Interesting post by the Chief Genii on the Genii forum

Many may laud him for this...my question:
Since when has youthfulness been a defense for perpetrating wrongs.

Your opinions please.

I have sympathy for Richard's dilemma. At the time that Richard wrote The Complete Works of Derek Dingle, Richard was an up and coming talent. He wasn't in a position to confront Derek Dingle. If he had stood up to Dingle, the book never would have been written.

Hey, at least Richard has the decency to admit that he was wrong!

I'll wait for the properly annotated versions of those works to hit print.

Despite his strongly worded opinions, I've found that Kaufman continually acts in the best interests of Magic. I get the impression that he did what he felt he had to do at the time, and then later took the time to set the record straight.

As we don't have any protection under the law, it's up to us to police ourselves. Kaufman's decency in telling this story further strengthens his position as Head Genii.

Honorable men come clean. Honorable men speak the truth regardless of the consequences. Honorable men keep the record straight.

It's one thing to publish with known errors, but to reprint the work with those issues is... odd.

Iugefu wrote:

Richard Kaufman's statement was clearly not a defense at all, it was a confession, and an explanation of his past motivation, which he clearly considers was a weakness on his part.

Does anyone know what lead Dingle to do this?

There are very few in this craft who write to honor others.

I'd love to solve this problem for Richard and the rest of us:

Dingle/Schneider Pick Up move. Derek Dingle invented the pick up move (according to his own statement) in 1971.
An ancestor of the Pick Up move howver is described in Jules Dhotel: La prestidigitation sans bagages ou mille tours dans une valise. Tome V 1941 24eme fascicule Chapitre XXVIII – ("Pièces à suivre") p 357 in a sort of triangular matrix working as follows:
[Quote: translation]
On a thick mat, put three coins in a triangle pointing outwards. Have a fourth coin finger palmed in the right hand, and use that hand to take away the top three cards of a pack, which are kept fanned deep enough into the right fingers to conceal the coin and show the left hand to be empty. Close the fan as you pass it to the left hand (with the coin underneath) for the right to be flashed empty as well. The right thumb pulls the top card out for the right hand to place the card to the coin on your right. Repeat the move to place the new top card over the coin on your left. Finally the left hand deposits its card (with the coin underneath) over the last visible coin. Order the coin to pass from under the left card to the one closest to the audience. Then use the left hand to show that the coin has actually travelled by lifting the card further away. [Here starts the exact translation of the pick up move dated 1941] “ You then take the card in B [the one to your left with the coin underneath] between the right thumb above and the first and second fingers below which flatten the coin under the lower face of the card (this is helped by the position of the coin which should be under the right side of the coin); the thumb presses through the card over the left edge of the coin, letting it the opposite edge pop up, allowing the [first and second] fingers to sneak underneath." Without a stop which is essential for the deception, you drag the coin along the thumb into the Italian [thumb] palm and in the same move turn the card and drop it on to the table. At that moment the left hand which kept its card, passes it to the right which allows its concealed coin to slide from thumb palm into finger palm under the card.
[Unquote]

Both Al Schneider and Derek Dingle were pretty young in 1941 and Richard Kaufman can therefore easily plead not guilty

As a friend of Derek, I can attest that he was not aware of this French text (he clearly would have loved to know about it before 1995 when I showed it to him and from his reaction and interest, it is clear that he didn't)
Anything in between seems irrelevant to me and are we right in attacking somebody who is not longer there to defend his case?
None of us, even the most knowledgeable (as Richard) can know (then or now) everything. Ignorance or even just reasonable doubt is a valid defense. As a consequence I think that Richard can be forgiven without condemning Derek