The Blaisdell Blog

Numbers have relevance, but they don’t have blood.   For some of us, numbers are enough.   For others, well, we need to put some meat on the mathematical bones.   So, I ask a question. What percentages of murders occur during the commission of some other criminal act?   These would be murders that occur during a robbery, a break in, a mugging, etc.   They might be accidental, incidental or incorporated in to the plans for the predatory crime, but they are not the goal of the crime.   The answer is 10%.   That leaves 90% of all murders (either spontaneous or deliberate) that have no purpose other than to end a person’s life.   Whether we are talking about the foul scum that enter a church, a theater or a school to kill as many innocents as are within reach, the cool plotting of a spouse killer, or the emotional response of a woman who has been hit one time too many, 90% of all murders are done for one reason only: to eliminate the presenc...

Today seemed like a good time to reprint a blog I wrote on September 30, 2013. On March 9, 2010, at a meeting of the Legislative Conference of the National Association of Counties, Nancy Pelosi uttered the stupidest, laziest, most arrogant comment I have ever heard from a living Congressman.   You all know it, “…we have to pass the [health care] bill so you can find out what’s in it…”   Personally, I would be ashamed to take a salary for writing laws that I publicly admitted I had not read and did not comprehend.   But, personally, neither would I have cosmetic surgery that made me look like I was permanently goosed by Barney Frank.   Of course, Pelosi’s only qualification for office appears to be that she was daddy’s little girl and, unfortunately, it shows—all the time!             Now that Obamacare is upon us, the reality of finding out, “…what’s in it…” is falling upon us like a hair vest. ...

In 1998 I finished 30 years in education as an elementary school principal.   That same year Mark McGwire broke the major league home run record with 70 swats that went over the fences.   That year I was making a little less than $80,000 and he was making a little less than $9 million.   You did not hear me whine about income inequality.    While I have my doubts about McGwire’s ability to do what I did, I know for a fact that I could not play major league ball.   There is also a fairly large pool of people who could replace me and precious few people who can hit 70 homers a year.                Being easily replaceable makes you worth less on the job market—a fact which has nothing to do with your worth as a human being.   Never confuse the salary of a worker with the dearness of humanity.    Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton have noted the discrepancy in pa...

I am one of the lucky people who had a great father.   He was a loving, good natured man who never met a stranger.   When I was growing up, Mom was the law and Dad was the gospel.   He could always be counted on to make a joke of our foibles and give us a pass on minor infractions.   Mom, on the other hand, was sure that cutting us a break while young meant moral weakness later on.   They were a good team, which, I am sure, is how nature meant it.   Parenting is a young person’s sport and a two person job when ever possible.   Yes, I know there are plenty of great single parent homes out there but it surely can’t be easy.               Fathers are frequently the least appreciated and acknowledged part of the parental team.   [Part of the feminist movement seems to be not so much elevating women as denigrating men.]   Studies have shown us that if you want to raise strong, inde...

My favorite grocery store in Texas , HEB, has started rationing eggs due to the shortage caused by the avian flu that is decimating chicken farms throughout the country.   Since eggs are in short supply and a perishable commodity, this only makes sense and, like everything else that HEB does, it is smart, simple and quality conscious.   But the need for the rationing brings me back to a theme I have addressed before.   The next major health crisis this world faces is not going to be Ebola, or even mislabeled and poorly handled anthrax, it is going to be a mutation of avian flu, and it is going to kill us by the millions. Poultry industry workers in Asia are routinely given flu shots.   The shots don’t keep them from getting avian flu; they keep them from getting the basic, human influenza.   Why?   Because doctors and scientists want to make sure that there is no way for the deadly avian flu to mutate into human influenza because human flu, while...

We have some serious foreign policy decisions to make in the near future.   Since nations seldom commit acts of foreign policy with countries who are friends and allies, we have to negotiate with people we don’t like.   So what should we use for guidance? The United Stated Constitution is not silent on our foreign affairs.   Articles I, II, and III all have sections and clauses that provide regulation of our conduct and intercourse with foreign governments.   The law is there, but what about the philosophy?   How do, “We, the people…” place our values into our foreign policy?   That is what treaties do, and that is why the Senate is required to pass judgment on them.               Laws that would regulate our foreign policy must embrace two important goals.   First, we need to be able to deal with other governments on a short term basis in that way which would promote the best intere...

In 1988 I was working for the White House Advance Staff for President George H. W. Bush in his reelection campaign.   The title sounds niftier than the job.   I was just one of a dozen volunteers in St. Louis , MO who knew the roads, the local newspaper columnists and could change the ink in the copy machine.   All of that and being able to pass a Secret Service security check got me the job of gopher.               Make no mistake; this was a job I wanted!   I have been a political junkie all of my life.   Since I taught, I used my summer vacations to volunteer on local campaigns. I started stuffing envelopes and looking up phone numbers, slowly working my way up to the state speakers’ bureau for Reagan/Bush and then White House Advance Staff for the senior George Bush.               It was working advance staff that I finally got a...