The Blaisdell Blog

  Every year since 2008 I have monitored and commented on a most curious observation.        Christmas cards are my favorite part of the season.   In 2008 I first noticed that the cards were of one predominate color.   It was pink!     Pink borders, pink cartoon animals.   Even a Nativity scene in shades of pink.   Light-hearted, happy, comforting pink.   I went to the container of the previous year’s cards and glanced through those cards.   No, no pink, but a predominance of greens.   I started paying attention each year.   There are lots of family pictures, cute animals, trees, scenes of snow or an array of stars, well-loved Christmas figures like the Magi and Nativity, but there is always a predominant color.   The family photo has everyone dressed in one color.   The Nativity scene has a colorful border.   Santa and the snowmen are on a background of a specific color.   That color ...

  I picked up the headset and held one side to my ear.   There was the voice—calm, methodical, every tone measured and precise.   In the Gander Aviation Museum, I was listening to recordings of air traffic control.               “Delta one five heavy, this is YQX approach, squawk zero seven seven niner.”             “United two two three heavy, this is YQX, descend to 5500 and hold for approach.”             “American four six heavy, this is YQX, you are clear to land zero three.”             The term “heavy” refers to a wide body airplane.   Air traffic control handles these by the dozen every day.   You would have thought it was any other day.   But it wasn’t.          ...

  On April 26, 1954 the Salk polio vaccine field trials began.   It was the first time a “double blind” trial was used for a drug.   The now standard double blind study (where neither the patient nor the doctor know who is getting the real medicine as opposed to a placebo) involved almost 2 million children.   It began at Franklin Sherman Elementary School, an integrated school in McLean, Virginia.   The expanded study involved children from the United States, Canada and Finland.             I think the trials conducted in an integrated school reflect the largesse and truly humanitarian thinking of Dr. Jonas Salk himself.   The son of immigrant-Russian Ashkenazi Jews, Salk knew what mindless prejudice and institutionalized bias looked and felt like.   Salk was a risk taker.   He used a dead virus when common thinking assumed a live but weakened virus was better.   He tried the vacc...