Where Did Max Go?

by Madeleine Kando

Our little dog Max died. His little body has turned to ashes. He is in a little box which we will get today in the mail. We will bury him next to his brother Remy, under the dogwood tree that we planted in the yard, just for them.

But where did the rest of Max go? The intelligence and curiosity in his beautiful brown eyes, his desire to be scratched on his back, his excitement when he knew we were going to go for a walk in the woods? Are those things going to arrive in the mail too? These questions have haunted me since Max died.

Could it be that max’s existence has actually physically changed the neuron cells in my brain? That they have been imbued with a little maxness while he was living with us? So in that sense max is living beyond his own physical self. In me, in Karein, in Hans, in all the people who knew him and loved him. All the people he made so happy in the course of his life.

To Plato, the greatest philosopher of all times, ideas are more real than the thing they represent. Or at least more durable. To him Max would have been subordinate to the idea of Max. But ideas cannot feel, enjoy, suffer.. that is what the physical entity has the power to do. And once that is gone..

The idea of us follow us around, like elongated shadows on the ground. Max’s shadow is still here, when I go to the forest, when I feed my cat, when I walk by his favorite couch. His shadow will remain, maybe fade a little after a while.

I so want to believe in the permanency of Max’s shadow. It wouldn’t diminish the sense of loss I feel from the loss of his physical body. His wagging tail, the color of his fur, his big chihuahua ears. His ability to make us all so happy, just by being Max.

But what am I babbling about? Max is gone. He is truly gone. Max cannot enjoy the fall leaves any more. He cannot enjoy chasing the mailman. He cannot enjoy eating, sleeping, peeing. I, at least, can still enjoy the idea of Max. I can mourn the idea of Max, but Max cannot feel anything any more. That is the truly sad part. The IDEA of one’s self is a gift to others, but the actual self, since it just IS, once it isn’t any more, it’s gone for good. leave comment here Read more...

Food: the Fallen Angel

by Madeleine Kando

I like to eat. I like to drink. I also like to not eat. Not eating is what we do most of the day, but to the people who make a living at selling food that is potentially dead time. They would like it if we spent more of that dead time eating. I watch programs about the ‘food industry’ and how they supposedly have got us all by the balls. They stuff their products with taste enhancing chemicals that would make an old leather shoe taste good.

They add bright colors, sweet smelling aromas, soft texture (who wants to have to chew their food!) and many addictive substances. How can you blame them? That’s what they do: they want us to spend more time eating and work less hard doing it.

But eating what exactly? Food in my opinion is something that you have prepared, not something that you find in a package. That to me, is pretend-food. Pseudo-food. Play-food. In fact, there is a whole trend called ‘edible crafts’. It is very popular amongst pre-school teachers, using food to create art projects.

Imagine for a moment that the food you buy these days would be air. Air comes in different flavors: you have hospital air, sub-way air, mountain air, pine forest air, latrine air..

Luckily our capacity to discriminate between the foul air of a latrine and the air we breathe on a mountain top is still intact. We would not put up with our environment being filled with latrine air. We would leave and live somewhere else. We would organize protest marches, design air filters… anything to revert back to the original ‘normal air’. 

What I am saying is this: what happened to our ability to distinguish between food and pretend-food? Yes, it’s true. Sugar, corn starch, caffeine, msg.. they are all addictive. But so are succulent pears, camembert, ripe melons.. (You might call me crazy, bu I myself, am addicted to sesame seeds and sweet rice, I kid you not).

Nobody forces us to buy coke, oreo cookies, lucky charms.. It would be a lot cheaper if we took more personal responsibility for what we put in our mouth. But that would not be good for the ‘anti-food industry’ industry. The experts who make a living at telling us what not to eat.

Food has become our enemy. It used to be our guardian angel. It protected us against death. Now the angel has tumbled down, has been trampled on, its white wings broken, dirty, unable to lift itself out of the gutter. And looking down on this fallen angel, with a smirk on their faces are fear, gluttony and ignorance. leave comment here Read more...

The Joy of Biking

By Tom Kando

Sometimes it’s good to write about something fun (in contrast to politics) :

I used to run marathons, but when my knees and I got old, I switched to road biking. Now, I go out several times a week for anywhere between 35 to 65 miles, including some excellent climbs in the Gold Country east of Sacramento, i.e. the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. (I also bike in Hawaii, as shown in the picture).I love it.

Today was no exception. I first hit the American River bike trail, just a few hundred yards from our house. After six miles, it starts uphill, on its way to Folsom Lake. There, I take Green Valley Road. This is a beautiful road with several 2 and 3-mile climbs, winding its way up to maybe 2000 feet elevation. It was a sunny, crisp winter day, clear blue sky. You ride up a small valley with a mountain brook at the bottom, torrential and brimful at this time. Sometimes a deer or a coyote crosses the road. Very little traffic, no people. Pine trees and ranch land. About 15 miles up the road you come through Rescue. It calls itself a town, but it’s just a fire station and a grocery store.

Whether you do a loop or return the way you came, riding down is a blast. During the climb up, I average less than 10 miles an hour, but on the way down, I exceed 40. Nothing beats the exhilaration of the wind rushing by your ears, as you approach the speed of an occasional car.

Today, something interesting happened on the way down: For the last ten miles, you rejoin the American River bike trail. This is a 33-mile trail that drops 500 feet from near Folsom Lake to downtown Sacramento. It’s used by hundreds of bikers and runners every day.

Last year, on one of my descents, I was suddenly passed by the full Dutch Rabo team, who shot by me in perfect formation at vertiginous speed, wearing their orange uniforms. It was the day before the Tour of California was to start in Sacramento, and they were on their last training run.

Today, I also experienced some exhilarating passing and jockeying for position, on my way down. A group of hotshots passed me on a short uphill. Uphill is really my weakness. Even women pass me on the uphill, for crying out loud! My excuse is that I only have a two-gear in front, but the reality is that I am in my late sixties.

But on the flat and in the downhill, I go all out. So I caught the hotshots and I passed them. Then they whizzed by me again. At one point, I was passing some tourist biker, and the leader of the hotshots passed me at the same time, hollering, “Left, Left!”

He shouldn’t have done that. He should have waited until I was done passing the tourist. We were tumbling down the hill at close to 40 miles an hour, three abreast, on an extremely narrow and curvy stretch, unable to see around the bend whether oncoming bikers were approaching.

After the last of the hotshots got by me, I gave chase and drafted for a couple of miles. This was on a beautiful flat part called Negro Bar, with a lake on your left and huge cliffs on your right. Somehow, I managed to pass the group, but then they came after me again. The same dude who had passed me three abreast before, once again started screaming “Left!” This time, I screamed back, “I can hear you!’

So then he became rude and said, “Then DO it!” I got a little pissed, and I said, “Hey, you were wrong back there, earlier!” But he was already hundred yards ahead of me, probably didn’t even hear me.

Then his buddies came by. They were friendlier, just smiling and saying, “we keep doing this.” (passing each other). Still grouchy, I told them that their leader shouldn’t have passed me the way he did earlier, while I myself was passing someone else. But things were going so fast, this probably also fell on deaf ears. Before I knew it, the group had dropped me and was vanishing in the distance.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. Great ride, great workout, and there was even a mild altercation to raise the adrenalin level. What more could I ask for? leave comment here Read more...

My Mattress Adventure

By Madeleine Kando

I cannot sleep any more. I wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat, heart pounding, mind racing. I have a problem, you see. I don’t know what to sleep on. I am sleeping on a futon, but futons get old, like we do. After 15 years of faithful service mine feels more like a solid piece of rock so I have to retire it. I have been searching for the perfect replacement and this is where my mattress adventure begins.

If you are in the market for a new mattress, you better be forewarned. You are entering the world of mattress shopping at your own risk. I strongly recommend arming yourself with a good bullshit detector, a strong will to survive and above all be prepared to spend countless hours sifting through a veritable deluge of brands, combinations, hype, and mostly false information given by eager salesmen.

Two months ago, when I was still a rookie mattress shopper, I thought: ‘No sweat, I’ll just go get me a good mattress. I heard the name ‘memory foam’ mentioned frequently, so off I went to one of the showrooms and started to look around. Whoah! I couldn’t believe the price-tag on some of those suckers. $2,000 and up? Who on earth wants to sleep on $2,000? So, then I asked the salesman what it would cost to just buy a piece of the mattress. Like maybe the top two inches or so. I don’t really need a club-sandwich to sleep on, I said. That was not possible, he told me, since the whole enchilada is meticulously put together. And he started to explain the function of each layer: air circulation, comfort zones, anti-gravity this, anti-allergy that...

I left the store in a state of total confusion, but I did not give up on my vision of the perfect mattress. So I started to surf the net, looking for my perfect matttress soul mate. I looked at latex mattresses, foam mattresses, memory foam mattresses.. but one’s price was too high, the other’s density was too low and the third’s environmental footprint was too big. Read more...

Are Countries with the Most Olympic Medals Morally Superior?

By Tom Kando

The Vancouver games are over. We won the most medals - 37. Here is a partial list, ranking the top 10 recipients:
1. US: 37
2. Germany: 30
3. Canada 26
4. Norway 23
5. Austria 16
6. Russia 15
7. South Korea 14
8. Sweden 11
9. China 11
10. France 11

Another 16 countries got medals, and 56 did not. I’ll skip an attempt to weigh gold, silver and bronze. For example, if we gave 3 points for every gold medal, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze, South Korea would rank #5, ahead of Austria and Russia.

I just want you to ponder the question in the title of this essay.

Right away you say, that’s a stupid question. Correct. It’s a rhetorical question. Which means that the answer is obvious. It is: “No!”

For one thing, were we to look at each country’s medals in proportion to population, the US haul comes out to one eighth of a medal per million population. In contrast, Norway won six medals for every million Norwegians. Austria, 2 per million, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia and God knows who else each won at least one medal per million people. So all these countries would be “better” than America, in a political and moral sense.

But as you already said, the question is idiotic. And you are right. Were I to ask my six-year old grand son whether the number of medals won by each country translates into the country’s “goodness” or badness,” he would probably laugh, understanding the question’s stupidity.

But here is my main point today: Equating Olympic success with a regime’s moral worth has been precisely what dozens of countries have done for decades! There was the USSR and such acolytes as East Germany. For years, those governments cheated and went all out in every possible way to stack the Olympic cards in their favor, to prove that Marxist society was superior. Isn’t that saying “yes” to the question in the title of my essay?

And I am sure that there are lots of people and governments today (China?) which still believe that Olympic prowess is an indicator of national worth and character. Pure chauvinism. So the silly question I asked in jest, is actually one which millions of people would answer in the affirmative.

I personally enjoyed the games a lot. I sometimes rooted for the US, sometimes for the Dutch skaters, sometimes for poor Hungary that didn’t get a single medal. But remember: the only thing that winning many medals means is: you won many medals. Nothing else. leave comment here Read more...

The Law of Entropy

by Madeleine Kando

Entropy means that something reverts back to chaos. The word ‘chaos’, in my mind, conjures up visions of a lot of random, wild activity. Chaos is the opposite of orderliness. According to the laws of physics, however, a maximum level of entropy means that something is in such perfect equilibrium, that nothing ever happens. Our universe is expanding and increasing in entropy. Eventually everything will be so spread out and so perfectly distributed that the universe will be frozen in stillness.

I look at the human body for instance. If it is in perfect physical balance,(right side is exactly equal to the left side weight distribution wise), the body stops moving. It is just there, like a piece of wood. You need imbalance to be able to move about. Try taking a step without shifting your weight and you’ll know what I mean. So perfect balance, perfect uniformity, perfect heat distribution inside a container.. we call that high entropy states? Mmmm.

My dog Max has very low entropy. While he is alive, he has a ‘Maxness’ about him. But when he expires, the ‘Maxness’ will be added to the high entropy soup from which we all came.

Even I am quickly approaching that high chaos state. I can feel my ‘Madeleine-ness’ starting to dissipate somewhat. Ten years ago my eyesight was perfectly organized to meet the demands of seeing my computer. Now that my eyes have higher entropy, I need low entropy glasses to be able to read the nonsense that I am typing.

Is this the fate of our species? If the rule applies to the entire universe, I am sure it applies to the human race as well. Take information, for instance. Not too long ago, in order to find some important information, I had to lug myself to the library, spend a good amount of time searching for a certain oeuvre, actually read the whole damn thing before I could say: ‘ah, now I have the answer to my question’.

Now I google ‘find me this’ and plouf, there are 500 entries on ‘find me this’, all proclaiming to be the authority on the subject. The problem is that the information is filtered, processed, changed, decoded, encoded, re-encoded… to such an extent that the final result is buried in irrelevant, ambiguous, complicated, cluttered, and overloaded garbage. (This essay is the exception, of course).

Ah, the good old days of low-entropy… where have they gone? Is this why we cannot seem to pass any reasonable health care bill? Obama’s proposal was a sound, ‘low entropy’ plan. In fact, it might have been too low-entropy, too organized, too complicated for our poor high-entropy muddled minds.

So, a word of warning: the longer we wait in doing anything, be it passing a health-care bill, reading important information before it morphs into useless high-entropy garbage (this blog is the exception, of course), or enjoying your low-entropy eye-sight, let’s do it soon. Let’s do it before Mr. high-entropy comes a-knocking and distributes every last ounce of low-entropy, evenly and fairly and makes it totally useless. leave comment here Read more...

Is the US Justice System the Envy of the World?

By Tom Kando
Recently, US Senator Patrick Leahy said that “the US Justice System is the Envy of the World” (in connection with the proposed trial of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York, which I favor, by the way, as does the Senator). But what he said about our (Criminal) Justice System? LOL!

Here are some other good ones I just thought of:

1. Dutch weather is the envy of the world.
2. French customer service is the envy of the world.
3. Italian drivers are the envy of the world.
4. German humor is the envy of the world.
5. Indian sports are the envy of the world.
6. British cuisine is the envy of the world.
7. Mexican technology is the envy of the world.
8. Russian public health is the envy of the world.
9. Brazilian punctuality is the envy of the world.
10. Saudi women are the envy of the world.

Well you get my drift. If you take offense at any of the above, feel free to poke fun at me. I am Hungarian, Jewish, Dutch, American and French, not necessarily in that order. leave comment here Read more...

The Debt: Armageddon.

By Tom Kando

The Federal Government’s debt is huge and growing. This is by far the most serious problem facing our country. Quite simply, it is going to kill America.

I have been playing Jeremiah about this for decades - long before Glenn Beck and the Tea Party coopted the issue. (See for example my piece, “The Federal Debt,” January 21, 1984 in my Politically Incorrect Sociology anthology at But who listens? The facts are clear:
1.The accumulated federal debt is now $13.5 trillion, i.e 90% of our GDP.

2. It is growing by over $1 trillion per year, which is nearly 10% of our GDP, and it is predicted to grow forever.

3. The government spends nearly 10% ($300 billion) to finance its debt. This will soon be a lot more, because (a) interest rates are currently abnormally low and (b) the debt is growing. In time, the entire budget could consist of interest payment. Would that be ridiculous or what?

It’s exactly like when you overuse your credit card and let the debt accumulate, instead of paying it off: You are in a vicious cycle and pretty soon, you spend most of your money on finance charges instead of groceries. You are getting poorer every month.

We hear a lot about Europe these days, which is said to be in fiscal trouble as well. Greece’s annual government deficit is 12.5% of its GDP. The morons on the right immediately interpret this as the consequence of too much European-style socialism. They don’t understand that Greece may be a sick baby, but that Greece is not Europe. The problem is not Socialism, it’s Greece. Greece has bad socialism. Germany has good socialism.

And we shouldn’t even point the finger at Greece. Greece may be sick, but so are we: Its deficit is 12.5% of GDP - barely worse than ours, which is 10%. Overall, Europe is in better shape than we are: At least it requires that no country’s annual deficit should exceed 3% of GDP. The continent has its weaklings, but it also has the strength of Germany, France, the Benelux, Scandinavia and others. Its financial future looks better than ours. We shouldn’t worry about descending to their level. We should worry about descending to the level of South American banana republics.

The unfathomable idiocy of Congress is that both Republicans and Democrats are committed to the final destruction of the country through terminal indebtedness. The Glenn Becks and John McCains of the world want to continue to reduce taxes, while the Democrats want the government to spend more than it collects.

The pundits predict only two scenarios: (1) default, and (2) inflate out of the debt. Both scenarios mean that we are on our way to becoming like Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and the rest of South America. A third scenario - growing out of the debt - is a chimera.

I have a better solution - the bitter pill which every private household has to swallow when it goes cold turkey and kicks the heroin-like addiction of over-borrowing: Temporarily Consume less and pay back your debt by setting aside more for that purpose:

The fed government rakes in $2.5 trillion in taxes per year. It achieves this by collecting about 17% of the population’s money. (Personal income taxes and Social Security taxes make up 80% of this, Corporate taxes only 13%).

If federal receipts were to rise by 80%, this would generate a surplus of 1 trillion per year. This amount would be sufficient to wipe out the entire deficit in 12 years. After that, taxes could be reduced enormously. There would be no further need for the annual $1 trillion surplus, and neither would the government have to burn up hundreds of billions of dollars every year to finance its debt.
The government’s budget would be balanced, smaller, and yet able to provide more services than ever before.

There are many forms of taxation through which federal receipts can be increased - income tax, VAT, sales tax, corporate tax, etc. This can easily be worked out. And of course, the enormous but temporary tax increase should be graduated. No one living on, say, under 25K a year should pay taxes, multi-millionaires’ taxes should rise by more than 80%, etc.

There are over 25 million households in the US that make more than 100K per year. And of course smaller numbers with much higher incomes. The taxes of all households making over 100K could increase by at least 80%, while those of much higher earners could be increased even more. The overall outcome would be an increase of federal tax receipts to 31% of GDP. The overall tax burden of Americans would then be comparable to that of the Europeans. Meanwhile - and this is essential - the government’s expenses should be frozen at current levels.
Nothing short of such a drastic measure will save the country.

To save the country and my grand-children’s world, I am prepared to pay 80% more in taxes than I pay now, for a decade or so, as long as you do, too. I won’t go to Europe and to Hawaii anymore. Maybe my wife and I can even live with just one car.

The federal deficit problem is not insurmountable. Our government still ran a surplus as recently as during the Clinton years. Then, the Bush administration screwed up everything - cutting taxes for the rich and waging unfunded wars. After that, the Great Recession caused by that administration required President Obama’ stimulus, another big expense.

Were we to implement my proposal, we could go back to living the way we did in the 1950s, within a few years. The withdrawal pains from addiction would be temporary. The alternative is Armageddon.
I know what you’ll say: Nothing like this will ever happen. I agree. Do you also agree with me, therefore, that America as we know it, will soon self-destruct? leave comment here Read more...

Is Greatness Accidental?

By Tom Kando

I often think about what leads to a country’s greatness or to its failure, and two cases that everybody always talks about are contemporary America and ancient Rome - both in terms of success and failure. Here are a few thoughts about this:The greatness of ancient Rome and 20th century America can both be attributed to great leadership and to accident. Failure, in turn, is the result of stupidity.

I don’t want to call America’s success “accidental,” but I do, a little bit. Let me explain:

Some societies are planned, and some mostly happen. Many of the former are disasters, while the latter sometimes luck out and grow into phenomenal successes. The USSR was a “planned community.” It disintegrated in less than eighty years. So was the Third Reich. Meant to live for a thousand years, it lasted thirteen. The French planned their revolution and Napoleon’s policies, while the British approach was more laissez-faire, and we know which of the two countries did better.

America has its founding fathers, its Declaration of Independence, its Constitution. Of course, all countries are based on some minimum blueprint, without which no organized society can exist. This minimum requirement does not guarantee greatness, only survival. America’s greatness is the consequence of many additional factors, namely timing, demography, geography, coincidence. To wit: the country arose at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This huge continent was an empty receptacle ready to capture millions of excess population from Europe. It was fertile and rich in resources, with only a small hostile indigenous population - unlike the other areas of the world colonized by Europeans.

The rhetoric about America being the fulfillment of either a divine plan, or that of the genius of the founding fathers, is ex post facto. Looking back in the late 20th century, we attribute the country’s success to the way it was planned at the outset. But that was only a small part. To be sure, the founding fathers were a genial bunch, but enlightened and intelligent leadership is no guarantee of success. Periclean Athens is only one example of failure despite such leadership.

The Roman Empire was another success story, for the same reasons. There too, geography, demography and luck enabled a people to develop into a powerful civilization. Another historical accident. It finally failed because in time its leaders became corrupt imbeciles, believing in superstitions and murdering each other instead of facing their common external enemies.

Here are some conclusions:
1. Enlightened leadership is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a country’s success.
2. Geography, demography and luck are just as important.
3. Planning can lead to failure as well as to success. Remember Robert Burns’ famous words, “the best laid schemes of mice and men...”
4. The only thing we have to fear is stupidity itself. That is what the Romans succumbed to, in the end. leave comment here Read more...

To Believe or Not to Believe, that is the Question

by Madeleine Kando

When I was growing up I believed in Santa. I always hoped that I would catch this sweet, jovial fellow in the act of coming down the chimney with a large bag slung over his big shoulder. He would wink at me, say ‘ho, ho, ho’, put lots and lots of presents under the tree and climb back up on his way to another family’s chimney. I don’t remember when exactly I lost the faith. Read more...