I take my time to present you a small update from Eastern Europe. As you know starting with 1989 EE states began their transition to western values (we can say “values” here if you like). Capitalism, free market , etc etc..you name it

After 25 years i can pinpoint some facts (some will ring a bell to you fine fellas)

-stratified society – lots of poor people almost 0 middle class and a few very rich. strange…it was the same before 1989 when communist party members had all the goodies

-useless schools. and the good ones are rather expensive => we lose talents from poor segements of the opulations bc they cant develop their skills

-obesity. well yes…..this is a new problem in Eastern Europe and it is spreading like plague. Children born in 2000 – 2005 are in a very high % fat. I was born in 1980 and fat people were INEXSISTENT here\

-crap food. they said communist took food rations. yes they did but at least the food was clean of crap

-fake smiles

-everoby glued to the phones. you can see 10 people on a table in a bar and they all check FB profiles instead of talking to each other

-materialism and cheap shallow TV shows

-only a small percentage of pop reads

-females in flip flops with strange haircut and tatoos

-feminised males with strange beards and haircuts (i wear beard but it does not look the same )

What i say here is the new picture of the big cities of Eastern Europe . The ones more open to the west and with good Internect connections

On the countryside  the situation is a little bit more strange

Such a shame that by western values we dont understand here in EE Issac Newton, vivaldi, Bach, Niels Bohr,Cauchy, Darwin, Wallace,Fermat of Pascal but Blue Jeans Coca Cola and stupid TV shows with bimbos

Yours forever 🙂

Radu

sooo..take a good book read it on a remote beach at the sea side and forget about the world ;). looks like one of the very few valid options

This is one I do often. Like the LSD addled Tim Leary said, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

Totally off topic. One of my favorite chess set designs is the 1950 Dubrovnik. It was designed by an ardent communist in 1950 for a world wide competition held in Dubrovnik. It is said to be Bobby Fischer’s favorite design. Maybe I’m prejudiced because of good ole Bobby’s vote, but I like its look and feel better than any other I’ve handled.

Edit: This is one like it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik_chess_set