Myths Americans Need to Unlearn #2

RJ Walters

2018-11-12_13-01-20.pngWe in America have a pretty inflated belief that we are the best in the world at everything we do. Why else would we stick our noses into so many other countries’ affairs? We have military bases in over 50 countries in the world. How many other countries’ bases are in the US? We think and maybe at one time we actually did have the best technology, the best engineering and the best software talent in the world.  Part of the reason for that is that we recruited talent from the rest of the world. But, as we close our borders that talent will be siphoned off elsewhere.

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Source: Eight Myths Americans Need to Unlearn About America

You must admit that at least for the last couple of years we haven’t done much right as a country. Too many of us proudly proclaim that anything our current leader doesn’t like is fake news. Global warming can’t be true because he doesn’t have a gut feeling about it. How far behind are we getting by that ignorance? He said while he was campaigning that he would be the “infrastructure” president but he seems to have lost interest in that topic also.

One of the most egotistical things about us Americans is that so many believe that we can’t learn anything from the rest of the world.  I have long known that as “Not Invented Here“. If we didn’t invent it then it is not worth having. Simply speaking we need to get over this idea, especially now.

As an example, EU countries have much better public healthcare than we do and they do it for less than half our cost per citizen. Too many of us are still battling against any form of a single-payer system when others in the world long ago found it to be the best and most affordable solution.

We need to get off our high-horse with the idea that we excel at everything…

Inspiration

RJ Walters

I am still refining my new format for RJsCorner and that will probably be an on-going process for months to come. 🙂 When I first set up the weekly post categories I deemed Thursday as American Heroes but pretty quickly decided that was just too confining for what I intended.  After a couple of days of contemplation, I decided to make Thursday the day I post about the people and things that inspire me.   Being that I obsessively search for just the right phrase, I want to give you my definition of Inspiration.

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2018-11-12_10-01-01.pngSo, for this first Thursday Inspiration post, I give you Emmanuel Macron. I admit that I don’t know a lot about him yet but what I do knows makes me think that he is a world leader for the 21st century.  He is young (41) but appears to have wisdom beyond his years.  Maybe that is because he, like me, married a woman considerably older than him. 🙂

His recent interview on CNN’s GPS piqued my interest to learn more.  During that interview, he laid out his 5-year plan for bringing France into a leadership roll in EU and the world. I would highly encourage you to watch that interview. For those who don’t have the time to do that maybe my quick very edited transcript which will give you an idea of why he is inspiring to me.  Click here to see that.

I certainly hope that if and when the US falls out of dominance that EU will be ready to take up that mantle. This gives me hope that just might be the case.  But, I also hope that other young forward thinker like him will rise from the swamp of current American politics.  I am just tired of this country being run by old white men.

Here’s to you Emmanuel, viva la France.

Offering Hope Is A Hard Sell…

RJ Walters

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I am bound and determined to not give up hope here on RJsCorner. I will just not let the current times and the occupant of the Oval Office and his cronies deprive me of hope.  But, offering hope is a hard sell, especially now.  I have seen so many of my blogging friends who have gotten totally negative about the world today. They, and sometimes I, just want to roll up in a cocoon and let the world pass by. Plainly speaking we are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and who can blame us!! Some seem to just give up while there are others like me who are stretching for hope wherever we can find it.

Yes, these are tough times but believe it or not we have been in worse. What got us out of those previous ditches was the hope and action of people determined to not give up. It was important that our national leaders were some of the biggest hope creators. This time around the exact opposite seems to be true.

Let’s face it, basically, there are two types of people in the world today. The Left people are driven by hope and the Right are driven by fear and it is pretty obvious that the Right people are the ones in charge right now. There is certainly a lot of fear in the world today.

Going forward I have vowed to do my part in selling hope.  The alternative is just totally unacceptable.

Cleveland – A Different View

RJ Walters

Last Saturday’s “Artsy” post gave you a snapshot of our trip to Cleveland earlier this year.  This post will put some flesh on those bones. 🙂

Our first extended visit to Cleveland was in 2013. We were visiting a couple of my high school classmates of fifty years ago. We took in the downtown area and most of the usual tourist places during that trip. The trip this Spring was a two-day pass-through one and I was determined to see a different view of the city. As mentioned Saturday, we stayed at the Aloft Hotel on the Cuyahoga River a short distance from Lake Erie.  It was a very different place than we usually stay and that is exactly what I was hoping for. Since I didn’t get any internal shots of the hotel I took some from their website, I’m sure they won’t mind the free advertising.  (Oh, by the way, click on any of these groups of pictures to see larger and captioned versions.)

The backside of the hotel where our room was was literally abutted up to the commuter train tracks. The views were amazing. This is a slideshow of my pictures.

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As you likely know, I am a planner so I had checked out the Westside Market as the place to go for the next day which was a Tuesday.  We got to the market plenty early so there wouldn’t be too many people but found out they are closed on Tuesday! We did eat at the local cafe attached to the market and had a humongous breakfast.  Finally here are some pictures of that.

 

This place has been around forever
I sneaked a picture through the cafe door glass
Sorry I missed you
Me, having a pleasant time waiting for breakfast
My Hubby of 33 years seemed to be enjoying herself

It was an enjoyable experience, even if we were disappointed about the market. From Cleveland, we went to Punxsutawney PA to see Phil. More on that in a future Tuesday post.

 

Party Over Principles??

RJ Walters

I guess I have to say something about this past election.  It was sweet in some ways but bitter in others.

The sweet

The Democrats now control the House of Representatives and the diversity of that body is improving.  Come January 1 there will be thirty more women in the house than there was the day before.  The graphs below tell the story.

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The disparity between the parties is grossly obvious and proving that the GOP is primarily a party of old white men. Of course, that does not speak well for their future and that also is good news to me.

Maybe the biggest celebration is that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the current Oval Office holder and those like him. Not only are women moving away from the GOP but men are too.

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The Bitter

I was disappointed that the losses weren’t more severe than they were. It just seems that so many put party over principles when voting. They would rather a  bully, narcissist, habitual liar hold the highest office in the land than to consider voting differently than they have in the past. Of course, this is a symptom of lazy voting and maybe a dose of hatred and fear. They continuously trash the previous president as being the scum of the earth but praise the current one as being their savior! I have not been able to get a single one of them to give me a valid reason for the hatred of President Obama. I sadly believe that the current Oval Office occupant could take an AR-15 and kill dozens of people and he would still get their votes and their worship!!

In conclusion, my distress about the imminent implosion of our democracy is a little abated now but not much.  Next Monday I am going to talk about waiting for a shoe to drop.  I’ll explain that then. 🙂

Coastal Taco – Cleveland

RJ Walters

Coastal Taco - Cleveland

For the first “Artsy Saturday” post at the reformatted RJsCorner, I chose the Coastal Taco in downtown Cleveland Ohio.  The picture was taken just after sunset from our room at the very eclectic Aloft Hotel. As you can see the restaurant was under a very large bridge going across the Cuyahoga River near Lake Erie.  The food was pretty good and the inside atmosphere was delicious. 🙂