Another strike at our decadent deviancy from Comrade Isacoff

Did any a youse guys catch the article on piano tuning in the July 15 LA Times containing these words of wisdom from Stuart Isacoff (and I quote):

Stuart Isacoff has heard plenty.

The New Jersey pianist and author published a 2001 book that celebrated the 18th-century introduction of equal temperament, the now-standard tuning system for bringing all 88 tones into harmony.

"People are still attacking me over it," said Isacoff, who also edits Piano Today magazine.

In "Temperament," Isacoff writes that the debate preceding the adoption of the system - in which each tone on the keyboard is equidistant from the ones before and after it - had engaged the minds of Sir Isaac Newton, astronomer Johannes Kepler and mathematician-philosopher Rene Descartes.

When his book hit the shelves, Isacoff came under fire from devotees of Baroque-era tunings or new variations of them, which produce richer sounds on a limited number of tones. They denounce equal temperament as a corrupting compromise.

'Tuning Taliban'

"I decided to write the book after I began learning there were all these battles over tuning," Isacoff said. "Small groups of people think it's evil. I call them the 'Tuning Taliban.' "

Endquote.

Let me get this straight: the guy argues that there is one perfect tuning in the world, 12tet, and we have no need for any other. We feel that there should be a little more latitude and variety than that - and for so suggesting, we're the Taliban?

Cheers to all my fellow Taliban members,

Kyle

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:

> Let me get this straight: the guy argues that there is one perfect
> tuning in the world, 12tet, and we have no need for any other.

have you read the book? the whole point is that there is no perfect
tuning.

why don't you reread the last 4 pages of the book (pp. 230-233) and
tell me what you think his conclusion is.

>> Let me get this straight: the guy argues that there is one perfect
>> tuning in the world, 12tet, and we have no need for any other.

>have you read the book? the whole point is that there is no perfect
tuning.

>why don't you reread the last 4 pages of the book (pp. 230-233) and
tell me what you think his conclusion is.

I not only read the book, I reviewed it in the Voice, and my review and his book were widely discussed in this forum at the time. The last four pages are fine: a puzzling nonsequitur to 229 pages of praising equal temperament and dismissing all earlier temperaments. Isacoff's frequent responses to my review, including the one I quoted today, have made it clear that I did not miss his point.

Kyle

The reviews I've read make historical reference to 12tet as the preferred tuning of
Bach, which is, of course, silly to say the least. I haven't read the book-- does Isacoff
actually claim that Bach advocated for 12tet or was this a misunderstanding of the
reviewers? -Justin

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:
> >> Let me get this straight: the guy argues that there is one perfect
> >> tuning in the world, 12tet, and we have no need for any other.
>
> >have you read the book? the whole point is that there is no perfect
> tuning.
>
> >why don't you reread the last 4 pages of the book (pp. 230-233) and
> tell me what you think his conclusion is.
>
> I not only read the book, I reviewed it in the Voice, and my review
> and his book were widely discussed in this forum at the time. The
> last four pages are fine: a puzzling nonsequitur to 229 pages of
> praising equal temperament and dismissing all earlier temperaments.
> Isacoff's frequent responses to my review, including the one I quoted
> today, have made it clear that I did not miss his point.
>
> Kyle

>The reviews I've read make historical reference to 12tet as the preferred
>tuning of Bach, which is, of course, silly to say the least. I >haven't read the book--
>does Isacoff actually claim that Bach advocated for 12tet or was >this a misunderstanding of
>the reviewers? -Justin

Well, as one of "the reviewers," I don't know whether I can be trusted to vouch for myself. But as I read it Isacoff did claim that Bach "preferred" equal temperament, and his strongest argument was that in the WTC he would notate a prelude in Eb minor and its fugue in D#, as if to say, "See? Eb and D# are really the same note!" But of course that only proves he wasn't thinking in meantone, not unequal well temperament - it's no argument at all, and proves Isacoff really, truly, deeply, doesn't know what he's talking about. Except for the quizzical last four pages, in which he suddenly seems to contradict everything he's said, Isacoff argues that 12tet is the only tuning we'll ever need. And because I argued that other tunings have value as well and should be allowed to flourish, he called me "an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct." It's true: I'm dogmatically committed to diversity and variety, and just can't see any acceptable alternative to freedom.

Now he calls me and my ilk (which presumably includes people on this list, since others here criticized him for long lists of flagrant historical inaccuracies) the "Tuning Taliban." Obviously a very petulant, immature, and easily threatened man. Since it's kind of old history, I append my review of the book, along with his breathtakingly disingenuous and back-pedaling reply.

Cheers,

Kyle

Leaving Well Enough Alone
By Kyle Gann
Stuart Isacoff Argues an End-of-History Approach to Tuning

Champions of the status quo find a particularly warm welcome in today's America. The very title of Stuart Isacoff's book *Temperament: The Idea that Solved Music's Greatest Riddle* (Knopf) signals that the status quo is OK by *him*. Temperament means fudging the way we tune the pitches of the musical scale so that we have the capacity to play in all keys. By tempering pitches, we lose the mathematically pure intervals from which music originally arose. Isacoff presents plenty of evidence that losing those pure intervals, though as necessary as losing one's innocence or virginity, was still sad. "To those who know better," he finds Sir Isaac Newton saying, "equal temperament's compromised tuning is as ungrateful to the ear as 'soiled and faint colors are to the eye.'" But Isacoff's *tone* throughout hints that those historical figures who resisted equal temperament were all quaint fuddy-duddies, and that temperament is here to stay.
Actually, this erudite, entertaining, but unbelievably digressive little book ends up saying very little about its ostensive topic. There are no tuning charts, no calculations, no technical data of any kind: just a paean to the *idea* of putting the heady pleasure of all those pure overtones behind and settling into the middle-class respectability of fuzzy harmonies, wrapped with lots of Music of the Spheres philosophy and Renaissance sexual anecdotes. And although there are many kinds of temperament offering a wide array of musical colors - Werckmeister, Kirnberger, Young, to name a few 18th-century brands - Isacoff cavalierly brushes them aside as variants of his hero equal temperament (the equal spacing of the 12 pitches of the scale, universal only since the early 20th century), calling it the "philosophical ideal" to which all the others secretly aspired. "The general acceptance of equal temperament," he enthuses, "led to some of the most exquisite music ever written."
Well, we hear this argument a lot. Discontinue equal temperament, and all that Great European Music goes out the window, right? But it's not true. Bach wanted to be able to play in all keys, and would torture his organ tuner by playing in A-flat, the one key that sounded most sour in Baroque-era meantone tuning. But that's a long way from saying that all keys should sound identical, and all through the 18th and 19th centuries, they didn't. (Isacoff's evidence that Bach preferred equal temperament is worse than specious - no more than the fact that he'll notate a prelude in E-flat minor and its fugue in D-sharp.) Chopin milked the bitterness of early temperament's B-flat minor for his "Funeral" Sonata, and if equal temperament had triumphed in the 18th century, why did that century only offer one symphony in the key of F-sharp? It's Haydn's 45th, "Farewell," and even that's in dark F-sharp minor, not the jarringly bright F-sharp major.
Certainly a tuning is justified by the great music written in it. But when classical mavens like Isacoff (editor of *Piano Today* magazine) talk about "the most exquisite music ever written," it's a pretty good bet they mean the standard repertoire from Bach through Debussy. And doesn't the hoary age of that repertoire suggest that 12-pitch temperament hasn't done much for us lately? It's a terrible tuning for meditative minimalism and its variants. The automobile advanced civilization, but fossil fuels will be gone soon, and it will have outlived its usefulness. Likewise, those twelve blandly-tuned pitches are exhausted - no new harmonies there, very little nuance available that hasn't been done to death. Late in the century-before-last, Franz Liszt and Ferruccio Busoni were already pushing the neccessity of finer divisions of the scale. As Morton Feldman said, "The Western tradition is strong only because its resources are so weak. You start pushing around those twelve tones, and you'll know what I mean."
In the last three pages of the book (not mentioning Harry Partch at all, and La Monte Young only once in passing), Isacoff describes hearing Michael Harrison play his own music on a just intonation piano. I've played that piano in Harrison's studio, right next to an equal-tempered grand; you play the vividly specific, spine-chilling intervals on the just piano, and then everything sounds so bland and washed-out and arbitrary and disappointing on the conventionally tuned one. Following that experience, Isacoff casts complete doubt in his last words - "Maybe Pythagoras was right after all" - on the premise he'd pursued for 230 pages. He could have gone back and rewritten the whole book. But if it had flouted the conventional wisdom rather than shore it up, he probably would have had to settle for a much smaller publisher.

KEYED OFF

I just finished reading Kyle Gann's review of my book, Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle ["Leaving Well Enough Alone," February 5], and I couldn't resist responding, especially to his silly notion that if I disliked equal temperament I would "probably have had to settle for a much smaller publisher." Does Gann really believe my editor at Knopf said, "Hey, listen, we want to publish a book about musical temperament, but only if it supports the modern system"? Conspiracy theories abound at the Voice, but this one must set some kind of record for ridiculousness. [Gann's comment: It's just so easy to get books on alternative tunings published, isn't it, guys?]

Gann admits that I present "plenty of evidence" in support of the value of older tunings. Indeed, though he claims my book "brushed aside" the uniqueness of different approaches, I actually celebrate their variety. For example, I call them the musical equivalents of poet Robert Frost's notion of a sentence, in which "notes strung as melodies and harmonies became suffused with particular shades and shapes." But, since I also value equal temperament and the "exquisite music" that resulted from that system, Gann, a narrow-minded purveyor of the new, politically hip, anti-equal-temperament movement in music, feels the need to attack. Unlike Gann's review, my book is not a polemic, but the history of an idea. It presents the evolution of that idea by demonstrating links between developments in music, art, science, philosophy, religion, and societal mores. Along the way, it explores why people fought over these issues, and how we got to where we are.

I end Temperament with a question, bringing the narrative full circle to the tuning ideas of Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.E. Gann thinks that means I should have gone back to the beginning and rewritten the whole thing. He misses the point, because he is an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct. I intentionally preserve the mystery inherent in this subject-the inability of anyone to arrive at a final answer.

Stuart Isacoff
Bedford Hills, New York

Kyle, dare I say it, but I think you have Stuart wrong in some respects. Yes, his book has errors, especially about Bach. But he is not viruently anti-microtonal at all. It is possible that even his book misrepresents him.

But now I know him. He loves early music in their rightful tunings. As I poster earlier to this List, he loved the Werckmeister III performance we did of the Brandenburg #2. He took my criticisms well and we have become friends. In fact, he has joined the board of directors of the AFMM.

Stuart has explained that he knew nothing about temperament until he began preparing the book. Unfortunately, he took a lot of word of mouth history as fact. I don't believe he thinks ALL on this list are Talibanesque. Perhaps even rabid 12-tETers are Talibanesque.

Regardless, he is on vacation in Switzerland, and so he cannot respond himself. I think maybe the two of you got off on the wrong foot with each other. I don't believe he is the enemy.

best, Johnny Reinhard

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Justin Weaver" <improvist@u...> wrote:

> The reviews I've read make historical reference to 12tet as the
preferred tuning of
> Bach, which is, of course, silly to say the least.

you're probably right that it's wrong, but silly? is rasch silly?

> I haven't read the book-- does Isacoff
> actually claim that Bach advocated for 12tet or was this a
misunderstanding of the
> reviewers? -Justin

isacoff clearly states (p.217) that there is an equal amount of
evidence on both sides of the issue -- for bach using well
temperament vs. bach using equal temperament. although you and i may
agree that this is a rather poorly informed opinion, the reviewers to
which you refer are still misrepresenting isacoff.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:
> >The reviews I've read make historical reference to 12tet as the
preferred
> >tuning of Bach, which is, of course, silly to say the least. I
> >haven't read the book--
> >does Isacoff actually claim that Bach advocated for 12tet or was
> >this a misunderstanding of
> >the reviewers? -Justin
>
> Well, as one of "the reviewers," I don't know whether I can be
> trusted to vouch for myself. But as I read it Isacoff did claim
that
> Bach "preferred" equal temperament, and his strongest argument was
> that in the WTC he would notate a prelude in Eb minor and its fugue
> in D#, as if to say, "See? Eb and D# are really the same note!" But
> of course that only proves he wasn't thinking in meantone,

it doesn't even prove that!

> not
> unequal well temperament - it's no argument at all, and proves
> Isacoff really, truly, deeply, doesn't know what he's talking
>about.

no, it just proves that he oversimplifies in some places (indeed, far
too many places throughout his book). since you reviewed the book,
you should know that isacoff *does* explicitly consider the
possibility of well temperament, as opposed to the possibility of
equal temperament, for bach. see page 217, for example.

> [isacoff] I
> intentionally preserve the mystery inherent in this subject-the
> inability of anyone to arrive at a final answer.

this is how i read it, too. too bad it's such a lousy book as
concerns the facts of tuning systems. but unlike you and i, most
musicians have close to zero mathematical proficiency, and so it's
more the *stories* in the book that are going to make an impression
on them than the technical facts. i'm in my seventh year of being a
stickler for getting all the technical facts right on this list, to
the annoyance of many. i suppose all the protests against this
behavior have led me to a softer approach toward people like isacoff,
who really just want to tell a story, to write a readable book for
the layman, and wrap it around an age-old mystery.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> Kyle, dare I say it, but I think you have Stuart wrong in some
>respects. Yes, his book has errors, especially about Bach. But he
>is not viruently anti-microtonal at all. It is possible that even
>his book misrepresents him.
>
> But now I know him. He loves early music in their rightful tunings.
>As I poster earlier to this List, he loved the Werckmeister III
>performance we did of the Brandenburg #2. He took my criticisms
>well and we have become friends. In fact, he has joined the board
>of directors of the AFMM.
>
> Stuart has explained that he knew nothing about temperament until
>he began preparing the book. Unfortunately, he took a lot of word
>of mouth history as fact. I don't believe he thinks ALL on this
>list are Talibanesque. Perhaps even rabid 12-tETers are Talibanesque.
>
> Regardless, he is on vacation in Switzerland, and so he cannot
>respond himself. I think maybe the two of you got off on the wrong
>foot with each other. I don't believe he is the enemy.
>
> best, Johnny Reinhard

johnny, i am heartened to hear this, given our last exchange on this
subject on this list (a year ago?). the last thing we need to do as
artists is make enemies out of one another, when the world is stacked
up against us to begin with. perhaps isacoff will write a second
edition (and if you do speak to him, tell him i'd be happy to point
out all the stated or implied factual errors that i can find) . . . i
found stuart's attempt to stuff kyle into some kind of category in
order to dismiss him very distateful . . . but maybe we can all begin
again from a position of humility and in the spirit of cooperation. i
hope so.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> Kyle, dare I say it, but I think you have Stuart wrong in some
respects. Yes, his book has errors, especially about Bach. But he
is not viruently anti-microtonal at all. It is possible that even
his book misrepresents him.

His book, not the man, is under review. I think Kyle was quite fair
and more temperate than I would have been if anyone was silly enough
to ask me for a review.

> Stuart has explained that he knew nothing about temperament until
he began preparing the book.

And not enough afterwards. I'm no expert, but even I can see that as
scholarhip, it won't do.

Unfortunately, he took a lot of word of mouth history as fact. I
don't believe he thinks ALL on this list are Talibanesque. Perhaps
even rabid 12-tETers are Talibanesque.

You mean "especially", I hope. Personally, I'm against the Taliban in
all of its manifestations, and we do get too much of that here, but
it's even more virulent among 12-eters. Do this, don't do that, think
this, don't think that. I despise that attitude, and am not inclined
to cut it slack, as for instance in the recent music theorists thread.

> Regardless, he is on vacation in Switzerland, and so he cannot
respond himself. I think maybe the two of you got off on the wrong
foot with each other. I don't believe he is the enemy.

Either you do a good, scholarly piece of work or you don't; Isacoff
didn't.

>Kyle, dare I say it, but I think you have Stuart wrong in some respects.

Johnnie,

I'll take your point under advisement, but...

>[Isacoff:] Gann, a narrow-minded purveyor of the new, politically hip,
>anti-equal-temperament movement in music, feels the need to attack....
>he is an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct.

...so Stuart got me right? Have you written him too? I was reviewing a book, not a person, and I don't hear much evidence that anyone thinks it's a very good book. Isacoff's been attacking me personally and publicly since I wrote the review, in at least three publications so far that I've found out about - I've never responded, except to gripe to people I assumed would be partly sympathetic. I'm clearly at least one of the people he's now comparing to the Taliban, and yet you think ***I've*** misjudged ***him***. The poor thing...

Do I have to join the AFMM board to be deserving of equal sympathy?

Cheers,

Kyle

In a message dated 7/22/2003 10:04:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, kgann@earthlink.net writes:

> Do I have to join the AFMM board to be deserving of equal
> sympathy?

My point here is that this invitation would never have been made if he was anti-microtonal. And you have my full sympathy, regardless. A book is a book is a book. However, once the venom has been unleashed in mutual criticism, all that is left are the people. Dare I say it, but you both like many of the same things.

And, if you check past posts, I was quite harsh on Stuart's book myself. All I am saying is give peace a chance.

best, Johnny

Gene Ward Smith wrote:

> You mean "especially", I hope. Personally, I'm against the Taliban in > all of its manifestations, and we do get too much of that here, but > it's even more virulent among 12-eters. Do this, don't do that, think > this, don't think that. I despise that attitude, and am not inclined > to cut it slack, as for instance in the recent music theorists thread.

I don't remember a "music theorists" thread, although you were quite vehement about what Lindley and Turner-Smith couldn't so with mathematics. Do these rules only apply to other people?

Graham

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <graham@m...> wrote:

> I don't remember a "music theorists" thread, although you were
quite
> vehement about what Lindley and Turner-Smith couldn't so with
> mathematics. Do these rules only apply to other people?

Excuse me, Buster, but mathematics is not an art form. It is a
science and one with very high standards that mathematicians are
prone to insist on. Piss on it at your own risk.

I find it amusing that Isacoff thinks non-ET is "politically hip"... what does that even
mean? -Justin

> Well, as one of "the reviewers," I don't know whether I can be
> trusted to vouch for myself. But as I read it Isacoff did claim that
> Bach "preferred" equal temperament, and his strongest argument was
> that in the WTC he would notate a prelude in Eb minor and its fugue
> in D#, as if to say, "See? Eb and D# are really the same note!" But
> of course that only proves he wasn't thinking in meantone, not
> unequal well temperament - it's no argument at all, and proves
> Isacoff really, truly, deeply, doesn't know what he's talking about.
> Except for the quizzical last four pages, in which he suddenly seems
> to contradict everything he's said, Isacoff argues that 12tet is the
> only tuning we'll ever need. And because I argued that other tunings
> have value as well and should be allowed to flourish, he called me
> "an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct."
> It's true: I'm dogmatically committed to diversity and variety, and
> just can't see any acceptable alternative to freedom.
>
> Now he calls me and my ilk (which presumably includes people on this
> list, since others here criticized him for long lists of flagrant
> historical inaccuracies) the "Tuning Taliban." Obviously a very
> petulant, immature, and easily threatened man. Since it's kind of old
> history, I append my review of the book, along with his
> breathtakingly disingenuous and back-pedaling reply.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kyle
>

on 7/27/03 3:56 PM, Justin Weaver <improvist@usa.net> wrote:

> I find it amusing that Isacoff thinks non-ET is "politically hip"... what does
> that even
> mean? -Justin

Yes, when that day comes, all our problems will be over. And then a whole
new set of problems will be upon us!

All the underdogs look forward to the day when their work is accepted by the
mainstream, and then if it happens they are probably sorry, because it is
inevitably vanillified and codified beyond recognition, so that they have to
start the whole "fight" over again. Only then it is ever more confusing
because: "You're views have been accepted so what are you arguing about?
You must be crazy!" And how do you sort out such a mess!

Are we prepared for the day when academia "embraces" alternate tunings?
Will it be the embrace of death? Maybe we should not rush toward that day
of acceptance, but rather let the change happen almost unoticed, in its own
time.

-Kurt

>
>> Well, as one of "the reviewers," I don't know whether I can be
>> trusted to vouch for myself. But as I read it Isacoff did claim that
>> Bach "preferred" equal temperament, and his strongest argument was
>> that in the WTC he would notate a prelude in Eb minor and its fugue
>> in D#, as if to say, "See? Eb and D# are really the same note!" But
>> of course that only proves he wasn't thinking in meantone, not
>> unequal well temperament - it's no argument at all, and proves
>> Isacoff really, truly, deeply, doesn't know what he's talking about.
>> Except for the quizzical last four pages, in which he suddenly seems
>> to contradict everything he's said, Isacoff argues that 12tet is the
>> only tuning we'll ever need. And because I argued that other tunings
>> have value as well and should be allowed to flourish, he called me
>> "an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct."
>> It's true: I'm dogmatically committed to diversity and variety, and
>> just can't see any acceptable alternative to freedom.
>>
>> Now he calls me and my ilk (which presumably includes people on this
>> list, since others here criticized him for long lists of flagrant
>> historical inaccuracies) the "Tuning Taliban." Obviously a very
>> petulant, immature, and easily threatened man. Since it's kind of old
>> history, I append my review of the book, along with his
>> breathtakingly disingenuous and back-pedaling reply.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Kyle
>>
>
>
>
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I think full acceptance of alternative tunings, especially JI, has about as much chance
as marxist revolution-- I wouldn't count on it by a long shot. That being said, there is
a tendency in the culture industry (pop culture) to randomly embrace outsiders when
the political timing is right. It happened with African American vernacular culture over
the past 50 years-- certainly this resulted in outlandish stereotyping and 'hipness
backlash'. Whenever something become suddenly hip, the outsiders who are suddenly
insiders usually want to jump ship and move on to something else uncool...there is a
certain prestige inherent in being an outsider (covert prestige). This process seems to
be happening with gay American culture now too, especially since all the media
attention with Lawrence vs. Texas. I agree that these blessings are often curses in
disguise. -Justin

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:
> on 7/27/03 3:56 PM, Justin Weaver <improvist@u...> wrote:
>
> > I find it amusing that Isacoff thinks non-ET is "politically hip"... what does
> > that even
> > mean? -Justin
>
> Yes, when that day comes, all our problems will be over. And then a whole
> new set of problems will be upon us!
>
> All the underdogs look forward to the day when their work is accepted by the
> mainstream, and then if it happens they are probably sorry, because it is
> inevitably vanillified and codified beyond recognition, so that they have to
> start the whole "fight" over again. Only then it is ever more confusing
> because: "You're views have been accepted so what are you arguing about?
> You must be crazy!" And how do you sort out such a mess!
>
> Are we prepared for the day when academia "embraces" alternate tunings?
> Will it be the embrace of death? Maybe we should not rush toward that day
> of acceptance, but rather let the change happen almost unoticed, in its own
> time.
>
> -Kurt
>
> >
> >> Well, as one of "the reviewers," I don't know whether I can be
> >> trusted to vouch for myself. But as I read it Isacoff did claim that
> >> Bach "preferred" equal temperament, and his strongest argument was
> >> that in the WTC he would notate a prelude in Eb minor and its fugue
> >> in D#, as if to say, "See? Eb and D# are really the same note!" But
> >> of course that only proves he wasn't thinking in meantone, not
> >> unequal well temperament - it's no argument at all, and proves
> >> Isacoff really, truly, deeply, doesn't know what he's talking about.
> >> Except for the quizzical last four pages, in which he suddenly seems
> >> to contradict everything he's said, Isacoff argues that 12tet is the
> >> only tuning we'll ever need. And because I argued that other tunings
> >> have value as well and should be allowed to flourish, he called me
> >> "an ideologue for whom only one way of doing things can be correct."
> >> It's true: I'm dogmatically committed to diversity and variety, and
> >> just can't see any acceptable alternative to freedom.
> >>
> >> Now he calls me and my ilk (which presumably includes people on this
> >> list, since others here criticized him for long lists of flagrant
> >> historical inaccuracies) the "Tuning Taliban." Obviously a very
> >> petulant, immature, and easily threatened man. Since it's kind of old
> >> history, I append my review of the book, along with his
> >> breathtakingly disingenuous and back-pedaling reply.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> Kyle
> >>
> >
> >
> >
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