The Blaisdell Blog

  Eugenics is a term first used in 1883 by Francis Galton, a British statistician (and cousin of Charles Darwin).   Galton defined eugenics as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.”   Like most people that have only partial understanding of complex scientific concepts, Galton took his incomplete knowledge of natural selection and used it to make errant conclusions on race. Galton’s ideas were not only wrong, but morally corrupt.               Galton’s ideas were appropriated by those who trade in xenophobia, antisemitism, misogynism and racism.   These people, who probably couldn’t pass a 9 th grade biology exam, decided that Charles Darwin, and Gregor Mendel had given them the ammunition they needed to behave in the disgusting ways that come naturally to the angry, fearful and insecure.   Peo...

  Marjorie Merriweather Post said she wanted, “a little cottage by the sea.”   But her less than happy husband said, “Look what we got!”   If you are not sure you know who Marjorie Merriweather Post is, take a close look at her last name and think of cereal.   Yes, that Post.   Marjorie did not marry into the fortune.   She was born a Post. Despite being married four times she consistently kept her maiden name because that is where both the money and the power were seated.   In the 1920’s Post and her second husband decided that they wanted to build a home in Palm Beach, an area long the winter home of the rich and powerful, as only they could be rich and powerful in the era prior to a national income tax.   Marjorie personally chose the site, 17 acres between Lake Worth and the Atlantic and gave it an appropriate name indicating it lay “between the sea and the lake.”   In Spanish that name is Mar-a-Lago.   Building began in 1923 and...