TLI News

[Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group <lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx]

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.