The Blaisdell Blog

Congressman R. Blake Farenthold (Republican, 27 th District, Texas ) is an example of what I like about the Republican Party.   He states passionately that the government is not supposed to be our ultimate source of earthly satisfaction.   We, the people, are supposed to look out for, and be responsible for, ourselves.   We are supposed to work for a living; educate ourselves and our children; succeed through our own effort.   If we do well, we deserve the reward for our efforts.   That will make us confident.   If we do poorly we deserve the punishment that comes with failure.   That should make us cautious.   A confident, cautious citizenry sounds like a good idea to me.   If we can not provide for ourselves due to ill fortune, diminished capacity, or even willful neglect, our families, communities and governmental bodies closest to the problem should provide minimal assistance.   We do these things out of compassion and dedication to the greater good—not because we are obligat

Phil Mickelson is a class act on and off the golf course.   He is a great golfer, makes a tidy income, and has chosen to use his reputation and money to do good.   You can’t help but like someone like that.   I have been fascinated with the success and the outreach of his Exxon Mobile Teachers Academy .   Anyone who has watched a golf tournament this season has also seen the promotional ads for its National Math and Science Initiative.               This program (NMSI) is designed to train teachers to better serve their students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.   This is an absolute necessity to save this country from going the way of ancient Greece , Rome , and the Victorian British Empire.   We are in danger of losing our edge because we are no longer a hungry, growing nation.   The proof lies in the fact that in international tests of science the United States ends in 17 th place.   In math we are an equally miserable 25 th .   All of tho

If you are a Florida fourth grader you just got smarter by an act of congress.   Well, not quite.   Instead of congress, it was the Florida Board of Education who, in a frantic and intensely embarrassing conference call on Tuesday, May 15, decided to lower the passing grade on the state’s writing test from a 4 to a 3.   It was the only solution they could come up with when almost three quarters of all students failed (!!!) the test.   These idiots actually think this solves the problem.   If the kids can’t write, just tell them it isn’t important.   Close counts.   Not your fault.   Pick it up later in your spare time between playing computer games and cashing your welfare check.               Remind me, eight years from now, not to hire anyone with a high school diploma from Florida .    Thanks to their school board they won’t know how to speak, read or write, compute, think critically or have a shadow of an idea about science, civics, history or geography.   On the other hand,

In a little over two weeks my husband and I both lost our mothers.   One 89 the other 91 years of age, they died of the rigors and complications of old age.   No on lives forever, and if we do it right, our children bury us, never the other way around.   While I deeply, deeply appreciate the good wishes of all of our friends, the fact is that our mothers lived lives that are celebrated more than they are mourned.             These women were made of steel.   They had lived through it all: the great depression, the dust bowl, wars, economic and social upheaval.   They sent their husbands to battle in World War II and their sons to the jungles of Viet Nam .   They saw their grandsons—and granddaughters—put on the uniform of their nation and ship out to Iraq and Afghanistan .   When we were attacked on September 11th I called my mother and was steadied by her calm.   She had seen all this before.   Having lived through Pearl Harbor she knew two things: the world kept turning and just

Our local paper ran two stories this week that brought me up short.   On Tuesday there was a disturbing article about the three fold increase in drug dependent babies being born each year.   These babies are born needing methadone treatment in intensive care for weeks if not months to ease them off the drug addiction they are born with thanks to their low-life mothers who deliberately use drugs during pregnancy.   [And do not talk to me about addiction being an illness.   Diabetes is an illness; influenza is an illness; the common cold is an illness.   Drugs are something you choose to use, knowing you should not, knowing you have been told not to, knowing they are illegal.   Drinking, smoking and using drugs are all things a person makes a conscious decision to do and, indeed, go out of their way to do.   So, no sympathy here.]    Even if the sight of these innocent newborns taking their dose of methadone didn’t make you righteously indignant, the thought of the money being used to

My husband, God bless him, keeps hoping I will become a Democrat.   Every time I go on a rant about some short sighted, vote losing, lunatic fringe pacifying action taken by the Republicans he gets a hopeful gleam in his eye.   He starts talking in tentative tones about what he sees as the laudable attitudes of his own party.   He forwards me columns from his favorite liberal columnists in the New York Times.   I read the columns, nod and smile during his evangelistic monologues and continue to vote Republican. One of the biggest reasons I continue as a staunch (if moderate) Republican is watching the idiots in the Occupy (insert demon of choice) crowd.   These people are uniformly spoiled brats who have been given too much and required to do too little.   When I was going to college on a $5/week food budget I didn’t have money to travel to New York , buy a Northface sleeping bag, and eat take-out.   I was either studying during the school year or working at any crap job I coul