Orlov the Great, &c.

Yuri Orlov was less famous than Andrei Sakharov, but like him: a brilliant physicist who sacrificed his scientific career to stand for human rights. Orlov has now died at 96.

He was born in Moscow seven years after the Soviet Union, in 1924. He served as an officer during World War II. As the years wore on, he became increasingly bold in his dissidence. He was at last arrested in 1977.

For nine years, he endured prison, labor camp, and internal exile. He went through terrible ordeals, physical and mental. In 1986, Gorbachev released him to the United States in a prisoner swap.

Arriving at JFK, Orlov said, “Oh, dear friends, I think you can understand I experience very complicated feelings. I have left my homeland. I’ve left behind people who are still in prison. In fact, I probably feel guilty in regards to them. Why am I here, and they’re there? On the other hand, I am very glad I have begun a free life.”

Not long after, in 1987, I saw him at a forum at Harvard. It was gratifying to be even in the same room as this man. I believe I shook his hand but can’t quite remember. I like to think I did. I’m not sure at this remove.

He lived out his life as a professor at Cornell. In recent years, I tried to contact him, for an interview, but could not reach him. It is on people like Yuri Orlov — utterly brave, decent, and selfless — that human freedom and dignity depend.

• Here is the opening of a Reuters report, published on September 29:

Oh, yes. There is no doubt. Three years ago, I wrote about Dmitriev, here. This case is Soviet — classically Soviet — at its core.

For about 20 years now, the Russlandverstehers (Russia-understanders) and Putin apologists have said to me, “Today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, you know!” I know. But does the Kremlin know?

What they have done to Yuri Dmitriev is, again, classically Soviet — nasty, diabolical. Evil.

• A week and a half ago, the president of the Ford Foundation tweeted this:

There’s an expression, “too stupid to live,” and I sometimes wonder whether it is true of our society.

• “Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform,” reads a headline. I’m not sure that anything so good and beneficent as a market economy has had worse PR. People need to explain and defend a market economy — a free economy — because its opponents never rest, no matter how bad the record of socialism, statism, collectivism.

That same article says the pope “rejected ‘trickle down’ economy theory.” I half smiled, half grimaced. “Trickle down” is one of Thomas Sowell’s least favorite expressions. (We have discussed this in podcasts.) It makes his blood boil. No advocate of a free economy has ever said “trickle down.” This is a phrase invented by its defamers, and apparently it is ineradicable, which is vexing.

• “La donna è mobile,” goes an old song (an aria from Rigoletto). “Woman is fickle.” People in general are fickle. I hear some people say that Joe Biden is not visible enough in this presidential campaign. He is not out and about enough (pandemic or not). He’s not on television enough. These same people have almost certainly complained that politicians are in our faces all the time. They won’t leave us alone. They demand to be front and center in American life.

We conservatives used to fault President Clinton for “the permanent campaign.” He never stopped campaigning, we said. There has to be a time when campaigning ends and governing begins.

Donald Trump, of course, has held campaign rallies throughout his presidency. And yet I have not heard conservatives complain about “the permanent campaign” in the last four years. C’est la vie — la vie tribale.

“The bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, the baby at every christening.” Some people have to be these things, and politicians are especially guilty. I could use more modesty in politics — in our constitutional republic. Personally, I see enough of Biden (not to mention his opponent). Don’t you?

• Twice yesterday, Trump called Kamala Harris a “monster.” That’s interesting. If he can call a U.S. senator a “monster,” surely he can find a cross word or two for Putin, Kim, and the rest. “Scoundrel,” maybe? “No good-nik”?

• To Bob Woodward, Trump described his chemistry with Kim — the dictator of the most monstrous state on earth: “You meet a woman. In one second, you know whether or not it’s going to happen. It doesn’t take you ten minutes, and it doesn’t take you six weeks. It’s like, ‘Whoa. Okay.’ You know? It takes somewhat less than a second.”

If the Republican Party and the conservative movement were still alive, they would hate this. It would sicken Bill Buckley. I know that it sickens many of my readers, too.

• As I see it, one of the worst things about Trumpism is its language. In fact, the language is central to the ism: “enemy of the people” and all that. Announcing that the president would not be participating in the second debate, the Trump-Pence campaign called members of the Commission on Presidential Debates “swamp creatures.”

What does that even mean? It is simply meant to debase.

Objections to this language, Trumpites consider prissy. “Grow a pair,” they say. “He fights,” they say. The clash of values — the clash of perspectives — is strong.

• I had a memory of 1980 — that year’s presidential campaign. Reagan and Anderson debated, but Carter refused to join them. Should there be an empty chair, to indicate his absence? In the end, there wasn’t.

Of course, Clint Eastwood, in 2012, had an act with an empty chair at the Republican convention. I was present in the hall. One of the quirkiest acts I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t imagine how it was playing on television. I’m still a bit mystified by it, honestly (and I’m a hard-bitten Clint fan).

• This was really a wonderful obit: “Lillian Brown, makeup artist and image consultant for nine presidents, dies at 106.” Back in 1967, she said, “You just can’t go on TV without a slight amount of makeup. A man hates it, but he doesn’t have to see himself twice on camera without it before he gives in.”

I thought of Bill Buckley, who began his TV show, Firing Line, in 1966. He said that men balked at having makeup done. He would tell them, “It’s not to alter your appearance. It’s to ensure that you’ll look the same on television as you always do.” Hearing this, they would relent.

• Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He is a collector of peace prizes, actually. He has won one from the Chinese dictatorship, and won one from the Venezuelan dictatorship.

Beijing was ticked at the Nobel committee in 2010, when the committee gave the prize to a Chinese democracy leader and political prisoner, Liu Xiaobo. So, the Party created its own peace prize, calling it the “Confucius Peace Prize.” Putin was an early winner.

Caracas was ticked at the Nobel committee in 2016, when the committee gave its prize to Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia. So, Maduro & Co. created the “Hugo Chávez Prize for Peace and Sovereignty.” Putin was the inaugural winner.

Who needs a Nobel?

• I learned from Garry Kasparov that a joke was going around Russia. One man says, “Did you hear Putin is up for a Nobel?” Another man says, “For chemistry?”

(The Kremlin has been pretty free with the Novichok lately.)

• Louise Glück, the American poet, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I believe she is the most prominent double-dotted person in American life. I can’t think of another, frankly.

When Arnold Schönberg, the composer, came to this country in 1933, he insisted that he be “Schoenberg,” till the end of his days.

(When Nördlingers came to America in the 19th century, some of them went with “Noerdlinger.” Some went with “Nerdlinger.” Some went with “Nordlinger.” I don’t mind having escaped the second.)

• Reuters reported a story on COVID-19 at the White House. One paragraph reads,

Pottinger is a China specialist. Days before reading the above-quoted article, I was talking with an old China hand, who said that Matt Pottinger is the best thing the Trump administration has going for it.

FWIW.

• Did you see this story? It made me think of China. In Tampa, some hockey fans were watching a game on television, and yelling, “Shoot! Shoot!” A neighbor called the police, thinking there was gun action.

What does this have to do with China?

In times past, people were wary of talking about their cat. Because the word for “cat,” in Mandarin, is very close to the name “Mao.” And if your neighbor misinterpreted you — off to the gulag, you might go . . .

• Sir Harold Evans, the famed journalist, has died. He said, I believe, the most remarkable thing ever said about a spouse. With clear affection, he described his wife, Tina Brown, this way: “cunning as a rat.”

• California has a host of problems, including forest fires. But it also has McConnell’s ice cream — particularly, Toasted Coconut Almond Chip. You can’t beat it. At least I can’t.

By the way, Whittaker Chambers used to cite Gertrude Stein on the most beautiful phrase in the English language: “Toasted Suzie is my ice cream.” That’s hard to beat, too.

Thanks for joining me, my friends, and I’ll see you soon.

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