I have sent Loretta an apology off-line for not making more clear in my post
about the Texas bonds that I meant the "fact" of the bonds and their
interpretation and not Loretta's facts. I could have made that more clear in
the post.

Having said that, I would also like to withdraw from any discussion about
slavery when it comes to the "philosophy" of slavery. I find the institution
of slavery abhorrent and totally indefensible and cannot maintain a
"neutrality" to consider a defense of American slavery as some benign
institution any more than I can consider "qualifications" and "defense" to
rape or murder or any similarly outrageous acts of immorality. A discussion
about the institution and its' implications is one thing. A defense or
diminishment of the evil are entirely other things and I don't find it a
particularly fine line. There is no more "benign" side to slavery than there
was to the holocaust. The whole "misunderstood" southerner thing has already
been played to its' end.

I also think that we really wander far afield when the discussions are not
reasonably compared to or contrasted with Virginia history. Notice that I
said "we". I include myself in that and will attempt to remedy that fault
accordingly.

Bill Russell

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