Mass Shooting Victims: 250; Other Murders: 17,250

by Tom Kando

August 3-4. Two more mass shootings. This time, in one day. El Paso, 20 dead, Dayton, 10. 

So far, this year’s death count for mass shootings is 58 (Source: Mother Jones). Annualized, this comes to about 100. This is roughly the annual average over the past decade or so (except for a couple of years which experienced a very large event, such as the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, where 58 people died.
Using a different definition, Wikipedia’s number for 2019 so far is much higher: 246. (See Mass Shootings in the US ). For the full year, this would be over 400. However, the vast majority of the events on Wikipedia’s list resulted in only one death. So One could quibble about what constitutes mass shootings and what does not.

So here we go again, with the same old refrain: The media, the politicians, the main talking points:

1. Most obviously: “We need (more and better) gun control. Outlaw assault weapons, do background checks, etc.” Correct.

2. This is a uniquely American phenomenon. It doesn’t exist in other comparable (highly developed) societies. Correct.

3. The main obstacle to progress consists of power groups such as the NRA and their toadies, largely GOP leaders such as Mitch McConnell. Correct.

4. The problem is mental illness. The problem is that the mentally ill have access to guns. Hmm... Isn’t this subsumed under item #1, above? Do the Europeans, the Australians, the Canadians, the Japanese have less mental illness? I doubt it. So this argument is a diversionary tactic by the defenders of the status quo.
Read more...

Spontaneous Generation: Can Non-Life Create Life?

by Tom Kando

I was listening to Science Friday, the excellent NPR program hosted by Ira Flatow. He was interviewing the historian James Strick about the debunked theory of spontaneous generation.

You may recall that this theory was destroyed by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century. It is the idea that living organisms can spring into existence from non-living matter. This had been the general belief ever since Aristotle. Only in the 17th century did the Church begin to oppose this theory. At that point, scientific materialism was on the rise, and the theory of spontaneous generation seemed to suggest that natural chemistry was sufficient to produce life (combined with solar radiation and what have you), thereby cutting God out of creation.

In the middle of the 19th century, the debate about spontaneous generation - essentially, whether life can spring from non-life or not - was raging. French biologists Felix Fouchet and Louis Pasteur were at loggerheads over the question. In 1859, Pasteur conducted a famous experiment which settled the issue, proving that life CANNOT arise spontaneously from inanimate matter. The French academy of science declared Pasteur the winner of the controversy, and his position has been the generally accepted standard in all biology textbooks since. Read more...

Universal Health Care 2020

by Madeleine Kando

During the debates, all democratic presidential candidates were for universal health care. It would be weird if one of them had said: ‘I don’t think everybody should be able to afford health insurance. It’s against the freedom of the individual.’

At least they all agreed on the Universal Healthcare part. What they did not agree on was on how to achieve it. Sanders and Warren were the only ones for a Single Payer health care system, which is the same as Medicare for All, i.e. a government funded system. Plain and simple.

The other candidates were all over the place. Some were proponents of building on Obamacare, others were for a ‘Medicare for most’, meaning lowering the age at which you qualify for Medicare, and others still had a problem with doing away with the employer-provided health care system. The whole debate was so confusing and contradictory that most viewers probably tuned out and just watched the candidates’ lips move.

Everybody agrees that the health care issue is incredibly complicated. But is it? Or does it seem complicated because the candidates purposely keep it opaque, ambiguous and only talk about it in generalizations?

What makes it confusing is that they give one option different names. For example, single payer and Medicare for all is the same thing. It means that the government pays for health care. But they don’t specify what kind of single payer system they envision. Is it a government that pays and provides the services, like in England, or is it a government that pays the bills but a private sector that provides the services, like in Canada?

Contrary to what most people believe, universal health care in most European countries, entails a government-regulated network of private insurance companies. The government heavily regulates the industry, including hospitals and doctors. Hospitals are non-profit and heavily subsidized by government. This would be one advantage of a single payer system. If the services and payment for those services are one and the same entity, i.e. the government, it wouldn’t make sense to charge exorbitant hospital fees. It would self-regulate. That is where the ‘Public Option’ comes in: An insurance plan provided by the government that would compete with the private insurance companies. If it is cheaper, why not choose it? A government has much more bargaining power than all the private insurers combined.

The different options on how to achieve Universal Healthcare

Contrary to a true single payer system, like Canada or Britain, Medicare in the US is NOT free. Most people on Medicare have supplemental insurance to cover many gaps that Medicare leaves open.

Most European countries have Universal Healthcare. It is universal because everybody has insurance. Not only do they have insurance, but they have to have insurance. That is what the Republicans scrapped in 2017. It’s called the Individual Mandate.

Can you imagine if car insurance was voluntary? Only the people who got into an accident would have to pay and the cost would skyrocket. Now we are stuck with an expensive system in which the cost is not shared by the whole population, healthy OR sick. Read more...

The Brussels South Station Incident

by Tom Kando

Our European trip this time took us to three countries: We first visited Holland for a week, then we spent a week with our friends in rural Belgium, and then we moved on to Paris, France. 

For our weeks in Holland and in Belgium, we rented a car from Avis. But we didn’t want a car in Paris. Who needs a car in Paris?! No way!

So we drove our Avis car from Holland to Belgium, and we used it there for a week. Then, we planned to return the car in Belgium at the end of our visit to that country, and take the train there to Paris.

The train to Paris is the TGV, the Thalys bullet train. We had to catch it at the Brussels Midi Station - the South Station. So that’s where we also had to return the rented car.

On the morning of our departure from our friends’ house (about an hour outside of Brussels), we punched into the car’s GPS the address of the Avis rental car return at Brussels’ South Station: Rue de France 2. Read more...

A Visit to Quebec City

by Madeleine Kando


We just returned from Quebec City, my husband and I, and I can honestly say that it is the most beautiful city in north America.

We made a stop over on our way up from Boston, to visit some friends who live in the northern most part of New Hampshire. The North Country is part of the Great North Woods, a vast wooded area stretching across most of the Eastern States. It is the area north of Franconia Notch in the White Mountains, that most tourists find too far and too remote. That is why we like it so much.

The North Country is a mix of pine forest, and mostly non-working dairy farms and, as is often the case when cultivation meets wilderness, the result is a unique landscape of rolling fields covered with yellow dandelions against a background of dark green pine forests.

Our friends live on a 300 acre property, set deep in the forest, away from the small town of Colebrook. Sadly, ATV’s (All Terrain Vehicles) are taking over this northern-most corner of the state. Giving these monstrous vehicles access to the habitat of the remaining wildlife will certainly kill the goose that lays the golden egg, but the locals see it as one of the few sources of income for an area where most residents are on welfare. The local authorities have opted for a shortsighted and temporary solution by allowing their pristine forests to be destroyed. It’s either the deer and local fauna or food on the table.

The day we left, the ATV season opened. There is a hunting season, a snowmobile season and an ATV season. We heard them thundering down the peaceful country lanes, usually in groups, which made the noise deafening. At the local gas station we saw them stack up on six-packs and cigarettes before hopping onto their ‘quads’ and ‘goosing’ them until the air was filled gasoline fumes.

Ten miles up the road, we arrived at the Canadian border. Gone are the good old pre-9/11 days when all you needed to cross was a driver’s license. Now, you need a passport. It is not les Canadiens’ fault. The US won’t let you back in without proof of residency and valid identification. Because I was a political refugee for most of my childhood, I felt the butterflies having a field day in my stomach while we were waiting for the border guard to come back with our documentation.

With a sigh of relief, we drove on. Speed limit signs in kilometers left us guessing at our speed, so we just followed other cars’ lead, hoping that they were are law abiding Canadians. Read more...

Why do we Age? *

by Madeleine Kando

According to Hemingway, getting older happens two ways: Slowly over a stretch of time and then all at once. He compared it to bankruptcy, but I like to compare it to falling asleep, since I am an insomniac.

The slow way is what gets you. There are no signs on the road of life marked ‘hazardous period ahead’ or ‘bumpy stretch of road’. Then, out of the blue, you find yourself on a road with a large ‘dead end’ sign looming in the distance.

You see, most life stages give you clear warning signs that changes are ahead. It is no longer acceptable to suck your thumb and you need to recluse yourself in a small room instead of staying put, when you have to pee. You start growing boobs and get your period, clear signs that things will be different. Pregnancy gives you 9 months to recover from the shocking realization that you are not the most important person in the world and although raising kids is too time consuming to worry about what comes next, just watching your kids grow is clear evidence that things are about to change.

Kids gone, free at last, you think. But that’s when the trouble starts, because once you are done reproducing, the road signs are few and far between. Who cares about those few wrinkles? It makes you look exotic. Prescription glasses? No problem. Don’t young kids have them too? Grey hair is in these days, isn’t it? Life is good! Until one day, it isn’t. Read more...

Violence; John Wick 3

by Tom Kando

 My wife and I just saw the movie John Wick 3 - Parabellum. Or actually, we just saw about half of it. Then we walked out.

It takes a lot to make me walk out of a movie. I’m a miser. I don’t like wasting my money. I generally consume everything I pay for.

I find this new movie’s enormous popularity and the rave reviews it gets from both the public and the critics a scandal. During its first week, the film ranked Number One at the box office.

The audience rating at IMDb is 8.2 out of 10 - the same as classics such as Metropolis, The Third Man, and Indiana Jones. Absurd! The audience of Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 93% approval rating, and the critics at Rotten Tomatoes nearly as much - 89%. The general public’s taste can be expected to be flawed, but the critics? What’s the matter with these folks?

Of the 216 reviews published by Rotten Tomatoes, only 24 are negative. The remaining 192 are superlative. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times writes that this film is “superb wall-to-wall action entertainment, filled with dark humor...” he gives it three-and-a-half stars out of a maximum four. I usually like Roeper’s reviews. I really enjoyed his show with Roger Ebert, and I miss it. But this? Shame Read more...

Toxic Masculinity: A Confusing Term

by Madeleine Kando

In ‘My Cousin was my Hero, until the Day he Tried to Kill me’, a fascinating article about the toxic aspects of male identity, author Wil S. Hylton describes how his cousin and best childhood friend beat him up so badly that he had to be hospitalized.

There is a lot of talk about ‘toxic masculinity’ these days, especially since sexual harassment and abuse scandals have dominated the news. But what is meant by ‘toxic masculinity’? According to the ‘Good Men Project’, a..., ‘toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, defined by violence, sex, status and aggression and showing emotions is considered a weakness.’

But doesn’t the word ‘toxic’ mean ‘poisoning’? It mostly affects the one that is exposed to the toxic substance directly. Which are men. If the term 'toxic masculinity' is to be taken seriously, we should be focusing on men, not women.

What is meant by masculinity?
Your biological sex and your gender are not the same thing. Being borne a male does not predetermine gender identity — one’s sense of being male, female or another gender. So if you are born a male, you are not necessarily masculine.

The image of Neanderthal man with his club fighting saber toothed tigers while his woman is cooking dinner leads one to the conclusion that gender distinction between male and female is a natural state of affairs. But in fact, a new scientific study, headed by anthropologist Mark Dyble, shows that hunter-gatherer tribes were much more egalitarian and the social inequality between the sexes came later with the advent of agriculture. In other words, we ‘invented’ a version of masculinity that does not necessarily reflect what’s going on in nature.* Read more...

The Absence of Racism

by Tom Kando

 As children, my sisters and I spent several years (1950-52) in a French boarding school. The place was called Valmondois, near the town of Auvers, about 80 kilometers north of Paris. This was the dark and grizzly place made famous by Van Gogh and his paintings of the potato people.

The boarding school was actually not unattractive. The setting was rural, located in a lush wooded region. The supervision and teaching were adequate.

The Institution housed about seventy kids. It was a relatively middle-class boarding school, not a penal institution or a place for wayward juveniles, but neither a fancy Swiss-like place for millionaires’ kids. It was an institution where hard-working Parisians parked their children for a few years, visiting them on weekends, as did our mother.

The children ranged in age from seven to fourteen. When my mother dropped us off, my sisters were nearly eight and I was nearly ten. Not that toughness wasn’t expected. Any group of young children has its pecking order, its bullies, its sadists, its victims, its conflicts. Cliques always exist, groups gang up on their weakest members under the demagoguery of brutal and cunning leaders. Lord of the Flies is a familiar scenario. Read more...

The Old New World Order

by Madeleine Kando


I went to see the documentary ‘Apollo 11’ yesterday. It was the first of a series of manned moon landings, all of them American. The suspense was palpable. Even though every member of the audience knew the outcome, we were on the edge of our seats as the Eagle approached the surface of this never explore celestial body. It left me with a sense of awe and admiration. This happened a life-time ago, when I was in the prime of my life and still living in Europe, but this first landing was a symbol of what a super-power at the zenith of its ascent can accomplish. That was America at its best.

After WW2 ended, the United States established what is known as the “New World Order’. It was to prevent the world from repeating the mistakes that had led to a world that had been filled with wars and conflicts. Behind it was an ideology of liberalism backed up by military power.

I was born during the Second World War and have spent my entire life in the comfort and ease of what the United States created. The New Liberal Order was not created out of a sense of altruism, but because, as we all know, Americans are pragmatists: they do what is best for them, as most nations do. And what is best for America is a world with as little conflict as possible. It was to guarantee that the world would be a safe place to conduct trade, promote liberal values and avoid conflict by diplomacy and compromise.
Read more...