The Best of 2016 - Series, Movies, Books

Instead of focusing exclusively on December, we decided to pick the very best of 2016. I think, we all can agree that this was a controversial and trying year. We experienced Brexit and Trump, the Columbian referendum failed, and the word of the year is post-truth. An unbelievable amount of people died, who made our world a better place. 

For us, personally, 2016 was a very intensive and beautiful year. For instance, we got married and moved to the U.S. We've experienced more new things in this year than in the previous three combined. Watching series and movies, reading books were our way of everyday normality to keep us sane amongst the various tasks of wedding organizing, surviving the first weeks in the USA or just navigating through other challenges.

Happy New Year to All of You, thanks for being with us in 2016. 

1. [SERIES] The People v. O.J. Simpson -  American Crime Story

In 1994 American football was not a thing in Hungary to put it politely. Yet the news of a criminal trial of a disgraced former NFL-star, called O.J. Simpson constantly appeared in newspapers. It was such a huge thing for America. Considering the evidence, 22 years later it looks obvious that athlete turned movie star (remember Towering Inferno) has indeed murdered his ex-wife and another innocent soul. However, facts were the least important things in this highly publicized trial that divided a nation and brought the issues of race, police misconduct (its was only two years after Rodney King riots), the responsibility of the media to a boiling point.

It took the film industry 22 years to come up with series that was able to capture this complex and highly sensitive case and produce a show that addresses all its angles. The result is terrifically lean, sober, and concise piece of television that ruled its league this year. The ensemble cast of stars (Cuba "ruined my career after winning an Oscar" Gooding Jr., John Travolta, David Schwimmer, etc.) does a magnificent job; however, the show is stolen by two relatively unknown actors. Sarah Paulson brings such an intensity to troubled, media-exploited character of Marcia Clark that it would fill a full movie alone. Clark's story also tells us novels how hard it is for professional women to get a fair chance in a profession where toughness and your public image are essential. Sounds familiar? Well, 22 years passed, but some work still has to be done... Sterling K. Brown's performance as the young, black attorney, who instantly becomes a traitor to his community as he joins the effort to bring O.J. to justice, is brilliant as well. When the two of them share scenes, the series gets to another level telling us about friendship, commitment, hard-won trust, and honesty.

It has been particularly fascinating for us to watch this show right after we arrived in St. Louis, whose suburb of Ferguson has in the last couple of years become the focal point and symbol of the ongoing struggle of race, police, and social coexistence. It was a reminder that the country still has a long way to go...

Runner-up: Borgen

This Danish masterpiece is just simply the best political drama series ever made. Period. More realistic than West Wing, far more serious than House of Cards has ever been. Brought to life by the precision and atmosphere-creating power of the Scandinavian movies. Besides, we are grateful to put  Sidse Babett Knudsen on the map for us, we loved her as the smart prime minister, and hope to see her more often in international productions. The same goes for Pilou Asbaek who also appeared in our favorite Scandinavian movie of the year, the WWII drama April 9th.

2. [FICTION BOOK] Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.”

Runner-up: Ilium/Olympos - By Dan Simmons

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of sci-fi novels. However, I think Dan Simmons two -part novel series is the best the genre could offer. It is an epic, adventurous, yet philosophical novel that blends the Homerian tradition, Shakespeare, and sci-fi into something fascinatingly new. Additionally, the journey of Orphu and Mahmut is one of the most compelling and heart-warming depictions of genuine and lasting friendship I have ever read.

3. [MOVIE] The Big Short 

It is an irony that this title goes to a film that depicts the machinations of Wall Street that led us to the 2008 financial crisis. A crisis that has hugely contributed to the resentment and disillusionment that culminated in the upheavals of 2016.

As a new-leftist liberal, the notion that our free-market capitalism is broken is not a new thought for me. There are tons of literature to be read about almost every aspect of the rotten system that slowly strangles the middle class while creates a caste of a global elite. Yet these mostly academic or investigative journalism texts are not able to bring the arguments and most importantly the answers further than a small intellectual base. We need smart, yet easy-to-understand pop-culture to bring this important message to the ones who will be the crucial factor of change: the masses. The Big Short does exactly that job: it tells the story how the perfect storm of 2008 was created. The single biggest achievement of the movie is to efficiently break down and show the logic of the complex financial dealings. As a result, if you pay attention (and why wouldn't you, when these segments are wittily and narrated by celebrities?) you will quickly understand how fundamentally messed up the whole system was - a realization that escaped almost every financial professional in the industry that time, hence the party went on until the last possible minute. One of the most powerful moments comes when a small team of a Wall Street brokers takes a field trip to Florida to actually see the neighborhoods and houses that are behind the bonds, CDOs, and other newly created exotic financial products. They simply buy tickets and travel to the Sunshine state to realize that almost nobody is able to pay the mortgages on the fancy new houses - therefore the numbers on the laptop screens will not hold, disaster is coming. Apparently almost nobody else from their Brooks Brothers-suited colleagues took the trip - they just believed the numbers without any proof or hard evidence and cashed-in their bonuses.

The story is brought to life by yet another ensemble cast (Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale etc.) - they are not heroes, not saviors, just smart guys who see the coming storm before anyone else. Among these solid performances, Steve Carrel shines out with the most jaded, cynical character of the bunch who thinks the whole system is doomed and all the players are either fools or simply crooks. Yet when the disaster starts he is the one who breaks down - behind his cynism and anger, this man still hoped that the better nature of people will prevail. They did not (as they never do in market bubbles) - strong performance, Steve Carrel at his best.

Runner-up: Spotlight

Investigative journalism has always been one of the pillars of free societies. However, the digitalization of media, shrinking revenues, and post-truth tendencies (oh, 2016 again...) are shrinking the playing field for this kind of money and time intensive media work. So this movie is a well-timed hymn to the profession - we follow a group of journalists (Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber,  Rachel Mcadams and our favorite Mark Ruffalo) uncovering how the Catholic Church in Boston tolerated, enabled and even covered up a vast number of child abuse cases. Straightforward, simple, yet powerful filmmaking.

4. [NON-FICTION BOOK] Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future - By Martin Ford 

Okay, this one has a bad title: reading the word robots makes you think of the Austrian-born guy, who will never be president. However, automation is one of the biggest trends that shape our near future - maybe the quietest and most gradual one. Despite we have heard that "Software is eating the world", most of the mainstream politicians and economists in the Western world still neglect the tendency and make their plans/predictions without taking this fundamental change into account. In his book Martin Ford collects the most astonishing examples how technology is already changing a wide range of professions (journalism for example) and makes a strong case that the phenomenon will not stop after eliminating the majority of blue-collar jobs, thus putting a huge number of repetitive white-collar jobs in danger as well. At the end he offers some steps to cope with the changes (endorses basic income for instance), however, you finish the book with the feeling that we are far from being prepared. Disturbing, crucial read.

Runner-up: Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity - By Joseph Stiglitz

The last couple of years has seen a rise in books about the shortcomings of the free-market capitalism that we live in. While this is a welcome development, most of these works concentrate on the analysis and criticism of the current situation, and are short on answers and practical recommendations. Stiglitz, who has already written numerous books on the subject, dedicates the last section of his latest book to outline a detailed program how to make our societies more equal, just and fair. While you may argue against some of his solution (like I do) and realize that the text mostly focuses on the U.S., it is undeniable that the Nobel-recipient professor brought the discussion a step further.

Photo by Csaba Fender

Perks of November

Our favorites in St. Louis - what we have read, seen, tasted and tried out in November

Holidays are coming - time for great food and movies. We collected a few of what we liked very much during November, and now are sharing it with you. Pick whichever you want to try out from our list. 

1. [SERIES] Narcos

We heard great reviews about this series, and in this November, we finally gave a chance to it. It was worth it, Narcos is truly addictive. In this Netflix-made series, we followed the story and rise of Pablo Escobar and how cocaine tore apart Columbia. The episodes are very dense, packed with tension and action, narration flows smoothly.  Authenticity was important to the makers, giving the series an unusual, but fascinating documentary edge. 

2. [BOOK] The call of the wild by Jack London

I have a literature project - I try to read as many classic American novels as possible during our stay here. I've recently finished "The call of the wild" - without a question this novel had the greatest impact on me. 

For some reason, this book is labeled as child story, and I remember it was on my list of suggested readings at 6th grade, although there is nothing childlike in it. It is a winter story, and a hard story about life and how it is worth to live, disguised in a faith of a great dog, Buck. The book tells a lot about love, but this is just not the usual sugar-coated dog-man Lessie-like adventure. The lines will reach down to your soul and get it moved. A great exercise for holidays to find passion, solidarity and the beauty of hardship. 

(If you like audiobooks, you can download it here for free.)

3. [FOOD] Poutine

This is actually a French-Canadian course and it tastes divine. French fries comes with fontina cheese and peppered white gravy. It's one of those foods that you starve for during cold and dark evenings. It's super fulfilling and super tasty as well. 

4. [MOVIE] Sing Street

I can boldly state, Sing Street was the surprise of the month for us. If you like coming of age movies, this film is definitely a must for you. If you like great music or anything about the making of it, then this film is a must for you. The storyline is a little bit Wes Andersonish, without the Wes Anderson trademarks (or maybe, only the innocent craziness of coming of age movies can reach the level the Wes Anderson genre). It's set in the sad reality of the 1980's Ireland and follows a couple of students forming a band. A perfect holiday movie :) (If you are not an Irish-accent expert, download subtitle.)

5. [EXCURSION] The Lincoln Presidential Museum

We've visited Springfield, IL during Black Friday. Springfield is the town of Lincoln, this is where he had been living for almost two decades before became a President in 1860. If you ever visit the States and are nearby (e. g. in Chicago), don't miss this great place. Falling for Lincoln is guaranteed (although I might be an easy target, I admit). The museum is super interactive, a little Disneyesque, you are walking amongst the real-size built-up scenes of Lincoln's life. By the time you leave, you will have a much deeper understanding of the civil war, of the great difficulty to set the slaves free, of the past and present of America's racial tensions, of Lincoln's ethical compass and motivation. 

And that's our list. Enjoy as much of it as you can. Happy Holidays!

How to buy a used car in the US?

Upon our arrival to St. Louis, Missouri, I and Dave quickly decided to purchase a car. The area where we are living is delightful: huge trees and rejuvenating parks, little squirrels running in the grass, two-story century homes with the great American flag. All around seems like a scene from Desperate Housewives on steroid. Not kidding.

As a drawback, it is quite distant from everywhere, so to actually see something of St. Louis, or – basically – to do any kind of everyday activity, you would need a car.

We knew of course that having a car in the USA has a little different meaning than in Europe. A car here is your guarantee that you can get the most out of life, either your aim is to travel and visit great places or simply go for a big grocery purchase without asking a lift from a friend. We want both, hence we need a car.

You would assume that buying a car is a rather straightforward, almost dull process - go and check it than just simply purchase one. Well, maybe this is true if you are local, but doing this fuss as a newcomer gives the process a special edge.

Purchasing a car took us a month (and we set a rather hard pace to follow). Instead of being a mundane duty - as we initially expected - buying a vehicle turned out to be our most interesting introductory course to the American society, and owning one seems to be our baptizement to this greatly motorized continent.

1. Administration phase

The full process starts with getting a piece of paper in front of you (the bigger the better) and draw a flow chart of the zillion steps you would have to make to end up with a car.

One of the first obstacles to getting through is doing your driving license. Yes, sir, it doesn’t matter that you have driven thousands of miles with a (what you understand normal) manual transmission car in Europe, insurance companies will punish you for not having an American driving license. So you need to get one before you start the actual buying process.

And here is the funny part: you cannot have your driving license done without - guess what - a car.

So you borrow a car - the first of the many occasions you will need to do so - and go to the DMV office.

While waiting to perform at the driving exam, I watched the allegedly 15-16-year-olds performing theirs - the legal age in the States for obtaining a driving license. One of the candidates was such a small, fragile-looking girl trying to park with a huge SUV that I’ve kept wondering if she is tall enough to reach the break with her leg. The exam takes approximately ten minutes, with one simple parking task at the end. Let’s put it diplomatically - you don’t have to be a Michael Schumacher to pass.

2. The online research

So, once all this is done, you can actually start looking at cars. Hurray! 

There are a couple of things you realize while spending hours and hours sitting in front of your laptop, searching for ads.

FIRST FOR SOME STRANGE REASON THERE ARE CAPITAL LETTERS AND NO PUNCTUATION WHATSOEVER IN SOME ADS MAKING IT ENORMOUSLY DIFFICULT TO SENSE THE INFORMATION PROPERLY 

Additionally, in most cases, there is not much information provided, and hence you are calling almost all the promising candidates to provide you with more detailed description of the car. During these calls, you grasp that you quickly need to expand your related vocabulary - as you try to process information about ‘timing belts’, 'driving belt’ (what the hell is the difference?), 'pistons’, and 'cylinders’ - just to name a few. Sometimes the Hungarian translation didn’t help much either about the parts and their responsibility on keeping the car moving. All this in various local accents – some of which you struggle to understand over a phone - just to make things easier.

Sometimes you call private people, but mostly the answering voice on the other end turn out to be a dealer. Some of them have funny names - like one guy who insisted on being addressed as 'Captain Kirk’ (obviously having a Star Trek-overdose). Talking to them is sometimes like listening to a podcast - they didn’t stop speaking about possible warranties, and other great cars they have, and how they are the best to buy from, and how this is going to be the greatest purchase of your life, and yes the former owner was a single, non-smoking mother, who has only driven “her” (meaning the car), when she took the children to church on Sundays. Yep, just like every other former car owner - young males tend to get around with bicycles in that narrative…

Finally, you narrow down the huge supply to a list of few - the ones you actually would like to see. At that point, you absorb that without a car, you have no means to buy another one - there is no way you can keep up with the costs if you travel to each potential beauty with, let’s say, Uber. The city is expanded, with numerous and widespread outskirts, where most dealerships are located - you have to bridge great distances to see the cars. 

So you go and ask to borrow a car again - based on our experience, I would suggest you ask for at least a couple of days.

3. Checking the chosen cars

Unlike in Europe, most cars in the USA comes with automatic transmission. I remember when we first tried such a car and realized that we don’t know what to do with an automatic transmission. We were sitting in the car, ready to drive it and feverishly googling how exactly you have to use it - and I am sure that looking at us from the outside, the owners wondered what were we looking at so hard. (Ever run into this situation, just say you checked Carfax, makes bargaining easier.)

On the way, we’ve met families, dealers, and mechanics, a lot of people with different age and background. Almost everyone asked where are we from and what are we up to here in St. Louis. I remember someone particularly, a nice guy in outer St. Louis, who got really excited about our Hungarian citizenship. It turned out, the family of his mother arrived from Budapest in the 1870’s. We were standing next to the car to which we wanted to take a closer look, but didn’t talk much about it. (It wasn’t a good deal anyway.) Instead, we shared family stories with each other. It was an incredible moment.

Finally, we found what we were looking for. I felt fabulous when we borrowed a screwdriver to fix our official Missouri plates into place - let’s show off with our Show Me number plate. 

All in all, I feel we gained more than a good car - we gained the capacity and confidence of being fully part of the local community. We passed the initiation game, got hold of some great memories. We are ready for you, America.

The original post appeared on hmepblog.tumblr.com, on 11/10/2016, and I thank the opportunity for the HMEP to post my work there. As always, the credit for the photos goes to Dave. The purchased vehicle is a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer  - just to answer all the question from you about the type. ;)

Blue-collar anxiety - Field Report from Iowa before Election Day

The day has come. Today the most troublesome, yet consequential election cycle in recent memory will be finally over. A small town in the southern-east corner of Iowa provides a snapshot why we ended up here.

No, this post will not be about whom I support and why. (For those who know me, or followed my years on political stage the answer is obvious, for the others the fact that I consider myself a progressive new-leftist with green and socially liberal values, will do the trick). 

Further disclosure: I am not new to campaigns – back home in Hungary as campaign manager, I was heavily involved in running numerous political campaigns, local and national ones as well. These experiences coupled with my decade-old interest in American politics made our stay in the States during the middle of an election year, incredibly exciting. Hence in the last couple of weeks, I took every chance to get involved in the various campaigns going on in St. Louis, Missouri. With Zsuzsi (my wife), we have participated in phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, and other campaign activities. Despite being the classic bellwether state for decades, since 2008 Missouri has profoundly lost its middle-of-the-road flavor, and become a firmly Republican state. At least on the presidential level; in other statewide races Democrats are still very competitive as Jason Kander and the best political ad of this cycle prove.

So for a presidential level action, we had to look outside of the Show Me state. Thus, in the middle of October, we have already visited Fort Madison, Iowa (the closest swing state) for the early voter registration effort. Now, with just one day to go before the big day, we are back in the Hawkeye State, this time for the get out the vote (GOTV) operation. Iowa is a state that can jumpstart or kill political careers with its over publicized, strange caucus-based, first in the nation primaries. Besides this characteristic, for most people, even for Americans, the only thing that pops into mind for the state is a picture of never ending corn or wheat fields (as you see, I have also made some compulsory ones for the sake of this post). But as always the reality stretches far beyond the clichés. Door to door canvassing provides a unique opportunity to look beyond the surface, the statistical numbers, the postcard images and meet real people, learn about their life and problems.

Fort Madison is one of the southernmost settlements in Iowa, laying on the banks of the Mississippi, with Illinois on the other side of the river. The town got his name from the fortification, which was the first US military outpost in the upper Mississippi. The fort itself was named after James Madison, a damn good secretary of state of Thomas Jefferson, and later president himself (kind of analogy to this year). Built on the river the town was poised to become part of the industrial center of an otherwise agriculture-heavy state. With a population of 11,000, the city has been a safe Democrat-leaning place dominated by white, blue-collar neighborhoods (the city and Lee County itself went for Obama with 57% in 2012, 5% over the overall state result). All the data show a less-educated (13% has a college degree compared to 31% national average), lower-income (41,000 $/year/household vs. 53,000 $/year/household national average), manufacture-employed, worker-lifestyle population, which until now has contributed to the victories of Obama and other blue candidates. This is precisely the kind of electorate that forms the target for the Trump campaign, which is more or less safe to carry the state today. However, behind the numbers there are always real people, with real stories– and these could only be discovered when you go and see them for yourself.

So we hit the streets to meet registered Democrats and make sure they go to the polls, the primary goal of the GOTV. The neighborhoods reflect the statistical data: the streets are dominated by cheaply built one storage houses, trailer parks, older cars, and dozens of abandoned, ruined homes. One of our first encounters is with a mom, who after opening the door tries everything to hide his bruises under her eyes, and says that she is not to speak to anyone until his “man” comes home. Few houses down the street we meet a 21-year looking girl with her three children living in a house that would be too small even for a couple – “his boy is not the same after the second tour to Iraq”. She reacts with fear: “Do I have to go and vote? Is it mandatory?” We make sure that it is a right and not an obligation, and move forward.

We hear people complaining about factories that were sold to foreigners (Chinese, and French investors). Earlier these companies used to be owned by locals, who were active members of the community and cared about maintaining jobs thus their own status – “every decision they took, they could see the consequences driving down the street 2 months later”. Now the owners are invisible, and even the managers are “imported” from somewhere else. The shoe factory closed years ago; other plants were moved to Mexico. Even the country club, the traditional symbol of the local business elite went down some years back – there were simply not enough members left. We pass dozens of abandoned shops with dirty “For Rent" signs in their storefront, probably hanging there for years. As we stop at a bar to drink coffee, we realize that although it's only 3:30 p.m., the place is already full. Some came after work and already finished two Bloody Marys, others seem to be there for the whole day. Nobody is drunk, or aggressive, yet the mood is gripped by melancholy. 

Just outside of town, we step into a different world: barns, big farm houses, bigger cars, visible affluence, lot of Trump yard signs. Eve, a dedicated Catholic owns the only Hillary yard sign in miles – she prepares to vote first thing in the morning, and firmly supports Hillary. When we ask about the others in the area, she just shrugs: “well-off farmers, all of them has more than 500 acres, they like the tough businessman Trump pretends to be”.  On the other hand, she is still perplexed about her three daughters who will vote for “that crazy man” most probably because their husbands are expecting them to do so.

As we make our way back to the local Democratic office, we spot a “protest-truck” parked just across the street. The big, hand-made sign is telling: “Trump for President, Clinton for Prison”. “24 hours left” -  sighs Ted, our campaign manager as he spots the truck from the office window. Time to call it a day.

Our host, Diane, was a staunch Bernie Sanders supporter during the primaries. “I have been waiting for somebody like him since 1968 when Robert Kennedy was shot, and the dream died” (being a huge RFK-fan she wins me over in second with that). She supports Hillary now, but only after being told to do so by Bernie before the convention. The strength of the movement makes her confident that her idol in concert with Elizabeth Warren will be able to push the new Clinton-administration to pursue a progressive agenda. Sitting in her kitchen, drinking her tea we chat late into the night about the tasks both the US and Europe have to turn the nationalist tide around and build up an more equal capitalism. Despite the hard realities seen on the field, the day ends with optimism.

Of course,  this is just a quick, local snapshot of the numerous, and complex trends that shape our present and future. Yet these signs are on the wall. Regardless of today's results, the task is evident for any progressive movement, which wants to turn the authoritarian tide that uplifted Trump and other political merchants of anxiety.  The current way of capitalism works at the price of stagnation for the middle classes of the developed societies. The first victim is the blue-collar middle-class, and its neighborhoods like the one we have walked through in Fort Madison. And while the elites patronizingly downplay this resentment, we have to remind ourselves that a prospering democracy is only viable by the work and support of a robust and broad middle class (remember the 1950-60’s). Pumpkin-latte sipping designers and tweed suited professors will not uphold the democracy alone; there are simply not enough of them. They will need others. No matter what the specific jobs of the blue-collars of the future will look like (e.g. industries like coal must go, and automatization will kick in in a lot of others), a progressive agenda that plays for the long run has to do everything to keep these groups on the middle-class status. Otherwise, the election of 2016 will go down in history as the start of the end to the democracies as we know.

We should all go to psyhcologists

Originally I wanted to write about Webster Groves - the lovely suburb where we are living. But some recent devastating events in Hungary got me so upset that I decided to postpone my perfect and shiny Webster Groves description and instead write about my thoughts - how I see my country from roughly 8000 km distance, in the light of living in the USA.

I will share two stories with you. Both are Hungarian, but otherwise completely unrelated.

The first story

The first story is a public one, the very one that upset me. In a nutshell: in my beloved country, which used to be a young and blossoming democracy, the biggest opposition newspaper was shut down, overnight. As it is usually the case with stunning acts of dictatorships, the sad news was trending internationally over the weekend in an amazing speed (in the Bloomberg, the Telegraph, for example).

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, and underneath, in the water, in the deep and rotten, there are tons of thousands of similar and even uglier stories - the wrongdoings of the oligarchic system of the current Hungarian elite.  

Well, of course, the Hungarian society has already had 6 years of this madness, during which the vast majority just calmly endured, most people are kind of trained now for these events. (For those of you who don't know: it started with a new government announcing a new constitution in 2010 and I cannot tell you a corner of life that stayed intact since.) I already listed  how far we got during the reign of this government from a developed and satisfied country where people like to live. My people doesn't stand against these events, it seems to me that nothing is horrible or big enough to shake up the vast majority of  Hungarians.

Losing a newspaper has horrific consequences to a society - if you have seen this movie, or heard about this story, you know why. And it is also not that easy to redo the harm. Founding a newspaper comes with high costs and funding (or monetizing) investigative journalism is becoming a more and more challenging problem.  

When the story broke for us, in Saturday morning, we got devastated, hovering aimlessly around in our little apartment. I know that many of my friends had the very same feelings - hopelessness and anger and great pain.  We lost an important fortress that resisted this political madness and offered a little island of normality - where newspapers are not the newsletters of the government.

This was the first story.

The second story

The second story has nothing to do with the first one. It is a family story, happened this year in Hungary, but that is basically the only connection between them. 

This story is about a woman's life - let's call her Mary. Mary's parents met when Jack, the future father, was still at university. Both young and deeply in love, Mary's mother got pregnant. The couple got married, Jack dropped out, as the responsibility to provide money and food with a child and wife suddenly fall on him. This was in the mid '70-s in Hungary, life wasn't that easy in those years. 

The newly-weds lived together with Jack's mother. She wasn't an easy character, to say politely. She hated and despised her new daughter-in-law and not-yet-born granddaughter from the first moment, and with great bitterness. She did everything in her power to make everyone's life miserable. And she was quite successful - Mary's mother and father felt enormous shame for what they did, for having a baby.

The parents didn't think they made a good trade - to let a university degree go as an exchange for the fruit of their love, for their daughter. They weren't happy, proud parents - trusting that the difficulties will ease over time. 

Instead, they somehow subconsciously blamed their daughter for every bad turn of their life, starting with the lost university degree. The shame never went away, but get implanted to the childhood of Mary, drop by drop, deeply to her soul. Years later the family had a second child - Annabell.

Time had passed, the girls were growing up. 

And Mary was a little strange. She was smart, gifted in some area of life, yet she never in her life dated men (or women). There were no secret kissing at the early teenage years, no joy of discovering her own sexuality, no boyfriends in any stage in her life. She already got a degree and a stable job, the family still doubted if she ever has touched another human being (or herself, for that matter) in life. She was keen on being and staying 'clean'. 

Years passed again, and rumors evolved in the larger family that there was something seriously wrong with Mary. She became a maniac, avoiding contact with other family members, friends, neighbors or colleagues. She stopped working. She became extremely paranoid and suspicious - especially with doctors, whom she obviously would have needed. Yet no one took her to a visit.

And then, Jack suddenly died. By that time, Jack's mother didn't enrich the life of her loved ones on this Earth, she had passed away a half a year prior. The girls inherited a big but run-down family house in the countryside. Usually, it is extremely painful to sell such a house in the Hungarian countryside. Indeed, the estate was on sale for years, so the family felt very lucky when a potential buyer showed up, willing to pay a decent money for the house.

By that time, no one was really in touch with Mary, as she was terrified of her own family and refused to make contacts with them. But Mary was necessary for selling the house, as it was her property in 50%, so Annabell and other family members had to have her consent for the selling. They made an effort to get in touch with her.

Mary's phone was disconnected, and neighbors stated that she had long moved from her apartment, and no one moved in since. Having no idea where to start searching for her, the family decided to broke in the empty apartment - maybe it offers some clues regarding Mary's whereabouts. 

Indeed it offered, but something greatly different: Mary's dead body. By the time people found her, she was dead since an estimated six months. 

This was the second story.

Consequences

This is a horror story. A nightmare of an existence. No one wants to die this way: locked to your head, to your own madness, abandoned of family or friends, being dead and half rotten for a six months before anyone opens the door to you.

I have goosebumps when I think of Mary's life - in how many levels and layers was it wrong and broken. I could spend hours with analyzing who's responsibility is this sad end. I could claim Mary, herself - after all, it was her life, her responsibility, why didn't she seek for any help to balance out her childhood. I could claim all her family members - because maybe Mary couldn't reach out for help herself by the time she accepted the fact that she needed it. I could blame the parents - about not being healthy and sound enough, not being a barrier between the grandmother's bitterness and the child, but making the situation worse. (I have a couple of more idea, but I won't write them all -  this is not the point of sharing this story.)

The reason I shared this story with you today is that I think this is a completely average family story in Hungary.  And this has a devastating consequence to the public life of my country.

Just in this week, I heard the described story, another horrific one ended with suicide, and I didn't even search for stories! And if you think that poverty might be a factor in the making of these tragedies - well, in both cases we talk about rather middle-class families. Every single family has at least one similar story from the last 50-100 years.

I could tell you endless of these  family stories. I could easily fill complete nights by telling them - as if a Halloween-edition Scheherezade - and you would feel by dawn that you are living in a different universe. In a Maison of Madness. Stories would be about rapes and horrible abuses where justice never comes, holocaust traumas ended in buried identities, lost statuses in the upheavals of social changes where piece never reaches. I would tell you a countless number of suicidal cases, alcoholism and other forms of self-destruction - things being a result of the world where Good rarely defeats Evil. Where Evil rules most of the time. (Don't believe me - check out this statistics, and take a closer look at the Central European region - this is also a regional thing, not just Hungary affected.)

The problem is not the stories itself - although the region had such twentieth century that made survival an advanced skill of Central Europeans. The real obstacle is that after the traumas, after such a century, no psychological work has been done in most cases. No any sort of recovery or healing. No transitioning back from surviving to fully live again.

In Mary's story, some sort of trauma goes through three generation - killing the member of the third one. No one stood up against this effect through the course of a half of a century. And I know, it is not that easy to find help. But most people don't even realize how deeply they are dragged by their fears, moved by their bad spirits. Did you have Jewish ancestors? You have work to be done. Did you have abuse in the family? Suicides? Alcoholics? You have work to be done. Was there any trauma happening to any of your family members in the last 3 generation? You have an enormous amount of work to be done! You have to dissolve these stories and the traumas behind them, make them harmless to you and your kids. Otherwise, you will just pass it away, as your parents did to you. 

So I am asking you, my fellow citizens, why do we exactly expect a healthier public life in Hungary, a more resilient one, one that stands for itself (e.g. in case a national newspaper is shut down) if most of us are completely unable to do so in a private setting?  Why do we never connect these two spheres of life - the private and the public?

You know what Elanor Roosevelt is famous for saying - 'No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.' Well, I think this is perfectly true for the public life as well. We could resist this government. We have the tools, the knowledge, the committed people. We have enough harm done to have all right on Earth to resist. Yet the resistance is just not happening on a large enough scale.

It is not happening, because most of our citizens value and care themselves as much as this government values and cares them - close to zero. They are the prisoners of their own self. The hell outside is just the reflection of many people's world of inside.

So, if you want to serve your country, just do us a favor and go to a psychologist. Get you part of the work done. Only free souls can be brave enough to win Hungary back to us.

Photos: 
The first photo depicts the last printed headlines of the shut shutdown newspaper. The source is mno.hu.

The second one is a painting from a Hungarian painter, János Gulácsi, famous for being schizophrenic and made paintings about his inner world. My suspicion is that Mary had something schizophrenic-alike, I couldn't think of a better way how to illustrate the world of people living in such condition. 
This painting is called Arte, Vita, Natura. This was one of his last painting before he died. The dominant, door-like split in the middle of the painting is the entrance of his grave, and you see him walking in. Yes, seriously. Today, 12th October marks the author's birthday, another reason why to choose one of his paintings to illustrate today's post.  
The source of the painting is commons.wikimedia.org.

The third one is an OECD bar chart regarding suicidal rates based on data from 2011. The source is qz.com.

The second story:
For protecting their privacy, I changed the name of the characters and some minor circumstances in the second story. 

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

Reevaluation of the Truman presidency

Kansas city being 'just' 250 miles away from us (let me help you out: 402 km), it was evident that our first trip would be to discover Dorothy's land. A couple of miles before you reach Kansas city, though, you stumble upon Independence, Missouri - a small but remarkable city, the hometown of Harry S. Truman. Independence is all about Truman - his presidential library, his home, the church where he married his wife. 

If you are not a history geek as much as we are, a reminder: Harry S. Truman was a US president between 1945-1953. And if you are not a history geek, probably that is all you know about him - that he was the president between Roosevelt and Eisenhower and he was the guy who dropped the atomic bomb. End of story. 

Not that I can blame anyone who didn't absorb more knowledge about Truman - unless dedicated specific effort to the case. His presidential heritage and image are very poorly maintained. (No, that's not because of the Presidential library - that is a great place, inspired me to write this post, you should go and visit.)

Truman himself was a small, thin man, looking as inspirational as a bookkeeper in Nebraska. (The only style part of his apparent was the Harry Potter-lookalike glasses.) 

His life was modest and simple - courted one woman for years before married her, got one child. That's it. No big scandals or pomp, millionaire parents or Ivy-league education. You struggle to create a narrative around his life for the pre-presidential years - you learn about a man who did farming, had interests in a zinc mine in Oklahoma, was a timekeeper for Santa Fe Railway and entered the military to serve in WWI. And then, somehow, he became the president of the US. 

Shortly after he did so, said the following statement to reporters: 'Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.' - not too comforting from a just-inaugurated war-time president. I can certainly relate to him - it is not easy to become a president after Roosevelt and in the middle of the biggest war mankind has ever experienced. But still, this sentence shadows greatly his capacity to lead and make hard decisions (and reveals his very direct, profane - yet deeply warm - style of communication).

This is the point where we all miss his grandeur - we know he dropped the bomb but fail to know anything else from the eight years during he served as a President. Just a couple of trivia - if it weren't for Truman, we didn't have institutions like the UN (he appointed Elanor Roosevelt as a member of the first General Assembly), the NATO and the Marshall plan - OECD in the long run. Truman was the one insisted on the Berlin airlift during the Berlin blockade. He recognized Israel as a state minutes after it claimed its independence. He led the country through the coldest years of the Cold War, in a midst of a foreign policy turmoil.

He created the National Security Council (NSC) and the position of the national security adviser - the must-have person in every presidential series since (like our favorite Nancy McNally). Among the regular attendees of the Council, you can spot the vice president - that is, I think, from his bitter experience to become a president with zero knowledge on foreign policy or national security updates. He was the one who established the CIA - as the world-class country ran without proper foreign intelligence until the start of WWII.

Of course, most people are familiar with these institutions and events - but we rarely connect them to the political insightfulness of Truman.

Truman was an organized man and created a greatly organized structure around him to foster his decision making. Basically, he is the one who created the system all the other presidents used to navigate in foreign policy or national security issues - and his system has been being intact until today. He was the transitional president under whose rule the USA reached its high status in the international scene - the 'leader of the free world'.

If this were not enough, Truman not only excelled in building up structures from chaos, he also found or kept in place the greatest people of his time  - a hugely important, yet most underestimated skill of politicians. Truman had Morgenthau, Marshall, Byrnes, Kennan - just to name a few of his staff. This list is like having a dream team in the 1950's. 

He didn't have an easy situation in domestic issues: end of war, troops coming home and they need to be disarmed and reintroduced into the civil society. The economy was transitioning from its wartime setup to a normal one - during the years '48-'50, civilians experienced shorts on many everyday essential products before the big economic boom started  (which is, by the way, also started during Truman's presidency).

Regarding his domestic policies, he was greatly progressive, should be in all the rooms where there is a Kennedy picture. (As it is usually the case with progressive presidents, he got a mainly conservative Congress to hinder his plans.) I will not discuss in great details how he was ahead of his time in a couple of issues - like housing, schools, civil rights for the minorities, and so on. He was so persistent on taking the progressive position that the Democratic Party almost split in the 1948 Democratic convention over the issue of civil rights.  (Finally, the debate did split the party, but only some 20 years later. Those southerners who walked away from Truman in the 1948 Convention were known as the Dixiecrats, whom would turn their back to the Democrats at the time of LBJ - over the same issue. Since then, Democrats haven't got a single vote back from the South.)

Okay, I know I can't get around the subject much more, we need to talk about the bomb, to put it into the narrative of his presidency. Let's start with the recognition of the fact that he was a vice president for just three months when Roosevelt died, during which period he rarely interacted with the President - obviously not knowing much about his wartime plans. (He wasn't even the first choice of Roosevelt for the VP position, but for the credit of Roosevelt, his first choice was also brilliant.)

Truman dropped the two bombs in August 1945 - when he was being a president for four shallow months. (In some other jobs, you are still on probation in the fourth month.) No, I am not saying this as of lessen the significance of his decision. I am just putting the frames in which I am aiming conclude regarding his act. 

The bomb is a controversial issue, to say the least - it fostered decades of academic and popular debates. J. Samuel Walker said in a 2005 article a perfect summary about the subject: 'The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States'. Those who support the decision argue that it led to a Japanese surrender - and saved lives by quickly ending the war. Those who are against is, usually argue with the moral angel - that atomic bombing is immoral and it was unnecessary from a military point of view. 

My personal opinion is that dropping the bomb had (and still has) obvious moral consequences, but someone at some point in those years would have dropped it anyway. I don't condemn Truman's act, I don't see it as a mistake or an immoral, evil thing. Don't get me wrong: this should never, ever happen again, and I probably wouldn't have been in favor of it if anyway present at the decision. But I respect that he made a decision, and can accept it. For me, this is the real meaning of leadership: these hardest moments when you have to choose between two or more wrong options, when you put yourself on the edge of the known things on Earth - and let history judge you later on. Face a moment like that and survive it - that's real leadership.

Truman faced the decision in a way that no other President had to - partly because after him every other President had the experience, what happens as a consequence of such an act. The weight of this decision had fallen on him at the dawn of the atomic era -  I don't think that anyone ever wanted to be in his shoes for those moments.

One of the most famous phrases the world inherited from Truman is the title of my blog post today - 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'. He was reportedly using this phrase years before his presidency. I have goosebumps when I think of this, as it seems to me that this sentence is just the perfect metaphor of the turn of events in which he had to perform, and also of his attitude how he saw leadership. And we can all just be very grateful for the way he saw it.

Photos by David Dorosz, all but one were made about the displayed items of the Truman Presidential Libary. 
The Truman picture from 1945 is from the archive of the Truman Presidential Libary and Museum.

TOP 10 best thing in the States (after a month) - part 2.

This post is the second part of a list that we have written as a tool to help us battle our cultural shock. The two criteria for anything to get into this list were a) that we have experienced them first-hand in US soil and b) we also liked them. If you missed the first part of the list, click here. 

5. Being casual

I remember some family stories that tell about a time when some Hungarian soldiers (POWs I assume) met their Americain counterparts during one of the Word Wars. These are not really stories, rather frozen pictures of the moment my ancestors first met Americans: all nailed down how the Americain camp and army lacked the German (Prussian) level of discipline (which is a good thing, I am certain). I remember one picture particularly: American soldiers were standing lazily next to a wall (or similar) chewing bubble gums, looking very approachable and friendly in a carefree way.

I long forgot that bedside story of my childhood, but since I arrived, I've kept remembering it. People seem to be more relaxed here that in the Old Continent. You have the impression they don't stress much over little things. Casual and cool are the best ways to describe their approach to the things of life. The same applies to their relationship with status. Relatively high-status people are having a conversation with you as if none of the difference existed. They don't expect extreme politeness or other schemes of formality. Many times they ask you to 'drop by and say hello' - something that in Hungary would come across for you as a great honor, and here you feel it's just business as usual. 

I am not saying that status is not important in this country - but it seems to have a different manifestation than in countries with a strong authoritarian/feudal heritage.

The casual way appears also how they communicate with you - somehow more to the point, with less stress how to express everyday requests. There is still small talk of course, and all the other fittings of a conversation. The difference rather comes once it's over, you have a much clearer sense where you stand (and what you have to do) - compared to, say, the feeling you have at the end of a conversation with a British.

4. The New York Times

We originally intended to buy a Wahington Post, but every time I went to the local grocery shop called Straub's, all the Washington Posts were gone. So, I bought a New York times instead, and this has become a weekly habit. 

Okay, I have to say, I have had a crush on foreign newspapers since a long time. I purchased an unreasonable amount of French ones when I lived in Brussels in 2013. But even before, I remember collecting a Saturday edition of  the Guardian from a trash bin in London (I was 19 and on a budget trip). Since coming of age, I was truly passionate about any type of printed foreign daily or weekly - and I visualized my coming life as surrounded by great pieces of journalism. 

So imagine me getting my hands on a New York Times. Every single morning I get out of my bed, do my breakfast and coffee, get into the armchair. I pull my legs up and indulge in all the different articles. Certainly, I do appreciate great journalism (during the history of the paper, they had a record number of  117 Pulitzer Prices). But my cravings in the morning come from a deeper layer. Just touching and smelling the paper makes me happy and joyful. The paper is like a passport, a living piece of history: I don't feel like an outsider for those moments (hours) when I am reading. (Also helps me tolerate "the thing" Americans keep calling coffee.)

(Coincidently, our first US TIME magazine just arrived yesterday, as a result of transferring our Hungarian address delivery to our St. Louis home - another nice example of fast, and no-hassle customer service).

3. The Americain home

The typical, middle-class (and upper-middle class) Americain home is a stable source of delight and pleasure for me. First, for its practical setup - Americans seems to have inbuilt storage places for problems Europeans use furniture. E. g. take your bedroom, my European friend, where you probably have a wardrobe as a piece of furniture. Here we store our clothes in two small rooms, dedicated specifically for this purpose.

In the bathroom - you would purchase a cabinet in Europe, whereas here I have a door with a shelved space behind to hide everything there. This is also the solution at the front door: one extra door for hiding shoes, umbrellas, coats, and various other objects. 

The marvelous thing about these tiny surprise places that they already calculate with your need to hide things. Furthermore, you don't have to dedicate extra space from the bedroom, bathroom, whichever room to store things that you obviously need to store. I love that someone (the architect, probably) was smart enough to think ahead. You also don't have to acquire an advanced level of  'IKEA's smart space saving solutions' course, measure everything three times and spend days to find the exact piece that fit into your home. Skipping that part of moving in saves energy, space, time and money. Just wonderful. 

The second great thing about the Americain home is how big and spacious it is. I especially love their concept about the bathroom -  it's a private place belonging to each bedroom, as if an attachment. I really appreciate this privacy of the homes. Therefore the ads in real estate magazines describe houses as of how many bedrooms and bathrooms are in. 

And then, say, you walk into a Container store - or to any other organizational heaven. If you are like me and appreciate a nicely and neatly organized space, you'll get addicted. (Dave banned me out of those stores for the sake of our budget.) These companies offer solutions to problems you long have given up on or never knew you had it. In the US, there are people who could make a living out of giving organizational tips to your home. 

And I don't even dare to mention the neverending options how to decorate your home (Halloween is coming) - if furnishing and home décor a true passion of yours, then the USA is your heaven.

2. A gallon of milk

Compared to its lack of significance, it's funny it ended up on ranking two of this list. Milk here comes in forms of a gallon and a half  (one gallon is 3,76 liters).

So, the two of us are great milk drinkers. In one single day, we are able to drink a liter of milk without much difficulty. I love the taste of it and cannot imagine a day without putting it to at least my coffee. (Please Readers, just accept the fact that we love milk, and do not start the diet debate.)

When we were doing grocery back in Europe, where milk usually comes in a liter, the shout 'I go and take care of the milk' meant that I walk to the dairy products and buy 10-12 pieces of it. 

Here, two pieces cover our weekly consumption. No more morning when I realize there is no milk, although my coffee is done. Logistics of them are much easier - you carry two pieces instead of five times that amount. The bottle itself is also more ergonomic to carry, and it's translucent - I have a much better sense how much I have left. 

1. The squirrels 
They are tiny, furry, and abnormally cute. And they are everywhere! In the trees, in the grass, in the parking lots, in the university buildings. During my afternoon jogs, they jog along with me on the trees. Based on my experience, they are not only present in St. Louis, also accommodated in Iowa fields and Kansas City as well. Since I 've met them, I don't need my daily dose of  puppies or cats on Facebook - they easily provide the local cuteness factor. Obviously, American squirrels got used to the presence of cars and humans, they are much less fearful than their European counterparts  - but it is still difficult to take a photo of them. (Dave relentlessly trying to catch them, though.) When we asked locals about their presence, they just shrugged, saying, squirrels are everywhere in this country.

Photos by David Dorosz and www.pestworld.org