I think we have no African-Americans left, and never did have any Afrikans, Arabs, or people from the Indian subcontinent or far east, or the Russias.

Richard, although I don't disagree with the basic thought of your 10:24 post, I will quibble with you just a little.

Perhaps three to five years ago we did have at least one Russian Mudcat member, for a relatively short time, and limited to a single thread. His name, as I recall, was Alexander (or Aleksander?), and he was translating a group of 19th century Russian prison poems to English, with a view to publishing, I think. His "upstairs" thread was short-lived, but for some few months I PM'd with him, giving native-English-speaker suggestions for more colloquial equivalents of his English translations.

Suddenly he stopped responding to my PMs. Perhaps he had ISP or computer or censorship problems, or more likely, he may have decided that the sort of suggestions or rephrasings that I suggested didn't fit with what help he wanted. I was sorry to see it come to an end.

Dave Oesterreich