The Blaisdell Blog

  “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”   Hamlet My mother and I managed to fight about almost everything.   She was always trying to raise me.   To top it all off, Mom considered me to be the, “strange” one of our bunch.   [Trust me, I am not.   I know who the strange one is, and that free radical has been darting around the gene pool, luring people toward the drain for some time now!]    While Mom expected us to do well is school, she didn’t expect me to adopt what she considered to be, “exotic” tastes.   Mom was a constant reader, but she liked Edna Ferber and Willa Cather.   Her favorite book was, The Shepherd of the Hills , a soap opera of a book about the settlers of the Ozarks.   Mother thought I had gone way off the rails when I discovered a taste for Shakespeare. “If you prick us do we not bleed?   If you tickle us do we not laugh?   If you poison us do we not die?   And if y...

The First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay on January 20, 1788.   There were 775 convicts on board the 11 vessels of the fleet, and an almost equal number of military personnel, civil servants and their families.   Great Britain was solving a problem at home and populating a remote colony of the British Empire abroad, all with one stroke.   It was the birth of a nation.   Over the next 80 years more than 165,000 convicts—men, women and children—were taken from over-crowded British jails and exported to Australia .   Upon settlement, the convicts were still prisoners.   They were kept in compounds, assigned to forced labor and, upon completion of their sentence, were set free.             Britain ’s decision to send its native sons and daughters to a primitive and hostile environment literally half a planet away started, as all fateful decisions do, with a miscalculation and unforeseen circumstan...

President Obama said Friday that he was nominating his budget director, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.   This is an attempt to take up some slack from the frayed ends of Kathleen Sebelius’s disastrous rollout of the flag ship of Obama’s armada, Obamacare.   Never mind that Obama’s armada is meeting the same fate as Spain ’s in 1588 after the Battle of Gravelines.   [Actually the popular, “Armada portrait” of Elizabeth I graces the cover of my book about her, Glorianna!   And her speech prior to the battle is one of the best given by any world leader:   “Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself, that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects…I am come amongst you as you see at this time.. in the midst and heat of battle, to live or die amongst you all – to lay down for my God, and for my kingdoms, and for my people, my honour and my bloo...

I am a good swimmer.   In the water I am totally relaxed, not fighting my body, moving in sync with the buoyancy.   It offers an amazing feeling of freedom and tranquility.               Earlier this week, while exploring Australian waterfalls, Tom and I got to one that had a small swimming beach bordering the plunge pool.   I swam through the cascade on the far side of the pool, sat on the rocks under the waterfall and then swam back out again.   Tom was taking pictures the whole time.   Later than night we were looking at the pics on his computer and I was delighted with the sight of me in the water.   Head down, arms reaching in smooth strokes, I looked as good as I ever did.   I felt great, but fate was setting me up for a fall.   The next picture showed me coming out of the water.    There I was, a 67 year old woman: saggy, baggy, covered in cellulite, and wearing an ...

The book Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag is the first in a trilogy of books about the world of Norwegian immigrants in pioneer era Dakota Territory .   If you liked O, Pioneers!   by Willa Cather you will like Giants in the Earth .   Rolvaag, a Norwegian-American immigrant himself, takes an approach to the tale that is reminiscent of the great Viking sagas.   Gods must be placated. The blood price paid.   Rolvaag’s world wears down strong men, and breaks women in two.   [This last comment may be a little harsh.   Let’s face it ladies, who among us hasn’t stared into the sunset while thumbing the blade of our best kitchen knife?   But, I digress.]   The book deals with the immigrants’ lives of struggle and privation, but even more with the emotional isolation of strangers in a strange land.   Rolvaag is not so interested in telling a story as he is in dissecting the psychology of pioneers.   He wants to know what creates...

I am sure that Regina , “Gina” McCarthy is a nice person, but she is also everything that goes wrong when you mistake a resume for talent and a bureaucrat for a leader.   A bureaucrat is always a follower, and the party line that McCarthy is following is a land grab of preposterous, dangerous proportions.   What irritates me is that this presumably nice person sees absolutely nothing wrong with proposing legislation that would take your backyard carp pond and put it under governmental ownership.               First, there are a few things you need to know about McCarthy.   She is the kind of person that the Obama administration both seeks out and loves at first sight.   This woman has never held a real job in her life!   Her college credentials are in soft sciences—social anthropology, environmental health engineering and public policy.   Geez-oh-man, with degrees this mushy, this woman hasn...

Not all governmental bodies are created equal.   One need only compare the current Congress (15% approval rating) with the Congresses of 1986-2005 (40% or above approval rating).   For that matter, the, “Do Nothing” Congress of 1947 (Truman administration) passed 906 bills.   This year’s 113 th Congress passed 22!   Of course we set records in other ways.   We had 43 African American members, 100 women and 8 members who class themselves as LGBT.   [I will never understand why one’s sexual orientation somehow clothes one in political gravitas.   Frankly, if you could show me someone with a sound understanding of economics, a realistic foreign policy and a sense of social justice I wouldn’t care if they screwed sheep .]   Only 19% of our Congress have had active duty military service (compared to 80% in 1977).   I will leave it to you to decide if any of this data is part of a cause and effect relationship, but I do believe that people sho...

Good wine, good scotch, good cheese and a good cup of tea can all be enjoyed for the same reasons: bouquet, flavor on the tongue, and the after taste.   If you are in to gustatory fore play and after glow, these are the items you are going for.   Closet hedonists that I am, I love all four.             When I made it known that we were going to Australia , a member of the Blaisdell Family Association reminded me that there is a Bleasdale Winery in South Australia .   Whether you spell the name Bleasdale, Blaisdell, or any of its other configurations, you are all part of my mother’s tribe from the Lancashire area of England .   While we undoubtedly started out as pagans (there is a Stonehenge type circle made of logs near the town of Bleas Dale ) the family managed to acquire the predominant religion(s) of England .   Several of my ancestors became involved in the Puritan movement and were recruited by...

My husband is a pilot.   He flies single engine planes and has logged hundreds of hours.   Tom is an excellent pilot and on the one occasion when our plane was in serious trouble he was exactly the person I wanted at the controls.               Once we were in contact with Air Force One!   It was a one-sided conversation, but it illustrates what I need you to know about air traffic.   Tom and I had taken off from Spirit of St. Louis airport in Chesterfield , MO , heading for St. Paul , MN and the Winter Carnival.   It was Super Bowl weekend, a cold January day.   As our Cherokee Six approached Quincy , Illinois , a call came over the radio.   “This is Air Force One at Quincy , taxiing for take off.”   Tom and I looked at each other.   Could that really have been what we heard?               Tom answered the call, “T...

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.    ...

In 2011 Rutgers student association paid Snooki (a person on some reality television show called, “ Jersey Shore”) $32,000 to appear on campus.   She did two one-hour question and answer gigs.   That is $2000 more than they paid the Nobel prize winning author, Toni Morrison, as Rutgers ’ commencement speaker.   The University saw nothing wrong in this, the students get to make their own choices; after all, we all know how intelligent and responsible college undergrads are.   The 2012 speaker was Greg Brown, CEO of Motorola Solutions and an Obama appointee.   The 2013 commencement duties went to Virginia Long, a Democrat and considered one of the most Liberal justices on the New Jersey Supreme Court.   Prior to the watershed year of 2011, when Rutgers started paying its commencement speakers another speaker was Tavis Smiley, a radio talk show host, political commentator and aide to Mayor Tom Bradley.   If you are keeping score, this means we ha...

Alexander Hamilton is frequently mistaken for a President because his face appears on the $10 bill.   Of course, Benjamin Franklin is on the $100 bill and he isn’t a President either.   The fact that these two very illustrious and important Americans are confused with Presidents is a serious indictment of our lacks attitude toward teaching American history in this country but that is subject for another blog.   Hamilton is my focus now because of our bloated national debt, Obamacare and some interesting observations from New Zealand and Australia .   There is noting like looking at our national experiment in a socialized welfare state from the perspective of countries that have already stumbled down that sorry path and are reaping the rewards thereof.     As a founding father, Hamilton is a flamboyant, colorful, controversial character.   He would make good television material.   He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, our f...

Lord Acton (1834-1902) was the first person to say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   He was an English politician and historian.   He was also an observant man, though not always a wise one.   He considered America ’s Federalism the best guarantee of personal freedom and liberty, but then took this laudable idea a step too far by supporting the Confederacy.   He placed the South’s elevation of states’ rights above the human rights issue of slavery.   Clearly, Lord Acton was on the wrong side of not just history, but justice, God and basic humanity on that one.   Yet, he still was spot on when he coined that phrase about power and its inexorable march toward corruption.    You can not have power without abuse.   Any person, even a very good person, will eventually succumb to the subtle corrupting influence of power.   Anyone seeking the ring of power ends up like Smeagol—eating raw fish with their bare h...

New Zealand and America appear to be two formerly British countries separated by a common language.   There are times when it is hard to believe that everyone I meet is actually speaking English.   Yesterday we were speaking to a very nice gentlemen at a repair shop and, while I did carry on a conversation, I honestly only caught about every third word.   I also know from the number of times I am asked to repeat myself that they are having as much trouble with my, “accent” as I am with theirs.   Actually, I have a fool proof excuse for asking New Zealanders to repeat themselves—and a little slower, please and thank you.   I simply apologize for my 67 year old ears (no lie there) and explain that I am a little hard of hearing.   No offense to be taken.                 But, no doubt about it, I am learning to speak, “New Zealandese.”   Here are just a few examples:  ...