The Intruders

by Madeleine Kando

I sometimes envy my mother. She is as deaf as a doornail, but what do you expect at her age? She is going to be 103 in a few months. At least she has a permanent acoustic guard on duty, although barring entrance to any sound might be too much of a good thing. It’s different for me. Short of wearing earplugs or buying an expensive noise-cancelling headset, I am exposed to all sorts of unwelcome acoustic intruders.

Noises are part of living, you’ll say and suggest I see a shrink instead of waste your time writing about my predicament. You might conclude that I am suffering from ‘misophonia’**, the hatred of sound. But I am not averse to sounds in general; I forgive sounds that cannot help being sounds, like the sound of traffic, or police sirens. And I couldn’t live without music. Read more...

The Casanova of the Pyrenees

by Madeleine Kando

Pyros (Greek for ‘fire’), a.k.a. ‘the Stud’

Species: Ursus Arctos (a.k.a. Grizzly)

Pyros is a 500-pound alpha bear, born in Slovenia. He was relocated to the Pyrenees in 1997 as part of an effort to bring back the bear population. Hunters killed the last remaining native bear, a female called Cinnamon, so two Slovenian bears, Ziva and Mellba, both already pregnant were brought in, followed by the dominant male Pyros.

Pyros saw, came and boy, did he conquer. He sired over 30 little boy and girl Pyros and is still going strong as a geriatric bear at the ripe old age of 29.

Sponsored by French actor Gerard Depardieu (no relation to Pyros, appearances notwithstanding) he has become a symbol of virility. Spanish Pyros fans started a Twitter account under his name identifying him as the “father of all the bears” and the French call him “the stud of the Pyrenees”. Read more...

On Phobias, Philias and other Etymologies

by Tom Kando

Like most people, I have some phobias, as well as a number of philias: This means that there are things which I like, and things which I dislike. Duh.

Etymologically, the words we use for people’s (pathological) likes and dislikes (or fears), usually contain the postfixes “-phobia” and “-philia,” or the prefix “mis-.”

These are derived from Greek:
Phobos: Fear
Philia: (Brotherly) Love
Misos: Hatred

For example: Philadelphia: The City of Brotherly Love:
Philos = Friend
Adelphos = Brother
Read more...

Did the Democratic Party Forsake the Middle Class?

by Madeleine Kando

In his new book ‘Listen, Liberal or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People’, author Thomas Frank (‘What's the Matter with Kansas?) points out that the Democratic Party’s historical role of protecting the working middle class has all but vanished. Since the 80’s, many policies implemented by both Republican and Democratic administrations have hugely benefited the ‘professional class’ as well as the ‘business class’. By ‘professional class’ Frank refers to affluent professionals, lawyers, doctors, investment specialists, etc. This class is very liberal in a cultural sense, but very conservative economically.

The shift in policy in the Democratic Party came after George W. Bush’s victory, when the ‘New Democrats’ tried to be centrist by combining right-wing economic policy with left-wing social policy, which they called the ‘Third Way’.

Frank is especially harsh on Bill Clinton. He was the prototypical New Democrat. He signed the NAFTA agreement, deregulated Wall Street and ‘reformed’ Welfare by putting pressure on the unemployed. Barak Obama continued this trend, trying to fast track the TTP and, although he put the Healthcare Bill into law, Big Pharma and the insurance companies are still in control of health insurance. Read more...

A Century's Worth of Living (Part 3)

by Madeleine Kando

My mother Ata sleeps a lot. She is often in pain because of some nerve damage in her feet, but is happy that I have come all the way from Boston to visit her. It is peaceful here in Bergen. Ata lives in an assisted living abutting the 'polders', vast meadows where sheep, horses and cows share the lush, green grass. The enormous sky dwarfs this flat landscape; I have stepped into a Vermeer painting, the church steeples and windmills dotting the low hanging horizon.

I am trying to come to terms with Ata's life ending soon. Part of my life will also come to an end and I don't know how to separate the two. Soon, I will no longer come to Holland. I will no longer sleep in this little guest room, waiting for the day to break while the smell of cow manure, the cawking of the seagulls, the muffled sound of a truck on its morning delivery mingle in the air. It will all be as faded as the photographs that hang on Ata's walls.

Visiting my mother has always been an intense experience. With all that moving from country to country, she has managed to always bring the family past with her. There are so many boxes where I find pieces of myself, boxes stuffed with old letters, drawings, poems and of course, photographs. Read more...

A Century's Worth of Living _ part 2

by Madeleine Kando

Soon, I will go to Holland for another visit to Ata, my soon to be 103 year old mother. If I am lucky, she will still be able to see my face, probably only the outlines, but her memories will fill in the blanks. She has had enough practice, taking pictures of her children in her long career as a photographer. Her most beautiful photographs are those of her three children. We were her surrogate models, since there was never any money for professionals.

Since I left Holland and the circle of photographers to which my mother belonged, I have always looked forward to my visits and the inevitable submersion into the world of photography. Bookshelves full of the most amazing photography books, boxes and boxes full of slides, negatives, contacts and prints. It felt like I was given the key to a candy store with no limits to how much I could gulp down. This is what I remember as the child of a photographer: a world of art that has shaped who I am. Ata was driven by a need to create and she used us, her children as the clay. Read more...

A Century's Worth of Living

by Madeleine Kando

(The following is part of a longer essay, in honor of my mother and her incredible life story, still in the making as of this writing)

My mother's name is Ata. She was named after Attila the Hun, the fierce 5th century warrior, nicknamed 'the Scourge of God', whose descendants founded Hungary. She was born in Budapest in 1913, at a time when the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its capital Vienna were the center of culture and art. Budapest, the Empire's second capital, rivaled Vienna in intellectual and artistic life and my mother was born smack in the middle of it all. Her own parents, both intellectuals, made sure she received a top notch education, which included learning Greek and Latin, Mathematics, Physics and Biology.

Ata looks nothing like Attila the Hun and were it not for her beautiful wrinkled face, framed by a thick mane of silver white hair, her tiny, fragile frame could be that of a small child. She has a hunchback, inherited from my grandfather, which makes it difficult for her to maintain her balance without her cane. She will celebrate her 103rd birthday soon, although she says she would rather be 102 forever. Read more...

The Oregon Standoff: Robin Hoodism in Reverse

by Madeleine Kando

The image of the American West is known all over the world, with its vast one open spaces, where the buffalo used to roam, where much of the land is not yet touched by human hands. You can tell how much of this country is still wild when you fly cross-country, when hours go by before you see a town or a road. It is truly a magnificent country.

But all this beauty is now being threatened. Although it is not new, the movement to push the federal government to hand over to the states millions of acres of public land is growing **. The recent Bundy Militia Standoff in Oregon, which got out of hand and resulted in the death of Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, is a good example of how some Americans hate public land.

The Federal Government owns 28% percent of the land area of the United States. It used to own all of it, of course, when it was acquired in purchases (the Louisiana Purchase), conquests (Mexican Cession), or simply taken from the Native Indians. Read more...

Of Eggs and Chickens

by Madeleine Kando

Today was another gorgeous Indian summer day with the smell of fall in the air. The streets will soon be covered with a thick layer of multi-colored leaves, helping the soil to replenish itself in the woods and the yards.

It was a perfect day for a stroll down the street to the local Farmer's Market where I go every week, hunting for pasture-raised eggs for my husband. I myself, am an eggtotateler because I can no longer ignore the horrors of factory farmed chickens.

This time I saw a booth with 2 large posters. On the right, a picture of a flock of red chickens posing for the camera, in a vast green pasture. An identical photograph of a green pasture on the left was filled with white chickens, all happily prancing about. I knew before I read the captions that the red chickens were 'layers' and the white ones' broilers'.

The farm stand sold eggs for $6 for a dozen. You can call this either a steal or a rip-off, depending on your point of view, but I could live with the idea of paying 50 cents for an egg, knowing how much time and effort it took that red chicken to lay it. As I took out my wallet, I asked the lady how many chickens she had on this local organic farm of hers. About 1700, she said. Read more...

To Russia with Love

by Tom Kando

Lately, our analytics indicate that we are getting thousands of hits from Russia. We are also getting hits from many other countries - China, Australia, all over Europe, etc. But for some reason, Russia is suddenly surpassing every other country, including the US. I have no idea why, but it’s fine with me.

So I want to welcome Russians, and let them know how I feel about their country, their people, their culture: In four words: respect, admiration, sympathy and ambivalence.

I grew up with Russian culture and people around me: In World War Two, the Red Army invaded my country of birth - Hungary - and kicked Hitler out. In the process, they requisitioned the house by Lake Balaton where we had taken refuge, and we cohabited with several wild Russian soldiers. I was four years old. I remember the soldiers taking apart, showing me and letting me play with their guns. I also remember many of them dying atrociously in the lake’s icy water.
Read more...