Golden Years

by Madeleine Kando 

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

I am old. And goddarn proud of it. Wish I had been old earlier. All those years wasted on being young. But I never could afford being old, you see. What with having to go to work every day, make babies, take care of the little brats, busting my chops to save money to send them off to college. Never even had a moment’s rest. At times I thought: ‘Wow, I wish I were old, so I wouldn’t have to deal with all this crap.’ But that was wishful thinking, or so I thought. I am sure you secretly have those thoughts too.

Well, let me tell you. Where there is a will there is a way. Don’t postpone till tomorrow what you can do today! Clog your arteries, expose yourself to stress, stop sleeping eight hours a night and above all eat and eat - eat all the garbage you can.

I tell you, if you follow this regimen, chances are you will be old before you know it and you can start enjoying what I and many of my fellow oldies enjoy. There is a reason why it’s called ‘The Golden Years’.

When young people tell you they never want to get old, they don’t know what they are talking about. They are soooo infatuated with themselves that they probably think old people want to be young, like them. Are you kidding me? Having to go through the horrors of puberty, the agony of dating, the rejection, the urges, the heart palpitations... no way!

The End of Animal Farming: A Brief Overview

by Madeleine Kando

This essay is dedicated to Helen and Steve Ray-Shick

who are giving sanctuary to so many

abused and neglected farm animals.

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of the feminist movement, published her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be so only because they lack education. Her views were regarded as absurd. ‘It is just as absurd to grant women rights as to grant them to animals’ wrote distinguished philosopher Thomas Taylor. What would the world look like today if we had followed that line of reasoning and not moved ahead with the Women’s movement?

Similarly, Jacy Reese *, author of The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs and Activists are building an Animal-Free Food System, believes that “by the year 2100, all forms of animal farming will seem outdated and barbaric.”

Many books have been written about the atrocities that take place on factory farms, such as Michael Pollan’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. This knowledge helps a person switch to a vegan diet, but that is not enough. Only 5% of Americans do not eat animal-based food. Knowing that something is wrong doesn’t necessarily translate in making it right.

Ending Animal Farming is not an Impossible Dream

Reese’s book shows that ending animal farming is not an impossible dream, but it lacks the how, not the why. It is a masterfully crafted call to action and asks the reader to consider (and join) one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades: ending the inhumane system of animal farming.

Socialism

by Tom Kando

Paul Krugman wrote a recent article, Socialism and the Self-Made Woman. He points out that Ivanka Trump is the last person in the world who should be writing about “self-made women,” since her entire “success” is derived from the fact that she is the silver spoon fed daughter of the billionaire President of the United States. Krugman then reminds us of a painful truth: Contrary to the myth that the US is the land of unlimited opportunity, the country where the “American Dream” provides upward mobility to an unparalleled extent, the truth is that America has LESS upward mobility than most other advanced industrialized countries. The children of poor Americans are LESS likely to move up the economic ladder in the US than in Canada, Scandinavia and other Western countries.

At the same time, in all those countries, the government plays a LARGER role in the economy than it does in the US. By and large, those countries are SOCIAL DEMOCRACIES. That is, they are more “socialistic” than America.