Why White Evangelicals…

RJ Walters

It is a well-publicised fact that 81% of white evangelicals voted to put the current occupant in the Oval Office. On that subject, I ran across this interesting book entitled Believe Me. It is written by one of the 19% who voted the other way.  Here is a small segment of an interview with the author:

2018-07-05_18-44-44.pngFinally, you dedicate your book to the 19 percent of white evangelicals who did not vote for Trump. What do you want to say to them with this book?

I dedicate the book to the 19 percent not because they’re my primary audience, but because they seem to have seen through Trump. They’ve made a decision that Trump is not good — not just for the nation, but also for the church. So I hope the book might provide some history and arguments that the 19 percent can offer to their evangelical friends who did vote for Donald Trump and are having second thoughts, or are at least open to further evidence and dialogue. But my main audience, I think, is those evangelicals who voted for Trump who are open to reason and evidence and historical arguments that may suggest electing Trump was a bad idea.

via Why White Evangelicals Voted for Trump: Fear, Power, and Nostalgia – Red Letter Christians

My basic premise here at RJsCorner that those who put #CO3 in office primarily did so because of fear of the unknown. While I was a member of an evangelical church not that long ago, I certainly saw that fear in a number of eyes. They are afraid of what is happening to their beloved country club. Due to pride and vanity, I doubt if they will ever admit the error of putting, at best, a totally unqualified person in the highest office in the land. It seems that they would rather go down in flames instead.

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Sometimes Necessary, But Never Celebrated…

RJ Walters

I am a pro-life person in all regards. I totally believe that human life is sacred in all regards. One of the ironic things about some people is that while they detest some forms of the taking of human life, mainly fetuses, they celebrate killing in too many other circumstances. I am pro-life in all regards.

2018-07-01_17-04-02.pngWe in the USA just seem to be a very belligerent people if you ask me.  We teach our children at a very young age that killing another person is just part of life.   They are bad guys who need to be exterminated. We indoctrinate them with video games and movie and TV shows that celebrate violence. We are a country primarily identified by the wars we have entangled ourselves in.  I don’t celebrate Memorial Day but I do mourn those killed by our government who sent them into one unnecessary conflict after another. They always say that the young soldiers who are sacrificed are giving us our freedom, but there is no war in my lifetime that I see worth the cost of a single human life.  I am pro-life in all regards.

2018-07-01_17-04-32.pngYes, maybe in some circumstances, as in the case of WW II,  killing is necessary but it should never be celebrated. The last thing we should want our children and grandchildren to be when they grow up is a pawn in hands of those who see war as the only answer in far too many circumstances.  I am pro-life in all regards…

 

If you want to see evidence of how we think about killing from the rest of the world, just compare our TV shows to those on BBC. The difference in the level of violence is overwhelming.

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Veggies vs Flowers…

RJ Walters

Most of my life I have had a veggie garden to tend. They have varied in size from 75 x 125 feet to patio pots. There is just something about raising your own food that is primal with me. My wife, on the other hand, is a flower garden person. Every year, even though she is in her upper 70s she, with the help of a good friend, puts out a flower garden. This is one of those pictures that tug at the strings of my heart.

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Bullets Or The Ballot Box…

RJ Walters

2018-01-24_15-52-48I believe that I live in a country that is just as flawed, but in different ways, as most others in the world today.  One of the most serious flaws is that we have an inordinate love of our guns. Our culture is primarily centered around violence. We are four percent of the world’s population, yet own almost fifty percent of the world’s guns.

But there is one characteristic of this country that leaves me with hope and pride and a feeling that we can survive just about anything that the world throws at us.  That characteristic is that we as a nation of people settle our differences at the ballot box instead of with bullets.

I know in the middle of our three hundred year existence that we managed to kill a half million of ourselves over the idea that one human being can own another.  Thankfully that war ended on the moral side of things and even more so that it is the only time we have taken up guns against each other.  We are pretty unique in that regard and all you have to do to see that is look at the history of just about any other country.

Resolving our conflicts with our ballot instead of bullets does result in two and four year periods where we have to put up with our serious mistakes. This is one of those periods. We will start remedying that mistake this coming November and finally drive the unstable narcissist out of office in twenty-four months after that.

Yes, I am extremely proud that we settle our major differences with our ballots instead of with our bullets. That fact alone makes me proud to call myself an American.

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Just Doesn’t Hack It…

RJ Walters

slice8.pngA few months ago I told you that I was moving my InSearchOfAmerica stuff to Flickr. That site now has over 800 pictures and about 8,000 visits of my travels throughout America.  That is pretty good but one thing that is missing are words.  Flickr is primarily a visual media and there is just not much there to support the written word.

2018-07-01_10-44-57So, to eliminate that problem I am doing a little backtracking.  I have decided to use a parallel approach to my ISOA catalog. Starting soon, I will be adding regular ISOA posts back to RJsCorner. The one thing that will be different is that I will limit my pictures on each post to a couple and then give a link to a larger album on Flickr.

I know, a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words but a picture without words describing the story behind it leaves the picture less than it should be.  I think this solution will satisfy the void that Flickr only is leaving me with.  If you have any suggestions on this topic please let me know.

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DoubleSpeak…

RJ Walters

If I were a conspiracy theorists I would believe that #CO3 and his cohorts have this all planned out.  First, they try to convince everyone who will listen that the current news media is all fake and not to be trusted.  And then they put out their version of news as shown by this New York Times snippet below shows.

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I’m sure their base believes these sort of things. I just hope that there are so few of them as to be easily defeated in coming elections. That is if we sane Americans learned our lessons the first time and vote. We should never let the radical fringes pick a future president.

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#CO3 = Current Oval Office Occupant

Always Looking…

RJ Walters

I am always looking to add new features and sections here at RJsCorner.  Trying to improve everything in my life is what makes it ultimately satisfying.  In the same light, trying to hold on to eternal optimism is a BIG challenge given so much of what is happening in the world today.

I have vowed to back away from the ugly world of American politics and I think I have been substantially successful in that endeavor. I don’t want to jettison it entirely as that would be a personal copout to me.  I considered adding a topic of “#CO3’s Lie Of Today” but quickly found I would have to spend quite a bit of time studying the daily lies to decide the one that would be posted.  Here is an example of that:

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I have come to the conclusion that almost without exception when I see something he has said I believe the opposite.  The trouble with the idea of “Lie of the day” it that he would have too much attention here.

I wisely decided to scrap this idea, even though it was enticing to actually compile the untruth that comes from this narcissist’s lips.  Enough said, let’s get back to something more optimistic for tomorrow’s post.

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#CO3 = Current Oval Office Occupant

Madison Regatta

RJ Walters

I took a uRV trip to Madison Indiana for the annual Madison Regatta this past weekend. This is the first time I have been there so it was on my bucket list.  I am generally not a powerboat racing fan but it was neat to see these guys go 100+ mph across the water. If you want to see more pics, check out my Flickr Album.

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Autism & Sensory Sensitivity

RJ Walters

2016-07-18_17-26-54.pngIt has been a while since I put out a post about Autism concentrating primarily on Aspbergers’ Syndrome. This post will be about sensory sensitivity.  Of course, that means being sensitive to sight, touch, taste, sound, and smell and is often a symptom of Autism.

I continue to discover new traits in my life that point me to Aspbergers. This one came from a billboard that I saw several times a month while traveling back and forth from my small town to a larger one with more services and medical options.

Let’s go through the list with my stories:

Sight –  I am a late riser in the winter months and an early riser the rest of the year.  The reason for that is two-fold. One is that I have too much to do around this 3-acre homestead to spend extra cool hours in the morning in bed. 😉 The other one, more relative to this post, is that I can’t sleep in a room filled with any significant amount of light. My eyelids just don’t filter out much light it seems. I am very sensitive to bright and flashing lights. Even TV flashes cause me to wake up from a nap.

Touch – Creases in my bed sheets are a cause of my frequent sleep interruptions.  I am an Apple watch guy now, and it tells me I am an extremely restless sleeper. Another touch sensitivity is that after about six months of use, I have to replace my bath towels as they just get too scratchy.  I could add a few more to the list but I think you get the idea.

Taste & Smell – These are two biggies for me. There are things that just make me wacky in the taste and smell area. I just can’t understand how anyone can put mouthwashes like Listerine in their mouth. The taste and smell are utterly intolerable to me. But something that is even worse is the smell of mint in any form! Whenever I get even a whiff of mint I pretty quickly abandon the area.

It seems that all the oral hygiene manufacturers think that adding mint to their products is a bare necessity! For that reason, I have to special order many toiletry items so they are mint free. If I had a choice between sitting next to a cigarette or even a cigar smoker, or a gum chewer, I would without a doubt chose the smoker. Mint just drives me up a wall.

Sound is usually included in sensory sensitivity but since I am totally deaf I am at least free from that one. 🙂

I recognize that for many on the Autism spectrum these types of things cause a panic meltdown. I am thankful that for me my reaction is not quite as severe.

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Whatever??

RJ Walters

Being a person who has always been fascinated about how things work, I thought for this artsy Saturday I would give you a picture from my recent trip to Greenfield Village at the Ford Museum. The building containing this picture was a scale replica of Edison’s first electric generating plant.  I’m not sure exactly what it is but I love the detail and mystic.

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Wanting It All NOW!!

RJ Walters

2018-05-21_08-21-30.pngOne thing that seems to be pretty prevalent in American life today is that everyone wants what it took my generation years to get, NOW.  They simply don’t want to wait until they have earned enough, or become wise enough for it to happen. I know our world is going faster now but sometimes you just need to mellow a little longer before you get what you want.

I see on the cable show House Hunters where twenty-some-year-olds are looking for 3000+ square feet homes and just won’t settle for less. They say they are going to have maybe two kids so that is the minimum they will accept. In the 1950s my two brothers and I along with Mom and Dad lived very comfortably in a 20 x 50 ft home. We considered ourselves very much in the middle class.

One of the reasons some people think they can afford it all now is the near-zero interest home loans now available. My first purchased home was obtained with a mortgage rate about eight times higher and it had to be accompanied by a 20% downpayment. I was 38 years old before that happened. One of the common complaints now among later generations is that Baby Boomer mortgaged our country so that future generations have to pay for our extravagances. There is some truth to that but by the same token, we are paying for their very low-interest loans by getting next to nothing for our saved wealth.

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The Best Doctor In The World…

RJ Walters

Will Rogers Bookmark.jpg

“Best doctor in the world is a veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what’s the matter. He’s just got to know.” – Will Rogers

This quote from Will came to mind recently while my wife was going to doctors trying to determine the cause of her recent ailments. In the last couple of months, she has had three emergency room visits, two of them by ambulance.  We were in the ER practically all day each time. They racked up over $14,000 in tests and billing for their time and still can’t determine the cause for her symptoms.  They just say “if it happens again, come back and we will try to figure it out.”

But at least the $14K bill was reduced to a little over $4,000 by Medicare with our out of pocket around $200.  Thank heaven for Medicare.  Maybe they will find what’s wrong the next time… but I’m not holding my breath. 🙂

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We All Like To Think We Are Special

RJ Walters

We all like to think we are special, especially during our teenage years.  We are trying to find our own identity but due to the lack of creativity in us we pretty much all end up being the same as everyone else.

In some ways, the feeling of being special is very isolating and sometimes even harmful. It is much easier to just go with the crowd and meld in with everyone else. It takes a special person to be well, special. What makes a person special is not how they look or what they wear, instead it is about what they do and the beliefs they hold.

I kinda think that each one of us is special in some small way or another. It is just finding that characteristic and developing it that makes it a reality. In my high school days that was not an easy task. There were no guidance counselors in my very small rural high school to help me find my nitch so to speak. Looking back, I did have some special skills but didn’t know it.

If there was just one basic life lesson that I could help present generations realize, it is that you need to find what makes you happy and then pursue that to fruition or dismissal if it proves to be a false happiness. The sooner you come to that realization the more satisfying life you will have.  One organization that helps kids do that is Roadtrip Nation http://Roadtripnation.org

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I hope every kid has access to this organization.  I know if I had had access I would likely have chosen a different career path that would have been more personally satisfying.

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