Anger

by Madeleine Kando

I am angry. Angry is the perfect description of how I feel about Trump. I remember my high-school days when I was bullied beyond description, but had no recourses to protect myself from the continuous barrage of insults, intimidations, humiliation and abuse.

This is how I feel about the Trump phenomenon. I say ‘phenomenon’ because it is no longer this one disgusting individual that I am angry at. The root of my anger has kept pace with the spread of the disease. Like cancer, you first notice it in one small part of your body, so you can focus your anger on your left breast, but soon it has spread to your lungs and your kidneys.

Now it’s not just your breast that is worthy of your anger, it is the polls, TV, newspapers and the radio. There is so much time spent discussing, analyzing and ‘understanding’ the Trump beast, but I know deep down that these are all feeble attempts at rationalizing something that is pure evil. Like trying to understand what goes on in the mind of a murderer. Does it help? Not an iota. In fact, it is counter-productive.

What does help is ANGER! Anger is the only solution when someone is trying to destroy civil society. Don’t we realize what kind of monster we are facing? Are we too civil to respond with the only effective defense?

If you are faced with evil, the first line of defense is to call it by its name. Then, once you have done that, you have entered a zone where only you and your opponent matter. There are no ‘extenuating circumstances’. That is what Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand. You have to fight dirty and if the dirt smears off on you, so be it.

I’d rather have a dirty Hillary than a Trump as President. What about you? leave comment here Read more...

Do Polls Shape Public Opinion?

by Madeleine Kando

Like many of you, I have been trying to make sense of the Trump phenomenon. How did we get to the point where almost half of the American voting public considers electing a buffoon as our next Commander in Chief?

There are many theories out there trying to explain this: 1. He speaks to the anger of many Americans who are disillusioned politically and suffer economically. 2. He fills a power vacuum in the Republican Party. 3.The sheer volume of media coverage has turned into a self-perpetuating cycle. Etc.

It is also possible that Trump’s incredible power of self-promotion has created the dreaded ‘feedback loop’. Political scientists point to a strong correlation between media coverage and a rise in the polls, especially early on in a campaign. And being chosen to participate in the primary debates also depends on where you stand in the polls. In other words, one step rests on the previous one, which has resulted in Trump’s mystifying success.

It also helps that he talks about every issue in vague terms, leaving room for interpretation of what he says to fit many foot sizes. His BS is an intentional maneuver to disorient and take the sails out of his opponents’ rebukes. He is a master strategist. Maybe it is true that he knows more about the military than the generals.

Unfortunately, the same feedback loop has also caused Hillary to get trapped in a negative spiral. Negative stories about her have been talked about over and over again, ad nauseam. Trump’s response to accusations is to not admit guilt, ignore the accusation and move on to something else.

The real problem with polling is that the results of the polls in one area affect people’s opinion in another part of the country. This is terrible. You get either a self-fulfilling or a self-defeating prophecy. In psychology they call it the ‘bandwagon effect’, when people do something primarily because other people are doing it, especially when they are uninformed.

Is it a coincidence that Trump’s current campaign manager is a pollling expert? Manipulating the ‘will of the people’ is Trump’s middle name, and he is incredibly good at it. He knows that polling not only measures public opinion, but also SHAPES it. leave comment here Read more...

DIVING

by Madeleine Kando

A Travel Journal

After a 6-hour flight from snowy Boston, I land at the airport in Belize City, sweating like a pig in my turtleneck sweater. It is quite a change from the huge hubs in the US; a small building with brightly colored walls where small, old men are having fast food dishes on the benches. I get my boarding pass for the plane that will take me to  Ambergris Caye.

Ambergris Caye is Belize's largest island, known for its scuba diving in the Barrier Reef with its famous 124 meter-deep Great Blue Hole. I have committed myself to a 7-day diving package at a five-star resort, where I will meet up with my daughter Aniko and my favorite niece Leah, both avid divers.

The plane finally arrives, about the size of a large car, I would say. The seats are made for midgets and they squeeze as many of us in as they can. Once the last passenger has wormed her way to the front into the co-pilot’s seat, the tiny wheels on this flying motorcycle start rattling and furiously turning as we gather speed.

Against all odds we are suddenly airborne. The view is magnificent; the ocean is blindingly blue. We fly over lagoons, large patches of algae and in about 20 minutes we approach San Pedro, the main town on the Cayes. Soon the wheels get slammed down with a loud clatter on the runway of a tiny airport, not much bigger than a backyard. Read more...

Humanity's Future: the Next 25,000 years

by Tom Kando

 Dear People: This is to let you know that I have just published a new book, with the above title.

Here is part of the preface:
This book is an experiment. Like most people, I grew up on Star Trek in its many generations, Star Wars, and innumerable other science fiction materials, from optimistic classics such as Arthur C. Clarke’s and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 to a variety of apocalyptic prognoses. All of these are fairly specific.

What I have always wanted to do is write a general, comprehensive (pseudo-)history of the entire future, a total extrapolation of what we, humans, have been doing so far. I also wanted to give the story a positive twist, one that places us, humans, at the center, and which relies on US to be the solution rather than the problem. So this is it. An experiment, an attempt to describe the WHOLE picture. Ambitious, I’m sure. But pretty unique and provocative, I hope.

The story evolves from mundane, early 21st century contemporary politics to a cosmic apotheosis. The first chapters examine the struggles of current nation states, with a special focus on the United States. Presidential successions, immigration, the economy, the energy crisis, the war on terrorism, etc.
Read more...

Why Are Some Countries Good and Some Bad at the Olympics?

by Tom Kando

No matter how much this is denied, most people probably link Olympic success with some sort of national, moral superiority. Medals equal national pride. Well, this is precisely the idea  which I will NOT touch with a ten-foot poll in the present article. What I DO want to do is offer some OTHER explanations, or at least correlates, of Olympic success and failure. This is pop sociology, speculation meant to draw your interest.

This year, once again, the usual countries dominated the medal count. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has usually been dominant, with China rising as somewhat of a competitor in recent years. During the Cold War, the Soviets and their vassals (particularly East Germany) were in the forefront of the medal count, thanks to massive cheating.

At first, a country’s most obvious advantage seems to be a large population: The top eight countries in the overall medal count - the US, the UK, China, Russia, Germany, France, Japan and Italy - are all among the world’s twenty most populous nations. However, such rankings are unfair, as they do not take population size into account. Is China, with nearly a billion and a half people, not entitled to more medals than Grenada, with a population of 100,000? (There are fourteen thousand times as many Chinese as Grenadians!).

Read more...

Aetna Leaves Obamacare: A Public Option is the Answer

by Madeleine Kando

Aetna, one of the major insurance companies in the country, is pulling out of the Obamacare exchanges in 11 of the 15 states where it currently offers plans.

The reason the company gives, is that it is losing money selling insurance to individuals who are in need of more care than was anticipated. But some experts (including economist Paul Krugman) say that it is vindictiveness after antitrust authorities turned down a proposed merger between Aetna and Humana.

Now, why they are losing money is confusing. They say that there are not enough healthy people to financially offset those with major health problems who require high-cost care.

So, what happened to the ‘Individual Mandate’? Isn’t there a requirement that everybody gets health insurance or pay up to $2000 in penalty? (in 2017). Does it not get enforced? Are there too many exemptions? Wasn’t the whole point of the ACA to make health insurance cheaper and available to more Americans?

Whatever the reason, that means that over 800,000 people on the exchanges will have to look for alternatives and in some areas of the country, there isn’t much to choose from. You wonder how that can possibly be legal, that health insurance companies are allowed to stop providing coverage in the name of profit. Read more...

Fractal Geometry and Insomnia: A Heavenly Combination

The famous Mandelbrot Set

by Madeleine Kando

Falling asleep is an elaborate process for an insomniac. Your mind starts fighting with your body, like a boxing match. I have tried many things in the past: deep breathing, soothing music, dark curtains, white noise. None of it worked. But recently I have developed a routine, which shows some promise of success.

The very first thing I do, is barricade my bedroom door with a row of cotton balls dabbed with citrus, a smell that my cat hates. That way, she won’t scratch at my door the minute I close it. It’s not like she has a need for space, since the whole house has become cat territory, but she won’t even allow me to time-share my own bedroom at night.

Once I am barricaded, I make sure my head rests comfortably on my favorite pillow, the one with the flower cover. But the piece de resistance in my quest for sleep, is the psychedelic Youtube movies that I have been watching: psychedelic tunnels, mandala movies, and moved on to ‘electric sheep’,


which is a genre of computer animation that is very beautiful and totally psychedelic and finally ended up with the cream of the crop, called ‘fractals’. I was hooked. It became my nightly drug of choice.
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The 2016 Republican Convention: Several Instances of Mass Hysteria

by Madeleine Kando

Mass hysteria happens when there is a group of people who fall into a collective delusion. There have been several cases of mass hysteria throughout history, the most famous of which are the witch-hunts, which lasted more than 200 years. Countless innocent women were executed.

Here is a list of fictitious epidemics that are not such a far cry from what is really happening to the insane crowd that populates the Convention Hall in Cleveland.

The Phantom Pregnancy Panic

An extremely rare form of mass hysteria gripped the attendees of the 2016 Republican National Convention, when 34 year-old Ivanka Trump announced that she was expecting a baby. This is, of course, false. Whatever the case, Ivanka’s incredibly convincing personality was enough to trigger a pregnancy panic. By the third day of the Convention, numerous female attendees said that they too were pregnant and caused a ruckus in the Convention hall. Only the constant reassurance by their supreme leader, Donald Trump, that they were never pregnant in the first place did the women finally calm down.

The Vanishing Genitalia Epidemic

Although their nominee, Donald Trump, had guaranteed them that no matter what the size of his hands, ‘I guarantee you, there’s no problem down there’, an episode of vanishing genitalia caused widespread fear amongst the attendees. These fears were usually triggered by incidental body contact with a Democrat in a public place, after which the “victim” would feel strange scrotum sensations and grab their genitals to confirm that they were still there. Read more...

Is Time Reversible?

by Madeleine Kando

I was in the midst of a belated spring-cleaning in my house and suddenly found myself confronted with boxes full of photographs. The past was oozing out of those boxes and I couldn't stop the flow. Being the child of a photographer, this is hardly surprising, but it really felt like a tsunami, to the point where I had to remind myself that these snapshots weren’t real. These moments were gone, flushed away in the stream of the river of time.

Since the birth of photography, the past has had free entrance to the present; no more borders so to speak. Like the Schengen Agreement between the EU countries, the past can go anywhere it pleases, even into the future if it wants. My grandson will be rummaging through these boxes, wondering what happened to this young, beautiful 20-year old woman and how she managed to turn into this old, wrinkled person whom he calls ‘Oma’.

Before the birth of photography, people had to rely on rare and expensive paintings to look into the past, which most of them couldn’t afford. The majority of people relied on their memories to conjure up the past, but otherwise it just stayed conveniently hidden. The past knew its place and didn’t infringe on the present. Read more...

Coming Home

by Madeleine Kando

I travel to Europe at least twice a year and have become very familiar with the routine of clearing customs and immigration on my way back to the States. Even though I emigrated to this country eons ago, the butterflies are still fluttering about in my stomach as soon as I enter Immigration Hall, with its red and green line marked on the shiny floor.

I was stateless for the first 18 years of my life, you see, and I have an irrational fear that the boot of the law suddenly would decide to kick me back from whence I flew.

That long red line conjures up a whole smorgasbord of emotions. I feel a tinge of superiority as I walk by the much longer green line packed with aliens. I am no longer an alien, my green card proves it. I am a member of the club now, albeit not an elite member yet. I throw unobtrusive glances at my fellow club members and try to adopt their nonchalant and casual air. Americans are like that, you know, they talk to each other in public places, they don’t put on airs. They feel comfortable in their own shoes, probably the result of a century’s worth of being the top dog in the world. Read more...