The Blaisdell Blog

What are the long term ramifications for the United States, now that Great Britain has voted to leave the European Union?   Despite all the roiling waters and implicit threat that bodies will come floating to the surface, the long view is the only one that works for this truly amazing event.   Why amazing?   Because the status quo is very easy to achieve, and very hard to upset.   It takes courage to say “been there, done that, screwed up big time and it’s all on me.”   The first thing we need to know about the long term is that it will take at least two years for Great Britain to extricate itself from the EU.   Can you remember what dire, earth shattering crisis was facing the world two years ago?   Didn’t think so.   There have been lots of vague and general references to what faces all of us because England wanted out, but specifics are either missing or filled with a string of “ifs.”   The Chairman of the Fed, Janet Yellen, has o...

In the wake of the worst mass shooting in the United States our dithering, name-calling, finger-pointing, lazy, ineffective, posturing, posing, pain-in-the-ass politicians have failed to pass even one piece of legislation pertaining to the issue of too many criminals with too many guns.                 Everyone who is surprised raise your hand.   No hands?   Right.   We shall continue, but not in the direction you might think.   This is not a column about gun control.   The number of actionable pieces of legislation handled by our elected and tax paid Representatives and Senators has dropped from 26,222 pieces in 1973 to less than half that number, 10,199, in 2016.   The number of laws actually passed has dropped from 772 (!) to 177(!!!).   In 23 years these banana slugs in the Congress have dropped their record of accomplishment by 86%. We elect people of different politi...

The War of 1812 started on this day.   But my interest in this obscure “second war for independence” actually began this winter when I discovered something interesting. I’m not the person I thought I was.   Few of us are, but usually we learn this bit by bit.   Several years ago I became my family’s truth seeker.   It isn’t the job I wanted but it is the job I got.   When your failing mother sends you her tirelessly gleaned but randomly arranged portfolio on the family, you don’t tell her that she really needs to rattle the rest of the family tree for a willing participant.    You thank her and start sorting.   Ten years later I had turned the papers, my own research and a love of the “small” stories of American history into That Blaisdell Blood: A Novel.   I gave lectures on the message and the means I had used in writing the book.   I thought I knew as much as any person about how my mother’s family, but I was wrong.   ...