The Blaisdell Blog

One of my favorite old movies is High Society starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly.   This musical version of The Philadelphia Story blends the voices of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby’s in fine style.   The story returns over and over again to the idea of class stereotyping.   There is a line repeated in both movies that says a lot about the recent Washington Press Correspondents Dinner: The time to make up your mind about people is never!             The word, “plutocracy” means a government by or under the control of the wealthy.   Actually I don’t think that is such a bad idea, the more you’ve got to lose the more careful you will be, but I realize that is waaaaaay too politically incorrect for most people.   There is not, as far as I know, a word for government by or under the control of the media.   I believe I will coin such a word.   I will call it the mediacracy. ...

The shortest job tenure I ever heard of involved a man hired to help set the stage at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.    This poor, over-eager soul, immediately (with way too much enthusiasm and not near enough training) pushed the concert grand piano right off its wheeled movers.   The piano went off the dollies and down a few feet into the partially lowered pit.   You could hear every string in that sounding board ping as they broke apart, one after another.   The poor fellow turned around and left the building, grabbing his lunch bucket on the way out.   I actually think he should have stayed, been in-serviced and given a second try.   I don’t feel that way about our next subject. The second shortest job I know of clearly belongs to fledgling local news anchor, A. J. Clemente.   He was fired recently after his first-ever words on Bismark , North Dakota ’s NBC affiliate, KFYR, were, “f---ing sh-t.”   No, those aren’t the descriptio...

In honor of the opening of the George W. Bush Library and Museum I am re-running a column I did last year.  AIDS is a rotten disease—not that there are any good ones.     Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is the last stage of HIV infection.   The human immunodeficiency virus gradually destroys the immune system, making it harder for the body to fight infections.   It is a wasting disease.   It works slowly, allowing its victim to unknowingly spread its ugly self from person to person before anyone realizes that a killer has been loosed on the unsuspecting.               There are equally vicious diseases that can become pandemic, but most of them are so quick to kill that they literally outrun their supply lines, killing off their hosts so efficiently that the victims can not spread the disease before dying.   Ebola, the almost mythic hemorrhagic fever of the 70’s, was like this...

Dove soap is telling women to give themselves a break.    The ad uses the services of Gil Zamora, an FBI trained forensic sketch artist to draw women both as they describe themselves and as strangers describe them.   The sketches are made, the results displayed side by side and the woman’s self described sketch is much less flattering than the one done by strangers.   Dove’s message is, “You are much more beautiful than you think.”             Any good ad understates the product while overstating the message; a powerful tool.   Let’s face it, Anheuser-Busch works harder to sell those beautiful Clydesdales than it does to sell beer and it works like a charm.   This campaign shares a good message.   It is true that as a social experiment it has more holes than Swiss cheese, but the intelligent among us recognize this as an ad for face soap, not cold fusion.   They are allowed a bit of lee...

I am watching the interfaith service for the victims and heroes of the Boston Marathon bombings and I am grateful for the chance to share this memorial.   Yet, time and again, I find myself recalling the first church service I attended after the Newtown Massacre.   I am a teacher, the daughter of a teacher, and the mother of a teacher.   I can not speak of education without internalizing it; so when the Newtown killings occurred I had a face and a name to go with each child and each teacher.   The first solace I felt after than horrible day came in church.   My pastor at First Lutheran Church in Edinburg , Texas did not try to explain how or why such wickedness could be visited upon truly innocent children.   She did not try to offer an earthly explanation for an unearthly sorrow.   Instead, she reminded me of the one unalterable fact that I needed to hear.   I can remember the words at the close of her sermon, “…and God was there, in tha...

One hundred years ago, the RMS Titanic, an, “unsinkable” ship went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean , taking 1500 people to their deaths.    The ship was built to be the final word in luxury and modern opulence.   Yet she made her money in transporting hundreds of immigrants in steerage class.   Catering to the wealthy, the Titanic sought to muscle through on style and hubris instead of substance and careful planning.   It didn’t work.   Four days into the crossing and 600 miles south of Newfoundland , the Titanic hit an iceberg, flooding five of the sixteen, “watertight” compartments.   The supposedly unsinkable ship went down in two and a half hours.   Most of those who died did not drown, but died of hypothermia in the freezing water.   A few miles from the Titanic, and in a good position to save most, if not all of the passengers, was the S. S. California.   This ship had sent the Titanic its first warning of icebergs and ...

Down in Lake Havusue City , Arizona there is a serious disruption in the ground of the cemetery.   No, it isn’t the dawn of the dead; it is my poor father spinning in his grave.   Dad was a dairyman from the cradle up.   He milked cows on the farm, worked at creameries (that is where they make butter, for those of you not familiar with the, “job”), dairy plants, as a state dairy inspector and finally as a federal butter grader.               I grew up knowing that a, “short-timer” was a machine used to pasteurize milk.   It brings milk up to 161 degrees Fahrenheit and keeping it there for only 15 to 30 seconds before rapidly cooling it.   This kills most of the microbes in the milk, affecting the taste only for the real milk connoisseurs out there, and making it safe for virtually every consumer.    Pasteurization, developed by French microbiologist Louis Pasteur, (who says the French ...

I have a temper.   I also think that giving in to one’s temper is a sign of moral and intellectual weakness.   Anger simply fuels the flames of ire and creates more anger, not reasoned solutions.   Besides a temper I also have more faults than the average person is allowed, and so, I occasionally give in to my temper.   I always regret those lapses.   With that in mind, I did not complete this column yesterday as I planned.   I have, in fact, deleted nearly everything from yesterday.   For example, I have decided not to question U.S. District Judge Edward Korman’s sexual proclivities.   He is probably not protecting himself when he said underage girls should be allowed to buy the, “morning after” pill without a prescription.   I have decided not to wonder why he would refer to the, “imprudence” of children as young as 10 or 11 having intercourse.   Notice, by the way, that the word, “imprudence” means unwise or indiscreet.   Ev...

Beverly Hall is the former superintendent of the Atlanta , Georgia public schools.   She is also a mob boss that sent out at least 35 lieutenants to falsify and corrupt the tests scores of Atlanta ’s students.   She did this for money and power.   All of these people are now indicted and facing jail.   I hope they are thrown into general population with some of the students who are there, in part, because they were cheated by the schools that these ersatz educators short changed.   Hall and her thirty-five stooges are accused of cheating, conspiring to cheat, or retaliating against whistle blowers who exposed the cheating.               From 2005-2009 student scores were changed or fabricated to create an illusion of academic success.   Superintendent Hall apparently encouraged the cheating and fired principals who didn’t come on board.   The Georgia Federation of Teachers, in typical t...

Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.   The death and resurrection of Christ represent the temporal manifestation of an ecclesiastical gift of grace.   Faced with the perfection of God, the imperfection of man condemns us to eternal death.   But, God used the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of all mankind.   If we accept that sacrifice through faith in its reality, we are given eternal forgiveness.   To the world and the worldly, this seems almost too easy.   We could live the high life, violate every commandment, indulge every vice and still know that we face no eternal retribution.   Our earthly partners may find us to be reprehensible, vile, even criminal, but out Heavenly Father would still welcome us with open arms because Jesus has paid the penalty.   What a sweet deal!   This could be the ultimate, “get out of jail free” card.   However, this concept of Grace, undeserved mercy , start...