Golden Years

by Madeleine Kando 

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

I am old. And goddarn proud of it. Wish I had been old earlier. All those years wasted on being young. But I never could afford being old, you see. What with having to go to work every day, make babies, take care of the little brats, busting my chops to save money to send them off to college. Never even had a moment’s rest. At times I thought: ‘Wow, I wish I were old, so I wouldn’t have to deal with all this crap.’ But that was wishful thinking, or so I thought. I am sure you secretly have those thoughts too.

Well, let me tell you. Where there is a will there is a way. Don’t postpone till tomorrow what you can do today! Clog your arteries, expose yourself to stress, stop sleeping eight hours a night and above all eat and eat - eat all the garbage you can.

I tell you, if you follow this regimen, chances are you will be old before you know it and you can start enjoying what I and many of my fellow oldies enjoy. There is a reason why it’s called ‘The Golden Years’.

When young people tell you they never want to get old, they don’t know what they are talking about. They are soooo infatuated with themselves that they probably think old people want to be young, like them. Are you kidding me? Having to go through the horrors of puberty, the agony of dating, the rejection, the urges, the heart palpitations... no way!

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The End of Animal Farming: A Brief Overview

by Madeleine Kando

This essay is dedicated to Helen and Steve Ray-Shick

who are giving sanctuary to so many

abused and neglected farm animals.

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of the feminist movement, published her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be so only because they lack education. Her views were regarded as absurd. ‘It is just as absurd to grant women rights as to grant them to animals’ wrote distinguished philosopher Thomas Taylor. What would the world look like today if we had followed that line of reasoning and not moved ahead with the Women’s movement?

Similarly, Jacy Reese *, author of The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs and Activists are building an Animal-Free Food System, believes that “by the year 2100, all forms of animal farming will seem outdated and barbaric.”

Many books have been written about the atrocities that take place on factory farms, such as Michael Pollan’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. This knowledge helps a person switch to a vegan diet, but that is not enough. Only 5% of Americans do not eat animal-based food. Knowing that something is wrong doesn’t necessarily translate in making it right.

Ending Animal Farming is not an Impossible Dream

Reese’s book shows that ending animal farming is not an impossible dream, but it lacks the how, not the why. It is a masterfully crafted call to action and asks the reader to consider (and join) one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades: ending the inhumane system of animal farming. Read more...

Pourquoi Doit-elle Dormir sur le Trottoir, et moi pas?

by Tom Kando

Il ya quelques jours, j’ai rencontré un personnage qui m’a bouleversé. Je rentrai chez moi du supermarché, roulant lentement dans mon quartier. Quoique nous habitons dans une banlieue assez chic, depuis quelques années il y de plus en plus de clochards, même près de chez nous. C’est un signe directe de l’accroissement rapide de l’injustice, l’inégalité et la pauvreté partout en Amérique.

Or, quand je tourne a droite a un croisement, j’aperçois une femme sur le trottoir, avec son petit chariot de supermarché, avec quelques sacs et valises là-dedans, et aussi un tas d’habits entassés pêle-mêle. J’estime que son âge n’est pas très loin du mien, au tour de soixante-dix ans. Elle est bien habillée, ses cheveux blancs sont bien peignés, et elle a l’air bien propre, donc je me demande si elle est une clocharde et une mendiante ou pas. Ce qui me frappe le plus c’est la grande beauté de son visage. Elle est entrain de ranger ses affaires, soulevant péniblement ses valises pour mieux les remettre. Read more...

Did the Ancient Greeks Invent Beauty?

by Madeleine Kando

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston the other day. It is rated as the second best Fine Arts Museum in the country, so it is a mystery why I don’t go more often.

Amongst their many galleries, they have an incredible Ancient World collection of 85,000 works of art. There are rooms full of Greek and Roman statues, pottery, coins and jewelry and one feels somewhat overwhelmed. As Greek and Roman statues usually are, they are large, white and the ones that are full bodied are mostly of muscular, extremely well-built men. This period in history and art was totally devoted to the human form. And how do you portray the human form best? Naked of course.

It is an orgy of male beauty, not female beauty. Women are conspicuously absent in these rooms. It is ALL about men. Men eating, fighting, disk throwing, killing lions, making love (to other men)… The concept of beauty was the domain of men, not women. Greeks and Romans adored the human body, but it was the male body that they went bonkers over.

Another hallmark of these ideal nude statues, is the small size of their penises. It is as if the sculptor got so tired after chiseling these powerful bodies, that he didn’t bother spending time on their private parts. But in fact, small penises were considered classy in those days. A sign of moderation and self-control, virtues that formed the Romans’ view of ideal masculinity. Isn’t that refreshing? Aristophanes summed up the ideal traits of his male peers as “a gleaming chest, bright skin, broad shoulders, tiny tongue, strong buttocks, and a little prick.” Heroes, gods and nude athletes had small penises. Erect, large penises were reserved for Satyrs and various other non-ideal men, men of the lower class. Read more...

Should We Break Up Facebook, Google and Amazon?

by Madeleine Kando


Tim Wu, author of ‘The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age” calls our time the ‘new Gilded Age’ and warns that when you allow the private sector to acquire excessive power, the power of the people and their representative government is being undermined.

In his new book, Tim Wu - also known for his strong advocacy for Net Neutrality - makes a compelling argument for the necessity of breaking up the Tech Giants. He sees no difference between Big Tech and the industrial giants of the Gilded Age. Monopolists like the Rockefellers (oil), the Carnegies (steel) and J.P. Morgans (railroad), saw themselves as pioneers in a progressive movement. They believed in social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest and were quite comfortable with the notion that smaller companies deserved to die. The US did lead the world in industry and innovation but laissez-faire government policies created a huge gap between the wealthy and the workers, not unlike today.

We have fallen prey to the charms of tech giants like Facebook and Google, who play down the allure of profit-making while talking a lot about how much value and “connection” they bring to the public. They portray themselves as striving to build a better future, but are in fact, the Robber Barons of today.

Busting up big businesses into smaller parts was once an American tradition, proof that we value competition in our economic system. In the trust-busting days of Teddy Roosevelt, antitrust laws functioned as a check on private power, a safeguard against a widening income gap and of corporations subverting electoral politics. Read more...

The World's 150 Mega-Cities

by Tom Kando

It was recently announced in the news that the world’s population is now over 50% urban. To be sure, we may have already reached this milestone a few years ago, depending on how urbanism is measured. Be that as it may, I now want to play with this idea a bit. I used to teach urban sociology, which I find a fascinating  subject. Also, I have lived in or visited several dozen of these mega-cities, and I love large cities.

I consulted a number of  sources to examine  the  current  ranking of the world’s 150 largest metropolises. (World’s Largest Cities;  The 150 Largest Cities of the World;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_populationList of MSAs).

Much has changed since I was young.  When I disembarked from the boat  in America as a Hungarian refugee  in Hoboken, New jersey, staring  in awe at the magic New York skyline, that city was the world’s largest, as was its harbor. In subsequent decades, its harbor was overtaken first by Rotterdam, and then by Shanghai. As to population, New York is now the 10^th largest city in the world.

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Obsessive Comparison Disorder

by Madeleine Kando


The eye doctor looked at my chart, then looked at me. My right eye was bloodshot, red as red can be. Like a vampire’s eyes. She placed the chart on the desk and said: ‘Your chart says that you are 75, is that true?’

‘Of course not’ I was tempted to reply. ‘I only wrote that so I would get preferential treatment. People give up their seat in the waiting room, open doors for you and don’t strike up annoying conversations, thinking that you are gaga anyway.’ Instead, I said: ‘Yes I am 75’.

‘You look great for your age’ the doctor said, as she told me to put my chin on the chinrest and peered into my bloodshot eye through the retinal camera. As I was trying to avoid eye contact with someone whose face is a few inches away, I wondered if she looked good for her age. I had no access to her chart, but if she was 50, she looked terrific; if she was 40, she wasn’t too bad looking, but if she was 35, she looked downright awful.

I wondered on what facts she based her statement about my looks. How is one supposed to look at my age? She was a pediatric doctor to whom I had been assigned on an emergency basis, so her judgment could not be based on comparing me with her other patients, who ranged between 2 and 7 year olds. Read more...

Rome is Fun

by Tom Kando

It’s been a while since we returned from our last trip to Europe. I have already posted a couple of pieces about this trip, primarily dealing with stressful events, but I promised that I would also describe positive experiences. So here I go, better late than never:

When we go to Europe, besides Holland, where I come from, we almost always hit Italy and France as well. Our most frequent destinations are Rome and Paris. However, we also “diversify,” visiting the provinces, for example Tuscany, the Italian Lake District, the Amalfi Coast, the French Riviera, the Dordogne, Normandy, etc.

We usually combine revisiting favorite spots and new places. In recent years we spent a marvelous week in Berlin and another one in Ireland, both of which were new to us. Sometimes we’ll tour some new parts of Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Scandinavia, Scotland and elsewhere.

This past year, we decided to return to Rome, as we have done almost every year for quite some time, then spend a week in Paris, and finally check out the Southwest of France and Spain’s adjacent Basque country. Today, I’ll just write about Rome. Read more...

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

by Madeleine Kando

“You have to be relatively intelligent in order

to realize how stupid you are” - John Cleese.

Once upon a time a little girl was born. Her mommy and daddy were so proud and happy, that they gave her not just one name but three. That way, if she got bored being called Samantha, she still had two other names in reserve.

She was very well taken care of. There were no brothers or sisters, so everything was hers: her room was hers, her potty and bath toys were hers, her room was hers and especially her mommy! She was ALL hers.

Samantha was very curious to learn about the enormous world she was born in. So many things she had to figure out! Why doesn’t the sun fall out of the sky? Who makes the day turn into night? Where do kittens come from?

Sometimes she asked as many as 300 questions a day and they all needed to be answered because that’s what questions do; they wait for an answer before they go away and make room for the next question.

Samantha was really lucky, however. She didn’t have to go far to get answers to the millions of questions that popped up in her head. Her daddy was right there, on the other side of the room because he worked from home. Read more...

Kando's Dogma - Part Two

by Tom Kando

 About a year ago, I posted a piece called. Kando’s Dogma. I now add some further beliefs which I hold to be true:

1. All people are created equal (Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson). There are no inherent differences in intellectual aptitude between the races and between the genders. The science of psychology has not discovered any. Differences in wealth are the result, to a small extent, of aptitude and effort, but much more the result of social class, family wealth and above all: luck.

2. There is no (anthropomorphic) deity, no super-brain which decided at some point in the past to create a world. The universe is a physical reality in which life and mental processes develop. In other words, the universe becomes aware of itself. It is a psycho-physical reality.

3. The nature and processes of the universe are best discovered and understood through science.

4. Science distinguishes between truth and error, and through it, knowledge increases. Humans progress by increasing their knowledge. The total amount of knowledge is infinite.

5. In addition to science, there is philosophy and there is religion (Auguste Comte’s three stages). Philosophy discusses metaphysical questions. These are questions beyond those pertaining to the physical world. Positivist science cannot answer them. Answers to such questions cannot be proved or disproved empirically. Read more...