Three Wrights and a Wrong.

Pavel Trofimovich Morosov, hero-informer of the infamous Soviet morality tale.

The word "wright" (worker), deriving from the Old English "wryhta," survives principally in combinations — "playwright," "wheelwright," etc. — and also as a surname. Famous Wrights include the brothers, Wilbur and Orville, the architect, Frank Lloyd, and the population geneticist, Sewall. The first two are known to most; the third, principally to students of evolution. Perhaps, in a later post, we will discuss the latter's contributions to the "modern synthesis," a between the world wars confection of mathematics, observation and experiment that sought to harmonize nineteenth century Darwinism with the then nascent science of genetics. Perhaps, even, we will discuss Wright's famous quarrel with R. A. Fisher another important contributer to the theory. But those undertakings, as the Teletubby remarked, we "save for later."

Wright Makes Wrong. Like our faithful canine companions, not all Wrights go to Heaven. One who may have difficulty gaining admittance is the Reverend Jeremiah. Accuracy in Media reports that this notorious promoter of things nefarious has good things to say (is anyone surprised?) about Marxism, the recorded evidence of which endorsement surfaced briefly at Vimeo. That video has now disappeared, but, as sleuthed by Cliff Kincaid, whose exegetical commentary can be read here, Reverend Wright's address can still be viewed in parts (here, here and here).

What interests this correspondent is not the content of brother Jeremiah's remarks, which, like that of his character, is questionable, but the parallel to practices of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE). In the halcyon days of Soviet socialism, GSE subscribers sometimes received replacements for articles no longer deemed accurate along with instructions to delete the originals — literally, to cut and paste. "Accurate," of course, meant consistent with the changing party line, which circumstance, in addition to providing grist for George Orwell, necessitated the continuous rewriting of history.

Pavel Trofimovich Morosov. Regarding the Wright video, AIM's editor notes, "We do not know why the original ... was taken down, but [we] have our suspicions." So too, one hazards, does Svetlana Kunin, whose most recent article on this nation's rush to recreate the Soviet past merits serious consideration. The pattern would likewise have been familiar to the family of Pavlik Morozov, hero-informer of the infamous Soviet morality tale to which Kunin alludes. The offical story, most likely apocryphal — see Pavlik Morozov: Soviet Boy Hero, Seventeen Moments in Soviet History and this recent article in Pravda — has young Pavel reporting his father to the Cheka for crimes against the state and subsequently dying a martyr at the hands of vengeful relatives. Remarkably, a modest contribution by George Soros is being (or already has been) used to reopen the museum that once honored Pavlik's memory, "this time," according to the first reference, "with a display placing [his] life ... in the context of the collectivization campaign, and of the political repression that it represented." How ironic: the tale foisted upon generations of Soviet school children celebrated the primacy of government over family, the same objective being pursued by Soros' far more generously funded American minions at Service.gov. The world wonders.

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Passing Trains.

Date: Early 1940's (inferred from the GS-4 on the point and the use of full-width diaphragms); Time: Approximately 8:30 AM. Place: Lower San Francisco peninsula. The Coast Daylight (left) to Los Angeles passes the north-bound Lark, the last two cars of which, having been been split off from the main consist at San José, are now en route to Oakland.

Longfellow wrote of ships. But I've always been partial to trains. In the United States, long distance rail travel was at its pinnacle in the years preceding and following World War II. The most famous passenger trains, the Twentieth Century Ltd. and the Superchief, each traversed half the continent, allowing for connection in Chicago. But for my money, it was traffic along Southern Pacific's "coast route" that set the standard. With "Golden State" class steam locomotives on the point, trains like the Coast Daylight and the Lark linked California's two largest cities, affording their riders speed, comfort and incomparable views of the Pacific, the latter accessible only by rail.

Nations also pass each other with "only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness." Sometimes the occupants of one vessel are more cognizant of the moment than those of the other. In the Russian press, one finds discussion of the changes now propelling America in the direction of socialism or something worse. Stanislav Mishin ("American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper") advises that

"... Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at ... the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left."

Closer to home, Svetlana Kunin, who came to America in 1980, writes as follows:

"In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. ...

"When I ... experienced life in this country, I thought it was fortunate that those living in the USSR did not know how unfortunate they were.

"Now in 2009, I realize how unfortunate it is that many Americans do not understand how fortunate they are. They vote to give government more and more power without understanding the consequences." ["The Perspective of a Russian Immigrant," IBD Editorials]

Just so. The deficiencies of contemporary Russian "democracy" notwithstanding, our country is headed whence came the motherland. Meanwhile, the New York Times, along with other representatives of the fourth estate, does what it can to ignore burgeoning evidence of the incipient Marxist takeover. And, of course, there is the pitter-patter of little feet, the advance, now quickening, of slow variables that aim to "unseam us," as it were, "from the nave to the chops" — all this, twenty years after the Berlin Wall. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

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