re: That time Boris Yeltsin visited a suburban Houston grocery store....

One of my favorite Cold War stories.

My daughter had asked me about communism - apparently they were learning about it in school - and I told her what I knew about it. I told her how the communists would barge into people's houses, tell them "this is too much home for you and your family," then move another family they have never met into their home. How people would wait hours in breadlines just to feed their families. How they were watched at all times by agents of the government, and how people were taken away - never to be seen again - because they spoke out against the government.

Then I made her read this story. I told her "Now think about this: The Russians couldn't just go to a store and choose whatever they wanted. Even their leader was amazed at the abundance and choice in American markets. Now think about how much better it must have been under American Capitalism than Communism. Always keep this in mind as you get older, and you come across people preaching the virtue of Communism."