The Blaisdell Blog

The Washington Post is a fine newspaper than sometimes lets it liberal leanings shade the real truth in a story.   This week it published an article designed to make us take umbrage at America ’s corporate giants.   Being both intelligent and introspective I saw the story in a different, larger, brighter light.   Proctor and Gamble is one of the finest and most laudable companies I know.    Ever since William Proctor (a chandler) and James Gamble (a soap maker) became a team (literally at the altar, they married sisters), P&G has been a reliable brand and an American success story.   They are leaders, innovators, and constantly generous to education.   In 1969 Proctor and Gamble’s federal taxes were about 40% of its total profits.   Today, as a global company, its federal taxes in this country are down to about 15%.   This represents a movement of sales, jobs and facilities overseas.   It turns out that most of the 30 companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average hav

PETA, a constant source of spittle spewed amusement, is at it again.   It seems a 14 year old boy in Louisiana decided to fund part of a trip to Europe with, among other things, a cow raffle.   The boy, by the way, is not traveling to Europe on a jaunt.   He has earned a spot as a People-to-People ambassador.   Nor is the cow necessarily going to, “bite the big one.”   The raffle winner can get either a living cow or a freezer full of meat.   Enter the joyless but lathered members of PETA.   Whitney Calk, a street team coordinator (is that like a community organizer????) fired off a lengthy e-mail to the teen-ager, saying, “It just seems a little strange to me that you feel someone (emphasis added) needs to die for you to go on a school trip.”   She then pasted in links for the young man to get to some pictures of mostly naked Playboy bunnies promoting veganism.   So much about this is foolish that I hardly know where to begin.    Let’s start backwards and hope I don’t miss

Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, published an article in the Washington Post that brought home a dose of reality about class hatred.   He asks, “Do you hate the 1%?   Do you think they are evil blood suckers?   Well, if you are making $34,000 or more YOU are part of the world’s 1%.    This country has 5% of the world’s population but has 50% of the world’s 1%-ers.   And if you make $34K you are one of them.”   If you earn $34,000/year you are part of the world’s 1%.   If you are also one of the simpletons who think the 1% are worthy of contempt, derision and threat, then you are calling down a curse on your own head.    How does it feel to be hated because you are beautiful?             In the United States , the 1% is swimming in a smaller and much healthier pond.   Still, the numbers are probably smaller than you might think.   If you want to be part of the 1% in this country you need a yearly income of $380,000.   That includes a lot of double in

The news these past few weeks (since about January 21 st , actually) has made me increasingly concerned about intolerance from both the political right and the left.   Tolerance is a double edged sword.   When you protect a citizen’s right to diversity you also, by definition, place the same burden of acceptance upon them.   That which is given must also be returned, else you lose all.    It is this requisite largess which is truly the sharper edge of the sword.   This dichotomy is neither unique nor new. In 1917 two anti-war activists were found guilty of attempting to cause insubordination among soldiers who had been drafted to fight in World War I.    They had circulated leaflets urging draftees not to “submit to intimidation” by fighting in a war being conducted on behalf of “Wall Street’s chosen few.”   The case, Schenck v. United States , went to the Supreme Court.   Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rendered the verdict, noting that “…the character of every act depends upon t

The United States Constitution is a document so beautiful that it implies divine intervention.   Simple in form and only four pages long in its original hand written form, it created our government, allowed for change, and, most important of all, preserved to the states all matters not mentioned in the Constitution itself.                The writing of the Constitution certainly showed a cosmic alignment of intellectual stars.   Gouverneur Morris probably wrote the eloquent words of the Preamble.   James Madison is generally called the, “Father of the Constitution” though his efforts might be more akin to those of a midwife, with much pushing, pulling and exhortations to ever greater effort.    He was certainly aided by the enormous talents of the men who worked with him.   George Washington headed the commission.   Benjamin Franklin was a moral presence.   While the twin geniuses of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in Europe their good works were ever present.   Adams had

I want you to imagine that you are in serious financial trouble.   You have to regain control or lose all.   You decide to start by cutting your spending, go hard core, slashing and burning your way through the budget.   To simplify things, we will zero in on just one easy target.   The numbers and percentages are real, but the scope is small enough to wrap your arms around.   I am going to ask you to use your weekly grocery bill as an example of your entire yearly expenditures.   We are not going to examine reality, but how reality works.               For every $10 you spend on your groceries you must slash (I repeat, SLASH!!!) 7 pennies.   You heard it, 7 cents per sawbuck.   If you spend $100/week on groceries you will have to cut 70 cents—yup, less than $1 out of the $100.   What would you give up?   Would you even notice?   Would your family notice?   Could you live without those 70 cents?   I could more than cover that by buying the store’s own brand of bread instead of a