Prime Numbers, Large Numbers

By Tom Kando

Although I am totally a non-mathematician, I have long been fascinated by prime numbers. I don’t know why. Here are some random thoughts about this subject: A prime number is a whole number that can only be divided by 1 and by itself. Or put differently, prime numbers cannot be divided by any other whole number without leaving a fraction. The smallest 25 prime numbers (those under 100) are:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71,73, 79, 83, 89, 97.

As you move up the scale of natural numbers, prime numbers become less and less frequent, but there is no largest prime number. There is an infinite number of prime numbers. Euclid was the first to prove this.

The only practical use of prime numbers, so far, is in encryption and secret codes for the safety and protection of sensitive materials in the military, commerce, etc. It’s not clear whether nature and the physical world have any use for prime numbers, although some say that timing their life cycle through the use of prime numbers (e.g. emerging from the ground after 7, 11, 13, etc, years) gives some insects certain survival advantages...

One fascinating characteristic of prime numbers is that they seem to obey no other law than that of chance, and that nobody can predict what the next higher - and not yet discovered - prime number will be!

Over the centuries, mathematicians have discovered larger and larger prime numbers, and now with computers, the search has reached astronomical levels.

The unfathomable magnitude of the prime numbers which current researchers are looking for - and finding - totally blew my mind:

On October 22, 2009, the Greater Internet Mersenne Prime Search Research Project was awarded a $100,000 prize for discovering the largest known prime: 2 to the power: 43,112,609, minus 1

This is a number with almost 13 million decimal digits. I calculated that writing it out would require about 4 ½ thousand pages, or fourteen 300- page long books.

Researchers are currently looking for primes with 1 billion digits. If they discover one, writing out that number would require 350 thousand pages, or 1,200 books. (One average book page has about 3000 characters).

Years ago my children and I were bantering at the dinner table, and I told them what a Googol was: it is a “1" followed by one hundred zeros. There are other names for Googol, for example “ten thousand sexdecillion.” Whatever you call it, my children and I agreed, back then, that this was a lot.

But now? My God, a Googol is nothing, compared to a prime number that has a billion decimal digits! Wouldn’t such a number far exceed the total number of atoms in the Universe? Isn’t this dizzying? leave comment here Read more...

Egypt's Dilemma

by Madeleine Kando

In a Wall Street Journal article by Hernando de Soto entitled 'Egypt's Economic Apartheid', the Peruvian economist explains one of the reasons why so many people in Egypt feel marginalized and have taken to the streets to protest their government.

Revolutions are a first step to changing a system that doesn't benefit the majority of a people. That is the message, loud and clear. Not so much the political system, but the economic system.

As I watch this mass of young demonstrators, cell phones and camcorders in one hand and a wooden club in the other, things makes more sense to me after reading De Soto’s article. They want to remove Mubarak, they want democracy, but what is democracy without economic opportunity? An empty concept.

Many of the demonstrators are young, educated and unemployed and have no prospects of improving their lives. Why? Because the legal system does not allow for the majority of the population to legalize their property or their business. Egypt's underground economy is the nation's biggest employer. The legal private sector employs 6.8 million people and the public sector employs 5.9 million, while 9.6 million people work in the extralegal sector. As far as real estate is concerned, 92% of Egyptians hold their property without normal legal title!

If you don't have the rights to your home, your business, your land, anyone can take it away anytime, including the government. There is no way you can get a mortgage, a loan, you cannot increase your capital, it's a dead end situation. De Soto calls it 'dead capital'. You cannot have economic opportunity without property rights. How can you have a healthy economy when the majority of it is outside the law?

In developing nations like Egypt, capitalism only works for the upper class because they have the ability to function within the legal system. But people forget that capitalism is the tool of the poor, not the rich. People have forgotten that capitalism was invented to oppose the aristocracy who had all the wealth.

But if it doesn't do the job for which it was designed, i.e. help the poor create better lives for themselves, it will be thrown in the wastebasket and people will find an alternative system. Hopefully this will not happen in Egypt where there is the danger of it becoming a fundamentalist regime.

The US was lucky in that its 'elite' (the founding fathers) helped create an egalitarian system where everyone has a chance to succeed. The ruling class did the right thing and rebelled against the status quo (England). Unfortunately in many developing countries (including Egypt) the elite is not doing that. It is NOT advancing capitalism, but trying to protect their own interests. Revolts are the result of this.

Egypt's economy is a shadow economy that does not give its participants a chance to grow, to survive. It is bad for everyone. It is bad for the West AND for Egypt. Rather than spending all that money on propping up the military in Egypt, why not invest in changing the system that prevents those demonstrators from making a decent living? If you have a job, you don't have time for revolution.

I have often heard say that the problems in the Middle East can not be solved from the outside. That is now quite obvious. We are witnessing history in the making.

Having a right to your property (which includes yourself) allows one to participate in the political decision making. If there is no protection of property, the only solution for the individual is to rebel outside of the political process: revolution.

* To find out more about the importance of property rights please read ‘The Mystery of Capital’ by Hernando de Soto
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Evil America, or Victim America?

By Tom Kando

Johnny,

Thank you for taking the trouble to react in such detail. Because you raise many familiar issues, this warrants a separate post:

I have riled you up, because I have disturbed some long-established assumptions, namely that American foreign policies are (1) uniquely immoral and (2) beneficial to America.

Many people have a deeply ingrained need to believe this, as evidenced by your comments (and Tomi’s). Anti-Americanism is understandable, because for a century, the US presence in the world has been irritatingly large. The big guy is never popular.

I agree that US foreign policy has sometimes been destructive, and self-serving, although no more so than that of other countries. No sane country acts consistently against its self-interest. It has not been more self-serving than that of the Netherlands or other European countries, and much less so than many others.

I didn’t say that American foreign policy was particularly philanthropic. I believe that it has at times been stupid, but at other times enlightened.

You are too young to remember what America did for Europe and the world 60 years ago: World War Two, the Marshall Plan, the creation of the UN, these are all enormous deeds, they are primarily American deeds, and they made the world infinitely better than it would be otherwise.

The US rebuilt the world and created a global economy which is now so competitive that it threatens America’s own economy. If this is not altruistic, I don’t know what is.

I know the worn-out argument - that America did this out of self-interest. Even so, it surely beats the plundering of the defeated by the victors, as has been the rule from ancient Rome to the Versailles Treaties after World War One, and the USSR’s behavior after World War Two.

Your problem is that you cannot disagree with me: Here is what I said:

1) America should pull back, get out of other countries. You disagree?
2) America should stop squandering billions to support other regimes - dictatorial or otherwise. You disagree?
3) America should never have invaded Iraq. You disagree?
4) America should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now. You disagree?

5) Oil? The Dutch don’t use oil? I experience your traffic “files” every year. Is Shell not a Dutch company? Do AMRO, RABO and the other giants of Dutch Capitalism - and indirectly you - not benefit from the existing “Pax Americana”?

6) One difference is that America pays more of the bills, and American soldiers die by the thousands, so that the Dutch can continue to drive their spic-and-span cars on their super-modern turnpikes, while our infrastructure here crumbles.

7) Israel? Way too complicated of an issue. I do know this: Israel is the only Middle Eastern country without oil, so it is difficult to argue that we are there for $$$. Europe is more critical of Israel than America is. America is more involved in the Middle Eastern Peace Process. It is not clear who is more right, and where anti-Zionism ebbs over into anti-Semitism. In light of 20th century history, Europe should not be too vocally anti-Israel.

8) Revolutions? Some are good, some are bad: Yes, the Easter European “velvet revolution” was a good revolution, and so was the non-violent downfall of Apartheid. Other good revolutions were the American Revolution in 1776, and the counterculture of the 1960s. But some revolutions lead to terror, the dictatorship of the proletariat, theocracy, genocide and bloody “Cultural Revolutions.”

9) So far, I support the Egyptian revolution. I hope that it does not turn into another fundamentalist, Iranian-style, revolution.

But my focus was on America’s role. I see, again, an immediate worldwide perception that the US has a special responsibility in this crisis. Yet as Madeleine explains in her post, one thing we know for sure: “The problems of the Middle East cannot be solved from the outside.” Do you disagree?

And to this I add that reducing US involvement in the Middle East is not only to Egypt’s advantage, but also to America’s.

You want to disagree.

Unlike you, I am sympathetic to the current plight of the American people. I happen to live here. Have you seen our slums, our poverty, our 14% unemployment, the countless homeless on street corners, the millions who have lost their homes, the cutbacks in education and social services, the violence which takes thousands of lives every year, and which has everything to do with poverty, not gun laws, as is easily proven by the fact that 90% of the violence occurs in the lower class?

10) The transfer of wealth from the US is real: Our dual deficit dwarfs that of any other country. We owe ten trillion dollars to the rest of the world. In one generation, we have morphed from the world’s greatest creditor to its greatest debtor.

So I say, let’s stop the insanity, let’s stop spending ourselves into oblivion by trying to police the world. You disagree?

It’s time to cultivate our own garden, as Holland and other shrewder countries have done for many years.

I don’t understand what this has to do with being “proud of my dear USA.” I happen to live here, and I don’t want my country to collapse. Don’t you feel the same about “your beloved Holland”?

I’m sorry if you have a general dislike for America. You cannot imagine that America does things which do not benefit her. You have to believe that somehow our misguided foreign policies are rational and beneficial to us. They are not.

Our goals are the same: America must stop trying to run the world. Our analyses and sympathies differ.leave comment here Read more...

Egypt?

By Tom Kando

So now Egypt is starting its revolution. I hope that I am wrong, but the scenario is likely to be familiar:

Revolutions tend to evolve from moderate to radical. In France, moderates such as Mirabeau, Danton and the Girondins were followed by Robespierre, the Jacobins and the Terreur. In Russia, Kerensky and the Mensheviks were eventually beaten by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In China, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalists were defeated by Mao Zedong and the Communists. In Iran, the moderate BaniSadr made way for Khomeini’s Theocracy.

In our day and age, the eventual outcome of many revolutions are ferociously anti-American regimes. America becomes the fall guy, because it had been holding up the previous regime, which was overturned.

I worry that this is also going to be the story in Egypt. One more country where the US will become “Satan America,” after having spent hundreds of billions of dollars to buttress its ancien regime.

And then, my question becomes: why on earth do we do this? The conventional wisdom is that:

(1) the US is the number-one imperialist, and that

(2) it is the US’ responsibility to hold up the world. The first of these beliefs is held by anti-Americans and the second one by our government.

They are both wrong:

1) For several decades now, the relationship between America and the rest of the world has been a massive transfer of wealth from the US to the rest of the world, a transfer which is now accelerating. If you ask me, this is imperialism in reverse.

2) Who anointed this country to police the world, to protect world commerce and to guarantee global stability? Why do we perform this costly job, with little assistance but much criticism from everyone else?

Is President Obama a captive of the Military-Industrial Complex? Why on earth did he escalate the war in Afghanistan, instead of getting out? Why are we still in Iraq?

The responsibility to hold up the world should be shared. It should be shared by the other giants of the planet - Europe, Japan, Russia - other emerging mega-states such as India and Brazil, and above all the country which will soon dwarf the US - China.

But is India desperately trying, as we are, to stabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan - countries which are far greater threats to it than to us? No.

Is Brazil trying to do anything about the drug wars in Latin America, which are making countries such as Mexico and Colombia near-failed states? No.

Above all, is China doing anything, devoting any resources, to make the world a safer place, or is it doing one thing and one thing only: that which benefits China?

Why is it America’s unique responsibility to hold up the world?

For this country, only two things make sense: (1) a drastic pull-back from world commitments, and (2) cooperation with others, if possible, in international affairs. But if others are not interested in cooperation, so be it.

Yes, what I am talking about here is that dreaded word - isolationism. So be it. America may need the world, but by virtue of history, size, resources and geography, it is still less vulnerable than most. Do China, Europe and Japan not need oil?

This essay will disappoint my liberal friends. Sorry. But to be in places where we are not wanted, where we don’t like to be, and which cost us lives and treasure, is called insanity. leave comment here Read more...

The Meaning of Bad Luck: Shit Happens

By Tom Kando

I was biking in the beautiful California Gold Country. The Green Valley Road meanders up and down 2,000 to 3,000-foot hills, through wild, scenic, wooded areas, occasionally flanked by a ranch. Very little traffic, clear blue winter sky. It’s 4:00 PM, the sun is already low in the West. I have just climbed up to the tiny town of Rescue, 35 miles East of Sacramento. I turn around for the return trip, which shouldn’t take much more than an hour, since most of it is steeply downhill.

Just as I put the pedal to the metal on one of the few uphills on the way home, a terrific BANG! Before I realize what’s going on, I am briefly airborne, and then I crash on the pavement, painfully, where I roll onto my left side.
Through sheer survival instinct, I immediately jump up, almost spring-like, and I run to the side of the road. I see the red Jetta which has just run me over. It drives away and disappears in a right-hand turn a few hundred yards up the road. I think, “hit-and-run.” I sit down in the gravel, in shock, my left arm pulsating with excruciating pain.
A few minutes later, the driver of the red Jetta walks down to help me. Not a hit-and-run after all. My arm is broken and I have multiple lacerations. My helmet is fractured, but it saved me. My bicycle is mangled, my tights and my parka are bloody and torn.
I spend the rest of the day in the ER, and the next weeks navigating the bureaucracy - insurance companies, police reports, doctors’ offices. Plus weeks of discomfort. Trying to live, to get dressed, to go places, to type and get things done with the one hand and one arm that are not in a cast.

So the question is: what is the meaning of this painful experience?

! Humans have a natural tendency to believe that their own agency determines the outcomes which befall them. This gives us the illusion of power and control. Thus, my first thought is: What did I do to cause this? Obviously, I went biking on the Green Valley Road, where cyclists can get hit by cars.

! A second natural tendency is to believe in “learning experiences,” “teachable moments.” The obvious lesson here is that I should be more prudent. But what if I am already very prudent? I ride safely, I always wear a helmet, I never ride my bike at night. The only way to be more careful is to no longer go out on such roads, and to stay on bike trails with few or no automobiles.

! There is also the widespread belief that we gain strength and wisdom from adversity. This is called rationalization. I can assure you that I did not gain strength from this accident!

! Then there are those - this gets really silly - who feel that they deserve pain. They feel guilty. They feel that misfortune is their just punishment. Even though I am Jewish and I was raised Catholic, I am not aware of harboring such feelings - unless they are subconscious.

! Related to the last two, above, is the notion of “test,” - God, or someone, is testing you. The story of Job, sort of. An equally absurd theory.

! Another thing people say is, ”it could have been worse.” True, cyclists get killed every day. But should I consider myself lucky for having been practically run over, even though I lived?

! I had another theory: I recently received a chain letter - you know, the kind which says that if you don’t forward it, bad luck will befall you, and if you do, you’ll make a million. Well, I did forward it. And look what happened! This is called superstition.

! A more intelligent observation: Each year, slightly over 700 cyclists are killed on US roads, and 52,000 are injured. I have been road biking for many years, going out for a fifty-miler at least twice a week. This week, the statistical probabilities finally caught up with me.

! My final point is the most meaningful one: When taking into account population size and biking frequency, the US rate of bicycle deaths and injuries is six times higher than in the Netherlands. Granted, Holland is THE most bicycle-friendly country in the world. Still, the US is relatively bicycle-unfriendly. Bicycling in America is dangerous, and something should be done about this (See Sam McManis’ articles in the Sacramento Bee, January 30) Sorry for the America-bashing, guys, but this is a reasonable argument.

So what does my accident mean? Most of all, it means that shit happens. It would be nice if biking here were as safe as it is in Holland, but it isn’t. So there is no lesson. No teaching moment. No self-blame. No superstition. No meaning. No guilt. No fury against God. Just statistics and bad luck.leave comment here Read more...

To Bee or not To Bee

by Madeleine Kando

Once upon a time there was a colony of beautiful, healthy and admirable bees. They lived together peacefully, each little worker bee content with her lot of gathering nectar for their graceful and fecund queen bee. All summer long they enjoyed the sunshine and the intoxicating scent of flowers, feeling the warmth of the sun on their furry backs and the ever growing weight of the pollen on their strong little thighs. Life was good and if they had been inclined to believe in a God they would have knelt and preyed in gratitude for their short but blissful life.

They didn't mind working hard. Feeding the queen was their duty but also their salvation. They knew that it was in their power to withhold food, by which act the queen would die. This, the queen was also keenly aware of and demanded but also gave. Gave many many eggs, day in and day out.

The worker bees had been told to feed a few of their larvae a very special diet so that these annointed individuals would become the chosen ones, the ones that would fertilize their adored queen in order to produce even more sisters, who in turn would feed more larvae, etc, etc. ad beefenitum.

This particular summer the weather was unusually cold and grey and many of the flowers died. Our friends in the hive searched for pollen but there were just not enough flowers. Life became hard for our poor bees. They began to wonder why they put up with all this flying back and forth, cleaning the hive, feeding the young, giving in to every whim of their demanding queen.

One very charismatic worker bee that went by the name of ‘Barbee’ (which rhymes with ‘Sara-Lee’) who previously had won a beauty contest, began to send out beemails to her sisters: 'Listen' she said 'Why do we work so hard all our lives? Why should we feed those lazy drones and our overbloated queen? I say to you: let's take matters in out own hands, every bee for herself!'

So many of the previously slim and industrious worker bees started to put on weight, lost their ability to fly, and there was a mass stampede to the royal chamber. The poor queen couldn’t handle all the attention. Bags started to appear under her big brown eyes from lack of sleep.

The beebies (I mean babies) were malnourished and started to die off. The queen, who was supposed to get fed every minute, only got fed once a day. She started to loose weight and lost her ability to lay eggs.

Soon the hive began to smell pretty bad. The remaining loyal worker bees who protested against these new developments were called traitors and maps were handed out with crosshairs to target them.

The converted worker bees turned to their newly apppointed leader and said: 'Barbee, we have done what you told us to do. We looked out for ourselves. Now what do we do? We don't particularly like the smell around here. Are we better off than before?' Barbee, who was very good at stirring up trouble but didn't have the brains to rule a hive, was at a loss for words. Even so she said: 'I know someone who might help us'.

She beemailed her distant cousin twice removed in Africa. Her name was ‘Killemall’. As soon as Killemal arrived she declared herself the new queen. She beemailed all her African sisters to join her and as you might expect they formed the new ruling class of the colony. All the worker bees were put on a restricted diet. They had to work twice as hard as before and the ones that protested were killed. Since these twice removed relatives were lazy, aggressive and mean by nature, they didn’t take good care of the hive. No new beebies were born. Soon, there wasn’t much left of the beautiful and healthy colony. The cells were empty and neglected. As they had done so often in the past, the Killemalls looked around, decided it was time for them to take up the offer of yet another gullible twice removed relative who had beemailed them for help.

Off they went leaving the empty hive to dangle from a branch, soon to be covered with snow, never to be inhabited again. leave comment here Read more...

Swimming

by Madeleine Kando

When I first joined my health club, I thought: 'Oh, now I can meet lots of people, why else would it be called a 'club'?' But I soon learned that health clubs are not places to socialize. They are half-way points to an imaginary heaven called 'being in shape'. They are like purgatory.

The women that I see at my club are all very serious about their 'health'. Their relationship is not so much with each other as with the machines. Humans are creatures of habit and, just like I have my favorite locker, my favorite shower cell and my favorite spot in the hot tub, they too, must have their favorite spot on the treadmills, the bikes or the ellipticals..

When I go to the club I don't use the machines because I am a coward. I don't like steel and I don't like mechanical motions. So the only connection I have with the fitness room is when I walk by it on my way to the swimming pool.

Of all the activites at the club, swimming is probably the least social because having a conversation with a co-swimmer is pretty hard when you are trying to keep water from going up your nose.

When you swim, it is not only your body that is immersed in a liquid medium. Your mind also begins to float. Swimming is monotonous and you soon enter a state of trance. Up and down, up and down the swimming pool, counting your laps, listening to your own labored breathing, trying to improve your stroke..

It's just you and the water. No-one else. After four or five laps, as you gather momentum, you think you are real hot stuff, frees-tyling like the pro's. Until this Michael Phelps look-alike suddenly zooms by and makes you feel like a turtle again. But that's ok. It brings you back to reality.

I can handle the speed freaks, I have resigned myself to my own mediocrity in that regard. But it's the other kind of swimmers that I have a problem with. So, when I first enter the pool area, I have gotten into the habit of scanning the lanes to see if there are any 'splashers', 'flappers', 'kickers' or 'sinkers'.

Sharing a lane with a 'splasher' is probably the worst. It's idiotic because you are already wet from head to toe, but every time you pass the splasher in your lane, you are subjected to an unwelcome and unnecessary shower.

The 'flappers' are one grade up from the 'splashers' but they are more lethal. Their shoulder joints are so tight that they flap their arms out to the side instead of overhead, and you risk being slapped in the face every time you pass them.

The 'kickers' are the ones that like to swim the breast stroke. They kick their legs out side-ways, like arthritic frogs. Since the lanes at my club are quite narrow, a single kick can send you home with a nasty bruise, sometimes on a very private body part, which won't disappear for a week.

The 'sinkers' are not really threatening to do you bodily harm, but they sure are unsightly. They swim with their lower body sunk to the bottom of the pool, as if they had big heavy bowling balls attached to their ankles.

I have become an expert at spotting the best candidates for lane-sharing. I look for a petite female with short arms, short legs and small feet. Arms that cannot slap me in the face, legs that won't kick me in the groin and feet that won't have enough foot-surface to splash.

When I look at the variety of body types and styles of swimming, there is one thing I have come to understand over the years. People are not made to be in the water. It is rare to see someone swim with grace, speed and strength. Most of us, poor humans, should really stay on land and not pretend to be at ease anywhere else.

We are not built to swim, just like ducks aren't built to walk and worms aren't built to dance the salsa. That does not prevent me from being addicted to the water. In fact, my secret wish is to come back as a dolfin or a killer whale in a future life. But knowing my luck I will probably come back as a clam, unable to move from my spot in the blue vastness that will surround me. At the mercy of other creatures, being splashed, slapped and kicked…. Aahh!
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The Banality of Guns

By Tom Kando

The mass murder and attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Loughner in Arizona has the whole country caught in an orgy of finger-pointing (Sarah Palin, the NRA, etc.).

And there is a secondary mass reaction among pundits and letter-writers: “Above all, don’t rush to judgment!” (this suits the Right on this occasion, as it suited the Left when Malik Hassan murdered 13 people at Ford Hood). The issue of gun control comes up once again, ad nauseam.

Gun control is something I have spent years researching and publishing articles about. And you know what?

After all these years, I don’t have a clear position on it. On the one hand yes, common sense and some data tell us that the more guns there are, the more people get killed by guns. But the correlation is weak. There are many examples of countries (Switzerland, Israel, etc.) and states (Florida, Arizona, etc.) with high per capita gun ownership and low murder rates.

And even if gun control is desirable (and I absolutely agree that it is), it’s not clear that it is feasible. Some jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws (Washington D.C., New York City) have at times had astronomical murder rates. Etc. Etc. The two sides in the gun control debate will for ever be stalemated.

I do not wish to minimize the horror and suffering that this madman has caused, but my take on guns is the one stated in the title of this essay - paraphrasing Hannah Arendt:

What I find really disgusting is the glorification of guns. The fact that inner-city gang-bangers and others, most of them in the lower class, use guns to murder each other in large numbers is tragic, and it has too many causes to discuss here.

What is truly aggravating, are the puerile culture and politics which see guns and gun-related activities as things of beauty, and the 2nd amendment as a noble and sacrosanct law which trumps the public interest. This is a cultural phenomenon, and it is strongest among upper-middle class folks, most of them white.

Yes, we live in an infantile culture of violence. I can forgive my 8-year old grand-son for his fascination with toy guns, with Darth Vader and with violence. He will outgrow this, as I did. As a normal boy I, too, liked toy guns and cowboy-and-Indian movies when I was 8.

But grown-ups should understand that guns are banal. Guns are pieces of metal which shoot explosives into living flesh. Is it surprising that flesh doesn’t have a chance against steel and explosives? This is not fascinating, it is dumb. Any imbecile can shoot a gun and kill a person (or a moose). If it weren’t for the tragedy of the loss of life, I’d say that shooting off a gun is just plain boring. Banal.
The NRA’s single-minded purpose is to advocate for guns. This is not a lofty ideal, a sacred right valiantly defended. It is a lobby for one industrial product. Banal.

What’s so great about guns? Nothing. Cops and soldiers need them, and that’s about it. It is sick to see them as things of beauty. It is moronic to define gun ownership as a sacrosanct human right. Guns are banal.

As to my personal opinion about this latest act of insanity: The News Media’s editorial equivocations about “all” hate speech being equivalent are inane. When Keith Olberman speaks of “the worst person in the world” and President Obama uses the word “enemy” instead of “opponent,” this is in no way as noxious as when Michelle Backman says that she wants the people to be “armed and dangerous.” Today, the Right is far more guilty of incendiary speech than the Left. leave comment here Read more...

Noise, Noise Everywhere

by Madeleine Kando

I am in the habit of wearing earplugs when I sleep. Not because I like having these bulky things shoved into a very sensitive part of my body, but because the Dunkin Doughnut store next door does not care about my beauty sleep when it starts blaring out it’s ‘hello, may I help you’ intercom announcement at four o'clock in the morning.

On the rare occasions that I spend a quiet week-end in beautiful rural Vermont or in the pristine White Mountains of New Hampshire, I realize that it is a fundamentally unnatural custom to wear earplugs. I much prefer waking up to the sound of early bird song and a distant waterfall. The muffled sound of a rooster on a far away farm, cows calling out to be milked.

If I were to metamorphosize every sound that enters my sensitive ears into a physical touch, let’s say a shove or a push instead of a sound wave, I would be tossed about like a lottery ball in a lottery machine. Thank God for those little plugs. Without them, I would be a wreck.

But now I am seriously considering wearing earplugs during my waking hours as well. I can handle babies crying on an airplane, the 'attention shoppers' announcements in a supermarket, the arguments overheard on a bus. Those are noises that serve a function. After all, a noise is made with the purpose of conveying some information, something that you, as the recipient, is expected to pay attention to. The baby crying on an airplane wants to be fed or comforted. The shopper at the supermarket is reminded of good deals. The argument on the bus is meant to resolve a conflict.

But much of today's noise can simply be classified as unnecessary. Devoid of useful content. Noise that does not contribute to the betterment of society or at the very least my own enrichment or entertainment. That's what I need my earplugs for, this ever increasingly unnecessary 'social noise'.

Take Facebook, for instance. What percentage of the noise content of all those millions of pages truly matters? Does it solve world hunger? Does it contribute to a better, more just world? Let's face it, it is like the sound of passing wind after a huge meal. The only person that benefits from it is the person doing the deed.

What about the noise generated by people whose sole purpose is to self-aggrandize themselves? There is no place to shield yourself from these noise-makers, they have plugged the airwaves: tv, radio, newspapers. Take noise-makers like Martha Stewart, Oprah and many other celbretards. The ratio between what they are truly worth (talent, humor, intelligence etc.) and their ability to make noise, reminds me of a nursery school: the toddlers that get the most attention are the ones that cry the loudest, not because they deserve it or need it, but because they happen to have stronger lungs.

What if we all put it in our earplugs as we go about our day? The problem with this approach is that you also drown out the occasional bird song, the rare sound of a majestic waterfall, the sound of crickets on a balmy summer evening. These hard to find noises have to be cherished like the rare gemstones thrown into a landfill. But it is becoming more and more time consuming to sift through the garbage to find any sound worth listening to.

They say that dogs are very sensitive to complete silence, taking this as a warning sign of impending threat. This sensitivity to silence is found in almost all animals. Is it possible that humans (we are animals, after all) are unable to tolerate silence? Is this deafening barrage of unnecessary noise an attempt to shield ourselves from the truly horrible questions that humanity faces and is powerless to answer? leave comment here Read more...

Nine-Eleven: Survivors, Victims and Compensation

By Tom Kando

On December 22, Congress approved a $4.2 billion compensation package for 9-11 survivors and for responders who became ill while working in the ruins after the attack. I have long been confused about this issue, so I tried to catalogue some of the facts:

1.The 9/11 Responders Health Bill:This is the $4.2 billion federal package just approved, to pay for police officers’, fire fighters,’ and other responders’ health care and illnesses caused by toxic fumes and other conditions at ground zero. Over 400 police officers and fire fighters died on the day of the attack, and nearly 1000 responders have died from related illnesses since then. September 11 attacks

2. The WTC Workers’ Settlement with NYC for Dust Exposure:
This is another fund of 625-725 million, to be divided among 10,000 or 11,000 members of clean up crews, police, firemen, etc. for an average of 65K per person, and ranging from a few thousand to over a million. This was under litigation for nearly a decade, but it was finalized in Nov 2010. This money comes from New York City.
WTC workers agree to $625 million settlement for toxic dust exposure

3. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund:Separately of course, the families of the people who died on 9-11 received $7 billion, for an average of 1.8 million per family. September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

4. The September 11th Fund:A privately collected $528 million Fund, to help affected businesses and other parties.
September 11th Fund
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