I am on vacation, and I do have work to do! But, I can't help but comment on something very ugly I've seen in recent days--no, not the hordes of drunk British tourists... oh, yes, they are not all drunk... No, it's not the number of times of heard someone comment on the physical attractiveness of women here.....not that, but something related.

On two separate occassions I've seen muscular, not particularly well-mannered men in black hassling beggars. Bratislava's beggars don't look healthy. yet the men in black looked "pumped up" and more than a little aggressive......Chasing them out of the center where tourists might see them.

Shame

But not surprising. If you're poor, you must either disappear or die.....

It reminds me of another fascistic trend..... the tendency for the security guards at one local shopping palace to monitor foto-snaps. I'm pretty sick of the idea that everyone has a camera and anyone who wants can take your picture, but all that is irrelevant. We're talking about a shopping mall once owned by a French Canadian company (possibly still owned for all I know)
where the security guards won't let you take pictures. it might be bad for the image of the shopping palace, or so they say.

Now more than ever, capitalism is not a system that encourages happiness or freedom or democracy.