Diet And Fasting

By Madeleine Kando

Most people are disappointed when they give up a diet. They feel that they have failed somehow. But they don’t realize that every day of their diet, their body has had one extra day of r and r. They have given their stomach a well needed rest.

Could it be that our modern-day obsession with dieting serves as a replacement for the regular fasting and other restrictions of food intake that many religions practiced in the past, and some still do. A Mormon fasts on a regular basis and does not feel like a failure when the period of fasting is over. He goes back to regular eating with a sense of accomplishment. A new beginning, if you will. It has been a period of cleansing and purification.So, why not consider dieting, even if it is for a short period of time, a success? Why do we feel like a failure when we stop our diet? I say: diet as much or as little as you want, and take each dieting day at a time. Consider each day a success story.

I have gotten into the habit of fasting every 3 months or so. Just not eating for a while. I mean, we take a break from work, from exercise, from almost everything that we do on a daily basis. So why not take a break from eating? Eating is a very energy consuming activity. If you are serious about eating you have to think about what to buy so you can plan your meal, cook your meal, eat your meal, do the dishes, usually put the leftovers away.. my, what a chore. Wouldn’t it be a relief to take a break from all that?
And, not to be too blunt about it, but not eating is really giving your stomach a well-needed rest. I know, some of your organs are meant to work non-stop from the day you were born to the day you die: you cannot expect your heart to go on a vacation, or your liver to stop doing it’s job. But your stomach.. well, your stomach does need periods of rest. At night for instance. The problem is that stomachs are so overworked these days with our hectic life style and all, they don’t get a chance to fully rest. So that’s why they need to be sent to rehab once in a while.

If we could have a heart to heart with our stomach, the conversation would go something like this:
You: ‘Hey stomach, how you doin today?’
Stomach: ‘Oh, I don’t know, I’m really stressed out you know. Had a double shift yesterday. Your midnight snack really did me in. Couldn’t punch out till 1 am!’
You: ‘Oh, wow. That’s bad. You must really be exhausted.’
Stomach: ‘Yeah. I hear that I am in for a real whammer tomorrow too. Aren’t we going to a conference where there is a free buffet?!’.
You: ‘Yes, sorry about that. I feel bad for you. Anything I can do to help?’
Stomach: ‘Now that you mention it.. could you hold off on the hot sauce tomorrow? And maybe cut back on the french fries a little? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it without a serious doze of antacid.’

Gosh, you wouldn’t do that kind of thing to your worst enemy. Let alone your OWN stomach. But stomachs don’t complain until the damage is fairly serious. Heartburn, colitis, ibs..

So, not only do we need to give our stomachs a little break but another benefit of fasting is the time you free up by not worrying about food. Religious fasting frees up time for praying. I happen to be agnostic, so praying is not in the cards for me, but I am free to smell the roses, go for a walk, read more. . .

But the best part about fasting or dieting is knowing that soon you will be eating again. Trust me, eating after a fast or a diet ranks way up there with winning the lottery, having great sex or seeing President Bush enjoy a long-overdue and well-deserved retirement.

Why don’t you give it a try?
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Pronouns

By Tom Kando

Do you realize that some pronouns are nicer than others? Think of their usage in informal conversations, in speeches, in newspaper articles, or in any other context.

You are having dinner with friends and you chit-chat. About the weather, the presidential election, your hometown basketball team, a guest’s new job, the children’s college graduation, a recent trip someone took, whatever. For example, you ask, “hey John, are you planning any trips this holiday season?” I
John starts his answer with, “I....” - as in “well, Tom, I’m flying to Hawaii for ten days next month. I own property on several of the outer islands...”
Someone else butts in and says, “I can’t stand Hawaii. I think it’s a phony tourist trap.” So here we have bragging (which can cause gagging), self-importance, and opinionated negativity.

Another example: you and a buddy may be discussing politics or sports, for example the economic crisis, or the likely Superbowl finalists. He’ll say, “I find the federal bail-out plan a crock,” or “I’m sure that New England can only get to the Superbowl by cheating...” Again, use of the word “I” is associated with asinine behavior.
More often than not, the pronoun “I” is annoying!

YOU
What about “you”? At a stoplight, someone may say, “Hey you! Whatchya doing driving that big gas guzzler?” or a colleague may say “you always talk too fast. Why are you so uptight?” People who talk to someone and begin with “you” are often meddling, criticizing, opinionating, bloviating.
“You” can also often be a drag.

THEY and THEM
What about “they” and “them”? Like in: “Guess what they do, in Saudi Arabia? They cut off thieves’ hands.”
Or “those damn immigrants, we should send them all back to where they came from. They bring nothing but trouble.”
When we talk about “them,” we often generalize about an out-group, and it is frequently to make prejudiced, stereotypical and negative pronouncements about “the other,” those who are not like “us” and who don’t belong with us. We don’t usually say nice things about them.
“They” and “them” are often not so nice, either.

HE and SHE
“He” and “she”? Maybe talking about an individual third person is less harmful than generalizing to entire out-groups, although negative gossip is also bad.
“He” and “she” might be okay, depending.

US and OURS
How about “Us”and “ours”? As in “leave us alone,” or “our music is the best.”
“Us” and “ours” can be awfully exclusionary, which is annoying.

WE
Last but not least, “we”: Your friend says, “we should get together for dinner and go out to see a movie.” Or a leader says “we, the American people, should help each other through this crisis.”
Or my wife and I remind each other that “we” love each other.
Yes, “we” can often be good. It is a lot better than “I,” and it can also be better than “us.” It’s probably the best pronoun.
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The Arts in a Child's Life

By Madeleine Kando

Children start life with the potential to absorb information and learn skills of many different kinds: they can learn how to dance, talk, think, build things, play music, act (pretend) and much more.

In school, however, the emphasis is on ‘academics’, the three ‘R’s”. But we forget that children are multi-faceted in their ability and desire to learn. Even though schools will not admit this, learning does not even have to involve language. A child might tell you an endless story about what happened to them that day, but others would rather move and show you with gestures. Yet another child will draw a picture and still others will build something with a lego set to express their experience.Unfortunately, after a child enters school a lot of that rich caleidoscope is parked in the basement. Only language (writing and reading) and counting matters. I wonder how many children are left behind because they just happen to be weak in ‘verbal intelligence’?

But what is the value of a factual thought without this rich caleidoscope? Just an interesting oddity if you ask me. Yes, I am smart: I know that 2 green apples and 2 red apples make 4 apples. But what makes it interesting is whether red apples taste better than green apples. Or trying to stack 2 red and 2 green apples. Maybe drawing 2 green apples and 2 red apples.? Or carving a green apple..

Once you start applying imagination and creativity, your factual thinking about apples becomes transformational. Thinking about how to juggle apples, how they taste, how they look.. that is what the Arts are all about. And the Arts are not truly concerned about the mind. They tap into our emotions and our senses. Our taste, smell, vision and hearing.

Education that thinks that the ‘senses and emotions’ are not important in the learning process is doomed to fail. Not only are the Arts an extension of our senses, but they are like flashlights that illuminate other academic subjects. The Arts gives meaning to knowledge.

Aside from the fact that many children have intelligences that do not get addressed in a society that does not value the Arts in their educational system, the children who DO excel in those types of intelligences, i.e. verbal/mathematical, miss out on developing their other types of intelligences: kinesthetic, visual, musical and spatial.

A trapeze artist at the Cirque du Soleil who dazzles us with their triple somersaults on a tight rope. The gymnast balancing on one hand on 20 stacked chairs: are they not ‘intelligent’? Does their ability to use their ‘kinesthetic intelligence’ not border on genius? Martha Graham once said: ‘If I could say it I wouldn’t have to dance it.’

The problem might lie in the use of the word ‘Art’. It usually means an art ‘product’: a painting, a sculpture, a sonata. Yet ‘the arts’ are more than anything else a product of creative thinking. It involves problem solving and critical judgment. The process of creating a work of art is where the true value lies. Without The Arts in a child’s life knowledge is bland, like a dish without salt. Soon that child will loose interest and turn into one more ‘drop out’. Let’s listen to our children and tap into their ‘multiple’ intelligences. That is where the true success of education is to be found.

Some of the information contained in this article is based on reading the following :Boston Public Schools As Arts-Integrated Learning Organizations by Eric Oddleifson, Chairman CABC
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Take it With a Grain of Salt …

By Madeleine Kando

It is hard these days to do the right thing to stay healthy. Every time you think you know what’s good for you, some study comes along and says that what you thought was good for you is either bad, not enough or will downright kill you.

Amongst many other things, we are told to eat more fish to get enough vitamin D, take up dancing to avoid Alzheimer’s disease and drink at least 8 glasses of water a day to flush out toxins.I happen to like fish, so for me that’s not a problem, and I run a dance studio, so if they are right I will probably die of something other than Alzheimer. But the water.. well, it makes me pee too much and I confess that I have not kept up with the ‘8 glasses of water a day’ advise. So, if they are right, I will start shriveling up like an old apple soon. I just cannot afford to leave my pre-school ballet classes every 5 minutes to go to the loo. It would be like letting the lions loose in a zoo. So I was relieved to hear that some doctors are now saying that drinking too much poses a far greater health risk than not enough.

But what makes us so gullible to all this so-called ‘expert’ advice? Are we all so insecure that we don’t trust our own judgement?

Could it have to do with fear? Fear of the big IF word? “IF I do this I will be safe from that.” “IF I drink 8 glasses of water a day I will be healthy and able to run a marathon.” This kind of reasoning reminds me of Sarah, one of my 3 year old ballet students. She barged into the studio one day beaming: “I am going to dance real good today, Miss Madeleine. I am wearing my tutu.”

There is a saying in the French language: ‘Avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille. (“With ifs you could put Paris in a bottle”. Also known as "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.") In fact, every country has one of those expressions to denote the IF word. Here is one from Canada: “Si ma tante en avait, on l’appellerait mon oncle” (If my aunt had any we would call her my uncle).

Think about it. If the word ‘IF’ didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be any way to experience fear. Anything you can describe with an ‘IF’ expression is not real. If something is already happening you have other things on your mind then thinking: ‘what IF this car wasn’t about to hit me?’ The car IS about to hit you and you can bet your sweet bippy that you would sprint out of the car’s way, unless you are suicidal of course.

So whenever you hear of another study that is proving your ‘staying healthy strategy’ wrong, take my advice: just wait a little while. Hold off on the fish, the water, the dancing. Soon another study will come along and prove the exact opposite of what the ‘experts’ are telling you today.

The best advise regarding your health is this: take everything coming from ‘experts’ with a grain of salt.
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Lekker Puh (Dutch for 'You cannot have it, so there!')

by Madeleine Kando

I am about to leave Holland to go back to America, wondering how I feel about my most recent visit to my Vaterland. It's been educational.

As usual I have a constant feeling of being an outside observer with a fairly critical eye tainted with subjectivity since I grew up here and have many complex emotional bonds to this clean, well-organized, little country. I like its physical beauty, the impressive vistas of bright green pasture dotted with cows, sheep and church steeples. The gorgeous farm houses with their thatched roofs. The immense Dutch sky that is so typical of Holland with its ever changing colors and texture. Yes, it is a very special place. Visually.And then there are the Dutch. If only there weren't so many of them. If only there were a few that are not so... Dutch. So lacking in imagination and a sense of adventure. I would like to meet some Dutch people who don't constantly live by the rules, who show some humor, some ability to improvise. Although the Dutch have been good to us, the Kando clan, I am constantly confronted with their unlimited capacity to conform and their total inability to think and act outside the box. And let's not forget generosity. The Dutch are generous politically, they have harbored refugees for centuries, but when it comes to small, everyday affairs, it is as if the Dutch are suffering from a split personality. They turn from Dr. Jekyl into Mr. Hyde.

As a tourist I have often experienced something I'd like to call the "lekker puh" mentality of the Dutch. By this, I mean the subtitle, above, or something like this: "Haha, I got something you want, but you can't have it. Not because it would cost me anything if I gave it to you, but because it's so much more fun to just say 'No"."
In other words, a childish impulse which most of us enjoyed up to age 6 or 7.

The lekker puh policy originated in a small establishment that actually goes by that name: the "Lekker Puh" cafe in the small village of Groet: all you need to do is ask for some extra hot water for your tea and the "lekker puh" policy is triggered automatically: '"we don't have to give you extra hot water for your tea, lekker puh."

But the "lekker puh" policy has become very popular in other establishments throughout Holland. I have had the privilege of experiencing this policy in places as far removed from each other as the Northern Province of Holland and even on some of the islands off the coast of this beautiful country. You only have to ask for some extra lemon wedges for your tea in Camperduin, a small beach resort in the Northern Province, and immediately the "lekker puh" policy goes into effect: 'we don't have to give you an extra lemon wedge for your tea, lekker puh.’

Even on the remote island of Vlieland the "lekker puh" policy is in full swing. At the famous Golden Tulip Hotel where we booked a room for 2 guests, you could find the lekker puh policy in action: "'we don't have to give you two bars of soap, you can share one, lekker puh'."

Unfortunately I am leaving tomorrow, back to America. If I could stay I could give you more examples of this very popular practice. I forgot to mention all the times that I had to wipe my fingers on my coat sleeves after I had squeezed the minuscule lemon wedges into my cup of tea, for want of napkins. This was so prevalent throughout Holland's horeca industry that I finally ended up carrying napkins of my own. I knew that the next cafe I would visit, the lekker puh policy would be implemented: "'we don't have to give you a napkin, lekker puh". In fact, I suspect that the "lekker puh" policy is one of the reasons Holland is so affluent. Compared to the United States, where napkins, cups of hot water, bars of soap are not rationed like food coupons during a famine, Holland must have saved millions of dollars by not giving those items out freely to whomever dares to ask for them. Is there a lesson to be learned for us naive Americans? Should we adopt Holland's "lekker puh" practice? You tell me.
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Homeland Security in Action

By Madeleine Kando

My flight back was uneventful and actually went by fast. I was sitting next to a real big guy and originally thought, 'just my luck. I am sitting next to a meat head who is going to hog the arm rest for the next 7 hours'. But we started to chat and he turned out to be very interesting to talk to.

He was in law enforcement and had been a soldier in Operation Desert Storm. He lived in a small town in Western Massachusetts and had grown up in Vermont. He was returning from a 5-day visit to Amsterdam to meet some old army buddies. Read more...

The 'Duh Test

by Madeleine Kando

The older I get the more I am confronted with the problem of finding enough time to read, listen to and watch the enormous amount of information we are all confronted with over our media tools: t.v., radio, papers and the internet. There is nothing wrong with information per se, but when there is too much of it, it tends to become toxic. I mean too much information is like too much rain: some of it is good for plants, too much of it will drown them and make them rot.In other words, we are suffering from information overload. One sure sign of information overload is one’s inability to produce the appropriate emotional response to information. Here is an example: I am driving my car, listening to NPR. The newscaster informs me that serial killer X has just eaten the cut up remains of his latest victim. Without interruption, the same voice continues to inform me that we might expect some rain within the next 24 hours. I don’t bat an eye. Just waiting for the next bit of news. THAT is a true indication of ‘information overload’. I am suffering from the toxic fumes of too much information.

So I thought it might be useful to devise a test. This test will help us, poor saps, who are subject to this endless torrent of information, to protect us, like an umbrella if you will.

Here is an example of the test, which I have named the ‘duh test’.Information:‘SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH’.

Answer this information with the test: ‘well … duh!’If the information does not pass the test, scrap that information.

Don’t you find yourself often listening or watching programs that pretty much state the obvious? Even certain books that are on the best-seller’s list would not pass my ‘duh test’. Although I admit, if a book is well-written the writing itself makes up for the content. One such book is ‘In Defense of Food’ by Michael Pollan. Yes, the content of the book does not pass the test. I have known since I was 10 years old that vegetables are good for you. That lucky charms are bad for you. But it helps to have someone who writes so well reiterate my belief for me. So, in this case the ‘duh test’ is an affirmation. Meaning: ‘see, I was right all along’.

I highly recomment this test to you. It will save numerous hours of staring at the boob tube or ruining your eyes in front of your computer. Every time you read or watch something, say that mantra: ‘well.. duh’. The time saved by applying this simple test could be applied to going for a walk with your dog, planting your garden or wondering what you will make for dinner.
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About European versus American education

By Madeleine Kando and Tom Kando

The other day a Dutch friend asked me what 'M.Ed.' stands for, because I sent a letter to IFAW about mother's book and I signed it with Madeleine Kando, M.Ed. So this is what I wrote back:

There are three levels of higher education in the US:
(1): BA and BS (Bachelor of Arts or Science).
(2): MA, MS and MEd (Master of Arts or Science or Education) and
(3): Ph.D. and Ed.D. (Doctor of Philosophy or Education).

A bit like in the old days in Holland, when you had a Kandidaats, a Doctoraal, etc. Typically, it takes 4 years to achieve the first of these levels - the BA - so if you graduate from High School at eighteen, as most kids do, you can expect to get a BA or a BS at 22, if you apply yourself and daddy pays all your bills.

"College" basically refers to this four-year education, and it is also called "undergraduate" education. In America, therefore, the Baccalaureate refers to this four-year degree which you receive four years beyond high school , whereas the European Baccalaureat (le "bachot" in France, for example), refers to your High School degree, at eighteen. To make things even more complicated, the word "University" in the US can include a 4-year college but more properly refers to institutions that offer the more advanced degrees of MA and Ph.D. Read more...

About Madeleine Kando

Madeleine Kando , MEd, is a Registered Movement Therapist and a graduate of Lesley College. Ms. Kando was educated in France and Holland. She holds a degree in Linguistics from the University of Utrecht and speaks four languages fluently. She is the author of 'Playing with Language'  and has written various articles on bilingual education. She is the founder and director of The SmartStars Program, a Creative Arts Program for young children.

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About Us

This is a Political/Social Blog. It offers opinions on current political/social issues as well as more general topics. We are both long-time residents of the United States but we were raised and educated both in Europe and the US . We enjoy comparing the cultures and social norms of the two continents. Occasionally, we will sound opinionated, even biased. We welcome your comments and your opinions, whether they agree with ours or not. Happy reading.

Madeleine Kando is a Registered Movement Therapist and a graduate of Lesley College. Ms. Kando was educated in France and Holland. She holds a degree in Linguistics from the University of Utrecht and speaks four languages fluently. She is the co-author of 'Playing with Language' and has written various articles on bilingual education. She is the founder and director of The SmartStars Program, a Multiple Intelligences Language Program.
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Tom Kando is a retired professor of sociology and an author. He has always worn two hats - that of the professional academic sociologist and that of the creative author. As the former, he has produced dozens of scholarly, refereed research articles and books. As the latter, he has written several novels, essays and articles, even publishing his own newspaper. Tom enjoys exploring topics relating to social psychology, marriage and family life, criminology, politics and social issues. To read samples of his work, please visit his Personal Publications and Professional Publications pages.

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