The Blaisdell Blog

Mothers are the gift that keeps on giving.  If you think that I have just given my mother a compliment—well—you never met the lady.  That woman could simultaneously give you a compliment and suck the air out of it all with a beneficent smile.  When I received my Grandmother Hanson’s delicate, silver filigree brooch Mom blithely said, “Grandma said she wanted you to have this.  It is broken, but I don’t really see you in jewelry anyway.”  Gulp!      The brooch is, indeed, incomplete.  It is made of silver, a heart surmounted by a crown with a cross on top.  There are four small hooks at the top, bottom and both sides of the heart and, while two of the hooks have long pendants hanging from them, the other two do not.  The pendants themselves are interesting.  They are similar and all ending with stylized crosses.  All of the intricate designs are accomplished in thin silver twists, with teardrop shaped “spoons” hanging ...

I once taught with a great woman who was Irish to the core.   She had asked me when I was going to put up my St. Patrick’s Day decorations and, was appalled when I asked her when St. Patrick’s Day was.   I knew it was coming up in March, but could never remember the date.   Everyone agreed that not being Irish didn’t make up for my blatant ignorance.               This brings to mind a much larger question.   Why does the whole country celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, as it turns out) but nobody celebrates St. Olaf’s Day (July 29)?   I am mostly Norwegian (though on St. Patrick’s Day I am allowed to be Irish through the use of large amounts of green and/or beer).   I know a little about St. Patrick, and a great deal more about St. Olaf and I can think of no reason for the lack of celebration for one and too much celebration for another except, maybe, good press.    ...

The first thing to know about political parties is that they are not mentioned in the Constitution.   Nor are they alluded to in any of the amendments to the Constitution.    Indeed, one of our founding fathers (specifically the peevish James Madison) inveighed against the “mischief of factions.”   Political parties were a latter day creation of the people, protected by the First Amendment right to free association and any state laws that try to manage, control or deter them lose legal challenge.               The next thing you need to know about political parties is that the delegates who go to their respective conventions are a bunch of free radicals, governed only by party regulations, traditions and rules of thumb.   That same thumb, by the way, can be shoved in the eye of the establishment at any time.   For example, by tradition and even written rules a delegate to the Republican Conv...

The first IWD was a socialist party event in 1909.   It was originally called International Working Women’s Day and is always celebrated on March 8.   Its origins were centered in Eastern Europe and became a national holiday in the Soviet Union in 1917.   Since then the holiday has morphed, according to cultural preferences, to reflect everything from the contributions of women to chivalric concerns, to more social and economic empowerment.              The U.N.’s formal title for this IWD is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality.”   I appreciate the sentiment but talk is cheap in an organization that lionizes Middle Eastern Islamic cultures which deny women even rudimentary human rights, let alone putting them on equal footing with anything that has even one descended testicle.   But, most of us can agree that women should be allowed to drive, protected from sexual harassment and assur...

Mitt Romney has just finished eviscerating Donald Trump.   Romney couldn’t have taken Trump apart better had he used a filleting knife.   Had this invective been directed at me, my family would have to put me on suicide watch.   Instead of the name-calling bombast of the school yard bully that typifies Trumps tirades, Romney went piece by piece through Trump’s own statements and bulleted, one by one, why each would not work.   It was a dissertation.   It was scholarly.   It was correct.   It may be too late, but at least he—we, the real Republicans, not the lathered wing-nuts—are on record.               Unfortunately, the crazies who currently vote for Trump do not want reason.   They are the Ferguson, Missouri mob, furious with authority, running down the street, breaking windows and setting fires, never mind their own shops and homes are destroyed in the melee.    ...