I Disappeared from the Internet

Tom Kando 

The other day, I tried to log onto my website. First, I just Googled myself, typing in my name. Later, I typed in my website’s name. I got nowhere both ways. 

When I typed in my name, thousands of search results came up, as usual. Many of the first few start with my name followed by various things. Then, scrolling down the first few pages of search results, you encounter more and more slightly distorted entries, some sites with a middle initial, and further down an increasing number of websites with names that resemble mine but have nothing to do with me, many in Japan, Africa and elsewhere. 

So I start clicking on some of the first few entries, those that spell my name correctly, and you know what? Nothing comes up. Instead of opening the website that I click on, Google sends me a terse computerese message telling me that this website and this person do not exist.

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Childhood Memories

Tom Kando 

As I mentioned in these pages before, I grew up during and after World War Two in Europe. My parents, my sisters and I were refugees who moved from Hungary to France and then to Holland. We were so poor that we had to hitch-hike to get around. By the time we moved to Holland, my mother was re-married to a Dutchman named Ed. 

We moved from Paris to Amsterdam in 1954. Early one summer morning Ed, my mother Ata, and my sisters Juliette and Madeleine grabbed our backpacks and took the Metro to the northern outskirts of Paris. We began to hitchhike, trying to look cute, hoping that some rich French motorist would take pity and give us a ride in the direction of the Netherlands. 

It took us four days to cover the five hundred kilometers from Paris to Amsterdam! Most French (and Belgian and Dutch) motorists were unwilling to pick up a family of five, including two males. Therefore we usually stood on the side of the road for hours before a kind soul finally found it in his heart to pick us up. 

Hundreds of cars drove by, some jalopies, some fancy Vedettes and Mercedes. Most motorists ignored the hitchhiking family. Some honked, waved and laughed. Once a sadist stopped his Renault hundred yards up ahead from where we stood. All five of us quickly grabbed our bags and started to run toward the car, counting our blessings. When we got close to the Renault, the driver took off laughing, his wheels spewing back dust and gravel in our faces. 

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Het Meisje

by Madeleine kando

(see English translation here)

Er was eens een meisje dat heel jong al heel triest was. Ze was steeds aan het dromen over mooie dingen, maar ze was altijd triest en stil als ze met andere mensen was. Ze was mooi, ze was triest en ze leefde in de wereld van gedachten en fantasieën.

Zo ging het een hele tijd. Ze werd steeds groter, ze begon af en toe om het hoekje te kijken van de werkelijkheid omdat ze zich toch wel een beetje eenzaam voelde in die mooie wereld waar ze helemaal alleen was. Maar iedere keer dat ze een blik wierp op de werkelijkheid schrok ze zo van dat vreemde reële gedoe dat ze gauw weer de deur dicht deed en nieuwe fantasieën opbouwde.

Toen was ze al een jonge vrouw en toen begon er iets heel ergs te gebeuren. Haar wereld werd aangevallen! Ze was er helemaal niet op verdacht en het gevolg was dat er een enorm slagveld plaatsvond. Het was verschrikkelijk! Alles wat ze al die jaren netjes gebouwd had, werd plotseling stukgemaakt. Die verschrikkelijke werkelijkheid was barbaars en wist van geen genade. Arm meisje, ze bevond zich plotseling midden in een vreemde vijandige werkelijkheid en ze wist niet hoe ze zich moest handhaven, ze had nog nooit iets geleerd over die werkelijkheid en het was een vreselijke strijd met alles wat om haar heen gebeurde.

Ze wist één ding en dat was vooral niet laten merken dat ze hier niet thuis hoorde, dat ze ergens anders vandaan kwam want dan zouden haar kansen op overleving nihil zijn. Dus ze stond op en begon te lopen en deed alles wat de werkelijkheid van haar verwachtte behalve dat ze niet werkelijk was. Maar alleen zij wist dat. En al gauw had ze zich aan die situatie aangepast, ze leefde zoals alle anderen en dacht steeds meer dat dat gewoon de manier was waarop iedereen leefde.

Maar het feit dat ze van binnen ergens anders thuis hoorde, dat ze ergens anders vandaan kwam, liet haar niet met rust. Ze kreeg een steeds groter gebrek aan werkelijkheidsgevoel, ze wist dat ze een rol speelde en dat het niet echt was en ze bleef triest, gesloten en op zichzelf gekeerd. Andere mensen vertrouwen kon ze niet, want die waren anders, die waren wel van deze wereld.

Eens kwam er een man die haar probeerde te helpen. Hij stak zijn hand uit en probeerde haar naar zich toe te halen, want hij wist dat ze triest en gesloten was en hij hield van haar, ook al was ze niet werkelijk. Maar het meisje schrok en verzon een list om zich te verstoppen. Ze kon die man toch ook niet vertrouwen, hij was niet van haar wereld, hij was een vreemde werkelijke man.

Ratio en allerlei verstoppertjes-spelletjes hebben het meisje steeds behouden van een grote catastrofe, maar ze is nog steeds triest en gesloten en hoewel ze nog altijd wel onbewust verlangt er naar haar rol te laten vallen en echt voorgoed in de werkelijkheid te stappen, blijft er niet veel anders voor haar over dan tussen twee werelden in het leven.

De wereld waar ze vandaan komt en de andere wereld van de werkelijkheid waar ze niet in thuis hoort, maar waar ze haar rol met steeds meer waarachtigheid speelt en binnenkort weet ze zelf niet meer dat ze een rol speelt, dan is de ‘werkelijkheid’ zo ‘onwerkelijk’ en zo ver weg en zo verwrongen dat ze als een kameleon voorgoed van kleur verandert en wie weet, is dat wat de meeste mensen doen.

Van kleur veranderen en er niet meer over nadenken wat hun oorspronkelijke kleur was. Misschien als ze heel oud zijn en helemaal niets meer te verliezen en te verwachten hebben, dat ze dan denken: maar ik ben eigenlijk helemaal niet rood, ik ben geel en dat heb ik al die tijd vergeten en nu is het te laat om het te veranderen.

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The Truth About Santa's Helpers (A bonus story for our faithful readers)

The Truth About Santa's Helpers, by Madeleine Kando

 

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Variations in Rates of Homicide and Gun Ownership

TOM KANDO

On December 6, there was another mass shooting  in the US.  We have become so inured to such events   that we hardly pay attention to them any more. In Sacramento, rarely a week goes by without one or two people shot to death. I sometimes feel that  I live in  a twenty-first century  version of Tombstone or Dodge City.  The country experiences  more than one  mass shooting per day. No other country  comes even close to this. This is one sort of American “exceptionalism.”

As every time, the mass murder is followed by hand-wringing and endless questions about the perpetrator’s motives and mental condition. We hear, again and again, that the cause of our mass murder epidemic is mental illness, that the solution is to identify those who are dangerously mentally ill and to prevent them from acquiring  fire arms. This is  nonsense, of course. The rate of mental illness is not higher in the US than elsewhere.  I have always argued for one simple point: It’s   all about the guns. The more guns there are, the more people  die from guns. Period.

But I have yet to come across data documenting the  simple proposition that there is a strong correlation between a place’s homicide rate and its rate of gun ownership. Logic is on my side, but what about  data?

Last year, I tried to test this  hypothesis myself. I used countries as my units of analysis. My results were inconclusive. They did not show that countries with  high rates of gun ownership also had higher homicide rates.

I just   repeated my effort.  But instead  of comparing countries,  I now  compared the fifty US states. My source is  States’ gun ownership rates.

I entered the data   into  a two-by-two table with the following four categories:

             1. States with high homicide rates and high gun ownership rates

            2. States with low homicide rates and high gun rates

            3. States with high homicide rates and low gun ownership rates

            4. States with low homicide rates and low gun ownership rates

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My Return to the True Faith

by Madeleine Kando

Like most children, I believed in Santa while I was growing up. How could I not? He was a sweet, jovial, warm kind of fellow and I always wondered what would happen if I would catch him in the act of coming down the chimney. Would he wink at me, say ‘ho, ho, ho’, put lots and lots of presents under the tree and climb back up on his way to another family’s chimney? Or would he get upset and do an about-face to teach me a lesson?

As Christmas approached I was always a much nicer person because I knew that Santa was paying close attention to what I was doing. In fact, closer to Christmas, every move I made was scrutinized by this little inner voice in my head that said: ‘What would Santa think of what you are doing?’

I don’t remember when exactly I lost the faith. Maybe it was after I saw my father sneak downstairs on Christmas Eve with lots of boxes in his arms. I didn’t observe any noticeable deterioration in my post-Santa existence, so he slowly slipped into the box marked ‘useless beliefs for the gullible me’, which I stored away in the recesses of my increasingly critical mind.

We still held on to the Christmas tradition, even after I discovered that the Santa I had believed in for so many years was the creation of a cartoonist by the name of Thomas Nast. This mere mortal had been commissioned to create the Santa character as a ploy to keep Union soldiers motivated in their grueling campaigns during the Civil War!

When we moved to a new town and a new house without a chimney, it was clear proof that being good around Christmas time was a waste of my time.

On a cold but sunny December afternoon, we went on our annual Christmas shopping bonanza. Perfectly trimmed Christmas trees were lining the wide and clean streets. There was not a chimney in sight. According to our map, downtown housed a celebrated statue marked as ‘Our Savior’. We approached it from the back, a gigantic construction, and we could see that it was primarily red in color. Soon we could distinguish its features and to our amazement, we recognized the familiar features: long white beard, red hat with a white pompon and the baggy red pants of none other than Santa! Read more...

My Invisible Neighbor

By Madeleine Kando

I am lying on a gurney, waiting to be prepped for an abdominal exam. Dark green curtains hide the rest of this sterile hospital space. I am freezing. I wait, curled up like a cocoon inside some heated blankets that the nurse gave me. The vinyl floor reflects the harsh overhead light. I wait. I am a patiently waiting patient.

Suddenly, a loud voice pierces the air. A nurse slides the curtain open around the adjacent cubicle. With a heavy foreign accent, she begins the intake procedure. My neighbor slurs her speech, as if she just woke up. She sounds old.

Judging by the ensuing questions, she must be here for a colonoscopy.

‘When was the last time you drank, Maam?’ asks the nurse.

‘I drank a gallon of liquid. That was a week ago and nothing happened. I couldn’t move my bowels. They sent me home because it was the wrong day. So this time I did the prep and things started two days after the prep. Nothing but diarrhea'.

‘Oh, wow. But what time did you drink TODAY?
‘Before seven thirty in the morning.’
‘What time did you have anything to eat, like bread or anything’?
‘Nothing.’

The nurse coughs profusely. ‘I hope you are not sick’ says my neighbor.
‘No I am alergic to my cat. Do you have any pain?’
‘Oh yes’
‘Where?’
‘In my head, I have a headache. I fell and I have a headache. And in my belly. Especially when I have to move my bowels. It feels like I am going to burst, but nothing comes out. Maybe a little piece, maybe this size.’

More coughing: ‘Tell me about your teeth can you open your mouth for me?’

‘Very bad. I had some surgery done.’
‘Any loose teeth?
‘Nothing. I don’t have any up here. This one was pulled three months ago and now there are all kinds of growths inside my mouth.’

The questions keep coming. Some, she already answered. The nurse must have amnesia.

More questions. My neighbor starts to lose her patience. ‘Why don’t you look up my medical records, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you have a computer? Why all these questions? All I want is for someone to look up my ass!’

My neighbor now embarks on a lengthy monologue. Is she still talking to the nurse? But the nurse already left. Now, nothing can stop her. She tells the hospital air how she survived the Holocaust, how she had been a Flamenco dancer and had lived in Israel. She owned a cab company called ABC. She goes on telling nobody and everybody her entire life’s story. Probably all invented. Read more...

America Must Raise Taxes

Tom Kando 

Congress was at it again: It was having difficulty passing a budget on time, thereby threatening to shut down the government. 

This now occurs every other month or so. It is one of the many aspects of our dysfunctional government. The problem is simple and obvious: Republicans want small government and low taxes. Democrats want the government to provide services for the people - you know, things like education, infrastructure, public health, medical insurance, police, defense, etc. Republicans prefer that you keep as much of your earnings as possible and that you hand over to the government as little of it as possible. A majority of Americans agree with this. Therefore any candidate who dares to suggest raising taxes is committing political suicide. 

During the Reagan era, there even arose an economic theory which argued that CUTTING tax rates would INCREASE the government’s tax intake. The theory became quite popular. It was called the LAFFER CURVE, after its progenitor Arthur Laffer. The man’s reasoning was that lower taxes incentivize workers to work more and earn more, and businessmen to invest productively rather than to shelter their profits unproductively or hide them in off-shore tax havens. This theory has long been debunked by most economists, including Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, some calling it the “laughter curve.” yet it retains many adherents among conservatives. 

The Republicans’ never-ending efforts to minimize taxes also include their current campaign against increasing the IRS in order to maximize tax audits and minimize tax cheating. Tax under reporting and underpayment cost the government several dozen billion dollars every year. 

Understandably, even Democrats are loath to advocate raising taxes. 

Yet, there approaches a time when this will be absolutely inevitable. Here are some facts (See for example What is the National Deficit ).

For the past twenty-two years, the federal government has been spending more than it has been taking in. Its budget was last in the black in 2001, when Clinton was president. 

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Israel

Tom Kando    

(References in this piece are to David Remnick’s article In the Cities of Killing published in the New Yorker on November 6, 2023) 

It has been over a month since Hamas’ attack ignited the current war and prompted Israel to retaliate with a vengeance. On October 7, Hamas invaded southern Israel and murdered fourteen hundred inhabitants of kibbutzim such as Kfar Aza and Be’eri and revelers at the Nova music festival. Babies were beheaded, parents were executed in front of their children, rape and other atrocities were committed. Over two hundred and forty hostages were taken, and remain in Hamas custody. Some of the civilian inhabitants of Northern Gaza followed the terrorists into Israel and participated in the slaughter and plunder. Hamas labeled the event the Al-Aqsa Flood. Israel calls it Black Saturday. History may remember it as October 7, as America remembers 9/11. 

Within a few days, Israel’s IDF began a bombing campaign against Gaza, a campaign of increasing ferocity. It told the one million Palestinians who live in Northern Gaza to evacuate the area, which was identified as the target area. In fact, all of Gaza became the target. Leaving the northern part to find safety elsewhere was an impossibility. Hence, hundreds of children, women and other non-combatants were killed every day, thousands every week. Entire neighborhoods were pulverized, including hospitals, refugee camps, shopping areas and residential housing.

Hamas and its supporters have vowed to destroy Israel. Its charter remains clear: Its basic goal is the total elimination of Israel, “”from the river to the sea.” Their ultimate ambition, as that of supporters such as Hezbollah and Iran, is the elimination of the “Zionist entity.”  In 2001, a founder of Hamas said that “the goal is to establish an Islamic state in Palestine, in Egypt, in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia, everywhere, under a single Caliphate...we will not tolerate a non-Islamic state on Islamic lands.” (P.33). 

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The Great Eyeglasses Rip off

By Madeleine Kando

After procrastinating for years, I finally got my new prescription for glasses. My current glasses are at least 10 years old and I had forgotten how expensive and time-consuming it is to buy new classes.

For someone who cannot even decide on which leg to get out of bed, the choice of frames is overwhelming. Besides, trying on frames is an exercise in futility since all you see is a blurred self in the mirror.

I finally selected a frame in the midrange. But frames are not much use without lenses and those make up the bulk of the cost. I finally settled on a pair of Flexon, high-index, anti-glare titanium glasses and went home with a $500 hole in my pocket.

Barely out of the door, the thought of having paid a small fortune for 3 pieces of plastic stuck together with screws that I knew doesn't cost more than $20 to produce, gave me a severe case of indigestion . I returned them the next day.

I figured there was enough juice left in my 10-year-old glasses to research why the industry puts a 1000% markup on their glasses. Especially for something that should be fully covered by insurance, like high blood pressure medication.

The reason is simple: the eyewear industry is a near-monopoly, dominated by an Italian/French company called ‘Essilor Luxottica’.

It was founded in 1961 by Leonardo Del Vecchio. The company owns the biggest retail chains, such as LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut, and controls over 80% of the major eyewear brands, including Ray-Ban, Oakley and Vogue Eyewear. Without competition, this company keeps the prices so high that it bears no relation to reality.  It even owns Eyemed, the biggest eye insurance provider in the world. So, you see quite a big party! Read more...