Muslim Magomaev, one of the most popular Soviet singers of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s died today. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that 100% of the Soviet population knew and loved him. He was a huge star with a wide range of musical talents – from pop to opera, performing in many languages and winning many well-deserved international awards. Many times when Magomaev was on TV my Father would record his songs on our reel-to-reel tape recorder and little 6-year old me would sing along.
Soviet people were protesting and demonstrating on the regular basis but never against their own government. Well, that’s not exactly true. At least a few Soviet people tried to demonstrate and protest against their own government but in most cases were quickly swept up and ended up with lengthy prison sentences, forced psychiatric treatment or, in the best scenario, a house arrest. At the same time anti-American or anti-imperialist demonstrations were encouraged and sometimes mandatory.
An old Soviet joke about a Russian and an American arguing about the freedom of speech, went like this:
American: In America we have freedom of speech, I can stand in front of the White House and yell “Reagan is an idiot!” and nothing will happen to me.
Russian: No big deal, I can go to the Red Square, yell “Reagan is an idiot!” and nothing will happen to me either.
One sure-fire way not to sell me a food item is to lace it with unwanted vitamins and minerals. I don’t need “fortified” this and “enriched” that. I am not in imminent danger of scurvy, I don’t suffer from bone density problems, and if I am to believe the labels I eat so many times over my “recommended daily dose” of multiple vitamins and minerals that I should be (pardon) crapping straight One-A-Days. Popularity of certain food supplements varies every year and there are plenty of studies on the subject disproving each other’s findings. I eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, etc. and vitamin deficiency has never been a problem. With that in mind, when I go to the store, I avoid anything with additional supplements just because I didn’t ask to improve my food; there are plenty of unknown weird substances in my food already and don’t feel like I need to add to the list.
One sure-fire way not to sell me a food item is to lace it with unwanted vitamins and minerals. I don’t need “fortified” this and “enriched” that. I am not in imminent danger of scurvy, I don’t suffer from bone density problems, and if I am to believe the labels I eat so many times over my “recommended daily dose” of multiple vitamins and minerals that I should be (pardon) crapping straight One-A-Days. Popularity of certain food supplements varies every year and there are plenty of studies on the subject disproving each other’s findings. I eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, etc. and vitamin deficiency has never been a problem. With that in mind, when I go to the store, I avoid anything with additional supplements just because I didn’t ask to improve my food; there are plenty of unknown weird substances in my food already and don’t feel like I need to add to the list.
