Short Stories for Marshall's Birthday

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European Holiday

Tom Kando

My wife Anita and I took a long European trip this past fall - first a couple of weeks in Holland, then three weeks in Rome. We are old and have several ailments that make travel increasingly onerous, but we have persisted. We both walk slowly and use sticks. Stairs and cobble stones are a challenge. So it wasn’t easy. And there are always “surprises.” First, let me dispose of the negatives. Then I’ll get to the positives.

For one thing, we had difficulty accessing our bed and breakfasts . They were great once you were in, but they closed before our arrival time. Another surprise was a flat tire on our second day in Holland. That’s when we learned that most advanced cars no longer have a fifth emergency wheel. Instead. our rental had a repair kit, but I had no idea where it was located and how to use it. We called a Dutch friend and she called the Dutch equivalent of the AAA to help us out. Bummer. Using my iPhone internationally was also a major challenge. 

 For some reason, I was able to use my iPhone at will in Holland, but not in Italy. When you use your American iPhone internationally, you have to start out by dialing the prefix +. This is a combination of the international access code (01) and the US exit code (1). So using a landline, which doesn’t have a + key, you must first dial 011. Then you enter the code of whatever country you are calling. For some reason I was not able to do this in Italy. 

In Rome, we took a day trip to Pompeii, just outside of Naples. This was a bus with about thirty tourists. It picked us up at dawn in front of our hotel, but dropped us off at 21:00 hours about two and a half miles from our hotel. We needed help to find a taxi stand in the dark. 

There were various malfunctions and discomforts. Our rooms were too cold, both in Holland and in Rome. At least the hotels provided an extra heater. In Rome, the toilet seat kept coming loose. They fixed it after three days. And there were the usual irritants: a last-minute change of gate for our Amsterdam-Rome flight, forcing us to run through a mile of airport. Also, a two-hour delay of our Rome-Atlanta return flight, jeopardizing our connection to Sacramento .

But enough bad news. All in all, we completed this elaborate trip without any major issues. As the cliché says, it’s made us more resilient. Plus, we have fond memories. This was a joyful experience and an achievement for two old geezers. 

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The Art of Leaving

by Madeleine Kando

My solution to being depressed as a teenager was to leave. I LOVED leaving. After high school I left for England for a year. But the therapeutic value of leaving didn’t last, maybe because London was so foggy and grey. I applied my leaving strategy to leaving England for sunny Spain.

Leaving is fine, but where you arrive has an influence on how successful leaving will be. Spain wasn’t the Promised Land for me. I didn’t identify with the Mediterranean mentality. As grey and foggy London was, it was a WASP country. And whether I liked it or not, the WASP culture had seeped into my pores.

Which made me recoil when the caballeros in Spain did everything they could to breach my ‘personal space’. Northern Europeans consider personal space as sacred. On the London subway, an unspoken rule is to sit as far way from other passengers as open seats will allow. In Spain, there was always a muchacho rubbing against you, even if half the compartment was empty.

I spent a lot of time with a rolled up newspaper in my hand, whacking Spaniards trying to invade my personal space.

I was tired of whacking, so I went back to Holland. It is as rainy and grey as England, but at least it has a WASP culture. Going back home felt like I had entered a cul-de-sac. ‘Now what’ I asked my depressed self.

It was time to face my demons, so I went to see a psychiatrist. No whacking necessary here. The therapist was unobtrusive, to the point of being shy. He was a small person, making himself even smaller by crossing his legs and hunching over during our sessions. I had a desire to take care of him, not the other way around. Read more...

POWER

by Madeleine Kando

This essay is based on Bertrand Russell’s 'Power, A New Social Analysis'. The book is very much a product of its time; a time when war with Germany was about to begin. The Western world was divided between democracies and countries led by successful revolutionary dictators. 

What is power? Is it good or bad? Or is it neutral, like a hammer when you need to put a nail in a wall? The origin of the word ‘power’ comes from the Latin word ‘potere’, which means ‘to be able’. In French, the word ‘pouvoir’ means both  ‘power’ and ‘to be able to’.

Let’s face it, without power, nothing would get done. My husband needs muscle power to mow the lawn. I need fine-motor power to move my fingers on the keyboard.

But that kind of power is self-contained; it’s neutral. The problem begins when someone seeks to exert power over others or other beings. Power over humans, non-humans, land, and other resources. There is a difference between the amount of power you need to have enough to eat and pay for a roof over your head, and the kind of power that has caused problems for our species ever since we grew frontal lobes.

There are people who crave power more than others. I myself want power over my cat. I won’t let her pee wherever she likes, and when I was a young mother, I had power over my children. I told them when to go to bed, what time to get up, etc. My husband was a CFO and had decision-making power over a small staff. We all have some degree of power, if only to control our own thoughts.

But that kind of power is barely worth the name. It is the power of men that leads nations that we should be worried about. The Stalins, the Hitlers, and the Putins of the world.

According to the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, the desire for power is one of the strongest human motives. ‘Power is a fundamental concept in Social Science, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. Imagination is the goad that forces human beings into restless exertion after their primary needs have been satisfied.’

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My Quest for Sleep

By Madeleine Kando

I am not a good sleeper. It is something I inherited from my grandmother. It skipped a generation, since my mother sleeps like a log as soon as she hits the horizontal plane, but reared its ugly head when I was born.

There is nowhere to go lying on your back, waiting for sleep. I could spend time in my toes or elbows but there is not much going on there, except the occasional itches or twitches.

My head is where things happen, mostly beyond my control. I approach with apprehension; a sign reads, ‘organizing strictly prohibited.’

As I walk about in that chaotic place, I stub my toes against remnants of my day scattered on the floor. Did I turn the stove off? Did I put the leftover food in the fridge? Did I close my car windows? Usually, those nasty little buggers cross my mental path when I am almost asleep, and with a jolt, I am wide awake again, heart pounding. I am back to square one.

Insomniacs are advised to establish what is known as sleep hygiene. You couldn’t come up with a more distasteful term if you tried.

To develop sleep hygiene, experts provide a lengthy list of dos and don’ts, which carries the risk of investing half your evening preparing for something that might never materialize.

It is recommended that you exercise for half an hour, then take a warm bath or shower, and top that off with relaxation exercises for another 30 minutes to an hour. Unfortunately, the don’ts list includes all of the things that I really like: drinking alcohol, watching a whodunit movie that gets my heart rate up and texting about not being able to sleep.

To make up for that, I rely on a bag full of paraphernalia that includes earplugs, a face mask, soft music, a soft pillow, scented candles, etc. I watch psychedelic movies that are supposed to put me in a trance, and if you promise not to laugh, I will divulge my secret ingredient: I knit entire sweaters in my head before I am able to fall asleep. If you knew how many sweaters I knitted, you would be proud of me. Some with rainbow stripes, some dull grey, others with a star shape. On good nights, I fall asleep in the 4th or 5th row. Other nights, my sweater looks more like a 10-foot-long scarf before I give up and throw the whole scarf in my mental trash.

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The Second Estate -How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy* (A Book Review)

By Madeleine Kando

As I waited for the red light to turn, I grabbed a dollar bill out of my wallet, opened my car window, and gave it to the woman standing on the divider. It was freezing cold. She had a scarf wrapped around her face. I gave her the bill, and she nodded. She was holding a sign, but the letters were too small, so I couldn’t read it. It didn’t matter really. I give dollar bills (or quarters) to every person standing on the side of the road. My husband says it’s a waste of money, but it’s a reflex. Her time spent standing in the freezing cold is enough of a reason.

Had I lived in pre-revolutionary France, I would have been the one standing on the side of the road. I would have been part of ‘the Third Estate’. Social hierarchy comprised of three ‘estates’: the First Estate was the clergy, the Second Estate was the nobility, and the Third Estate was everybody else, 90% of the population. The First Estate was wealthy and exempt from paying taxes (as it still is).

The Second Estate, the equally untaxed nobility, enjoyed sweeping financial and social privileges on the basis of their wealth. This is similar to today’s class of untaxed elites in America. It signals something broken and alarming about our economy. How could a country founded on principles of equality—and with a special aversion to aristocracy—end up with such a system?

How can 1% of the population own 40% of the wealth of the country? As you will see, it is mostly due to our tax code that allows the super-wealthy to get away with murder (and more). For the average American, the word ‘taxes’ means ‘income tax’. You earn X amount gross and take home Y amount, after you pay your ‘taxes’ (Federal and State). Most people are confused about the Payroll Tax, a.k.a. FICA, which pays for Social Security, Medicare, and Disability. They are the second-largest source of federal taxes (after income taxes), and account for more than a third of all federal revenue.

When Mitt Romney was running for President, he was caught saying, “There are 47 percent [of voters] who are with him (Obama), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them. These are people who pay no income tax.”

That is true, since the minimum taxable income is $15,000. But payroll taxes get levied on the first dollar earned, so the number of people who truly pay no taxes falls to 16.5 percent—slightly less than the number of taxpayers who are older than seventy.

Here is the breakdown of what the government has to rely on for revenue:

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A Late Life Crisis

By Madeleine Kando

‘Hey Madeleine, what are you doing sitting at your desk all day. Don’t you want to enjoy the outdoors? It’s a beautiful day today.’

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me, your conscience. You must be sick of rummaging through those old letters. They are in Hungarian. Do you speak Hungarian?’

‘Uh, no. But what business is that of yours?’

‘Pardon me for asking: what is the point then?’

‘If you must know, I think I am suffering from a late-life crisis. I never had a midlife crisis. I was too busy taking care of other people’s crises, but now it’s my turn. Besides, my best friend is going through a late-life divorce. Or a separation, she doesn’t know what it is herself. But she says it makes her grow.

She says everything bad that happens in one’s life makes you grow. I am tall enough, I told her. I can never find my size shoes, and the sleeves on my coats are always too short.

But now I am thinking: why not use my late-life crisis to try to grow? Although you are right, sitting on my heinie all day seems to make me shrink. My late-life vertebrae feel the pinch.’

‘Then stop and smell the roses. You are not going through a late-life crisis; you are going through late life. It happens to the best of us, you know.’

‘I prefer to call it a crisis. That way I can go through it and grow.’

‘All right. Have it your way. But don’t expect me to keep popping up to remind you that you are missing out on life, while you are so stubbornly trying to grow. Like you said, you are tall enough. Pretty soon, they will have to get a super-giant coffin. Hope you can afford it.’

‘I am trying to digest all of my life, writing my memoir. Would give anyone a bout of indigestion, a late-life crisis, don’t you think?

‘May I suggest going to confession, instead of spending your valuable late-life time on writing a memoir?’

‘I went to confession when I still believed in the Almighty. But saying a Hail Mary and calling it absolution is crap. It changes nothing. Writing a memoir is a much more effective way of paying for your sins. That’s why I prefer it. I am a sucker for punishment.’

‘Ah, now you’re talking. You want everyone to know what a bad person you are. Once you are gone, they will write on your tombstone: ‘Here lies a really bad person’.

‘That’s preferable to not being remembered at all. See, it’s all about ego, isn’t it? Good, bad, who cares? That’s probably the real reason for my late-life crisis. I am scared shitless of not mattering. At least this way, I am giving it a shot.’

‘I wouldn’t listen to your ego. Who cares about your sins? Cannot change the past, so go for the chocolate cake and the booze.’‘Aren’t you supposed to mediate between my base instincts and my superego?’

‘You are chasing a phantom. You will die with your sins intact, memoir or no memoir.’

‘But I already wrote 100 pages!’

‘Well, burn them or bring them to the stories cemetery, and give it a proper burial. Give if a catchy title, like ‘unfinished last symphony’.‘You want me to kill my own memoir? I cannot bury it while it’s still alive!’

‘Well, I am your conscience and I know what’s best for you.’

‘You cannot tell me what to do. There is such a thing as freedom of speech in this country, you know.’

‘I am wasting my precious time on you. I have other other people's consciences to attend to. Bye’ leave comment here

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An Ode to My Body

By 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.

A group of nenes waddle across the lawn. Behind them, the blue ocean shimmers in the morning sun. In the hazy distance, Mount Makana, also known as Bali Hai, stands guard over her dominion, making sure everything is as it should be.

The sun is baking my legs. Suddenly, raindrops come down - a sign that a rainbow is about to appear. A Shama thrush has landed on our lanai, and together we look out on the vast ocean. It has a slender build, and the breeze lifts its delicate feathers. He sits there for long periods, at the edge of the lanai, making sure that he can fly away at an instant.

I've lost count of how many times we've visited Kauai over the past twenty years, my husband and I. The island has not changed, except for the increased number of tourists.

What has changed is my body. The three-day long hikes on the Napali Trail are now filed away into a box in my head marked: ‘no longer active’. The five-hour-long jungle hike to the blue hole and the steep climb down to ‘Hide-Away Beach’  are also filed away as ‘closed for you until further notice’. Like Mount Waialeale, the now-dormant volcano that created Kauai, those activities are not only dormant, but also dead. And like dead volcanoes, they won’t erupt again.

I am no longer in charge. It is my body that calls the shots now, especially after I tore my meniscus. Until now, I took my knees for granted. They were there for my bidding. 

There are strong laws against physical abuse, child abuse, domestic abuse, and sexual abuse, but there are no laws against self-abuse, because we consider our bodies as private property.

The reason we take so many liberties with our bodies is that we have a delusional conviction that we are immortal. And immortals don’t have to worry about their bodies conking out on them.

When our bodies finally no longer cooperate, we don’t have an ounce of pity and run to a physician and say: ‘Doctor, look at my knees, they don’t work anymore. Can you believe it? What’s wrong with them! I am sure you can fix them.’

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Thoughts and the Mind

Tom Kando 

I want to write something about the mind, about OUR mind, as humans. 

Our mind affects our body and it is affected by our body and by what happens to us and around us. It generates thoughts in reaction to what happens to us, for example a traffic accident, and also in reaction to things which we just notice even if they do not affect us, such as a distant hurricane or a war we see on TV. 

Most of the things that happen and which we notice are independent from us. Most of the news belongs in this category. The war in Ukraine or a victory by the Sacramento Kings does not change my life in any significant way. However, both can trigger thoughts in my mind and emotions in me, such as sadness or euphoria. 

When things happen and they affect us, they are no longer separate from us. For example, you drive to the airport and you get a flat tire. This causes you to miss your flight to Hawaii. This event becomes part of your experience. 

Now your mind has no choice but to kick in. It thinks about the event, its consequences, how to respond, and a myriad of other thoughts related to and about the event. 

Your mind also affects your body. It creates emotions, which are mental-physical states that may be unpleasant or pleasant. The experience triggers several different categories of thoughts and emotions: evaluating the situation, planning a solution to the problem, memories of the solutions available to you (find the jack in your trunk or the AAA phone number on your phone), and probably a degree of frustration, distress, maybe even anger about the mishap. 

You are now dealing with a multiple situation: The flat tire and the missed flight to Hawaii are now in the past, irretrievably. Your mind would like to change, erase, think those events out of existence. The impossibility of achieving this causes you pain. Your mind causes you to suffer in addition to having to deal with the flat tire and the missed flight. This pain is unnecessary. It does not solve the problem more readily.

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Losing Things

By Madeleine Kando

I lost my phone yesterday. I went out for a drink and wanted to call my husband, but there was no phone in my bag. Must have left it in the car, I thought, with a hint of anxiety. I hardly ever leave it in the car, except when I go swimming, for obvious reasons.

When I got home, I called myself on my husband’s phone, but the familiar ‘quack’  (that’s my ringtone) was nowhere to be heard.

After a sleepless night, I rushed back to the place where I used it last. The building was empty but open. I looked under every chair, on every table, and rummaged through a box with personal belongings. My heart sank. Bye-bye thousand-dollar phone.

With my tail between my legs, I passed a small table where people leave brochures. The corner of a familiar-looking object peeked out from under a typed sheet. My phone! It had secretly and wisely hidden itself under some brochures.

I was overjoyed. I walked out of the building unseen and unheard. Like the CIA after a successful covert operation, except I hadn’t killed anyone.

This seems to be a recurring theme in my life. A while ago, I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses, the ones I bought in Paris for a hundred euros during a bout of temporary insanity.

It happened while I was walking my diminutive dog in the forest. I was awake most of the night and kept hearing this little voice calling out to me: ‘I am here! I am here! Please find me’, like one of the shrunken kids in the movie ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’.

I went back to the forest and suddenly remembered bending over to pick up my tiny dog before he disappeared in the underbrush. ‘That’s when it happened!’ I thought. I retraced my steps and saw a speck of shiny brown amongst the green. ‘Some idiot must have dropped their sunglasses…Wait.. those are mine!' The odds that I would find them were so small that I thought I was dreaming.

So here I was, happy as a pig in mud. I wore my sunglasses the rest of the day even though it was raining. We were bonding.

Some things I lost but never found again, like my mother. Still, I find her again regularly in my dreams. It is not an exact replica, but beggars cannot be choosers.

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Reincarnation

By Madeleine Kando

My grandson Marshall asked me if I believed in reincarnation. Maybe he worries that I will die soon and wouldn’t it be nice if I came back somehow to keep adding to the vast amount of presents he is getting for Christmas?

Reincarnation derives from a Latin term that literally means 'entering the flesh again'. Some people believe that reincarnation is a process with rules, like the rules of traffic. Leading an exemplary life will place you on a higher echelon of the reincarnation ladder than if you were a bank robber. That is why believing in the afterlife keeps you on the straight and narrow.

I told him that I did not believe in reincarnation. Having to come back to start the whole exhausting process of being born, growing up, and dying again does not appeal to me.

But if there is an afterlife, I think there are no rules of conduct. Just like in life itself, most of it would depend on random luck. This means you can lead as bad a life as you want, although ultimately it is the people whom you leave behind that will pay the price for your badness.

To lead an exemplary life, you must know the difference between right and wrong. But who says that, of the millions of species that are imbued with the force of life, you would come back as an entity that has a sense of morality?

If there is an afterlife and we somehow could have an influence on it, it is not so much the rungs of the social ladder that I am concerned about. Read more...

Numbers and Numerical Systems

Tom Kando 

I was recently watching the great old musical Brigadoon. The people of that mythical fantasy land come alive once every century. So I’m thinking: Why every century? Why not some other time unit? Why did most of the world agree to go decimal? 

There are still exceptions, notably this country’s mishmash of measuring systems: Unlike much of the world, Americans measure distance and height in inches, feet, yards and miles, not centimeters, meters and kilometers. Our weights are in ounces and pounds, not grams and kilos. Volume is expressed in gallons, not liters, temperature in Fahrenheits, not centigrades, etc. But even in the US, science and medicine do most things decimally. 

There is no question that decimal is a lot better than the hodgepodge of measurement systems we use. But even decimal is an arbitrary system, hardly reflecting the nature of the world. It is often said that the choice had something to do with our ten fingers. 

A while ago I wrote a post asking whether mathematics is a discovery or an invention. In other words, is it embedded in nature, or do we humans use it to interpret nature? (See my post of Feb. 22 2024): ”Is Math a Discovery or an Invention?” or: Was God a mathematician?” 

Today, I am thinking of something related: Alternative numerical systems. The big one that immediately comes to mind is the binary system, because computers use it and computers have taken over the world. If we went binary, years would be numbered differently. We learn in history that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in the year 800.

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English is Weird!

By Madeleine Kando

The English language went through a fairly uneventful childhood. It was born a Celtic language, which is still spoken in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. But after the numerous invasions of the island, English could barely keep up with the deluge of foreign influences.

First came the Romans. They left scraps of Latin on the English plate, before they departed for good.

The Celtic language of the clan (clann) who lived in bogs (bogash), ate crumpets galore (ge leor) and smashed (mescaen) chairs (chaiere) to smithereens (smidrini) after they drank tons of whiskey, easily incorporated words like triumph, ovation, consul, dictator and circus.

But soon, the Anglo-Saxons came. Because the land of the Anglo Saxons often got flooded, they started to look for new places to farm and grow crops. Britain seemed like a nice dry place.

They brought their own language and the Celtic language started to cave in under the sheer abundance of new words. Celtic was pushed into the remote corners of this beautiful island and Old English took over. It was very different from modern English though. If you met the (anonymous) author of the poem ‘Beowulf’, you wouldn’t understand what he was reciting.

But that was not the end of it. After the Anglo-Saxons, came the Vikings and left more scraps behind. These Vikings were an angry and awesome band that often went berserk. They were chubby and knew how to crochet. But they were also ugly, ran amuck, drew skulls and knives, liked to die but loved cake! These words represent the character of a fighting, raiding culture.*

To top it all off, came the Norman invasion. They quickly overran England with their armies and their French language. English was force-fed French words, like stuffing a goose. Written English practically disappeared and spoken English was in danger of becoming extinct.

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Are Liberals Funnier than Conservatives?

By Madeleine Kando

'Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs;

he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

  - Friedrich Nietzsche

Greek philosopher Democritus, known as the “laughing philosopher” had a tendency to laugh at the stupidity of his fellow citizens. He felt it was better to laugh at the world than become depressed by it.   

But laughter predates the Greeks. One of the best scenes in the movie ‘Quest for Fire’, is man’s discovery of laughter. When a primitive tribesman is hit on the head by a small falling stone, a woman from an advanced tribe starts to laugh. The less advanced tribesmen haven't heard such a noise before, but when one of the tribesmen deliberately drops a small stone on his friend’s head, everybody laughs. The woman taught the tribesmen how to laugh.

So if humor is universal, why doesn’t everybody have an equal sense of humor? Or is humor like beauty? Is it in the eyes of the beholder?

This is what author Dannagal Goldthwaite Young argues in her book ‘Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States’. She explains why progressives watch late night comedy shows like Steven Colbert and John Stewart and why conservatives prefer Fox News’ prime-time political talk shows such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

According to Young, an individual’s affinity for a particular genre of humor is determined by a set of psychological traits. She defines these traits as:

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Higher Education Crisis?

TOM KANDO 

 We often hear that Higher Education is in crisis. Two things are happening: (A) Higher Education is suffering within from a growing number of problems, and (B) it is under attack from without. 

The complaints: 

 

● Higher education has become prohibitively expensive, especially at the high prestige, private institutions such as the Ivy League. This forces many students into huge indebtedness, from which they need years to extricate themselves. 

● Students are not taught job-relevant skills. Many of them, upon graduating and hitting the job market, have difficulty landing well-paying jobs. 

● Nor is employment in higher education as enviable as it was in the past: Pay and tenure (= job security) are under assault: By now, half of all faculty appointments are non-tenure track. These employees are largely required to have a PhD and their first-year annual salary ranges from $55K to $75K, depending on the state, the institution and the field. 

● As a result, college is no longer viewed as a universally desirable path to success. Particularly, “Joe college” is a vanishing breed. Men are especially giving up on college. 58% of all new college entrants are women, only 42% are men. 

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Are we Alone in the Universe?

By Madeleine Kando

Common sense tells us that the idea of being alone in the universe is infinitesimally small. There are thousands of solar systems in the Milky Way alone, and in the visible universe there are trillions of galaxies. And that is just the observable Universe. The real universe is quadrillions of times bigger, because it is constantly expanding. Therefore, it is statistically improbable that we are alone. A human’s chances of being born are one in 400 trillion, but if life on earth is the only form of life in the Universe, that chance becomes unbelievably small.

The size of the Universe is not the only variable that determines whether there is life out there. How many other planets could support life? If there is other life somewhere out there, is it intelligent? Is it near enough to us that we could ever make contact? In 1961 American astrophysicist Frank D. Drake devised a simple equation that could determine whether extraterrestrial intelligence is possible.

The equation is made up of seven variables, each of which represents an unknown quantity. When combined, they produce an estimate of the number of civilizations we might be able to make contact with in our galaxy. 

Here’s a breakdown of all the factors: In the Milky Way, stars form at a rate of R*. Some (fp) of those stars have planets, but a smaller percentage (ne) of those planets are capable of supporting life, and an even smaller percentage (f1) of those actually develop at least basic life. A fraction (fi) of those planets with any life may develop intelligent life. And of those intelligent life forms, an even smaller fraction (fc) will have the technology to communicate with us. The final factor in the Drake equation accounts for how long (L) these intelligent, technologically advanced civilizations will exist before they self-destruct or otherwise disappear. 

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Anonymity

By Madeleine Kando

Historically, there are many reasons to be ‘anonymous’. It guarantees free speech by protecting the individual from persecution. Many famous writers and thinkers wrote under a pseudonym. Voltaire’s real name was François-Marie Arouet. Additionally, less savory occupations required people to be anonymous: the executioner at the guillotine is hooded. The bank robber or thief covers his face with a black ski mask. Kuklux Klan members wear hoods to hide their identity.

But how do you interact with someone who does not have an identity? If a person rings your doorbell and starts a conversation, it is normal to expect some kind of response. But would you react differently if that person were wearing a ski mask?

In the online world, there are three ways to identify a user: 1)    by its identity, i.e. his name and possibly other identifying facts. 2)    By using a pseudonym: the user’s true identity is masked, but not impossible to trace. 3)    As anonymous. The user’s true identity is masked, such that any actions by that user cannot be traced to a person.

Posting under your own identity makes you accountable for what you write. Even writing under a pseudonym, without being held personally accountable, the writer has to maintain a consistent "identity". Anonymous however, falls beyond the term ‘accountability’, since there is no one to hold accountable.

Credibility: The more identity is revealed, the more credible the writing is. Kierkegaard had very little regard for anonymity: ‘An anonymous author by the help of the press (read: internet) can day by day find occasion to say whatever he pleases to say, and what perhaps he would be very far from having the courage to say as an individual; that every time he opens his mouth he at once is addressing thousands of thousands; that he can get ten thousand times ten thousand to repeat after him what he has said—and with all this nobody has any responsibility.’

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A Time Jump?

Tom Kando 

It’s been a stressful period. Most people would probably agree. My desire is that we can resume our lives and return to some degree of normalcy and harmony. Let us also continue to hope for the best, for America and for the world. 

For now, I present this brief anecdote, in an attempt to provide some levity and some entertainment. This experience did truly happen: 

I recently had an experience which curiously seemed to be a case of time travel..I dreamed something which happened later. This happened a few weeks ago: 

One morning, when I got up at my usual time, I could remember a few details of a dream I had just had that night: I had dreamed about Tom Jones, the famous Welsh sixties popular singer. I only remembered one thing about this dream: Tom Jones was singing his famous 1965 song “It’s not unusual” 

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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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