The Blaisdell Blog

Here are quotes concerning former F.B.I. Directory James Comey: “I do not have confidence in him any longer.”   “Maybe he’s not in the right job.” “Of course, yes.” a response to a question of whether or not Comey should resign.   "I called on FBI Director James Comey to resign his position…” “The F.B.I. Director has no credibility.” “My confidence in the FBI director’s ability to lead this agency has been shaken.”      Who are these scurrilous Right Wing nut jobs who want to remove the warrior of justice who, like Daedalus, flew to close to Trump’s sun and had to be removed?   Well, the intelligent among you have already figured out that each one was said by a Democrat.   The media’s interlocutor and date of indictment are as follows: “I do not have confidence in him any longer.”   Schumer, November 2 “Maybe he’s not in the right job.”   Pelosi, November 2 “Of course, yes.” a response to a question of whether o...

A year before my father died his kidneys failed and while he was hospitalized I offered to be tested for compatibility as a kidney donner.   Not only did Dad refuse the offer most vociferously, he had his doctor call me to tell me why that would not—ever—be considered.   The fact is my father was dying and my kidney would buy him only a small amount of time with little increase in quality of life.   On the other hand, I was a 43-year-old woman with a full-time job and young children to raise.   It would make a huge impact on my life and only a marginal one on his.   Even I had to agree to the sense of that.     Good health care involves the same hard choices and sensible thinking.   Unfortunately, the Democrats in Washington want us to think that all health care is made up of histrionics.   In truth, all decisions pertaining to life and death contain some element of a cost/benefit analysis.   Think that sounds cold? How many tim...

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 or 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.   He tried the vaccine for the first ...