On Eating Meat

People who survived the Soviet satellites of the former Iron Curtain, socialist countries run by their respective Communist Parties, can attest to the lack of food and especially meat they were subjected to daily.

One person who recently talked about his experience with food in Poland brought back painful memories. It was common for hungry kids to bully or beat up weaker kids for their sandwich, he said; their parents were members of the Communist Party and thus had access to healthy food. He reminisced about his mom buying a sliver of meat to flavor the soup or stew she was making. Drago was so shocked when he was first offered a piece of steak in the U.S. He thought it was the food ration for the month.

My mom bought bones with which she flavored our soups and potato stews. She could not have bought even a sliver of good meat if she wanted to because it was not available or it would have been too expensive for our meager budget to buy it on the black market. At best, she could have bartered something, but she had nothing of value to exchange for meat.

Such was food rationing on coupons under tyrannical regimes – empty stores and long lines for bread and other necessities that were always in short supply.

I visited Dachau’s Nazi concentration camp 31 years ago and I saw a list in German with the food rations for the camp’s prisoners. They received every morning 350 g of bread and half a liter of ersatz coffee, 3 liters of soup for lunch each week, one noodle soup and other two liters white cabbage soup, and for evening meals four times a week 20-30 g of sausage or cheese and ¾ liter of tea. No wonder the prisoners who survived were skeletal. Meat was almost non-existent in their nutrition; they were starved on purpose.

I watched my mom kill a chicken sometimes and grandpa slaughter at Christmas the pig he raised; it kept many in the family alive throughout the year. In retrospect, it did not look like a humane killing and the pig knew what was happening to him but we needed meat in order to survive and stay somewhat healthy and functioning.

I also remember grandpa burying a pig one year in the back yard because the village vet tech told him that it had trichinosis, and it was not fit for human consumption. But some villagers did eat their sick pigs and died or survived through treatment. A few of my childhood friends died of parasitic infections - they were not lucky to be close to a free medical clinic for treatment.

Some village kids drowned in the creek or in the Proava River when it rained a lot, and the muddy brown water concealed their bodies until the level dropped. Nobody knew how to swim. I never learned until I was almost 21 and living in the U.S.

My aunt Nuta used to take me and my best friend Steluta to the Prahova River - the water was clear and so cold, coming down from the mountains. There were pockets between large boulders where the water was deeper, and the fish were trapped in. We bathed with fishes swimming around us. We were hungry all the time, but it never occurred to us to try to catch the fish. We were afraid that someone would report us to the communist government, and we would go to jail.

Finding abundant meat to eat in the U.S. reminds us of the reality that every day we live, a creature dies to keep us alive. We just do not realize how much killing we do because someone else does the killing for us.

I am obsessed with the show ALONE for several reasons. One is the killing of animals in a survival setting where they are truly alone and must find meat protein, clean water, build a good shelter, and provide heat. Part of finding food is not just picking berries or edible plants which can be boiled and turned into soup. They must hunt and catch wild animals; unless trained, we lost that skill a long time ago. Most of us today would not know how to humanely trap and kill an animal to eat. We do eat meat but are squeamish about the actual killing.

A lady survivalist snared a squirrel, and the momma squirrel came and was trying to revive her baby and she was making all these crying sounds. It was heartbreaking to hear - animals are sentient beings.

A survivalist from West Virginia who hunted and killed with his bow and arrow a beaver in Labrador, Canada, contracted giardiasis, a parasitical infection from the beaver meat - he called it ‘beaver fever.’ Worse still, he had to undress down to his underwear and swim in the freezing river water to retrieve the dead beaver which was floating in the middle.

He got so sick after eating undercooked meat and fat from this beaver that he had to tap out to seek medical help. This was the revenge of the beaver for killing him and leaving his mate alone for life.

But we know that in the circle of life animals eat other animals and maul humans as well if they are in their habitat or vicinity, and they happen to be hungry. Some even slaughter humans for the sport even when not hungry.

Meat has been part of the human diet for 2.6 million years despite the modern time push for vegetarianism. We are lucky in the U.S. that we have such a supply of meat, enough to trade with other nations.

Only in Florida

On our recent five-day adventure in South Florida, we packed all the fun activities we could drive to without being killed or seriously injured on the roads and interstates crisscrossing Broward County and Miami-Dade. And we found ourselves time and time again repeating the phrase, “only in Florida.”

Only in Florida people drive 100 MPH, crossing lanes faster than NASCAR drivers, chasing each other in sleek and expensive cars, like disappearing banshees and people react as if it is the norm.

Only in Florida we see no police officers giving tickets to speeders and bad drivers. Florida car owners, with and without driving licenses, are in a class by themselves when it comes to speeding. Driving rules and road safety are just ordinary and laughable suggestions to them.

Only in Florida highly confident women of all shapes and sizes go out dressed like other people do when doing hot yoga, showing as much skin as possible without being nude – after all, the beach and the ocean are not that far away. A tiny string bikini with a see-through cover or not, is good enough to wear grocery shopping, strolling, or to the mall. The idea that clothes are made to cover the body for reasons of public decency seems to escape them. Fluttering their butterfly or tarantula eyelashes, with perfectly coiffed hair and full makeup at the beach, men adore them for their “easy on the eye” beauty.

In Florida, only foreign visitors and cruise goers speak English. If you speak English, that is too bad because South Floridians are not going to help you. Without Spanish or Spanglish, you must bring a translator in tow.

Only in Florida the culture is so Hispanic-diverse that Broward County and Miami-Dade areas might as well be granted to Cuba, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Colombia, or Jamaica. Non-Hispanic Americans are only tolerated so long as they spend money on Cuban food and tip generously on top of the automatic 18% service fee.

Only in Florida the sun shines for five straight days, the sky is bright blue, and no airplanes spray the sky with chemicals, turning it into a milky grey mass, covering the sun to mitigate global warming. Those of us unlucky to live elsewhere in America forgot how beautiful the real sky used to be.

Only in Florida can you find Ed’s Castle, an out of this world creation of a Latvian man who built his coral rock castle with primitive tools, imagination, and a labor of unrequited love, in hope that someday the love of his life, who rejected his marriage proposal before he left Latvia, would someday show up and visit his castle.

Only in Florida does a Muscovy duck build her nest next to the entrance of a remarkably busy hotel, unafraid, and incubates seven eggs and guards them like a good and caring momma.

Only in Florida a restaurant takes a yummy red snapper, fries it too long in lard to an unchewable crisp shape which the chef (I use the term loosely) then decorates it (the remaining skeleton) with wilted onion strips, two tomato slices, 2 lemon wedges, and undercooked and inedible rice, all for the price of $67. And tourists pay because other locals recommend the place and the dish as the height of Cuban cuisine.

Only in Florida you find iguanas, an invasive species released into the wild by bored people who dumped their exotic pets outdoors when they tired of them or they grew too big; or possibly proliferated from the Miami Zoo after it was torn up by hurricane Andrew which released all species from its collection into nature where they exploded in population. With their orange, green, and grey skin, iguanas of all sizes appear in the most unlikely places, falling from trees in wintertime in a hibernating and catatonic state.

Only in verdant and colorful south Florida diverse ethnicities have their own delicious cuisines but Cuban food is the king everywhere.

Only in south Florida women of all ages, young and old, dress up like teenagers going to a party.

Only in south Florida air boat tours on the Everglades display as the main attraction a few exemplars of the 200,000 gators, old relatives of dinosaurs who are a nuisance elsewhere in Florida, in swimming pools, in ponds, and on golf courses.

Only in Florida the air wafting from every corner, car, park, boardwalk, and even the beach stinks of marijuana, the unmistakable and unpleasant odor of skunk.

Only in Florida can you drive on the lonely alligator alley and find the occasional gator catching the sun’s rays on the side of the road, unafraid of the cars zipping by.

Only in Florida there is such paradise on earth, the sandy white beaches, the teal blue ocean water, the surfing waves, and the verdant flora and dinosaurian fauna, so amazing and beautiful that you want to go back as soon as you board the plane to go home.

 

Trade Deficits and Tariffs

Tariffs, quotas, and other protectionist measures are connected to trade deficits. The trade deficit is the monetary difference between imports and exports of a specific country.

What is our trade deficit which moves up and down constantly depending on the value of the dollar, the state of the economy, government spending, savings, taxation, and investment?

The data available from 2018 show that the U.S exported $2.5 trillion in goods and services and imported $3.121 trillion from other countries, thus our trade deficit was $621 billion. One third of exports then involved services such as tourism, intellectual property, and finance, and goods exported include aircraft, medical equipment, refined petroleum, and agricultural goods. U.S. imported computers, telecom equipment, apparel, electronic devices, autos, and crude oil. According to CFR, the deficit in goods was $891 billion, higher than the total deficit because “the goods deficit was offset by the surplus in services trade.” The U.S. Trade Deficit: How Much Does It Matter? | Council on Foreign Relations

According to the currently running Debt Clock, the U.S. trade deficit is approximately $1.271 trillion and the trade deficit with China is approximately $295 billion. U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Tariffs and quotas have been used to reduce trade deficits by discouraging imports and promoting domestic production if a specific industry still existed in the U.S. and had not been moved entirely to another country such as China, Canada, and Mexico in order to take advantage of their cheap labor and the lack of environmental regulations. At that time, American workers who lost their jobs to this type of globalism were forced to train their replacements in foreign countries where the plants had been moved.

Keynesian economists believe that the trade deficit could be shrunk if more economic growth would take place abroad thus inducing foreign citizens to buy more American goods. But some countries make it almost impossible for Americans to export their products to the European Union, for example.

Two other routes of balancing the trade deficit are also explored in Keynesian economics, more saving or less investment. The U.S. personal savings rate has been declining for decades; the savings decline recorded in 2006 as minus one percent is the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The rationale behind savings increase is that, if Americans save more, U.S. will borrow less from abroad. The dollar would become cheaper, and the trade deficit would shrink. Tax incentives might encourage Americans to save more, but it has not worked well.

Reducing U.S. domestic investment in real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has proven to work only temporarily in the 2001 recession.

William J. Baumol wrote that “if our trade deficit persists, we will have to borrow more from foreign investors who, at some point, will start demanding higher interest rates. At best, higher interest rates will lead to lower investment in the U.S. At worst, interest rates will skyrocket, and we will experience a severe recession.”

The third remedy for our trade deficit is to limit imports by imposing tariffs, quotas, and other protectionist measures. Keynesian economists believe that tariffs “superficially save American jobs and conveniently shifts the blame for our trade problems onto foreigners.” But other nations will retaliate with their own tariffs.

Protectionism can increase X-IM (exports-imports). If Americans buy less imports, reducing the supply of dollars on the world market, the value of the dollar will increase. But a rising dollar would hurt U.S. exports and encourage more imports from other countries. Consumer behavior will always change in the direction of buying what is cheapest for them, they do not care whose economy they help or hurt.

Budget deficits and trade deficits are linked by the fundamental equation,

X – IM = (S - I) – (G – T). [X is exports, IM is imports, G is government spending, and T is taxation]. Following this equation, the U.S. trade deficit must be reduced by a combination of lower budget deficits, higher savings, and lower investment, all variables that are difficult to coordinate.

American consumers are not alone in their preferences for goods and services. Speaking of trade deficit, “according to the historian Pliny, the demand of Rome’s elite for silk, precious stones, pearls, and other luxuries from highly developed empires in the east was so great that it drained Rome’s coffers of silver. One hundred million Roman sesterces ended up in Arab, Indian, and Chinese pockets annually.” (History Magazine, Ancient Rome, March 2025)

 

 

 

 

Understanding Tariffs

Keynesian economics, which is taught at colleges and universities around the country, explains that tariffs are a simple tax on imports. But they are not really that simple and without larger ramifications and are not just used for political posturing.

A larger tariff would benefit domestic producers if there was a manufacturing industry competing with the tariffed goods arriving from abroad. We are told that tariffs were a major source of U.S. government revenue during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Tariffs bring much political controversy. The U.S. has been a low tariff country with a few exceptions. Some countries, to protect their industries, levy heavy tariffs by as much as 100-400 percent to protect their domestic industries.

Canada provided a retaliation list of the items they are imposing tariffs on to match President Trump’s tariff of 25%. https://immigrationnewscanada.ca/us-goods-in-canada-affected-by-tariff/

President Trump announced in his Oval Office briefing today that Canada and India charge as much as 400% tariff tax on certain American products and farm produce. The United States charges European automakers only 2 ½% tariffs on European cars. European auto makers just announced, President Trump said, the lowering of their tariffs against U.S. car manufacturers to 2 ½%.

Major industries currently affected by tariffs are manufacturing of heavy machinery, autos, auto parts, consumer electronics, agricultural products, steel, and aluminum.

“A tariff handicaps all foreign suppliers equally, and it awards sales to those firms and nations that can supply the goods most cheaply, presumably because they are more efficient,” not because they may have cut corners in the production process or used substandard materials.

A type of disguised tariff is a quota. A quota is a government’s legal maximum amount of goods permitted into the country from abroad per year or some other unit of time. The few items enumerated under quotas are textiles, meat, and sugar. Quotas naturally raise the price of goods which are subject to quantity/number limitations because the supply is diminished, and we do not have much domestic production of said goods.

Sometimes the government provides payment to an exporter to reduce the exporter’s costs thus the exporter reduces their selling price of a specific good. Some governments use such export subsidies heavily to help their domestic exporters compete more easily with other countries.

A tariff is acknowledged to be more beneficial to domestic producers as they are not exposed to such a tax. A quota is more capricious as it can be rewarded to other countries based on political favoritism. For example, Keynesian economists believe that the “U.S. sugar quota was for years suspected of being a major source of corruption in the Caribbean” because of potential political favoritism.

The issue of tariffs and quotas is not as simple as it seems. A nation imposing higher tariffs will force the opposing countries to raise their own tariffs resulting in a trade war. Trade wars lead to a reduction of trade. Keynesian economists give as an example what happened to the world economy in the 1930s which helped prolong the worldwide depression.

If a country can impose tariffs and quotas without fear of retaliation, it will work, however when all countries are able to use them, everyone will lose eventually.

A country can restrict trade by tariffs to protect specific domestic industries from foreign competition. The “cheap foreign labor” argument pops up. The government can set up trade adjustment assistance for those hurt by foreign competition, i.e., specific unemployment benefits, loans, retraining programs, college courses, and other aid to workers and firms. At what point should such aid stop?

The third argument for trade protection in the form of tariffs and quotas would be to maintain national defense. If military parts and equipment is produced by a nation that has been or is suddenly becoming hostile, what would keep them from stopping the production and exportation to the U.S. of a strategic product?

President Trump placed tariffs in 2025 on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China with the goal to bring back manufacturing jobs or protect the existing domestic ones.

According to CEO Magazine, 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum affected the production costs of the auto industry which uses steel and aluminum. Some of the costs may be passed on to consumers. Supply chain disruption may affect the supply from Mexico and Canada. Companies affected are Ford, GM, Tesla, BorgWarner, and Aptiv, relying on global semiconductor supply chains.

President Trump imposed a 20% tariff on Chinese imports affecting everyone who uses many electronic components produced in China. Higher prices will be paid for smartphones and laptops. Supply chain disruptions will be expected, like the Covid ones resulting from the forced lockdowns.

The 20% tariff on Chinese imports will result on higher prices in retail and apparel industries such as Nike, Adidas, and companies like Walmart and Target. Higher costs for consumers, reduced profit margin, and potential reduction in consumer demand which may not be so devastating for consumers who already own too much stuff.

Companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel who produce their chips overseas, will have higher costs thus their production price increases may be passed on to the consumer. Impact of 2025 U.S. Tariffs on Key Industries and Companies

In the short run, prices may be higher in those industries affected by increased tariffs and supply chain disruptions may occur. Eventually, President Trump’s tariffs may help the (re)establishment of a domestic industry production and the creation of jobs unless it involves the type of jobs typically done robotically.

 

 

George Simion Stepped Up to Be the Romanian Presidential Candidate

George Simion, who attended CPAC, stepped up to take over the conservative candidacy for president in Romania after the previous runner, Calin Georgescu, was forced out of the race by the globalist cabal who controls politics around the globe.

Globalists convinced the Constitutional Court in Romania that Calin Georgescu’s candidacy was not legitimate based on allegations that most of his votes were received through TikTok and therefore must have been Russian interference.

Georgescu was recently forbidden to run in round two of parliamentarian elections even though he came in victorious in the first round. So much for democracy in Romania.

Georgescu’s supporters were irate as many Romanians who voted, voted from other countries in which they were working at the time and probably used the internet to vote; they felt betrayed that their votes had been discounted.

Romania has been part of the EU since 2007 and as such, citizens are allowed to work in any country which is part of the European Union. Since salaries are better than comparable jobs in the Romanian economy, it is understandable why Romanians would migrate to better paying jobs, sending back more money to their families left at home.

Georgescu has a Ph.D. in pedology (soil science) from the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest and served as Executive Director of the National Center for Sustainable Development in Romania from 2000-2013. He coordinated Romania’s National Sustainable Development Strategy. He was Executive Director of the United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute and President of the European Research Center for the Club of Rome. Georgescu was obviously the U.N. Agenda 21/2030 top administrator in Romania, a globalist himself who ran awful of the interests of NATO and EU as it pertained to the war in Ukraine against Putin’s Russia.

Georgescu won the first round of the presidential election with 22.95% of the votes against the pro-western candidate Elena Lasconi. “His campaign promoted national development, sovereignty, and reducing Romania’s dependence on imports. Results were annulled by the sitting Romanian government that alleged Russian interference even though nothing was proven as such, and undeclared campaign funds.” He was briefly detained by the Romanian regime while on his way to register for round 2 of the elections.

Georgescu had promised to halt the current construction of the air force base at the Black Sea. This base was promoted as a NATO deterrent to a “potential Russian invasion” from across the Black Sea.

A segment of the population disagreed with Georgescu and sided with Lasconi, as they feared a Putin invasion far more than they did NATO’s influence within their borders. The abject fear resulted from the fact that the former Soviet Union had enslaved the people of Romania to communism which lasted decades and delivered nothing but oppression and misery.  

Now that Georgescu has been barred from running again (so much for democracy and free elections in Romania), George Simion emerged as the new nationalist candidate who is fighting the New World Order agenda. He wants to preserve national sovereignty, family values, Christian values, and let democracy rule again. He is a member of Parliament, Chairman of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, the second largest party, and the Vice President of the European Conservatives and Reformists.

Considered the front runner, in a recent interview with Alex Newman, George Simion said that Calin Georgescu was prohibited from running again because “he posed a direct challenge to the political establishment. He serves the interests of the Romanian people rather than foreign interests. His exclusion was not about legality or democracy, it was about control. The ruling elites in Romania aligned with globalists from Brussels and saw that he was gaining support from Romanians who wanted real change. So, they removed him before he could make their voices heard.”

Throughout Europe, Simion said that “there is a broader trend in Europe; whenever a candidate emerges who supports nationalist interest over globalist agendas, they are discredited, attacked, or eliminated through technicalities or through direct abuses in breach of the rule of law.”

The false pretext of protecting democracy is being used, Simion said. “True democracy means letting the people decide, not bureaucrats behind closed doors, not the Deep State.”

During the interview, Alex Newman asked George Simion, “this NATO base that is being built in Romania, do you think that plays into this election, are globalist forces trying to make Romania a gateway to start a broader war with the Russians, with the regime of Vladimir Putin?”

George Simion answered, “Romania’s strategic position in Eastern Europe makes it a key player in regional security. However, we must ensure that our role in NATO serves the interests of Romanian people first and foremost…. We cannot not allow our country to be used as a pawn in geopolitical conflicts.”

Simion has made it clear that he is not supporting the expansion of the globalists’ war with Putin if it is not in the interest of the Romanian people. “Romanians do not want to be dragged into unnecessary wars,” Simion said. “The NATO base being built in Romania therefore, must be about defense because NATO is a defensive alliance, not escalation.”

Romania does not wish to follow orders from Brussels and Washington, Simion added, because “Romanians deserve a national strategy that protects national interests, and enhances their security and prosperity.”

George Simion will not be a puppet presidential candidate. He wants Romania to be an equal ally, not to be treated like a second-tier member of any organization.

 

Freestone Point on the Potomac River

The Freestone Point, now a tall bluff overlooking the Potomac River, has seen a lot of fighting during the Civil War, shipping of goods, and even entertainment in the form of a casino.

“At the point of the rock,” or Freestone Point, was the translation of the American Indian word Neabsco. Neabsco is an actual road today leading to the Leesylvania State Park. The word describes the land known as Freestone Point. In 18^th century maps Freestone Point is indicated as a landmark to river pilots who navigated the Potomac.

During Colonial times Freestone Point was quarried of sandstone which was easily cut and transported on the river as an inexpensive and abundant building material which colonists saw it as “free stone,” hence the name.

Henry Lee and Lucy Grymes Lee used such sandstone as foundation for their manor house and other buildings when they established the Leesylvania Plantation around 1750. (Museum Archives)

The Leesylvania Plantation was located on lands between the Neabsco and Powells Creeks and was used primarily to grow tobacco. The Lee family used fifty-five slaves to grow tobacco from December to September to complete the difficult cultivation process. Ploughing the soil, planting the seeds, watering them and watching them bud, weed them by using a hoe to break the soil, and removing plant pests, was demanding work. After the plants ripened in August, the leaves were cut and hung upside down to dry. After six weeks of drying the leaves were packed into large wooden barrels called hogsheads. These barrels were rolled down the hill to wait for ships to be loaded and sent overseas to the market.

When the river was blockaded during the Civil War, cannons were placed on the bluff, shelling the passing ships below. There is one cannon still positioned in the original location, but it is unclear where this cannon originated.

Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered the blockade of the Potomac River on August 22, 1861. Artillery positions were built along the six-mile-front that would control the sailing channel passage to the Union capital, Washington, D.C. One such position was the land of his ancestral home, Leesylvania, known as Freestone Point.

Freestone Point served as a decoy while the essential batteries were placed down river at Possum Point, Cockpit Point, and Evansport.

The Potomac River channel hosted “A Pacific Paradise on the Potomac” on the S.S. Freestone, a gambling ship, as a recreational resort and casino even though it was illegal to gamble or sell alcohol by the glass in Virginia at that time. The ship was moored in Maryland by what is now the fishing pier. This pier is clearly marked today about 1/3 of the way as Maryland waters. It was not illegal to gamble or sell drinks in Maryland then.

The S.S. Freestone had 200 slot machines on deck, a restaurant on the second deck, and a cocktail lounge on the third deck, decorated in Hawaiian décor with music and dancing. A former steamer, the boat had been turned into a floating casino.

On opening day, July 20, 1957, “live music was provided by Johnny Long and his orchestra, water ballet, water skiing exhibitions, races by sailing craft, fireworks, and a beauty contest to crown the Queen of Freestone Point.”

Walking on the fishing pier today, there is a lot of banter and laughter in Spanish coming from the regular fishermen who come to catch the weekend dinner for their families. Nobody knows the history of the park or the family that donated the land for their enjoyment.

The Drab Colors Squashing the Spirit

As a teenager, shopping with my mom one day, I saw a bolt of material with a beautiful splash of color among the sea of drab greys, dark browns, black, ink blue, and very dark olive. Wondering how that escaped the eyes of the communist censorship, I begged my poor mom to buy me 2 meters of it so I could have a new dress, a special treat for me since my parents were very poor and could not afford such things often. They were honest blue-collar workers, the proletariat that the regime talked about all the time and kept oppressed and hungry. I wanted my aunt Stela to make me a short sleeve dress out of the cheap polyester material sprinkled with red roses against a green and black background. I knew I would stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of drab colors, but it made me happy just looking at it.

I would often say to myself that, if I would ever afford beautiful and bright colors, my clothes would be happy hues, something the communist economy never offered to their trapped and impoverished “customers.”

Our school and work uniforms were dark grey, navy, black, ink blue, various shades of brown, and white shirts. Nothing fancy, just basic. Shoes were black, white, and brown with thick brown or black hose. Pants were discouraged in women unless they were working in factories. I wore black pants in winter as a child, to keep warm. Photographs show high waters when the same pair was worn two years in a row.

Finally I came to America and my eyes were overwhelmed with beautiful colors. Even though I could not afford anything, the fact that such beautiful fabrics, clothes, and colors existed, it made my heart dance with joy.

Years later, I discovered Lilly Pulitzer with its array of greens, blues, pinks, beiges, and white. It had not yet morphed into the mixture of designs and dazzling colors of today - they stand out at airports among the sea of black clothes as if everyone is going to a funeral.

Strangely, in the last four years, since the forced Covid lockdowns, everything around us began to change in the direction of the drab life we lived under communism. Everything became utilitarian, small, crowded, plain, and uniform.

It started with the selection of clothes, towels, in department store offerings and in car colors. They all looked the same as if they had used the same designers and manufacturers – a lot of greys, blacks, beiges, browns, navy, olive greens, and white. A few colors here and there but nothing like it had been.

Cars became indistinguishable on the road, the same shades of grey, silver, black, beige, and white. I had a hard time finding a new car in red or a beautiful blue. It took me a year and a half to find my red SUV.

Then I noticed that all fast food restaurants started changing their outdoor appearance as if a Bauhaus conference had taken place and all have decided that they would go with the same drab and depressing interior and exterior décor – shades of grey, brown, black, and beige.

The big arches were gone, the big windows were gone, and so were the playgrounds which my children loved even though the food was never great. It was a part of Americana that disappeared and was replaced by Bauhaus drabness. Colors that made the buildings look happy and inviting, disappeared. Some even looked like a prison from the exterior. The only holdouts were the Mexican food restaurants which remained the same colorful and happy places.

The fast food and regular restaurants now look inside and out like the utilitarian Bauhaus architecture, not inviting, cozy places where you go not just for the food but for an atmosphere and a pleasant experience that pleases the visual senses.

Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius became a movement in early 20^th century Germany, featuring “straightforward and functional designs with simple geometric shapes, clean lines, and minimal embellishment, using basic materials like steel, concrete, and glass.”

This type of architecture was the basis of our lives in communism – simple and utilitarian, nothing fancy for the proletarian masses. Reinforced concrete high-rise apartments withstood a strong earthquake of 7.2 on Richter scale. It did not demolish such ugly buildings but broke pieces of it, dangling them like loose teeth.

Next time you go out to a fast-food restaurant, notice the simplicity and drabness of color, the smaller windows, or the windows that had been taken out and replaced by grey walls. And they all look alike, drab, ugly, uninviting, and prison-like. Who wants to eat in such an unhappy place? Perhaps that is the idea, driving the masses back to their own homes, ordering food and staying indoors, better controlled.