We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Dealing with OWLS I am travelling in Slovakia and the Czech Republic at the moment and internet access is rather hard to find. This all too brief internet lifeline is a welcome fix to help alleviate my OWLS (On-line Withdrawal Lamentation Syndrome). Horror is a foreign keyboard.
But at least the locals in the deepest rural Moravia are helping me get over the internet withdrawal shakes by stuffing me full of splendid pastries, for which this part of the world is rightly famed.
Interesting glimpses of the recent communist past abound but are becoming less visible by the year.
Remember a time before the internet? Hard to believe, I know! My hosts used this to listen to broadcasts from the West.
I am with the original samizdat people from whom I took so much inspiration and the reason I came up with the name for this blog.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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So, what was in the shot glasses? I have an eye for details 🙂
It is important to remember, and cause to be remembered, that ordinary people right in the heart of Europe put their lives and freedom at risk just for the act of listening to a radio broadcast, or printing an essay which defended basic human rights which many of us take for granted.
Whenever I reflect on the courage required to oppose a truly totalitarian and amoral state, I am overwhelmed with awe, and the sneaking hunch that I might never have had such fortitude myself.
To have had the chance to live as a reasonably free man handed to me at birth is a gift beyond reckoning.
All I can do to repay such a boon is to defend the ideas it rests upon however and whenever I can. Sitting in my living room in midwest America is a far cry from the razor’s edge that so many of the original samizdata group balanced upon. My heartfelt respects go out to all of them.
Amen, veryretired.
Very retired doesn’t post very often, but when he does, it’s a killer.
I had the priviledge of meeting Vaclev Havel a few years ago. I stammered something inane and shook his hand. I wouldn’t wash it for so long my wife wouldn’t let me share her popcorn anymore, so I gave in and sudsed up.
He’s small in stature, almost frail looking. Can’t judge a book by the cover.
Jake: This was in the glasses…
This is a great picture, pity the noise due to the poor light conditions.
Well said, VeryRetired. I second what Verity said too. I am glad that most people around here appreciate the bravery and stoicism of those who had to put up with totalitarian socialism in Eastern Europe and who helped to bring it down in that glorious period at the end of the 1980s. I’ll definitely raise a glass to them this Christmas.
We keep hearing that London is the most variegated gastronomic centre on the planet, yet there are few restaurants serving the nourishing, hearty, tasty cuisine of Mitteleuropa. The Gay Hussar pioneered Hungarian, but where is the Polish, Czech and Austrian fare, or the patisserie illustrated mouthwateringly here?
I’m sick of variations on chicken and pasta hogging the chilled foods section. I’m tired of supermarket chains infiltrating their ‘reduced fat’ health-fascist options and their rip-off ‘organic’ ranges (same stuff, 30% dearer, goes mouldy quicker). I demand ribsticking, winter-warming goose, dumplings, paprika, schnitzels, Tokay, sachertorte, cherry soup!
I do not personally know of any Austrian or Czech restaurants in London but there are many Polish ones… for example the Daquise in South Kensington or Vodka near Kensington High Street or the superb and rather posh Polish Hearth Club on Exhibition Road