try as best I can to be patient and polite, and sometimes it works (for me, or for the other guy). Ortolan88 -

You deleted my comment in the talk page of The crusade of the Catholic....etc. Not that it was of much value but that's not nice. --AN
 * It was an accident -- sorry! Slrubenstein

I just got your message. Im sorry, I dont have time right now to respond. -Stevert

Wow! Where did this come from. My read is that it stems from an overuse (and misuse) of the term anti-Semitism here. Still, this is outta hand. Danny 00:05 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry to be so slow, SLR. I guess my (far too long) post on the talk page explains things, but in brief, my feeling is that (a) the original article was vapid and slightly offensive, and (b) that the issues it raises (or more to the point, hints at) are really interesting but very difficult ones. I'm going to take a break with some lighter stuff for a time, but will be interested to see what comes of it. Best - Tannin 15:23 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

I appreciate your response. I'll not be brief:

Im wondering if we can talk in scriptural terms, here. First of all, Im not a conventional Christian, at all... I'm one of those who believe most, perhaps 90 percent of Christians are completely ignorant of the meaning of their faith. The same goes for everyone, really, but I was more of a militant agnostic, before coming to terms with religions and their value.


 * "Its easier to see the straw in another's eye and fail to see the log in your own."

I recenly made a change to the Middle East conflict page, and once again RK finds it his duty to revert it. I have no respect at all for people like him. Im sorry to say, that these are not uncommon, and they exist among pig-heads everywhere, regardless of what their faith. I sense a natural tendency of you and Dan, generally, to take his side on this issue. Yes, you chastise him for cockadooing and chuckling all the time, but its like the child who keeps acting up, while his mother simply says "Now, thats a nono." The rod is spared, and the child never learns.

I understand preferentiality. In fact you were keen to point out to me, on the IPF article, that I may be swayed by my own biases as someone who's ancestors hadd to come over here on a boat, ( and become destitute, depressed, drunkard, abusive, and miserable bastards... - How much easier it would be for Israelis, if Palestinian Muslims sank into alcoholism... )

I am not alone at all in saying that there exists a bias, - a pro-Jew bias, and that this is excused to a large degree by other Jews for natural reasons. This is Judeocentrism. As for tokers claim that there be no such articles that single out specific groups? - B*!!$#!^! - look at Arab Anti-Semitism! I feel like Jesus, when he went to the temple to find the money changers in it! You know what I mean. Its the same feeling no doubt he would get if he went paid a visit to the Senate today. So much for separating Church and State... this principle is so vital to the survival of this country, and yet we see now, a recent phenomenon of the Christian support for Israel, (sponsoring Jewish immigration!?) at the expense of Palestinian muslims.

Christians maintian a second motive as well, because of the culturally engrained mistrust of Jews. This comes from the scriptural metaphors about a famous Jew who spoke some truthful things - all to deaf ears. They even solicit the Romans to kill him. This is such a recurrent theme, and sadly Jews have paid a price in the stereotype of the unyielding, "unfaithful", living on the charity of Christians. Little does either realise that this relationship is more than just one way, and adding Muslims to the equasion, barring genocide of Muslims, must be more than two-way as well. Consider, for a moment, how many unreasonable Christians and Jews, think that killing muslims, perhaps millons, would be reasonable? I might ask you, on the side, considering the deep wounds of the holocaust, how many Jews might think that Arabs and Christians "deserve" a similar fate.

This unholy alliance, for Jews, is a deal with the golem, as well: "Christian" advocates only go so far as to quote scripture, and say that Jews be restored to Israel. They stop cold at claiming that Jews not accepting Christ be saved. Of course, Jews dont care. They're happy to have a land of thier own, ( rent--paid, the US has the check.) where they dont have to act like anyone but themselves, like they feel they have to do in "Christian America". That this all creates a further divide and injustice in the world (that leads to wake-up calls like September 11) is of no consequence to Jews, who are keeping their eye on the ball - Israel. Too bad, I say, that they never learn the sins of attachment to earthly things, as the state of Israel is now nothing more than an idol: 3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:


 * Once again, trading of something holy; faith, for an attached value to a symbol. This is what I refer to when I called Judaism an unadvanced religion - as all religions are, when they do not stipulate the value of faith over the symbols. Judaism does, but the orthodox, literal interpretation renders it as a surviving relic of an ancient tradition, of a time when man was beginning to escape his primitive, selfish natures. To say, "I have this faith, and in it stipulates that we are not to worship idols" - is countered in two ways; one, faith is not something that you possess, like material, or an identity. And two, despite what the faith says, it countered by what you do.

Paraphrasing: It's not what you put in your mouth that makes you unclean, rather, its what comes out of it, that makes you unclean. which was Jesus's way of answering the pork question, quite eloquently. He takes a meager, insignificant rule and turns it into something far more meaningful - to humans, anyway...

We know by our experienced knowlege of human nature that man is a hypocrite. Thus, for people who say: "I am not a hypocrite," is supicious - despite their insistence, they still are. Perhaps moreso, because of their denials.

My contention is this; how many Jews might you estimate to be of this type- the unfaithful, "Orthodox" Jews... unfaithful, because theyve stopped asking God to provide, and let America take God's place.

It may be similar to my estimate of faithless Christians - The ones who have abandoned God, for America as well, espousing America's greatness, at the cost of faith.

The Muslim equasion is no doubt similar - according to NPOV. People are people after all. Any deviation of this, say... Christians who think there are more unfaithful Jews than there are unfaithful Christians... are obviously, ethnocentric. But ethnocentrism doesnt do it. Lets be specific - Christianity? Very nice, but lets not slander an entire religion simply on the basis of an estimated 90 precent of its population. Christocentrism is no doubt, neologic, perhaps wordy. Your right there. My simple point is that only those who find that the ratio of faithful and unfaithful is equal among all "faiths" are bona fide NPOV, and perfectly rare. We can easily pick out stereotypes of exageration, while failing to notice those of moderation. In the IPF context - it was simple for you - you stake no claim on the minor or even major changes in the article. Your attachments are elsewhere.

Im sure you agree with me that its unfortunate that active Muslim representation here is low. And that humans, being what they are, each pov can be represented by the most polar, pig-headed people possible. These people are equal in value to me; as are their opinions, despite their resemblance to community ones, and Im sure you know what I mean by all that. Take your time. -Stevert

(my responses are on Sv's user:talk page)

I see other way to say it: Quasar, Clutch, Martha and Stevertigo are anti-Semites who are clearly obsessed with Jews. Nothing factual means anything to them; all that they seem to love for is finding a way to stick it to the "the Jews". Stevertigo uses obscure quotes totally out of context, along with large paragraphs of fabrication (Danny had made clear that SV did not research on his early versions of the Semitism article; he simply made it up.) This is really no surprise to me; the Internet is well-documented as the new home of anti-Semitism. A newsgroup I used to frequent was totally taken over by dozens of obsesssive anti-Semites, who literally forced all the Jews out. (The Jews who uses to frequent Soc.Culture.Jewish were forced to set up a moderated newsgroup to have a safe haven.) I just call a spade, a spade. There are literally thousands of decent contribuotrs to Wikipedia that we all work with, and who are not anti-Semitic. I just see no need to treat these four specific people as academic equals to the thousands of actual decent people here! As such, I have just reversed a large number of egregious edits today by Martha. But you beat me to the revert of her anti-Semitic that "the Jews" are really all Khazars! RK

I.e: The team-sport mentality reigns! Woohoo! -Stevert

Hi, Slr. I just walked in and see you've been having a fun weekend. I'm staying out of it this time, at least for a while. The unresearched soundbytes and fanciful claims are too upsetting. I'm not going to lose my cool over this. Danny 00:39 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

I learned a long time ago that arguments based on passion cannot be won with logic. It's two different lagguages, and it just leaves people speaking at each other, instead of to each other. Meanwhile, the only people who are convinced on either side are the people who tend to sympathize toward that side anyways. Maybe I'm pessimistic tonight, but I don't think that a consensus can be reached, at least not tonight, in the heat of the passion. Let it ride for a few days. (as for Khazars, it was a horrible misrepresentation of Koestler's arguments, but that ain't no surprise, is it?) Danny 00:54 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Hi SLR. Yup, I don't think we are disagreeing about anything of substance here. I could probably put my entire view on race and intelligence in a couple of sentences. Neither concept is well-defined. A great deal of effort has been expended on researching the question, with a conspicuous lack of any result that is not fraught with methodolical error. It might be possible to comb through the research looking for studies that have the "best methodology" - but rather pointless, as so far as I know, no-one has yet managed to define "intelligence" in a way that is both measurable and free from cultural baggage. My brief and ill-advided sortie into race and intelligence was a matter of seeing a series of fairly gross errors of fact and correcting them sentence by sentence - weeding the trees, so to speak, without looking at the forest. Tannin 02:30 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Hey SLR... nice changes on Henry Ford! Interesting new content... I think Eloquence made a good edit to the bit about the Grand Cross, since I'm not exactly sure that it was for management techniques, given the glowing treatment Hitler gives him for his ideology, and would need to see some evidence for that, but that wasn't your text anyway... but I am ranting again. Graft

Hi, I left a rather long-winded reply toward the bottom of my talk page. Hephaestos

When you get some free time (Ha!) you might want to take a look at Israelis and anti-Palestinian racism. The original version seemed very biased and anti-Jewish to me. It clearly implied that the statements of a few were the beliefs of most Israelis (and hence, Jews, of course). I entered these quotes (some of which I had read before) into Google, and found them on hundreds of anti-Semitic Islamist and Neo-Nazis sites. Most of these sites portrayed them the same way: If one Jew says it, all Jews must secretly believe this. These quotes seem to be most popular on "Exposing the Talmud! Exposing the Jews!" type sites. I have done my best to try and put this material into a more accurate context, and to show the efforts that people are making to fight prejudice.

Hello SLR, If you feel like a change from talk on Israel/Palestine, I would value your thoughts on the coverage in Wikipedia of the word subspecies. A search shows that it is widely used in articles relating to particular animals, but a search on the article species shows no attempt being made to define it there. To ask a specific question, is it, in your view, correct to say that the majority scientific opinion captured in race, that human races have no objective existence, is equivalent to a statement that the species homo sapiens has no subspecies? -- Alan Peakall 13:10 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. I have placed the above, your response, and my further thoughts on Talk:species. -- Alan Peakall 18:57 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

No, It really is an interesting theory - but youll have to admit that it would belong under a subheading of "interesting research" if you will. Im far more interested in the continuation of that - how does this theory apply to Rap or heavy metal music etc... Its funny, Ive been a musician all my life, and have never bothered to deal with musicology as a kind of mass-psychology - perhaps because Ive seen some smelly theorizing about it, that makes some leaps and assumptions... Im not too interested either, and that might make me useful here as a moderator. :) B'well. -'Vert

Well, all I'd have to say at this point before researching that is that its not useful to focus on the "anti-Semitsm" aspect. what I mean, is that its a relationship between what he saw as German Christendom and the prominent xenoculture. Within this relationships are the specifics of the relationship history, up to that point - Judaism being paternal to Chistianity, the sense of the child culture that the past is irrelevant, etc... "freaks of nature" etc. all under these generalized pseudo-scientific ideas of race, etc. The point is, is that Wagners music not be reduced to hate speech.

If it were that his anti-Semitism were related at all to his music, it would be in inspiration - telling a story; about his own clan's grandeur, and the other clan's outlandishness, and the nuanced conflicts their very different, yet related cultures engage in; Some of it discourse, some of it violence. Some is is warm, and the other is cold and disengaging... In other words, the 'body that writes that part of the article ought know damn well what theyre talking about - they'd have to be channeling Richard Wagner like The Psychic Friends Network... otherwise it's just material for a historical novel. -'Vert

Great work at family -- that's why I put my bit it, to inspire someone to explain what a second-cousin is. The stuff about how it works in other cultures is interesting, thanks. Tuf-Kat

--- If you thought Christo-Islamic-Judaic was off, wait till you see the idolatry piece and accompanying talk. [user:Danny|Danny]]

SLR, you that Susan "hasn't been making many real substantive contributions to those pages either. It is possible that she is using these talk pages to educate herself. I do think you are raising a very valid point about not promoting our own views through the contents of articles, all I am saying is that in this instance Susan is not the main culprit."


 * That's only what it looks like on the surface, but check the history of the idolatry article and its Talk page. My complaint was about her Wikipedia contributions that she wrote in the Idolatry entry; I deleted her misinformed comments, and replaced them with content from the fine article that we already have on the Ten Commandments. She then deleted them, and I had to override her. She just won't let any fact get in her way; she seems to have a neo-pagan theological agenda, which pushes all monotheistic faiths into one basket. This furthers their us-versus-them polemic against monotheists.  Its much easier to view us all as wrong if we are all viewed as the same.  In the Talk pages, she has explicitly stated that she views all three of these religions as being basically the same, which is like saying that "Health food, junk food, and Oak trees are really all the same".  Its only the same to someone who hasn't the slighest idea!  Please don't get me wrong. Its not her faith that I have a problem with, and I certainly don't mind when a non-expert contributes to an article. I just mind when the person in question seems totally ignorant, and is forcefully pushing myths as facts without any regard for any sources or scholarship. RK

SLR,

hi. I'm afraid I know nothing about the topic of attachment. Sorry. Arthur

Thanks for correcting Woody Guthrie. I was wrong to rely on a single source which called This Land is Your Land a "nod" to Irving Berlin. When you posted the verse about "No Trespassing", which I remembered having seen before, I realized that TYIYL was much more of a protest song than a hymn of national praise. In short, good catch. --Uncle Ed 20:21 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

As for hate speech, I'm sorry, I had a browser timeout and did not intentionally revert your changes. I have reverted to your previous version and will hold off further edits for the time being, okay? --Uncle Ed 21:49 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

chess problems need more words, flows; it-does.not user_talk:hfastedge 21:58 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC) - Dear Sil: Good point. As I said, my only problem is with Hussein who deemed the article as American propaganda, and, although its all right to show the true colors in a talk page, it still makes me wonder if he would be able to write an article about Iraq without taking sides. I myself tried not to, but only report on a group of people the American government accuses of doing so or that.

I thought my page on Carlos Monzon, done about 3 days after I joined the Wikipedia writer's staff, was controversial. This one has, in only hours, overpassed that one in controversy....by far..LOL! I dont like some of the comments said about the page, but what the heck you gotta find things in life funny and take it all in good stride.

Well, thank you and God bless you. Sincerely yours, Antonio Wild Boys Never Chose this way!! Martin

I see what you mean, SLR. Racial characteristics was ... er ... like you said. There seemed to be three possible things to do: (a) just delete it - I was tempted - (b) move it to 19th Century views on race or something similar - i.e., leave the content more or less intact but make it clear that this is a discussion of a particular aspect of 19th century proto-science - quite interesting as a sociology of science/history of public opinion topic - or (c) just take out the hopelessy non-scientific stuff. (Fast runners & slow runners - ha! Seen a list of Olympic champions lately? All races are well-represented.) I took the quick and easy method, just deleted the silly stuff. Something could be done with it, but my main current focus is birds. Maybe some other week. Tannin

--- I&#8217;m looking through some of your edits. While they make for better &#8220;readability&#8221;, this is often at the cost of over-simplifying the content and at the expense of more precise wording. For instance, it&#8217;s more precise to state that under Brezhnev&#8217;s &#8220;tutelage&#8221; certain growth rates were experienced rather than under his "leadership" since he may or may not have taken any great role in some of the developments seen under his &#8220;tutelage&#8221;. Go through the section that on the nature of economic planning and you'd get a sense why. A Soviet party chief/ceremonial state president (like Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, or Gorbachev&#8221; is a bit more like the &#8220;chairman of the board&#8221; than someone like Bush or Chirac (other strong heads of state). Also, it&#8217;s too simplistic to go through some of the conditions liked to the Bolshevik Revolution and list them together as &#8220;causes&#8221;. There is simply to much debate about the subject.

172

Sure thing; more in talk. - Hephaestos

--- I wasn&#8217;t suggesting that Bush and Chirac have more or less power than Brezhnev did, but just stressing the fact that the systems are very different. One system is based on delegated powers, the other is sort of based on informal personal influence that some top cadre accumulated over some particular institutions and compromise between committee members.

Here&#8217;s a story that will illustrate why Brezhnev and his successors were conciliatory chairmen of the board, and not dictators in the mold of Stalin or executives with strong delegated powers like Yeltsin or Putin.

I&#8217;m partial to the bureaucratic pluralist and interest groups approaches taken by Sovietologists in years past. To get a sense of where these model&#8217;s are coming from, I suggest that you take into consideration the aborted Kosygin Reforms of 1965, which called for giving industrial enterprises more control over their own production-mix, some flexibility over wages, and allowed them to put a proportion of profit into their own funds. But these reforms suggested a move away from detailed central planning and control from above, prompting the planning ministries, whose numbers were proliferating rapidly, to fight back and protect their old powers. This was not a difficult task since the Brezhnev/Kosygin collective leadership lacked the strength to counter their influence (the ministries, after all, controlled supplies and rewarded performance) in order to implement the reforms. The ministries fought back by just issuing more detailed instructions that retarded the reforms, curtailing the freedom of action of the enterprises. Nor did these economic reforms, aimed at increasing productivity by pushing aside surplus labor, necessarily appeal to workers. The constituency that stood to gain the most from the reforms was the enterprise management, but they weren&#8217;t enthusiastic either since they weren&#8217;t convinced that these reforms might last. Finally, by 1968 there was the unfortunate example of Czechoslovakia, which put the breaks on the momentum for economic and political reform. In contrast, the military sector continued to be the success story.

In the article I pointed out that the ACS system had not yet exhausted its capacity for growth by the late 1960s since it was still sustaining higher rates of growth than the Western powers, so these reforms could have been implemented at just the right time to save the Soviet Union and spare the population of the hardships of the past twenty years. By Gorbachev, in contrast, a decade of stagnation, declining productivity, and systemic problems like the ones I chronicled in the article might have been insurmountable. Perhaps the problem with Kosygin/Brezhnev was not too much power concentrated in their hands, but not enough. Forces like the ministries and the military won out, pushing the Soviet Union in a less prudent direction.

When I was describing the role of the Soviet Party chief/state president, I should&#8217;ve given Putin and Yeltsin as examples just to avoid confusion. Yes, Yelstin was more powerful within Russia than Brezhnev. Since Yelstin was a strong executive with strong formal delegated powers, he could implement radical (and unpopular) economic reforms under his leadership by executive decree and unconstitutional actions like his disillusion of the duma in 1993. Kosygin, then the Soviet Premier, however, could not get the Byzantine labyrinth of the Soviet Administrative Command System to carry out the reforms that he attempted to institute. Stalin's successors simply did not enjoy his apparatus of state terror to get things done, made possible by Stalin subverting the party's power with the secret police.

Perhaps what I just described to you should be in the article. Rather than squabbling over whether or not &#8220;tutelage&#8221; is a common enough word to belong in the article, maybe the above content could give readers a better sense of Soviet politics.

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- SR, thanks for the sentiment, though our Easter or Pascha isn't until April 27 this year. Just one more week of this fast. :-) If the dates listed at Easter are right, east and west will coincide next year though on April 11. I'll take a look at the Abortion article. Wesley 13:15 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)