The Latest Assault on Planned Parenthood

Margaret Sanger

by Madeleine Kando

The most recent attempt by the Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, on the grounds that it is trafficking in aborted fetus tissue for profit is so outrageous, that I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It is now clear that this latest round is based on a series of doctored video tapes that will not hold up in a court of law.

But why do Republicans want Planned Parenthood wiped off the face of the earth? What is the motivation behind their vicious attacks on what the United Nations has declared to be a basic human right? Under international law, countries have an obligation to provide women with access to a full range of contraceptives and contraceptive information.

Defunding Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it kills unborn babies, is like defunding Mass General's Weight Center because they perform gastric bypass surgery, as a means of last resort. Never mind that they also provide other life-saving services in the form of obesity medication, nutrition counseling, exercise programs and are at the forefront of current research in weight disorders. Without these services, diabetis would become more rampant than it already is. Read more...

Americans (from Sacramento) Do the Job, and: What to Do with Bad People?

by Tom Kando

On August 21, a terrorist tried to kill many people on the Thalys bullet train from Amsterdam to Paris. (See: Thalys Attack).

Amazingly, I relate to this event in two ways:

1. As it so happens, I have taken this train many times, It’s always a marvelous experience.

2. The terrorist’s attempt was foiled by three Americans (assisted by some other passengers, including Chris Norman, a British businessman). The Americans were Spencer Stone, an American Air Force serviceman, Alek Skarlatos, an Oregon National Guardsman, and Anthony Sadler. Both Stone and Sadler are from Sacramento. Sadler is a Sac State kinesiology student. So in this ever smaller world, this makes me proud about one of our students.
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Freedom: The Right to be Left Alone

by Tom Kando

Freedom. Ah, that word! Sometimes overused. Often used as a slogan, especially by politicians. But the thing which it represents is essential and simple. It is also controversial, because it goes against values which some people hold dearer than freedom.

We still pay lip service to freedom. We still recite the patriotic clichés about the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” because that is what America represents. But let’s face it, freedom is no longer a politically correct value. The word is mostly used on the right of the political spectrum. 

Today, the correct thing is to praise the “social” - social responsibility, social consciousness, “community.” Some years ago, the sociologist Amitai Etzioni launched a new political movement, “communitarianism.” Indeed, the problems of your neighborhood, your city, your country and ultimately the planet can only be solved if we all band together, or as Hillary Clinton said, “it takes a village.”
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The Lives of Animals: A commentary on J.M. Coetzee's Novella

by Madeleine Kando

In October of 1997, the South African novelist J.M. Coetzee was invited to give a lecture at Princeton on the subject of human values. Rather than give a lecture, Coetzee began to read from his novella 'The Lives of Animals'. In his short story, Elizabeth Costello, an ageing novelist, is invited to give a lecture at a fictional college in Waltham, Massachusetts, to speak to the need for a change in consciousness in human attitudes and practices regarding animals.

So here I am, writing about a writer who writes about a writer trying to make her case. His is a brilliant approach to discuss a subject which is loaded with moral and ethical dynamite. Coetzee, who is a vegetarian, has become a vocal critic of animal cruelty and advocate for the animal rights movement. He wanted to be a candidate in the 2014 European Parliament election for the Dutch Party for Animals, the only party of its kind in the world, but he was rejected on a technicality.

In the story, Elizabeth's son John, is the one who has invited her to give a speech, which he regrets the moment he sees her at the airport. John's wife Norma dislikes Elizabeth thoroughly, both for herself and her opinions on animals, which she finds sentimental.

Of course, I immediately identified with Elizabeth, being an ageing woman myself, who lives in Eastern Massachusetts and who has been struggling with the issue of my relationship to animals for quite some time. Read more...

The Optimism Illusion

by Madeleine Kando

Some psychologists say that having an optimistic attitude can make you live longer and achieve higher rates of success, fight disease and even change the outcome of future events, but if you ask me, people who are always cheerful and optimistic make me suspicious and my first reaction is to question their mental capacity. You must really be blind if you can remain cheerful in the face of so much suffering in the world.

My husband calls me negative, a sour puss, always looking at the glass half empty, but I much prefer to look adversity squarely in the face, acknowledge it and then give it a good whack with a strong dose of humor. He, on the other hand, always has something good to say about bad things. If the house were on fire, he would find the silver lining in the smoke clouds rising from the burnt rubble. Read more...

The Criteria for Killing or not Killing Life

by Tom Kando

To say “killing life” is a redundancy: After all, to kill means to cause death. Only life can die. All other usage of the word “kill” is metaphorical. To kill a story or to kill a project simply means to destroy it.
Today, I want to write about true killing, i.e. the killing of LIFE, the taking of ANIMAL life. I was prompted by the recent killing of Cecil the lion by Walter Palmer, a trophy hunter from Minnesota. He lured Cecil out of his sanctuary, wounded him with an arrow, tracked him for forty hours and then killed him with a rifle. Some might argue that it would it be better to have Palmer’s taxidermied head on display than Cecil’s.

Why has the story of Cecil touched so many of us? It also generated many subsequent articles pointing out that on the same day that Cecil was killed, one hundred elephants were also killed in Africa, as happens day after day non-stop. Our assault on the animal kingdom is relentless, but we treat different species very differently. So here are a couple of questions: Why is it (more) okay to kill some species than others? And: What CRITERIA do people use to either condone or condemn the killing of life?
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There are Angels in Holland

by Madeleine Kando

There are angels in Bergen. Bergen is a small, affluent town in the northern tip of Holland, where my 101 year old mother settled in her old age. These angels surround her like silver-winged moths hovering around a light bulb, fluttering in and out of her apartment, gathering the mess that very old people inevitably create.

She cannot see, hear or smell much of anything any more, so they appear, polite, respectful. They greet her, gently squeezing her fragile, skinny hand as they bend over, so she can hopefully see their smiling faces. They call her 'Mevrouw Kando' and you can tell that they like her. She is a likeable centenarian, and there are not too many of them, so it could be that they feel privileged to take care of her.

They talk to her gently, sometimes asking where it hurts, or what they can do for her that day. They are there to feed her and wash her, clean the shower cell and the toilet, massage her swollen feet, clean her hearing aids and perform many other tasks that make up what they call in Holland 'Thuiszorg' (homecare). They do this without batting an eye, too polite to react to my mother's frequent snapping when they are too slow to bring her a glass of water or a pinch of salt for her soft boiled egg. She usually forgets to thank them, thinking that she is entitled. Entitled to having all these angels swarm around her, because they get paid, she says. They don't come for free. The government picks up (most of) the tab. I bite my lip as I witness the interaction, wondering if one day, I will also be short tempered with my angels. But then I realize that I live in America. There are no angels in America, the soil is not socially fertile that way. Read more...

The Tour de la France 2015

by Tom Kando

The Tour de France is the world’s greatest annual sport event. It is viewed by four billion people electronically (half the world) and by 15 million live - most of them French, many of whom misbehave. Despite all of its problems, I remain an avid fan, and I keep writing about this (see for example my article Tour de France Factoids) .

Nowadays, this bicycle race is about twenty-two hundred miles long, divided into twenty-one stages covered over a period of twenty-three days. It takes place in July and it goes around France, with forays into adjacent countries. The decisive stages are in the high mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees. The arrival always takes place on the majestic Champs Elysees in Paris. There are nearly two hundred participants. They come from several dozen countries, and are divided into about twenty teams. The race was introduced in 1903, and it has taken place nearly every year since. 2015 was the Tour’s one hundred and second edition.
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Sociology: Are We Free? A Critique of the Social Sciences

by Tom Kando

Abstract: In this article, I plead for of a humanistic conception of sociology. Because of its positivist origins, Sociology has been desperate to emulate the physical sciences. I argue that modeling Sociology (as well as Psychology, Economics, Political Science and the other human disciplines) after the physical sciences is an error. Human behavior is value-based. Therefore, its study cannot avoid values. Nor should values be treated as facts. Post-modern Sociology does this when it becomes ideological. Humans define their environment, they are self-conscious, they react to knowledge, and they decide upon and choose courses of action. A humanistic sociology recognizes this and thus leaves room for freedom.

(Note: To professional sociologists, this article may read like a superficial rehash of a debate which has been raging in our field for over half a century, and more or less a statement of the Symbolic Interactionist position. But I wrote this for the lay public. Hopefully it will clarify for non-sociologists some of our field’s interesting aspects. You can consider this article an advertisement for Sociology.)

Knowledge

If we follow Descartes, we can say that all knowledge consists of two areas: knowledge about the physical world and knowledge about the (human) mind. We can call these the physical sciences and the human sciences - or the sciences and the humanities.

The physical sciences deal with stars, rocks, plants, animals, biology and the body, including the human body. The human disciplines deal with human behavior, thoughts, emotions, relationships, conflict, motivations, values, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, freedom and oppression, justice and injustice.
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The Texas Textbook Wars

by Madeleine Kando

In Texas, a series of new textbooks will hit classrooms this fall, which more than five million public school students will be using for nearly a generation to come. These new textbooks are filled with errors, omissions and revisions that promote a Christian Fundamentalist world view, courtesy of the Texas State Board of Education.

So what, you might say? What else would you expect from one of the most backward, conservative states in the Union, a hotbed of Creationism? Why bother write about it at all? The problem is that Texas is one of the biggest customers of publishing giants like McGraw-Hill Education. Together with Florida and California, they have roughly 13 million students in K-12 public schools and although California has more students, Texas spends more of its budget on textbooks. It literally rules the textbook market in the US. This fact and the Texas State Board of Education's relentless efforts to politicize textbooks in order to advance its religious agenda, has given the state enormous influence over what gets included in school textbooks in many states throughout the country. Read more...