The silence of Azad....

OK - here it is - short and sweet....

1. Azad was a faculty member of Canterbury University, one of the infamous InstantDegree "secret colleges" - this was 2002-2003 time frame.
2. Azad switched allegiance to St. Regis in the spring of 2003, and for a brief period his picture appeared on their website along with his credentials from Canterbury. The Canterbury reference quickly disappeared, but Azad's presence as a faculty member at St. Regis remained.
3. So far as I know, he remained a faculty member at St. Regis until their recent demise, when he was in the midst of creating the SRU India branch office.
4. Now (2005) he comes before us claiming that all he ever did was design some web sites for "bad people" (who he claims he was duped by) who are the "real criminals" in the diploma mill scams he's been involved in.

My own personal opinion is that Azad was, and still is, in this semi-organized crime operation up to his eyeballs. The fact that he may be disguising himself as "Lerner" (is that like "dummer"?) at times is intriguing. He also throws a lot of flak towards Dixie Randock, who may very well be the real brains (or babe, ala Ma Barker) (www.aplusnow.com/dixierandock_.htm) behind the operation depending, on one's point of view....

Does that suffice for some biographical and background information?

 

Azad is probably not Lerner

I did a quick and very dirty study of some of the past postings by Asakazad and Lerner and found what was for me overwhelming evidence that the two corpora have different authors.

As Lerner has observed, he is a poor speller. Most of his spelling errors suggest that he learned English primarily through conversation rather than reading or instruction. He frequently misspells syllables with the schwa [uh] and short i sounds. For example, he invariably spells "private" as "privet" and "different" as "deferent." He drops the written but unsounded "h" in wh- question words: e.g. "while" is always "wile."

Azad's misspellings, on the other hand, are almost always typos. His grammatical deviations from standard written English are consistent (e.g. substitution of present progressive for simple present tense, odd inversions in some questions) and strike me as possibly due to variants in written dialect.

In other words, one suggests an emigre Russian in Brighton Beach, and the other an English-educated non-native speaker.

In my selection from Lerner's corpus, there are 40336 characters, 6860 words [i.e. text strings bounded by spaces or punctuation marks], and 1210 lines. In that from Azad's, 20837 characters, 3413 words, and 413 paragraphs. It's just not credible (to me) that these disparate word-paragraph and character-word ratios come from the same writer.

If Lerner has been writing "in his own write" since joining the forum, it would be impossible for him to written Azad's posts. He doesn't have the chops. And, since Azad joined the forum long after Lerner did, it is very doubtful that he
1. boned up on Slavic phonology
2. spent months writing as a faux Russian/Ukrainian
3. then joined the forum under his own rubric.

There are many other differences as well, but I won't tire you further.

Now the corpora are tiny, and they aren't random samples. I included almost every post of Azad's and almost every post from every thread started by Lerner, so there's a built-in bias. I tried to exclude all quoted material, but it wasn't always easy to distinguish. Nevertheless, I think if anyone else cares to read a substantive quantity of both writer's work at a sitting, they'll come to the same conclusion--a conclusion opposite to the one I expected to reach when I began. (I'll attach the two files if there's any interest.)

What set off the speculation and my search was Lerner's reply in the Robertstown thread to Gregg DesElm's reply to Azad , which seemed to come out of nowhere, and certainly sounded like a direct riposte.

"Gregg interesting post.

And no I have no plans to visit Russia or this place just a clever conection between the posts.

You suspect and find things.

to bad you were wrong about me.

Learner"

However, after looking through Lerner's posts, with their numerous disagreements with Gregg about accreditation, Lerner's post makes sense to me as an oblique and obscure comment, purporting something like, "HE may be going to Seborga, but I'M not going to Russia. You may have got it right this time, but too bad you got me all wrong."

I'm sure this was much more fun to do than to read about, but I learned something.

 

Re: Azad is probably not Lerner

Thanks for the analysis Bill. I'm convinced.
Jack

 

Fine. And when said postings are in any way millish -- either overtly or covertly -- I'll hold your feet to the fire.

Sooner or later their arguments always degrade to such as this. When the merits abandon them, fairy tales rush in.

But at least we can spell.

Interesting. And compelling.

As did I. Thanks.

 

Hey... wait a minute... I think I've figured it out: 3$bill is both Lerner and Azad!

(just kidding)

 

No, that would be 6$bill.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Gregg--and I'm not kidding.

What a coup that would be.

It occurred to me that a third persona could have created the other two, but then I thought, "Nah, that would have to be someone who'd studied English and Linguistics and probably taught ESL for a long time and . . . . uh-oh."

Have to be someone a lot more skillful and willing to defer gratification than I am, though.

 

Ahhhh.... so that's why you're so good at this. I get it now. Well... anyway... it's sure interesting. The truth is, a much more interesting question than whether or not Lerner and Azad are one is whether asakazad is actually the same Azad we're all thinking of. I mean, I know he's played the role nicely... but it's curious that, with his track record, he'd come here and post as he has. It's equally likely, it seems to me (er... well... okay, maybe a bit less likely... but only a bit), that someone who would stand to gain by Azad's appearing to be legit is behind it. But, who knows... or cares, at this point. It would be nice if both of them would step forward, say they finally get it (and actually mean it), and then behave like they do for long enough that we can all begin to believe it. I don't enjoy taking Lerner to task for his silliness. Life would be much more fun if he were on the right team and we could get to know him as a person without such a philosophical impediment (and fundamental flaw of integrity). But, alas, it is he who chooses the tenor of the relationship by his little tricks. And Lord only knows what Azad (or at least the alleged Azad is actually up to... aside from claiming to be heading for obscure Italian villages to check-out something about which even the villagers don't give a rat's a__! But I digress... again.


6$bill... nos... you're killin' me, here!

 

Well, now let's see what Mr Azad can show and tell. Perhaps he has something worth saying or seeing. I must say this for Mr Azad--he doesn't try (weirdly) to lecture me about Romanian history! I much appreciate Mr Azad's courtesy on that matter. So having expressed my scepticism about him, I'm willing to hear whatever he cares to report. Let the reader decide.

 

Yes. You earlier suggested that we just wait and see what he does next. That seemed like a prudent approach. In retrospect, Mr. Azad would appear to have a good deal more of interest to say than I first realized. Please, Mr. Azad... we're listening.

 

Oh, no! Not another "Men of DegreeInfo Review"! Oy vey!

 

No, silly... so we can see who he really is.



Hmm. Revew, eh? Hmm. (kidding)

 

Both truly alien, maybe just abductees, could be men in black, keep your eyes open, watch the skies... everyone, keep watching the skies.

 

It's always so instructive reading this forum. Kirkland encourages us all to watch the skies (good advice, I'm sure) and would have only reminded people to keep an eye on their wallets.
Jack

 

Men of DegreeInfo Review....

Sounds more like a burlesque act.......

Now showing! John Bear leads his team of hot young studs onto the stage - ladies hang on to your underwear!

Des Elms, the good Unk, Tracey, Mr. Engineer, Dayson, Huffman, and the inimatable Dr. Levicott....... bump and grind into the night...

It's an evening of pleasure you'll never forget.....!!

 

Re: Men of DegreeInfo Review....

now there's a mental picture i didn't really need.

thanks

 

Silentium est aureum!

 

Not necessarily. If Mr Azad has something to say he should say it.

 

Okay then, Oratio est argentum.

 

What´s up with Azad? I´m interested in his new intentions to start a mill. We all know,what´s a shady mill.