The Blaisdell Blog

The world is too heavy today.   Let’s take a walk on the light side--something that is not easy for me.    When Andy Rooney finally retires, Sixty Minutes will be knocking on my door for their new resident curmudgeon.   There are, of course, some serious differences between Mr. Rooney and me.   He is masculine, jowly and hirsute.   I am feminine, less jowly and wax.   But Andy and I do share a growing, growling shortness with the fools and the foolish in this world.   When I was in administration I kept a lump of coprolite (fossilized dinosaur dung) on my desk.   Every time I had to deal diplomatically with a person who was all mouth and no brain I picked up that geological paperweight and passed it from hand to hand while I dealt with the malcontent.   What I meant by this coded gesture was my own secret, but it helped diffuse a tremendous amount of frustration.   Toward the end of my career I was using that rock like a string of...

The insistence of the Democrats in Washington to turn this budgetary crisis into an electioneering coup is never more obvious than when they consider a proposed Balanced Budget Amendment to be a deal breaker.   Why?   Even if the proposal is placed before both House and Senate and garners the required 2/3 vote in each (no easy task), it still would have to then be ratified by ¾ of the states.   The time needed for that vote is not prescribed in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has said that it must be a, “reasonable” amount of time.   Lately, that has been designated as 7 years, but it could be more or less.   Of the 33 proposed amendments to the Constitution, only 27 have been successfully ratified.   So even if Congress proposed the amendment, that doesn’t mean it would be ratified .   Why make that a non-starter?               Well, there are a couple of reasons.   First, for...

In the spring of 1989 my oldest daughter had been accepted by Indiana University and I was broke and in debt.   I was the only income in the house and the outgo was outstripping the income even before we figured in the cost of college.   While I was alternately angry, frightened, worried and discouraged about this situation, ultimately I realized that I had to do two things, bring in more money and cut back an already Spartan budget even more.   I used my master’s degree in economics to start teaching night classes at the local community college. There were no vacations; no new electronics; not a purse, not a coat, not a pair of shoes bought in that house.   It took a decade to climb out of this financial pit.   But it happened. Every family that has had to deal with economic hardship knows this formula.   You have to spend less—and it hurts.   You and the people you love have to do without.   But it is for the greater good.   And you hav...

Two thousand years ago someone—very likely a priest—was walking along a thoroughfare in Jerusalem .   Adorning his rich, embroidered robes were small golden bells that tinkled softly as he moved through the market stalls.   Perhaps he rubbed against a wooden or stone outcrop.   Perhaps someone jostled him in the crowded streets.   Perhaps it was just frayed thread from wear and tear.    Somehow, one of the exquisite, golden bells fell to the ground.   It bounced and rolled along the pathway and ended up in the main drainage channel taking rainwater from various parts of the city to a central pool.    There the tiny bell was covered with literally two millennia of waste and debris.   But gold is a noble metal.   Chemically that means it is inert, it doesn’t rust or deteriorate over time.   And the bell survived.   Fast forward to the present and we have this amazingly beautiful bell excavated and brought to the light by ar...

This is a cautionary tale.   This weekend, two angry, troubled, over-indulged and under-disciplined people gave in to internal demons.   Amy Winehouse, a sultry singer whose voice reminded me of Julie London, killed herself while frantically burning her candle at both ends.   At least she only took one person over the cliff with her.    Anders Behring Breivik, on the other hand, used his delusions and pathological need for attention to kill 92 people—82 of them children at a summer camp.   His murderous rampage started with an Oklahoma City-type bombing in Oslo and then moved to the island camp.   Once on the island he lured the teenagers in close and opened fire.   Like the coward he is, he gave up the minute he faced armed resistance.               Both Winehouse and Breivik represent a generation of people who acknowledge no moral authority other than personal gratification.  ...

In 1964 four St. Louis business executives heard about a woman in Kenya who had been flying medical supplies to women and children in the African bush.   She was using an old canvas covered plane.   Between the heat and its age, the cloth covering had disintegrated and the woman needed another plane to continue her humanitarian work.   The four men decided to try getting her a metal covered plane, a small Cessna equipped with an extended fuel tank.   St. Louis in the 1960's was the center of aviation in the Midwest.  There were alot of general aviation pilots and they were always, "trading up" for better planes.  The businessmen found a plane, brought it up to fighting trim and delivered it to Kenya .   Since it is most certainly true that no good dead goes unpunished these same four men were quickly inundated with requests for help from around the world.   Today, Wings of Hope, the organization these men started has a fleet of 140 airplan...

There you have it, the arrogant power broker insisting he is innocent: denying the illegality of his actions while claiming ignorance of them.   No matter that innocent people have had their privacy invaded.   No matter that illegal acts have been committed.   No matter that the truth has been subverted, twisted, or simply ignored.   No matter that family, friends and coworkers have been threatened.   The important thing is that the organization is served, money is accrued and the leaders are obeyed.               No, I am not talking about Rupert Murdoch and his sleazy British operations; I am talking about the bully boys of our nation’s many unions, but specifically the SEIU.   It should not surprise you, by the way, that the ex-president of the SEIU is Andy Stern, friend, confidant and White House visitor to our current President.   This is an administration that grew up in the seedy, unio...

I don’t agree with President Obama’s view of this country, this economy, or his function in it.   But I feel absolutely no need to demonize the man.   People who start talking about the loyal opposition with spittle flying from their mouths worry me.               The biggest problem I see with President Obama is that he sees government in an entirely different light that I do.   In a news conference last week he said he did not care if the government tells him he can’t keep as much money as he has been.   In this ham handed way of saying that he is a rich guy and deserves higher taxes he revealed a difference between the two of us that amounts to a chasm.   He thinks the government should tell us how much money we get to keep. I believe that we should tell the government how much they get to take.   We might agree on wanting to feed the hungry and clothe the poor; help the less fortunate and make...

July is both ice cream month and baked bean month.   Now that is a combination you usually don’t see too closely together.   Of course, you round those two out with a steak and you’ve got a perfect meal for my husband.   “Want a salad with that, Sweetie?   It’s good for you.”   “Nope,” he says, “salad is just wet vegetables.” “How about some broccoli with cheese sauce?” “Cheese sauce sounds fine—hold the broccoli.” You understand my problem.   While I will eat anything except rattlesnake, my husband is the original meat, potatoes and gravy man.   He is either the easiest or the hardest man in the world to cook for.   Meat: well done.   Vegetables:   peas, corn, green or baked beans, preferably out of a can.   Potatoes: yes!   Gravy: it’s a beverage, serve it at every meal.   Tom will not do well when the food police take over.   And if Tom does not do well I will not do well.   All you women out there know wha...

Several years ago I needed a pair of shoes in the worst way.   Every woman out there knows what I mean.   The world had been treating me unfairly and I needed a pair of new high heels.   But, even in times of emotional distress I am still budget driven so I found some lovely brown suede pumps on sale for 50% off.   I took them to the check out and discovered that they were discounted yet another 50% at the register.   Bingo! There is a morality lesson here.   Have you ever bought a sale item but asked to pay the full price instead?   Have you ever turned down a pay raise that was offered you?   Have you ever tried to get a promotion in pay, benefits and prestige?   Have you ever wanted more for you and your family?   In other words, as long as you earn your money and earn it honestly, what is wrong with having more of it?   Like Tevya says in Fiddler on the Roof, “I realize it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either....

Anyone who has flown an airplane knows that when you land the craft the nose wheel should come down exactly on the center line of the runway.   That position allows the most room for maneuvering should it be needed.   When you ride a motorcycle, you establish your lane by riding as close to the center line as you would in a car.   And, of course, if you want to hit the target, you aim for that grand intersection of two center lines.   Evidently, if you want to have room to maneuver, establish your identity, and hit what you aim for, the center line holds a wonderful attraction.   Welcome to my political world.   While clearly and proudly a Republican with little other than a bullet in the brain of Bin Laden to thank this administration for, I consider myself to be on the moderate end of my party.   A center line person.   This is a position that needs more delicate footwork, mental nimbleness and clear-eyed focus than you might think.   It a...

Had I been selected, I would have been on the Challenger Space Shuttle when it exploded on January 28, 1986.   I had applied for the Teacher in Space program, and was much distressed when I was not Missouri ’s candidate.   God works in mysterious ways.   Of course, my whole life has been linked to this countries space program.   Part of it is simply when I grew up.   My family tracked Sputnik across the sky and worried about the Russians beating us into space and what that meant to the cold war.   Our nation’s history, from Alan Shepard’s first suborbital flight in May of 1961 to Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, July 20, 1969, has been my history. I probably owe my first job to the space program—and herein lies today’s lesson.   In 1964, when I graduated from college, I started looking for a teaching job in the numerous suburban school districts around St. Louis .   The Hazelwood School District lay next to the huge McDonnell Douglas complex a...

I have had some interesting exchanges with people over the last few days since the Casey Anthony case ended in acquittal.   Most people were appalled at this apparent miscarriage of justice.   Some people were vehement in their defense of the jurors.   Two of the jurors themselves (one an alternate) have made the point that they did not find her, “innocent” they just didn’t have enough evidence to find her guilty.   Good sense tells me to just let this simmering pot cool down and move on to something else.   But then I would have to keep stepping around that smelly, hairy 500 pound gorilla in the room.               If you have ever had a teen-ager in your house, sooner or later you have found a pack of cigarettes hidden in their much cluttered closet.   When you confront them with the evidence they will tell you that it belongs to a friend who left them there (hid them there, forgot them there…th...

I really do love men, God knows I don’t understand them, but I do love them.   Let me make clear that the battle of the sexes should never be taken too seriously.   Any sane person, girding up for battle on the field of sexual difference, should plan on leaving the field with a tie.   It is a confrontation conducted for comic relief.   It allows both sides to vent some frustration while celebrating their differences.   Men and women are simply different, hard wired by evolution to have a slightly different take on the world.    If you take this biologically preordained clash of will and wits too seriously you end up sounding like the women on, “The View.”     My affection for men makes me worry that they might become a politically endangered species.   Of course, some of this is a problem that the male of the species has brought on themselves.   There is the seemingly endless line of high ranking male politicians who keep doing rea...

My favorite 4 th of July moment happened many years ago in Philadelphia .   We were visiting the Liberty Bell, which no longer hangs in the belfry of Independence Hall, but is housed, across the street, in the Liberty Bell Center .   We were actually there on July 8 th , which is the anniversary of the date when the bell was rung in 1776 to summon citizens to the first public reading of our Declaration of Independence.   It was hot.   There was a long line.   It didn’t matter.             Two things happened that day that will make me smile my whole life long.   The first happened in the line.   A family with two children, a teen-ager and preteen, were in front of us.   The kids were a bit restless and the younger one pulled open a gift shop copy of the Declaration and, for no reason other than boredom, started reading it aloud.   But he read it well.   When he got to the end of ...

Happy birthday, America .   I am an American.   You can tell by looking at me.   It is in how I stand, walk and talk.   I have been in only a few foreign countries, but I am willing to bet that in every one the citizens took one look at me and said to themselves, “American.”   I like that.   I am guilty of the hubris of thinking that being an American is better than being from any other country.   Mind you, I have absolutely no imperialist ambitions.    We would do nothing but adulterate out strength and character by acquiring additional territory.   Neither do I think that we are better intellectually than other people.   I am an unabashed anglophile.   I admire the English and consider them the fountainhead of all that is best in American law and democracy.   Intellectually, I know that genius and inventive acumen are equally distributed throughout the human population.   That means, by the way, that the...