The Blaisdell Blog

July 1 is the Anniversary of the Canadian Confederation.   Congratulations good friends. The histories of Canada and the United States are intertwined.   And it is not just our Anglo-ancestors, but out Native Americans (First Nation’s people in Canada) and paleo-selves who are all part of one historical tapestry.   Canada and the United States share a common geography, geology and pre-history.   In modern times Canadians and Americans are frequently like cousins.   We can fight among ourselves all we want but nobody else gets to pick on one without the other stepping in.   The truth is, Canada is not just our closest neighbor, it is our best friend.   Canadians have added their wit, wisdom and talent to the pool of people throughout North America, and all our lives would be the less without their contributions.   No less than 13 Canadians have won Nobel Prizes in science.   Some of our favorite authors (Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow and Lucy Maud Montgomery) are Canadians.   The

The buzz word in the media this week appears to be “civility.”   I mourn the fact that it has been on life support for decades, but now that crude behavior has been shown to be a choice of the left as much as the right, it suddenly deserves some attention.               What many on the left have used as their defense of discriminatory (i.e. Sarah Sanders being refused service at a lunch counter—I mean restaurant), vulgar (i.e. Peter de Nero and that Samantha—can’t think of her last name—person), and violent (i.e. Maxine Waters and her dog whistle to her base) behavior is the 4 th grader’s response of “They did it first.”             What appalls me is the number of people who equate Trump’s disgusting behavior with his victory.   Let me use data from the Brookings Institute, Pew Research, the Washington Post and the Democratic party’s own post-election autopsy to educate them.     There are six states that sent their electoral votes to Barack Obama in 2012 but did not retur

I truly do believe that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.                  I also love my country, but that doesn’t mean it is without fault.   One of the most shameful times in this nation’s history is when we chose to put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps at the beginning of World War II.   That action cannot be defended.   It cannot be excused.   It must be seen as an example of the mentality of the mob.               Yet, piercing every dark sky, there are random points of light.   Bob Fletcher, who died on May 23, 2013 at the age of 101 was just such a light.   Mr. Fletcher worked as a California agricultural inspector.   As such, he knew the Japanese families who worked in the agriculturally rich central valley of California around the town of Florin.               Of the 120,000 Japanese sent to internment camps three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many represented families that had been in California since 1890.   Unfortunately,