From lojbab@lojban.org Fri Jan 14 14:04:52 2000 X-Digest-Num: 336 Message-ID: <44114.336.1807.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 17:04:52 -0500 From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group Subject: TLI News X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1807 I just received Nora's copy of The Loglan Institute, Inc.'s newsletter Lognet. In this issue, language inventor JCB announces that he has retired as both CEO and as Chairman and Director of TLI. He will retain his seat on the Loglan Academy and the Trustees (which only meet once a year). Alex Leith, who has been editor of Lognet, is the new CEO/Chairman. It is unclear how Alex is planning to establish his independence from JCB as a leader, which is the only viable way that JCB can really be seen as "retiring". Since JCB remains the person to send correspondence to, he seems to remain at the hub of the wheel despite his stated retirement. Alex is also now editor of their more ambitious if almost never published journal, The Loglanist (la logli), and they have named a new editor for the newsletter, but he has not yet actually started. But again, the publication work is done by JCB and associates, so it isn't clear that either publication can become independent of JCB. (Alex has been writing a "Loglan novel" which is now 35K words long, but apparently has so little confidence in his language ability that JCB has to slowly "fine-tooth-comb" through it, a process that apparently is much slower than writing.) Randall Holmes, TLI's logician, resigned from that position over a disagreement with JCB and the other TLI technical people. It seems that JCB has always intended the word "set" in his writings to mean approximately what we mean by "lei", and Randall is unwilling to accept the lack of formal logical sets in a logical language. I hope he chooses to further investigate Lojban, since we support both with no trouble. As part of his writings on sets in this issue, JCB backs away from their "lo" (our "loi") representing the Trobriand islander mass-individual, so that it can serve the purpose of "lei". He suggests an alternative for that Trobrianders, which at a glance seems like our "la'e lo ra", but I did not check my remembered match-ups of their cmavo to ours. The new logician at TLI is Emerson Mitchell, who has also been a subscriber to our materials from the beginning. I have no idea where he stands on the dispute between the two organizations, nor what his credentials are in logic (Randall Holmes, like pc, is a professor of logic). Significantly to us old-timers, there is no mention of JCB's daughter Jenny taking a significant role in the turnover. She remains a member of his Board of Trustees like JCB himself, but seems otherwise inactive. In other news of interest to some Loglan old-timers, JCB finished his long-planned book on the "Job Market", a non-fiction follow-up economic treatise based on his old utopian novel _The Troika Incident_. He however has not been able to find a publisher who will abide by his terms, so he is considering publishing it on the net. There is mention that JCB plans to start on another book, but no mention as to what it is; I hope that JCB considers writing down his memoirs of the early history of the Loglan Project which only he knows, for the sake of posterity. The newsletter also states that the more restricted "Logli" list is now open to all paid members of TLI. Nora is a member for at least 6 more years (if TLI lasts that long), but I won't hold my breath waiting for them to allow us on the list. One gets the impression from the newsletter that TLI's active core consists mostly of older people and especially retired people. They are having at least as much trouble as we are in getting volunteers, and when they do get volunteers, it is almost always retired people. LLG is lucky in that most of you are younger people (the average age of subscribers to Lojban List who have indicated their age is under 30); you are the future of Lojban. TLI also apparently has money problems. Few members are renewing their dues, and TLI sells their stuff too cheaply to survive financially without dues. We believe that they have far fewer paying members than they need to survive - they have to pad their subscription list substantially in order to get Lognet, nominally only a member's newsletter, to qualify for bulk rate. TLI also apparently has to pay someone in order to do their finances. I haven't been all that good at the bookkeeping and business work for LLG, but am reasonably caught up of late and I don't cost us wage money. I will of course be sending feelers through the grapevine to find out whether TLI under Alex is more willing to work towards rapprochement. I will be consulting with our Board as to their opinions on this, but I am of course interested in the opinions of all of you, whether you are members or not. As I said a couple of weeks ago, our commitment to the Lojban baseline is absolute; the language you are learning will be the one that survives. But what we can and should do with TLI remains to be seen. Onward to the future, whatever it may bring lojbab ---- lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ " Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.