Obama's Immigration Reform

by Tom Kando

On November 20 President Obama made his important immigration speech. To their shame, the major networks refused to broadcast it - a mere 15-minute long address to the nation about a very important matter! A decade or so ago, when President George W. Bush gave a similar speech on the same topic, every major network carried it directly and it was viewed by 40 million Americans. And people still dare to say that the media have a liberal bias? My foot. It’s the opposite. The so-called “mainstream” media are fully participating in the non-stop sniping at this beleaguered president, inflicting a thousand cuts so as to bring him down.

The double standard applied to this president is gross: Reagan, Bush Senior and Bush Junior all proposed similar executive actions for illegal immigrants. But when THIS president does the same thing, all hell breaks loose.
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What is Important?

by Tom Kando

We are drowning in politics, in elections, in agendas. The public is incessantly  being told what we should worry about. The powerful (and often corrupt) power structure is supported by the media, it brainwashes  the populace, tells us what the most important problems are, and  how we should devote our energy and our resources. Over the past century or so, Americans have by and large been told to be AFRAID;  to protect themselves against, and to fear,  the following things:

Communism in the past, Muslim terrorism now.

Crime, always.

Alcohol in the past, drugs now.

Various countries: Russia in the past,  China, Iran and Arab countries  now.

Nuclear Armageddon.

Foreigners and immigrants.

Racial miscegenation.

Sex.

Epidemics: AIDS in the past,  Ebola now.

The government.

Government surveillance (NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.).

Wall Street.

Global Warming.

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Blackout

by Madeleine Kando

I am looking out on my snow-covered back yard, the sun slowly sinking into the horizon, painting the sky a deep purple. The leafless trees, black and motionless are frozen in silence. Nature itself is paralyzed. No birds dare venture to our overflowing birdfeeders. No squirrels peek out of the tunnels they so laboriously dug under the snow. Life has slowed down to a bare subsistence level. Winter is master in this little corner of the world.

Inside the house, the fireplace is ablaze, overflowing with ashes. The cat is purring in his sleep, dreaming of warmer days and outdoor adventures. The smell of firewood and pea soup fills the air. The furnace is humming its reassuring song, keeping the frozen world at bay.

Night has fallen and the weather has turned nasty. Suddenly, a large animal appears out of nowhere in front of the large bay window and through the glass, I see a black and white husky look at me with his beautiful sky-blue eyes. He is magnificent looking, high on his legs, his thick fur making him oblivious to the cold. He seems to be asking if he can come in. Read more...

The Greatest Movies of all Times

by Tom Kando

I have been a movie buff all my life. The thousands of movies I have seen include many of the world’s best. Lately I have been playing with some databases, looking at movie rankings, directors, nationalities, etc.

Perhaps the most popular movie database is IMBd - the Internet Movie Database. It is a trove of over three million titles. Unfortunately, its most popular feature is an unsatisfactory ranking of the top 250 movies, as voted by IMDb users. In other words, a popularity contest.

So I went to another website instead: TSPDT (They Shoot Pictures Don’t They). This is an excellent source, which ranks the 1,000 best movies ever made, as well as the 250 best directors, based on the votes of three and a half thousand critics, film makers and other experts. A caveat is the sample of voters: The vast majority are Americans, with a sprinkling of Frenchmen and other foreigners. Nevertheless, I want to share some of the things I discovered: Read more...

The Cornivore's Dilemma

by Madeleine Kando

In his 1951 post-apocalyptic novel 'The Day of the Triffids', John Wyndham writes about a plague of blindness that befalls the whole world, allowing the rise of an aggressive species of plants. Bioengineered by the USSR, Triffids are carnivorous super plants that can walk and talk and are trying to take over the world.

We have a similar situation happening in real life, where the invasion of the giant tropical grass known as 'corn' is invading our farms, our food supply and our bodies. You might say: 'Well, what's wrong with that? I like corn, it's healthy and it tastes good.' But the corn that we produce in such abundance is not grown for direct consumption; it is grown to feed cattle, to produce ethanol for our cars and as additives to processed foods.

In his book 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', Michael Pollan explains how this real life Triffid has been able to take over our food supply. Modern corn, already having a natural advantage because of its efficiency at using sunlight to grow, has made itself doubly attractive by tolerating many climates. 'The plant gratifies human needs, in exchange for which humans expand the plant’s habitat, moving its genes all over the world and remaking the land, clearing trees, plowing the ground, protecting it from its enemies, so it might thrive.' (from: When Corn Becomes King). Read more...

Obsessive-Compulsive Obama Hatred Disorder

by Tom Kando

Krauthammer is at it again. This right-wing reactionary can’t help himself. For years, his syndicated columns and his rants on Fox News are about one thing: Bashing Obama. It’s an addiction and a disorder, and he should know it, as he is a psychiatrist. On July 25 he wrote a column titled - “Obama’s Cool Detachment is Calculated - and Very Dangerous.” On October 24, he wrote “Obama a Bewildered Bystander to his Own Government.” And it goes on and on. There is no problem on the planet that is not Obama’s fault - Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, ISIS, Ebola, secret service missteps at the White House, in Amsterdam and in South America, Benghazi, unemployment, crime. Krauthammer might as well blame the President for Hurricane Fausto, the Vietnam War, World War Two and his hemorrhoids. One wonders what he’ll write about after Obama is gone.
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Some Notes on Religion

by Tom Kando

 1. Is Religion Good or Bad?
This is the most basic question about religion. Atheists and other skeptics feel that religion is bad, and there is a good case to be made for that. For starters, nothing has caused more war and bloodshed than religion, and it continues today.

On the other hand, the vast majority of humanity feels that religion is good. In the first place, people feel this way because they believe in God. Furthermore, even an agnostic would agree that religion provides moral guidelines, and that it is palliative. It soothes suffering. So even if you are not sure that God exists, religion can be accepted on these pragmatic grounds. As Voltaire said: “if God didn’t exist, man would have to invent him.”

There is, at least in educated and progressive circles, AMBIVALENCE about religion. I was listening to National Public Radio. They had a marvelous section about the Harlem Renaissance. In the 1930s, Harlem had this fantastic black musical revival, and it was largely rooted in Negro spirituals and gospel singing. In other words, it was very Christian stuff. Read more...

A Wheel Lock Nightmare

by Madeleine Kando

Leaf peeping is a favorite pastime during our famous Indian Summer. For a few short weeks, the forests around New England are ablaze with the most radiant shades of red, yellow and orange, and there is a mad dash by city dwellers to get a peek at all this beauty before the trees turn into mere skeletons and prepare themselves for a cold harsh winter.

I had practically dragged my husband out of bed that morning to get an early start, since we were just going leaf peeping for the day. A quick stop at Starbucks and we were on our way to the Berkshire mountains. The sun was shining, the trees were waiting, everything was perfect.

After an hour or so of uneventful driving, our car started to make a strange and ominous sound, so we drove off the highway, just in time to reach a shell gas station. Sure enough, the right back tire was flat as a pancake. Our hopes that we would find a mechanic on duty evaporated when we only saw gas pumps. Read more...

European Travel: It's an Omelette Thing (part four)

by Tom Kando

 This is the last installment of our recent European trip:

...And then there are the airline problems: On this occasion, they included a strike by Air France pilots. Europeans like to strike. There was also a strike by Roman bus and metro employees. Our Toulouse-Rome flight happened to be Air France. Luckily, our flight was not one of the 58% of all flights that were canceled.

As to our return to the U.S., innumerable things went wrong: While we had Delta tickets, the flight was operated by Alitalia. This confused everyone, including the taxi driver who took us out to Fumicino Airport. He assured us that ALL US-bound international fights and ALL Delta flights depart from terminal One, and that’s where he dropped us off. But he was wrong. We had to rush to the Alitalia terminal, number Five. There was little time, so we paid a cab another $20 to drive us half a mile to the correct terminal. Read more...

European Travel: It's an Omelette Thing (part three)

by Tom Kando

This is the third installment of our recent European trip:

What makes European travel complicated is that there are so many countries and so many different time schedules, regulations and customs. For example, when are various shops open, and where do you buy various items?

In France, Italy and some other countries, you buy postage stamps and bus tickets at the tobacco shop. How on earth are American visitors supposed to know this? Anita and I joke that perhaps you buy toilet paper at the shoemaker, or books and newspapers at the bakery or the butcher shop? And speaking of butchers, France has three kinds: the charcuterie, where you buy processed meats such as salami and paté, the boucherie, where you buy your raw meat, such as cuts of beef or veal or hamburger, and then the boucherie chevaline, where you buy horse meat. The latter is always recognizable by a statue of a horse head in front of the store.
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