I swear this just happened like twenty minutes ago. I went out to get some cigarettes and ducked into one of the joints on the plaza, the Bar Vall (since 1928, as they like to remind you) to grab a beer. There were these two older guys talking next to me in Catalan while downing some beers with anchovies and boquerones and olives. One of them started slagging off the Americans in general. I kept my mouth shut since it wasn't my business. The second guy said, "Well, who do you wish had won, the United States or the Soviet Union?" The first guy had to backtrack. I wanted to shake the second guy's hand and tell him, "Yes, sir, you have got the idea. You are an intelligent and decent man. You recognize that the priority was the Cold War back then and now it's the war on terrorism." And that there really are good guys (who did some evil, unfortunately, and almost always mistakenly) in a higher cause that really was good, that of anti-Communism) and bad guys (who did lots of evil to benefit off it themselves, and especially if they could find some way to disguise this through Marxism or some wacky made-up nationalism.)

Anyway, I was just thrilled at this little bit of common sense that happened at the Bar Vall in the Plaza Rovira i Trias in the Gracia neighborhood, Barcelona, about 7:15 this evening.