Taxes Should be Raised

Tom Kando 

There is much to worry about. The wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, hurricanes in Florida, etc. One thing I often worry about is America’s out-of-control federal deficit. 

On that issue, both of our parties and both of our presidential candidates are likely to continue to do the wrong thing. They are likely to continue to grow the deficit. 

A  Republican government would probably increase the federal deficit much more than a Democratic administration would. The past clearly shows this. The previous administration's  tax cuts (primarily for the super rich) added astronomical all-time records to the deficit. Generally, Republicans increase the national deficit more than Democrats. Republicans are driving the country toward bankruptcy more than Democrats, even though both parties contribute to this, and even though Democrats are supposed to be the ones who want to spend as much as possible on social programs.

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Traveling to the Past

By Madeleine Kando

If you are one of our faithful readers who might be wondering why I haven't posted for a while, rest assured: I haven’t expired or gotten sick, which would be a valid reason for not posting (and not such a far-fetched possibility at my age).

Granted, my regularity of posting has dwindled over the previous year: pressure of working seven days a week and so on. (That’s a lie, I am happily retired). It couldn’t be blogger’s block since writing is something I enjoy, (to the chagrin of some of you, who are more sensitive to the mediocrity of my writing).

The truth is, my silence is due to a side step into my past. A friend of mine (whose name will rename undisclosed) let me borrow his time machine and I landed in Hungary at the turn of the 20th century. This was not a random choice, mind you. I wanted to find out what the hell by grandparents were up to.

While I was away, I discovered that living in the present is not the only option we have. Despite the horrors of that time - a lot of wars and dead bodies floating in the Danube - taking a break from the present can be invigorating. Living in the past is a lot safer, since you don’t have to make choices of who to vote for, what to spend your money on or which college to send your kids to. It has already been decided for you. And it is much less stressful since you know what the outcome will be, good or bad.

Of course there is the ever-present looming shadow of regret, but regret is not the past. It is the present. Come to think of it, the present is an awfully stressful, high blood pressure raising demon. Think about it. Don’t we all try to find a break from the present? Even the chipmunks with their cheeks full of seeds and the birds fighting for a perch on my birdfeeders take a break from the ever present. It’s called sleeping.

So, if you are suffering from Trumpitis, Harrisitis, Tendonitis or Presentitis, take my advice. Go visit the past. Not only will it give you a well-deserved vacation, but you might actually come back with a suitcase full of stuff that you thought you had lost forever. leave comment here Read more...

The King’s New Hair

by Madeleine Kando

Many years ago there was a King of a mighty country who was so enamored of his hair, that his big palace was chock full of mirrors. He loved walking down the long, golden-studded hallways, looking left and right to admire his reflection. Sometimes he ended up with cramps in his neck, but a good night’s sleep in his huge canopy bed with the mirror on the ceiling took care of that.

This King did not care about reviewing his army or attending important meetings. All his servants, cooks, and numerous gardeners were told to carry a mirror around and whenever they crossed the King’s path, they kneeled and held up the mirror, so his highness could admire his ever-so-beloved hair.

Unfortunately, since hair is no great friend of aging, our beloved ruler found to his horror that his hair was starting to grow dangerously thin.

He spent most of his time experimenting on which side of his head his increasingly sparse hair should be combed. His Advisor in Chief had once commented on how regal he looked when his sparse hair was combed to the left, so from that moment on, everyone in his royal presence had to wear their hair to the left. 

Many strangers came to curry favors of the great King. Russian Kings, Chinese Ambassadors, and North Korean Diplomats were seen entering the Palace, carrying large mirrors.

One day, among these many guests, came a barber from a faraway land. He let it be known that he could create the most magnificent hairdos. Not only were his scissors and combs uncommonly fine, but also once he had created a hairstyle, he said, the masterpiece would be invisible to anyone who was unusually stupid or not fit for office.

‘Wouldn’t that be incredible?’ the King thought, ‘This barber can make my hair abundant, flowing gorgeously in the wind, just like my mother liked it. I will be the envy of all and I will immediately know who is unfit for their job, in other words, who did not agree with me!’

The next morning, the barber (his name was Figaro), was summoned to the royal bedchamber and got ready to perform his incredible craft. ‘Your majesty’ he said humbly, ‘I must warn you. I have to shave your head before I can create a new beautiful hairstyle. This is the secret ingredient of my oh-so-incredible craft.’

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America and the Olympics. How the U.S. Does it

Tom Kando 

Once again we went through an Olympics dominated by the US. 

I am not writing this piece to engage in chauvinism. Nor do I need to rehash the various obvious explanations for America’s advantage, such as population size and wealth. In a previous post (see Olympics), I showed that in proportion to population, small countries do much better than large ones: In 2016, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Denmark and Slovenia were all in the top ten medal winners. The US ranked #39 in the world, and China ranked #77. 

Bu now, I want to suggest a factor which has not been focused upon very much, namely the uniquely American DUAL system of athletic achievement: 

In the US, athletic achievement is cultivated and rewarded (1) at the amateur level in schools, and (2) at the professional level. 

To my knowledge, no other country has such a dual reward system. Of course, many countries have vibrant amateur sports, and in many countries the government supports athletics. The most extreme form of this was the Soviet model. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the USSR and East Germany used to garner the highest number of medals because sports were supported so lavishly by their government. Today, China probably provides generous government support for sports, as do probably many other countries as well. 

Clearly, the more money is spent on sports and on athletic training by a given country - from whatever source - the more medals that country will garner. 

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Different Differences

Tom Kando 

One of my sociological interests consists of differences between people. Diversity, if you will. People differ in innumerable ways. Some differences are physical, some mental, some are inevitable, some are achieved. Some are due to nature, some to nurture. And then, we often rank people according to a particular variable, for example athletic performance, or wealth. We know who the world champions are in various sports, who the world’s richest people and who the world’s greatest violin players are.

There could be a “Sociology of differentiation and ranking.” This is not necessarily a pretty business. It is also the realm of inequality, racism, winners and losers. And you might wonder whether it makes sense to compare apples and oranges. 

The most striking aspect of “differences” and “inequality” is this: For some variables, the “top dog” is only a couple of times “better” or “higher” than the bottom dog. However, in other respects, some individuals outdo others MILLIONS of times. 

Consider the magnitude of the top-to-bottom range of any variable. The range can be enormous - or not - depending on what it is that we measure. 

People can be compared and ranked on a scale of any attribute - wealth, income, body weight and size, intelligence, strength, how fast you can run, how fast you can put together the rubik cube, etc.. The Guinness Book of World Records lists many world records of facts and achievements. 

Consider three kinds of characteristics for which we often compare and rank people: (1) physical characteristics, (2) technology-assisted records, and (3) acquired characteristics. A few examples: 1. Physical characteristics:

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A New Americanism

By Madeleine Kando

I am an immigrant who has turned into an American over the past 50 years.

All my childhood I was a political refugee from the East Block. First, in France, then in Holland. I finally wrote to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and asked her for Dutch citizenship. She told me to send her a hundred guilders and she sent me back a Dutch passport.

I expected something special to happen, a carillon bursting forth from the ‘Wester Church’, whose steeple I could see from my rear windows. Or confetti raining down on my head, but all that fell was the usual dreary Dutch rain. I didn’t feel more Dutch than before. In fact, I realized at the tender age of 20, that Holland was not going to be my final destination.

I tried London for a while, a beautiful city where I could disappear and become totally anonymous. Then on to Malaga, but the southern European culture did not fit my personality, whatever that was. So instead of trying out different countries, I decided to change continents.

I moved to the US in the late 60s. In those days, moving to America literally felt like moving to the ‘New World’, a world so vast that you were guaranteed to find yourself, if not in New England, then somewhere else.

The thing that attracted me the most, was the knowledge that 15.7% of people here are born somewhere else. That's about 53 million people, more than the entire population of many countries, such as Canada, Poland, or Spain.

But the US has always been a country divided. The South and the North are still almost like two countries. The “tribalism” is not just North vs. South. As Heather Cox Richardson demonstrated in How the South Won the Civil War,  reactionary nationalism is thriving in other regions as well, for example, the West (Cowboy country).

Surprisingly, this division hasn’t caused it to break entirely in two. Maybe because of its size, America can accommodate this division, like two brothers fighting under the protection of their mother’s large hoop skirt.

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A Tale of Survival

Tom Kando

Dear Readers:

Here is a trailer for my book: 'A Tale of Survival'. It is available on Amazon. If you are interested in writing a review, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

leave comment here

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Ancient Rome lasted nearly Twenty-one Centuries

Tom Kando 

We recently re-watched two magnificent TV miniseries: 

1. The 2005-7 HBO series “ROME,” (Rome).

2. The 1976 series “I, Claudius,”  based on Robert Graves’ 1934 book I, Claudius. 

Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb both give these two series extremely high marks, rightly so. 

The 2005-7 series covers the era lasting from 52 BC to about 30 BC: In 52 BC, Caesar completed Rome’s conquest of Gaul. In 30 BC, Emperor Augustus (Octavian) completed his takeover of absolute power over the entire empire. The series is about Rome’s transition from a republic to an empire. This is the best-known and most frequently described period of Roman history. It lasted from the middle of the first century BC to the beginning of the first century AD. In other words, from Julius Caesar through Octavian Augustus. 

The 1976 series covers the life of Emperor Claudius, from his birth in 24 BC to his death in 54 AD. Therefore, it picks up roughly when Augustus has been in power for about six years, and covers the remainder of that emperor’s reign plus the reigns of his three successors - Emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. 

Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC. He was elected to Rome’s highest office - Consul - in 59 BC. He spent much of the following decade (from 58 BC to 49 BC) waging war against the Gauls, and conquering much of the territory that is now France. He won his most important victory at the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, where he defeated the joint Gallic forces led by Vercingetorix. In 49 BC, Caesar and his thirteenth legion crossed the Rubicon river, which constituted the border between Rome and its provinces. By doing so, Caesar invaded Rome and started a civil war which eventually gave him control of the Roman government. 

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Should we Fear Death?

By Madeleine Kando

Here is a layman’s attempt at understanding

Thomas Nagel’s argument that Death is a bad thing.

Talking about death in a rational, unemotional way is the domain of philosophers. As long as it is not their death, that is. That is why I find what Thomas Nagel has to say about the Grim Reaper fascinating. Should we see death as a bad thing, a good thing, or neither?

Nagel argues that death is not bad in itself, but since death deprives you of life, it means that it is indirectly bad. Even if a life is full of misery? Yes, because even misery is an experience. Death is devoid of experience, so even a life full of misery is preferable to death.

Some philosophers in the past have argued that the fear of death is irrational since there won’t be any post-death experiences. You cannot be afraid of something that doesn’t exist. As Epicurus put it: 'Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not.'

Another argument put forth against the fear of death is that it doesn’t matter whether you die young or old, since you will be dead forever either way.

A third point is that your nonexistence after death is just a mirror image of your nonexistence before your birth. Why should you fear one more than the other?

Unfortunately, Thomas Nagel criticizes all three arguments against the fear of death, in his essay ‘Death’. ‘Suppose’, Nagel says, ‘an intelligent person has a brain injury that reduces him to the mental condition of a contented baby. Certainly, this would be a grave misfortune for the person. Then is not the same true for death, where the loss is still more severe?’

The second argument, that dying young is not worse than living long, is just as poor. Being alive and having experiences is what is good about life. If a person dies prematurely, she is deprived of those experiences. Being dead is neither good nor bad since it is devoid of experiences. Therefore, what is evil about death is not the state of being dead, but the loss of life. More of life is better than less. Bach had more of it than Schubert because he lived longer.

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Beautiful Kauai

Madeleine Kando

Of the many places I've traveled to in my long life, Kauai remains my favorite. I've had a decades-long love affair with this beautiful island. The moment the plane lands on this tiny speck of land in the vast Pacific Ocean, I feel at home. Every night, the soothing surf lulls me to sleep, and during the day, the trade winds caress my skin like a silken glove. The lush green of Kauai’s mountains and valleys contrasts perfectly with the red ochre of its soil. As the oldest of five sisters, Kauai, in my opinion, is also the most beautiful.

Kauai is rainbows and white foam, blue waters and soaring tropical birds. Bursting with life in May, it exudes an intoxicating fragrance. Her tree barks streaked with red and purple seem as if a child secretly finger-painted them.

Watching the sun slowly rise out of the sea, I spot two red-crested cardinals landing on the railing of my lanai. Their tiny, perfect forms with candy-colored crests hop along as I place crumbs for them. Timid mynas keep watch on the roof, resembling professors with yellow glasses. Their calls, unlike the high-pitched whistle of my little red-crested friends, are not exactly music to the ear.

Despite its serene beauty, Kauai's geologic history is a volcanic inferno. Mount Waialeale began erupting 10 million years ago, and the island itself is 5 million years old. Kauai spent half of its life submerged in the Pacific, until enough volcanic activity brought it above water. Erosion has since sculpted the island's breathtaking landscapes.

Constantly battered by waves, Kauai’s shoreline is marked by large caves, like bite marks from an angry ocean. The deep valleys and razor-sharp ridges of the Waimea Canyon leave an indelible impression. Steep cliffs jut out into the ocean like a giant hand dipping its fingers into the foamy waves. Nature’s artistry needs no enhancement.

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Gambler's Fallacy vs. Law of Large Numbers

Tom Kando

Here is a baffling mathematical problem which I have pondered for years: The "Gambler’s Fallacy” and the “Law of Large Numbers" seem to contradict each other:

Consider two statements: 

(1) “Previous outcomes do not affect the probabilities of the next (similar) event.” Take coin tosses for example, each having a fifty-fifty probability of head or tail, right? 

(2) The larger the number of coin tosses, the more likely you are to approach a fifty-fifty distribution of heads and tails, right? 

Statement number #2 implies that if you have just tossed a coin twelve times, and ALL twelve of those have resulted in heads (a probability of 1 in 4,096) as you proceed to toss the coin for the thirteenth time, you expect it to come out a tail, and you bet accordingly, as some gamblers sometimes do. 

But actually, the smart gambler might be better off betting on head because, given the outcome of the first twelve tosses, there is a chance that the coin was tampered with and is loaded towards “head.” 

Statisticians try to explain the irreconcilability of the two statements above by quoting the “law of large numbers.” In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a mathematical theorem which states that the average of the results obtained from a large number of independent and identical random samples converges to the true value, if it exists. More formally, the LLN states that given a sample of independent and identically distributed values, the sample mean converges to the true mean (Wikipedia).

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Israel's Mistake

Tom Kando 

I have always been a strong supporter of Israel. Of its right to exist. Of Jews’ right to have a homeland. Of this homeland existing peacefully side-by-side next to an independent Palestinian homeland. Does this make me a Zionist? I also happen to be Jewish, in the sense that my family on my mother’s side was Jewish. In the last year of World War Two (1945), my grandparents and other relatives were evicted from their homes in Budapest, forced to wear a yellow star, and incarcerated in the city’s Jewish holding centers awaiting shipment to Auschwitz. 

I remain a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist, but that country is now going in the wrong direction. I am not addressing the moral question underlying the current war in Gaza. My plea stems from fear and a desire for pragmatism 

What Israel is doing right now is not going to work. The country is going the wrong way. I’m not speaking morally. The moral objection to what Israel is doing has been stated clearly by the thousands of marching students all over the US and elsewhere as well as by a majority of the world’s public opinion. 

What I’m talking about here is the future of Israel, and how to make sure that the country HAS a future. Part of the problem is that in this war, both parties’ objective is the total destruction of the enemy. But what Israel seeks is the destruction of a militant group, whereas Hamas’ objective is the destruction of an entire country. 

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Eric Hoffer's view on Israel *

 

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* Eric Hoffer was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic.

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Our Trip to the Solar Eclipse

by Madeleine Kando

We left Boston early Sunday morning, the day before the 2024 Solar Eclipse. We have friends who live close to the Canadian border, who invited us to watch it from their house. The path of the eclipse crosses their property, as it travels from Mexico to Maine, so we did not hesitate to accept their invitation.

After countless visits to ‘Bear Rock’, the place where our friends live, we have developed a routine. The small town of Plymouth, New Hampshire has become our pit stop on this five-hour journey. We stop for coffee and muffins before we enter the White Mountains. In the hazy distance, we see the mighty snow-covered Mount Washington, branded as one of the deadliest mountains in the world. It is not particularly tall at 6,000 feet, but has some of the most extreme weather, with the highest surface wind speed ever observed by man – 231 miles per hour.

We drive through Franconia Notch, a major mountain pass, which was home to the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation in the shape of a face. But in 2003 the Old Man first lost his nose and then completely collapsed. Still, the notch is impressive with or without it.

Our friends are a breed apart. Almost half a century ago, they bought a piece of land for a smitten in this forgotten nook of New Hampshire. They are city transplants, and living in an area where everyone has known each other since they were born, they will always be the couple from ‘somewhere else’. They live a solitary life, with their two horses on 300 acres. But they love it.

As we drive up to their house, we see Marc on the porch looking up at the sky, testing his eclipse glasses. He fiddles with the glasses, looks up, and fiddles some more. He doesn’t see us. I call him, but he is hard of hearing and doesn’t hear me. Finally, he comes over in his slippers through the snow. We hug and go inside where we find Helen in front of the stove, preparing one of her delicious meals. Read more...

About Mozart

By Tom Kando

A good friend of mine recently asked me to provide her with a few comments about Mozart, and the social significance of his music. Here is my reply: Hi Gail,

Mozart! 

Many people think that he was the greatest composer ever. Everyone agrees that he was one of the three greatest (the other two being Bach and Beethoven). Mozart died at thirty-five, and even so managed to compose over eight hundred works. The Requiem (to which you were just listening) was his last composition, one of the few works with a magnificent but somewhat somber character. 

He was a child prodigy, and his compositions matured as he got older. His operas, piano and violin concertos, his quartets, his symphonies got better and more imposing as he matured. Mozart was also a virtuoso on the piano, the violin and other instruments. His father was also a composer. He began Mozart’s musical education when Amadeus was still an infant. Unfortunately, their relationship was difficult. However, most of Mozart’s music is enormously happy . One of his few tragedies is his opera Don Giovanni, which contains a moral condemnation of promiscuity (Don Giovanni goes to Hell). 

Have you seen the movie Amadeus? (1984). A must. One of the greatest movies ever made. However, don’t accept it literally. It takes many liberties with the facts of Mozart’s life. Even so, the movie is correct in describing Mozart dying in obscurity and only gaining justified recognition posthumously. Such is the fate of many geniuses in all the arts. Think of Van Gogh, Kafka and so many others! The problem with geniuses is that they are often far ahead of everyone else, much too brilliant to be recognized in their own time.

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An Air Travel Nightmare

By Madeleine Kando

Flying is like signing away your rights as a human being. Not only is your life put on hold, but you never know which side of providence your fate will fall.

On my most recent flight to Spain, I thought lady luck had smiled on us, but after we were all seated in the full, upright, and locked position, our carry-ons stowed away, we were told that there was a slight problem with one of the landing lights, which would only take 20 minutes to fix. I could see Lady Luck start packing her bags and by the time we were told that unfortunately, they needed to wait for a replacement part to be flown in, she had stepped out of the plane altogether.

We were 'deplaned' and asked to wait at the gate, where we were offered complimentary refreshments, a euphemism for the familiar constipation-causing mini pretzels and soft drinks. What would that incoming plane do without the part we would be stealing from it, I wondered? Probably wait for another plane to come in, have those passengers wait 2 hours, and so on, ad infinitum.

As I was observing my co-passengers, some struggling with fretting, hungry babies, others snoring away or talking on their cell phones, I couldn't help but admire the collective patience and goodwill that filled this cold and sterile space. No cursing or yelling, no angry kicking, just a group of docile, well-behaved human beings.

We were finally allowed to board again and I was hoping that my connecting flight from Dublin to Malaga would also have some part missing so that it would not leave without me.

After a few hours, I take out my phone to write notes. I do that, so I won’t forget the details of an event, which I later want to incorporate into one of my silly stories. I keep my phone on the window side, away from my neighbor, and start typing. ‘Here I am packed like a sardine, afraid to ask the heavy-set Irish woman next to me to stand up, so I can go to the bathroom’.

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Project 2025: A Blueprint for Authoritarianism

By Madeleine Kando

During Biden’s State of the Union address, the President referenced a speech given by President Franklin Roosevelt almost a century ago. Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that his were no ordinary times. ‘Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world’.

Biden continued: ‘Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union. Freedom and democracy are under attack again, both at home and overseas’.

These words are no longer alarmist rhetoric. While France becomes the first country to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, the United States is barreling its way in the opposite direction. The Far Right is now ready ‘to battle anti-American “woke” forces’ and enshrine white Christian patriarchal values in our government. 

Project 2025 *

In case of a Republican victory in the 2024, the far right is planning to implement an authoritarian takeover of the America Government. They call it ‘Project 2025’. Published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a clear threat to our democracy, and we must treat it as such.

It wants the President to have direct control of all the departments in the Executive branch, so it can gut them at will (including the DOJ and the FBI) and reform others, such as the Department of Education, by funneling tax money into religious charter schools, instead of public schools. It calls the DOE a “one-stop shop for the 'woke' education cartel” and plans to close it down altogether and return all responsibility for education to the states.

An illegal instrument called "Schedule F" would allow the President to fire and replace thousands of civil servants who are now shielded from political manipulation. The entire Executive branch will become politicized.

The lengthy document covers all departments in great detail. It wants to give a President (Trump is their favorite candidate) complete control over Education, Health Care, Defense, the Press and even Finances.

It is frighteningly candid in its goals for the future of the country.

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What Comes After the American Century?

By Thomas Kando 

There is today a widespread sense that America is in decline. On the right, there is MAGA and the Trumpites. On the left, many young people and not-so-young people feel that America is doing everything wrong. Overseas our adversaries, like Putin, wishfully predict America’s downfall. And many people in countries friendly to us also talk about our (allegedly growing) weaknesses. Whether you care about America or not, pessimism about our country is widespread. 

What is one to make of all this? 

To me, it is not clear that America is in decline. I have heard this refrain my whole life. Over the decades, there have been many predictions of the imminent end of what has been called the American century. Each crisis has produced predictions of precipitous American decline. During the Vietnam war many people were convinced that the US was declining. In the sixties Nikita Khrushchev said “we shall bury you,” and many western intellectuals believed him. After 9/11 some European pundits said that America’s pre-eminent position in the world was coming to an end. 

When we hear the term “American century.” the implication is often that this is coming to an end. 

For the past eighty years, those of us of a certain age - including the baby boomers - have lived lives of stability, world peace, prosperity, progress and democracy. By and large anyway, and granted, mostly so in the western world. 

This can be attributed to the Pax Americana during that period of time. Thanks to American help, the American economy and American military might, the devastated world (including our former enemies) was rebuilt and kept free and prosperous. 

I’ll skip the debate as to whether the Pax Americana was self-serving for the US or altruistic. 

America’s dominance was enormous right after the end of World War Two, when its economy was half that of the world. This huge advantage was bound to decline, as the rest of the world rebuilt itself. Eventually the US settled at one fourth of the world’s economy, and this has pretty much remained so for many years. 

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2024 Global Elections and Voting

By Madeleine Kando

The year 2024 will be the year of elections: four billion people will cast a vote in over 60 countries, which is about half of the world’s population. 900 million in India, 200 million in Indonesia, 160 million in the US and so on.

But the election that the entire world is most anxious about is the US Presidential election. If we elect a leader that encourages Russia to attack those NATO nations that fall short on defence-spending and admires dictators, many countries will think twice about their allegiance to America.

Many foreigners think that if a Democrat wins the White House, the whole country must have voted for that candidate. Vice-versa, if a Republican wins the Presidency, it means that the whole country is Republican. That is because the two-party system is a foreign concept for countries that do not have our voting system.

In America, every district elects a single representative. Voters cast a vote for a candidate, one candidate wins, and all the others lose. This makes our elections “winner-take-all” — if a candidate wins 51 percent of the vote, she wins 100 percent of the representation. Any voters who did not back the winning candidate are not represented in government. 

First Past the Post vs Proportional Representation

The First Past the Post system is one of the least democratic systems by global standards. In fact, some political scientists wonder if it qualifies as democratic at all. But clearly some people think this is the best way to organize elections.

With a Proportional Representation system, on the other hand, the percentage of seats reflects the percentage of votes. If a party wins 40% of the vote, it will receive 40% of the seats. It is the most widely used system in the world and can be found in almost every country.

The Single Member District system, part of the First Past the Post scenario, guarantees that a large portion of voters will not be represented. The laws are vague on whether the single-member district system is Constitutionally locked in, or whether States have overriding authority on how to select their representatives. 

But the problem with an established voting system is that it is resistant to change. Our two-party system has been in place since Thomas Jefferson and Madison disagreed on whether a central government was necessary and how much power it should have. Ever since then, partisan polarization pulled the parties further apart by a bunch of ideologists, like a piece of chewing gum, to the point of breaking.

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Is Math a Discovery or an Invention?

Thomas Kando 

(Note: the title of this article is similar to an article by Mario Liovo from which I quote extensively, below) 

I have been thinking about the relationship between the universe and mathematics. Humans have measured and given numbers to various objects. The earth’s circumference is 40,000 kilometers. The speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. When I first learned about the earth’s size in elementary school geography class, I thought “wow! How neat. How come the earth is exactly 40,000 kilometers in size? What a coincidence. Such a simple and memorable whole number.” 

Of course, I was putting the cart before the horse. I did not understand that “kilometer” is not an a priori characteristic of nature. The earth is (approximately) 40,000 kilometers in circumference because humans decided to use as their basic unit of length one forty millionth of the earth’s circumference, however long that is. They called it the meter, of which one thousand added together make a kilometer. 

The metre was originally defined in 1791 by the French National Assembly as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle, so the Earth's polar circumference is approximately 40,000. (metre) 

But it was later determined that its length was short by about 0.2 millimetres because of miscalculation of the flattening of the Earth, making the prototype about 0.02% shorter than the original proposed definition of the metre. Regardless, this length became the French standard and was adopted by most of the rest of the world. So the polar circumference of the Earth is actually 40,008 kilometres, instead of 40,000. (Earth’s Circumference) 

Then there is the speed of light: Light travels at (nearly) 300,000 kilometers per second (in a vacuum). How convenient! I thought as a youngster. Like earth’s circumference, the speed of light is also a neat, simple and memorable quantity. 

Of course humans must deal with natural phenomena in order to survive, so we have developed measurement systems. These are arbitrary, but hopefully as practical and as scientifically usable as possible. We must measure everything - time, temperature, electricity, weight, distance, speed, you name it. A decimal system seems to be advantageous over alternative systems, as exemplified by temperature: water freezes at zero and boils at 100. Neat and easy. A liter of water weights a kilo, which is a thousand grams. Simple. 

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The Story of a Decal Sticker

By Madeleine Kando

One sunny day, as the winter's snow began to melt, the bird decal on my window pondered why he was stuck there, his wings immobilized for eternity. 




He gazed out onto the yard, the late afternoon shadows growing longer, watching real birds fly by and feed at the bird feeders."Why am I sitting here, collecting dust? Is my sole purpose in life to prevent real birds from crashing into the glass? I long to be free! A strong hailstorm could dislodge me from this glass, and I could fly! Am I not a bird, after all?"

 

He wriggled and wriggled, but nothing happened. His back was firmly attached to the glass. All this wriggling tired him out, so he started to doze off and soon fell into a deep sleep. Decals dream, you know. They might be flat, but they dream of soaring in the blue sky. In his dream, he was looking down at houses with large windows with strange shapes stuck to them. Those shapes evoked something familiar, a past life, another world, stirring feelings of dread, mixed with relief.

A loud crash jolted him awake. Not a foot away, he saw a huge red-tailed hawk. He had seen those monsters before. A shiver went through his flat body.




The hawk's talons were kneading something on the ground. A pigeon had collided with the glass and lay on the ground, dazed and motionless. The hawk, perched on a branch, had swooped down, pinning the pigeon before it could escape. It was now slowly kneading the life out of him, patiently waiting until the pigeon's body gradually stopped moving. Then, it expanded its enormous wings and flew away with the dead pigeon dangling from its powerful claws.




The decal felt sorry for the pigeon but thought:"What good am I stuck here if I cannot even stop birds from crashing into the window?"

He sadly looked out on the falling snow, fearing that he would never fly, never hop on the bird feeder, or sing to attract a mate.

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The Importance of Voting Systems

By Madeleine Kando

Depending on where you live in the world, voting systems vary greatly. In some countries, people don’t vote at all. They live in dictatorships. In some other countries, voting is restricted to certain parts of the population (usually men). Universal suffrage is shockingly recent. Before World War II, women couldn’t vote in 155 of the 195 countries in the world. Whether you lived in beautiful France, Switzerland, or sunny Spain, women had no voice. Saudi Arabia allowed women to vote only 8 years ago!

Types of Voting Systems

There are two predominant electoral systems in the world: Plurality voting and Proportional Representation.

Plurality Voting (also called “first-past-the-post” or "winner-take-all") awards a seat to the candidate who receives the most votes. It need not be a majority (50%+), so long as the candidate has a larger number of votes than all other candidates. Plurality voting does not represent all (or even most) voters. Since a candidate needs only a plurality of votes, most voters may have voted against the winner. One attempt to improve this non-representation model is a system called Ranked Choice Voting or Instant Runoff.

Proportional Representation makes the percentage of seats reflect the percentage of votes. It is the most widely used system in the world and can be found in almost every country. If a party wins 40% of the vote, it will receive 40% of the seats.

The Single Transferable Vote is an important form of proportional representation. It is used in Ireland, Australia, and Malta for national elections. Other countries use it in local elections, and even some communities in the United States (such as Cambridge, MA) use it today. According to the Democracy Index, the STV is the most democratic system in the world.

Democracy

The whole point of a voting system is to allow citizens to decide who will govern them. The word democracy was first used in ancient Athens. It is a combination of two Greek words: demos (a citizen of a city-state) and kratos (meaning ‘power’ or ‘rule’). It means ‘the rule by the people’.

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I Disappeared from the Internet

Tom Kando 

The other day, I tried to log onto my website. First, I just Googled myself, typing in my name. Later, I typed in my website’s name. I got nowhere both ways. 

When I typed in my name, thousands of search results came up, as usual. Many of the first few start with my name followed by various things. Then, scrolling down the first few pages of search results, you encounter more and more slightly distorted entries, some sites with a middle initial, and further down an increasing number of websites with names that resemble mine but have nothing to do with me, many in Japan, Africa and elsewhere. 

So I start clicking on some of the first few entries, those that spell my name correctly, and you know what? Nothing comes up. Instead of opening the website that I click on, Google sends me a terse computerese message telling me that this website and this person do not exist.

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