The Blaisdell Blog

So, there has been another school shooting.   I knew the wording of the details even before I read the article:   a loner, bullied by his peers, a disaffected youth adrift in the rough hierarchy of school social politics.               There is a critical difference between schools now and the schools I attended in the ‘60’s.   I grew up poor in a blue collar part of Denver , walking distance from what is now the Bronco’s Football Stadium.   My high school, North High, was known as a, “tough” school.   But the worst trouble a boy could get in would end up with him being bloodied pretty good--but not dead.    The toughest kid at North would never have dreamed of bringing a gun to school. Explanation for the difference between juvenile delinquency and juvenile homicide lies in an examination of the difference between being financially poor and being spiritually poor.   It is certainly true that poor families of the past are not the same as poor families of today.   We have created a ne

I am a Christian.   More specifically, I am a baptized, communing, believing, church going, practicing Lutheran.   An evangelical co-worker of mine once asked me if I was, “…born again.”   My response was that when you are born Minnesota , Norwegian Lutheran once is quite enough.    Minnesota is the only state in the Union , where marrying outside of your faith means marrying into a different synod of the Lutheran church.    I grew up knowing how to make Jell-O in every color of the liturgical vestments of the church year.                This being said, Rick Santorum is giving me the blues.   Big time blues!   He has no plans, no promises and no shame when it comes to pandering to the lathered right of his party.   Since this is my party too, and I hope for its success on the larger stage of National politics (where people from the middle of the philosophical spectrum, not the lunatic fringe predominate), I harbor more than a little resentment toward his latest rants.   First of all

Elbridge Gerry was the 5 th Vice President of the United States and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.   Unfortunately, he is best known to history for a despicable and ubiquitous political bit of skullduggery—the gerrymander!   [By the way, what is universally referred to as the gerrymander, with a, “j” sound at the beginning like, “Jerry” should actually be pronounced with a, “g” sound like, “ Gary .”]   It seems that Mr. Gerry, as governor of Massachusetts , and a member of the Democratic-Republicans (now there is a phrase that should give some neo’s a reason to pause and ponder!),   re-mapped a state senatorial district so that its sweeping curve encompassed the lion’s share of the opposing, Federalist party.   Let the Federalists’ win (indeed, overwhelm) one district, leaving the rest to his own D-R’s.   The grotesque and artificial district was characterized in the local papers as a salamander, hence the word, “gerrymander.”   Gerrymandering is a method of creating v

There are two phenomena at work in the news right now which seem unrelated but actually speak to the same issue.    First there are the actions of a dozen teenage girls in up-state New York .   These girls are exhibiting tics and verbal outbursts that they say are uncontrollable.   A physician who has examined and is treating 10 of the 12 girls has done extensive testing and attributes the problems to, “conversion disorder.”    This is a psychological problem, formerly referred to as, “mass hysteria.”   After seeing one of the parents yelling at the school board I can see where the hysteria came from.   These apples don’t fall far from the tree.               Teenage girls are the prime target for this, “disorder.”   I’ve seen these girls on television and their uncontrollable movements don’t seem to keep them from putting on lots of eyeliner, mascara and other precision makeup.   One of them seems to be fine at cheerleader practice, but, “suffers” from symptoms at home—maybe when she