The Blaisdell Blog

The San Francisco Department of Partial Education has decided not to offer Algebra 1 for its students until high school.    Lizzy Hull Barnes, speaking for the SFUSD says that exposing all students to high-quality math instruction is a social issue.   [ Damn, I thought it was good instruction!]   She goes on to say that SFUSD considers the practice of tracking students or separating them based on talent and ability is simply wrong.   [ Does that also apply to allowing anyone to play on intramural teams?]   She then goes on to say that being good at math is no longer about answer-getting.   [ Trust me, this is not the woman I want in charge of figuring interest rates at the bank!]             Ms. Barnes has never taught anything but elementary level math and I doubt she has an advanced degree in pure mathematics.   In any event, her words speak to a total lack of understanding of good math, good instruction or good intent.   She then, predictably, goes on to blame all of this cha

An old friend died on Monday.   I should have felt a shudder in the warp of space and time, but my friend was not that kind of woman.   She was one of the day-to-day warriors who triumph simply by putting one foot in front of the other.   Yet, if her story were writ large, she would have been many things to many people.   If only Lois had been born beautiful, or wealthy, or powerful…instead she was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus.   She told me once that the doctors told her parents she would never leave the hospital; see her first birthday; reach adulthood; live a normal life—the list went on.    She died at 81, the mother of four children and a woman who had lived a complete life.   She sang in the choir, loved to read and played cards.   My, did Lois love to play cards.   Bridge was her drug of choice.   She did not play it well, but she enjoyed the game, the society and laughter.   Our Philia Bridge Club has been together longer than some of us have been married.  

I know why Obama and Democrats want this disastrous Iranian “Nukes for Peace” deal.   They want to weaken both Israel and the United States .   They are firmly committed to the idea that we have sinned in the eyes of a secular humanist god and deserve some comeuppance.   Obama is also delighted that John Kerry got one thing right.   Iran ’s first line in the sand won’t be crossed for five years, three years after Obama is out of office.   By that time the Asterisk-in-Chief will be home free; polishing his Nobel Peace Prize and watching the sunset in what ever country he chooses to live after leaving office.   In any event, I get why the President wants this deal.   What I don’t get is why the Russians want it.   Hillary can present all the snarky, little red reset buttons she wants to foreign leaders, but the minute her back is turned Putin will take that button and shove it right up….oh, sorry, I digress.   The fact is Russia has been less than overwhelmed by this administ

Sen. John McCain stands with his arms at an odd angle.   He moves them only by moving his whole shoulder.   His arms reach for objects by moving outward and then forward instead of in a normal forward flow.    On October 26, 1967 a 31 year old John McCain was flying his 23 rd bombing mission over North Vietnam .   He was shot down and ejected from the cockpit, but that is a violent act and he broke both arms and a leg upon impact with the ocean.   Those were not the wounds he suffers from today.    The North Vietnamese who pulled him from the water deliberately crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and then bayoneted him.   He was transported to the Hanoi Hilton, the North’s primary prisoner of war camp.   There he was refused medical attention until it was discovered that his father was an Admiral in the United States Navy, and commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam .             With this knowledge McCain became a high value prisoner, one who could be used for prop

Gina McCarthy is head of the Environmental Protection Agency.   Unfortunately, in this administration intellectual acumen has been bred out of its minions like noses out of pugs.               There certainly is nothing in her college transcript to make you stand up and yell “there’s the rocket scientist in the room.”   Her bachelor’s is in social anthropology and her master’s is in environmental health engineering planning and policy.   These are the kind of soft science degrees you get by watching The China Syndrome instead of studying adiabatic charts.                 With a transcript that weak she never came close to a competitive job in industry.   Instead she worked as a bureaucrat for 25 years.   Now, you can survive as a bureaucrat by suffocating any part of your brain that uses creative thinking.   But to work your way up you must also follow the boss so closely (keeping low, so as not to attract too much attention) that every time he stops quickly your nose finds it

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.   That was the thinking of France and West Germany in 1951 when they decided that the best way to prevent a third devastating world war would be to make everyone play together—at least economically.               To accomplish mutually assured economic dependence they joined with Italy , Belgium , Luxembourg and the Netherlands to create a common market for their coal and steel.   The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and this was just such an example.   Coal and steel were essential to 50’s era industrial nations and the idea was that if you remove competition for these vital resources you remove a rivalry that could rise to the level of war.   By 1999 the one world ball had rolled into a European common market with a common currency.   One big happy family!   Well, every family has its problems.             Greece is a prodigal son that has overspent and over promised its citizens into bankruptcy—again.   Aft

I love our National Anthem.   It is strong.   The words have force and it can be played with soft passages followed by magnificent crescendos.   It fits this country.   But, of course, it is well nigh impossible to sing.   [Not that I can sing anything.   I may have many good qualities but anything approaching, “the arts” falls well out of my bailiwick.]    But whether I sing it or just lip sync, The Star Spangled Banner is a great anthem. However, it is not my favorite patriotic song.   That ranking goes to America the Beautiful, written by Katherine Lee Bates in 1893. America the Beautiful O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America ! America ! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! Most every American knows that first verse.   They also know that Bates wrote the original poem (there have been three different versions—I’m

There is a picture of President Lyndon B. Johnson preparing to sign the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964 at History.com.   Johnson is seated in front of probably 80 political and civil rights leaders.   Look at the body language of the group.   Look at their faces.   The tension in that room is still palpable these 51 years later.   There isn’t a smile in the bunch.   People are seated in closed, legs crossed positions with hands clasped tight in their laps.   Many heads are down.    There are only three people looking directly at President Johnson: Lady Bird (in red, God bless her) is on the far left, and Senators Everett Dirksen (R-Illinois) and Hubert Humphrey (D-Minnesota) both of whom guided the bill through the Senate are seated in the center.                This momentous moment was not accompanied with jubilation.   The bill had been born—in large part—of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.   Kennedy had made passage of the bill one of the key parts of his 1960