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Some of you already know me (a little 8<) from eh.res and, as a result 
of my recent request there for information on the Italian City-States,  
Ross Emmett was kind enough to cross-post the request here too.  Now 
that my subscription has been entered, he won't have to follow through 
on his gracious offer to forward any responses to me.  Thanks, Ross! 
(And, I guess that explains where my current research interests lie.) 
 
I have been ABD from the University of Texas since 1981, and after some 
30 total years in federal, state, regional, and local government 
(including some academic administration from 1978-81 as Assistant 
Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Economics Department--our 
enrollment then was 5,500 undergrad Econ students per semester),  I 
returned to part-time teaching after moving to Denver in 1994, at 
Columbia College (Aurora) and Metro State, and became "hooked" again. 
 
I studied History of Thought under Ken Cochran and Bullock Hyder when  
I was an undergrad at UNT (then, NTSU), and under H.H. Liebhafsky (RIP,  
Lieb) and Wendell Gordon when I was in grad school at UT from '75-'81.   
During those six years, I had one foot planted firmly in Institutionalism  
and the other in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics -- lucky for me,  
I've been a below-right-knee amputee since 1961 so it was easy enough to  
switch feet (and camps 8<) as necessary.  Since my arrival here in  
Fayetteville as a Visiting Instructor qua really-old grad student  
(violating my old friend K-K-Ken Boulding's (RIP, Professor) dictum that  
no one, save college administrators, should have to take "comps" more than  
once) I am again working on a doctorate.  I've been fortunate to have  
studied History of Economic Thought with Professor David Gay, here, and  
look forward to doing some more of that. 
 
Strangely enough, though, it was two Professors of Communication who 
first began to lure me back into the academy:  Stephen Smith, here at 
UAF who persuaded me to return to Arkansas (I grew up in Lonoke County 
and the big city of Little Rock -- yeah the most infamous High School, 
class of '63 during which year I also met a mere junior from Hot 
Springs at a state convocation of some sort who looked at my "William 
Thomason Moore" and called me Billy Tom.  I responded by sneering, "Nice 
to meet you, Willy Jeff." 8<)  Steve and I are co-owners (I as junior 
List Janitor) of the Free Speech List, and it was he who piqued my 
interest in the intertwining of "Free(r)" communications and "free(r)" 
truck-trade-and-barter in the City-States.  If you are interested in First 
Amendment issues, please drop me a note, and I'll send along the 
addresses for subscriptions (shameless promotion 8<). 
 
The other Communications guru, whom I first met on a Clinton Presidency 
discussion List in early '93, was Dr. Gerald M. Phillips (Emeritus  
Professor of Communications, Penn State, RIP 4/95).  GMP read some of  
my "economics ain't that difficult to understand) posts and, in his  
capacity as an editor for a trade-press organ, suggested that I write a  
book entitled _Economics As A Communication System_ -- I only progressed  
as far as the (editorially approved) outline, and the Introduction before  
I suffered a "gumption loss."  He advised me to read D.R. McCloskey's _The  
Rhetoric of Economics_ and gave me a wonderful compliment, "You write  
about that stuff almost as well as McCloskey."  I wish!  (But, I now carry  
around a copy of _The Writing of Economics_ like John Henry Faulk (RIP --  
geez, it's beginning to look like all my early influences are doing that). 
 
Well, this has probably run on way too long -- Texans do have a way of 
ramblin' -- so I'll close by noting that one of my Principles students 
at UT was Berke (pronounced as if there was a "y" on the end) Breathed 
and that I owe to him the "billkatt" name on the Internet (ARPANET back 
thar in 19-seventy-ought-eight).  If any of you would like to see my 
full color portrait, take a look at http://cba.uark.edu/bmoore and 
forgive me because as an old text-dinosaur, I just started this new- 
fangled WWW stuff about 30 days ago. 
 
Thank you all in advance for any research assistance you may provide, 
and I hope that some "old-live-friends" are reading this missal. 
 
Bill Moore 
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