* * * * *
                                        
 Ms. L'Engle also never mentioned the 24-hour news cycle that helped subjugate
                           the population of Camazotz
                                        
Via a link on FaceGoogleMyBookPlusSpace is an article [1] about a cut passage
from an early draft of _A Wrinkle In Time_ [2]. The article talks briefly
about the cut passage and then goes into some details about Madeleine L’Engle
[3], but I can't help but quote from the cut passage:

> So she said, “But Father, what's wrong with security? Everybody likes to be
> all cosy and safe.”
> 
> “Yes,” Mr. Murry said, grimly. “Security is a most seductive thing.”
> 
> “Well—but I want to be secure, Father. I hate feeling insecure.”
> 
> “But [DELETED-not enough-DELETED] you don't love security enough so that
> you guide your life by it, Meg. You weren't thinking of security when you
> came to resuce me with Mrs Who, Mrs Whatsit, and Mrs Which.”
> 
> “But that didn't have anything to do with me,” Meg protested. “I wasn't
> being brave or anything. They just took me.”
> 
> Calvin, walking beside them with his load of wood, said, smiling warmly at
> Meg, “Yes, but when we got here you didn't go around whining or asking to
> go home where you could be all safe and cosy. You kept yelling, where's
> Father, take me to Father: You never gave a thought to security.”
> 
> “Oh,” Meg said. “Oh.” She brooded for another moment. “But I still don't
> see why security isn't a good thing. Why, Father?”
> 
> “I've come to the conclusion,” Mr. Murry said slowly, “that it's the
> greatest evil there is. Suppose your great great grandmother, and all those
> like her, had worried about security? They'd never have gone across the
> [DELETED-country-DELETED] land in flimsy covered wagons. Our country has
> been greatest when it has been most insecure. This [DELETED-longin-DELETED]
> sick longing for security is a dangerous thing, Meg, as insidious as the
> strontium 90 from our nuclear explosions that worried you so about Charles
> Wallace when you read in science at school that it was being found in
> greater and greater quantities in milk. You can't see strontium 90. You
> can't feel it or touch it. But it's there. So is the panicky searching for
> conformity, for security. Maybe it's because of the Black Thing, Meg. Maybe
> this lust for security is like a disease germ that it has let loose on our
> land. I don't know, Meg. All I realize now is that my fight is much bigger
> than this little one on Camazotz.”
> 

Despite being written over fifty years ago, it seems to apply more to us
today than it did in 1962 (and here's a discription of Camazotz [4] if you
are unfamiliar with the book).

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-wrinkle-in-time-1429219305?mod=e2fb
[2] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312367546/conmanlaborat-20
[3] http://www.madeleinelengle.com/madeleine-lengle/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_the_works_of_Madeleine_L'Engle#Other_planets

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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