I would like to ask a favor of members of this list. Particulary those
living in Hungary, or any who might have such info.  I have two friends,
Matt and Shela Robertson, who are moving from Sofia, Bulgaria to
Budapest at the end of this month. Currently, we keep in touch via
e-mail and are hoping to continue after they move.  (My wife and I are
also going to visit them in June!)

        Here's my question.  Could someone in this group who has knowledge of
such things please e-mail them and help them with information about
internet providers, etc. in Budapest?  Both they and I would be
grateful.  Currently, they can be reached at >.

        I've been amazed and grateful to many of you who've given me aid and
advice as I plan my trip to Hungary this summer.  As I ask this
additional favor I again say thank you.

Regards,

Doug Hormann

Hey,

Hogy vagy?

Ki vagy?

I am unsure as to weather you are able to read Hungarian (excuse me for my
bluntness) so I will continue in English. I must say this is all a new
experience for me, the internet, someone actually wanting to talk to me
from a world away. I am extremely greatful that you have done so and
continue (I hope) to do so.
Let me begin with some introduction, my name is Gabor Balazs Kollo, I am
seventeen years of age and attending university of western australia in
Perth, WA. I came here when I was ten, having spent a year as a refugee in
Austria. My father, my two half-sisters, my aunt, my two cousins and
numerous other relatives (some from Romania- in particular Erdej
(Transilvania)) were left behind when my mother and my step-father came
out. I must admit, the case might have been that I did not want to fit in,
but the situation was that I DID NOT fit in until perhaps four or five
years ago.

It is difficult to find Hungarian friends, as most of the Hungarians came
out in '56 and thus are old, their children having forgotten the Hungarian
tradiditions. Otherwise I have a few Asian friends, a few European, and
even a few intelligent Australian friends...

What I am really interested in is who are all these people, writing left
right to each other... Who are you, I have never seen you and yet you show
sympathy towards my cause (?!). Oh by the way, I am doing Psychology,
Philosophy, History and Computer Science at school. I don't know weather
you would have any connections to the theatre world, but my father was
KOLLO MIKLOS, a semi-famous theatre director in Hungary some ten, fifteen
years ago. Someone might know of him.

Sorry about the long letter...

Tell me who you are, where you are, in which world,civilization,planet?

GAbor
--
Mr Gabor Kollo, , First Year Student

>
> You can ask whether the Fed's policy of effectively not permitting an
> unemployment rate below 5.5% is the right one. Perhaps you are unemployed or
> just think that a bit of wage inflation is in order, what with stagnating
> wages in so many sectors. On the other hand, if you are a pensioner living on
> fixed income you are likely to be very hostile to any source of inflation.
>

Fascinating stuff. Would this mean that in the UK the
unemployment is "kept" at 10% or so to keep down
inflation?  If there is no such monatery control
via interest-rate manipulation, what happens?
I think it has been tried.
I wonder what would be the corresponding level of
"acceptable" unemployment in HUngary?
Eva Durant

With great amusement and an unmistakable smirk on my face, I've been reading
this mini debate between Sam Stowe and Andras Kornai.  Does anyone else on
this list find it ironic, strange, or perhaps just prophetic, that a
linguist explains the workings of the capitalist economic system to a
budding philosopher?  I wonder what my world view would be like if I had
studied economics from a linguist?  Maybe I wouldn't be such a stubborn
stick-in-the-mud.

Joe Szalai

> services in demand (even officially.) Witness the collapse of former-
> Yugoslavia: Slobodan Milosevic, along with his criminally insane cronies
> Karadzic, Mladic, et alia, has wiped out 45 odd years of relatively

I would have included Tudjman of Croatia in this list of
insane warmakers.


           >Firm resolve and wisdom
> (an euphemism for *shrewdness*?) seem to be the leadership qualities
> of those rulers that reigned in *Golden Ages* throughout history.
> Without *real* leadership societies tend to regress into the primeval
> slime rather than aspire to peace, harmony and...(wait for it)...
> enlightenment.
>

I don't think the character of leadership is all that
tantamaunt (see the history of the Swiss).  The democratic
structure that is important - unless you really mean to
compare ancient societies. Which case Saudi Arabia comes
out on top, but I do hope you don't want anyone to
take that as a good example of government...
Eva Durant

I am a 23 year old American University student.  I lived in Hungary for a
year and a half.  I am a fluent speaker of Hungarian and would like to
return to Hungary this summer and teach English to Hungarian students.
Please let me know of any summer teaching opportunities or of how I might
go about this.

Thank you.

Carolyn E. Daley

In article >, George Antony
> writes:

> Tibor Odor wrote:

(... deleted ...)

>
>> And we also do not have the right to collect data on Soros on certain ways
>> which could help as to justify our statements without doubt.
>
> Ah, so you are only a spokesman for a number of people.  Who are this 'we' ?

An "I, Me and Myself" syndrome, perhaps.

Roman Kanala

In article >, Tibor Odor
> writes:

> Dear Netters,
>
> Several people asked me to give detailed information on Soros's
> wrongdoings in Hungary. Now  I do not have the possibility to give
> this information because presently I am in Vienna and I do not have
> my notes with me. But before sending the detailed information
> I give a short list.

I have read that piece of prose with a great interest and have to say
I am truly impressed. Not by the text. By the vicissitudes of the possible
ways of thinking...

An unavoidable personal comment, given that the author writes from an
account belonging to an institution which has something to do woth
mathematics: should one present a paper, a speech, or, say, a student
exam where the proofs and evidence is simply replaced by axiomatic
idiosyncrasy, I am affraid it would be turned down by just every
careful reader already from the formal logic point of view.

Without developing too much on the thouroughly broken reasoning,
just one more observation: I don't think Mr. Soros is giving money
to people - from every input I got so far I have a personal impression
he cares to support projects and ideas rather than concrete people.

> And a personal note. I never applied for any kind of Soros
> stipendium.  I am not interested in ethnic origin of people
> and I do not have any religious prejudice. I do not hate rich
> people, at least for the reason that they are rich.

I am affraid that the only thing that couldn't be put in doubt from the
whole above paragraph, given the evidence of the contents, is the
first sentence.

Roman Kanala

Joe Szalai wrote:
> With great amusement and an unmistakable smirk on my face, I've been reading
> this mini debate between Sam Stowe and Andras Kornai.  Does anyone else on
> this list find it ironic, strange, or perhaps just prophetic, that a
> linguist explains the workings of the capitalist economic system to a
> budding philosopher?

Only those who do not know that Andras Kornai's father is Janos Kornai, a
Hungarian economist of international standing.  Even without taking formal
economics courses (and you would have no idea if he has or hasn't), his
family upbringing must have resulted in soaking up a postgraduate degree's
worth of economics.

> I wonder what my world view would be like if I had
> studied economics from a linguist?  Maybe I wouldn't be such a stubborn
> stick-in-the-mud.

Both economics and liguistics place much emphasis on the investigation of
mostly contradictory and difficult-to-measure facts and logical deduction
therefrom.  Skills that everyone ought to have, I think.

George Antony

In article >, Eva Durant
> says:
>
>> services in demand (even officially.) Witness the collapse of former-
>> Yugoslavia: Slobodan Milosevic, along with his criminally insane cronies
>> Karadzic, Mladic, et alia, has wiped out 45 odd years of relatively
>
>I would have included Tudjman of Croatia in this list of
>insane warmakers.

I would say that Tudjman is more of an opportunistic professional
politician. He switched very quickly from being a communist Yugoslav
Federalist to being a champion of the Croat seperatist cause when
Milosevic mobilized the Federal Army and the Slovenes insisted on
independence, making a collision course inevitable. Tudjman tends to
fall in with the plans of the Croation thugs, out of political expediency,
rather than being the real instigator of the Croatian excesses, unlike
his Serbian counterparts who most definitely instigate cold-blooded
murder, terror, mutilation and torture (...you name it...) as a matter
of deliberate policy and personally issue the directives (and in the
cases of Karadzic and Mladic, of the above named, even participate in
the events!)

>>Firm resolve and wisdom
>> (an euphemism for *shrewdness*?) seem to be the leadership qualities
>> of those rulers that reigned in *Golden Ages* throughout history.
>> Without *real* leadership societies tend to regress into the primeval
>> slime rather than aspire to peace, harmony and...(wait for it)...
>> enlightenment.
>>
>I don't think the character of leadership is all that
>tantamaunt (see the history of the Swiss).  The democratic
>structure that is important - unless you really mean to
>compare ancient societies. Which case Saudi Arabia comes
>out on top, but I do hope you don't want anyone to
>take that as a good example of government...

Perhaps the Swiss case is the exception that proves the rule :-)
but, seriously, I don't know enough about Swiss history (yet) to comment
on this. My experience tells me that strength of leadership is very
important, whatever political system prevails, and coming across examples
in history tends to reinforce this. This is also true of communities
(rather than large ethnic-national groups.) Take work, for instance:
if you have an unimaginative and negative boss at the top of a corporation
(or whatever) hierarchy, his outlook will tend to eventually permeate
throughout the organization. A strong enlightened boss who hires the right
people and inspires the rest will have a positive effect, etc. I've come
across this over the years and the difference it can make not only in the
workplace, but also on peoples' lives generally, is striking. Similarly,
in politics, the same effect takes place in the psyche of a nation (Britain
is still trying to recover from the cynical and depressing Thatcher years!)

Furthermore, I'm not entirely convinced that our current understanding
and practice of democracy is necessarily the best system, anyway. It could
be argued that democracy really amounts to nothing more than *mob rule*
(demos=people, kratos=power); is that enlightened? In a spiritual sense,
perhaps, but that's not what we mean here (or, is it?) Besides, democracy
as practised in Britain (for instance) doesn't seem much like people power
to me; parliament is still run by professional politicians with certain
vested interests that rarely have much to do with the real welfare of their
citizens (with a few notable exceptions.) BTW Did Saudi Arabia ever have an
enlightened leader comparable to Akbar?

I still find that the best examples of historical *Golden Ages* coincide
with dictatorial, yet benevolent, philosopher-kings. The trouble is ensuring
that any such ruler stays benevolent. (Take that Georgian writer Gara...
something [whose name escapes me right now] who had all the makings of such
a leader, perhaps a bit like Havel of the Czech Republic, when communist
rule fell in the USSR, yet power seemed to transform him into a monster.)
Another point is that democratically elected leaders don't really have
enough power to implement all the policies that they'd really like to...
but this could go on forever...someone else's turn now :-)

PS in my last posting the spelling of *yolk* should, of course, have been
*yoke*. A case of egg on my face? :-)

Regards,

George

George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy * Cybernautic address: 
* Independent Commodore Products Users' Group UK * C=64 stuff wanted *
* ACCU ** ARM Club ** Interested in s/h chess books? Ask for my list *

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>With great amusement and an unmistakable smirk on my face, I've been
reading
>this mini debate between Sam Stowe and Andras Kornai.  Does anyone else
on
>this list find it ironic, strange, or perhaps just prophetic, that a
>linguist explains the workings of the capitalist economic system to a
>budding philosopher?

By the way, Joe, Andras Kornai may be a professional linguist, but he also
seems to have a darned good grasp of economics. Maybe you shouldn't be so
quick to smirk. A wry smile would be okay, I think.
Sam Stowe

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

> I wonder what my world view would be like if I had
>studied economics from a linguist?  Maybe I wouldn't be such a stubborn
>stick-in-the-mud.
>
>Joe Szalai

You might be a more linguistically sophisticated stick-in-the-mud. And
"budding philosopher"? Good Lord, Joe.
Sam Stowe

At 06:35 PM 3/18/96 -0500, Sam Stowe wrote:

>You might be a more linguistically sophisticated stick-in-the-mud. And
>"budding philosopher"? Good Lord, Joe.

What?  You don't like, "budding philosopher"?  You're fortunate to catch me
in a good mood.  So... spin it again, Vanna!  Oh, all right!  How about
"deflowered philosopher"?  Seems to add a bit of dignity and worldliness,
wouldn't you say?

Joe Szalai

Alan Hackett asked about tracking his grandparents origins in Hungary.  As
has often been suggested on this lost, I mention again the Mormon Church's
Family History Centers, located in local Mormon churches throughout the
U.S.  Look in anhy local phone book, and give them a call.  They have volu-
minous microfilmed and microfiched geneological records from all over the
world.
        Good Luck!

Be'la Batkay