We are generally very poor at predicting the future. Congressman Ryan who is a radical right conservative in the House of Representative recently proudly put out a ten year government budget that he proclaims will starve us from our legendary deficit spending. With his ten year budget in hand he keeps ranting about where is the democratic ten year budget. I think maybe my Democratic … Continue reading Vehicles Of The Future….
“You see a Republican moves slowly. They are what we call conservatives. A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t always have plenty of money. A Democrat is a fellow who never had any, but doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have some.” – Will Rogers, 26 March 1933 Will certainly had it … Continue reading Republicans And Democrats – A Definition
“If all politicians fished instead of speaking publicly we would be at peace with the world.” – Will Rogers, 20 October 1933 Maybe that is the solution for our current gridlock in Washington. Just shut it down and go fishing. But remember to turn off the money spigot before they leave. There is a lot of hot air in that area of Virginia that … Continue reading Gone Fishing….
You’re so vain I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you? This quote came from a song by Carly Simon in 1972. I don’t think of myself as being very vain, but aren’t we all vain to one degree or another? What is vanity? According to one dictionary I have it is: characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of … Continue reading A Little Vanity Goes A Long Way….
We are a nation who puts top priority on everything being cheap. No, that doesn’t apply to our military. We throw so much money into our war machines their top priority has to be figuring out how to spend it all. But since there are so many outstretched hands wanting to relieve us of our hard-paid tax dollars that even ends up not a … Continue reading We Are Just Cheap…
While I am on hiatus I highly recommend that you go over to RedLetterChristians for your daily dose of living Christ’s words in your life. I think my blog here actually precedes them but being a considerably size org they do a much better job than I ever could. Click on the logo above to go there. They ask for a donation but it is … Continue reading Red Letter Christians..
“If we only stopped to realize that it is really, after all, the little things that count, why, we would be a wiser and more contented race.” – Will Rogers, 18 November 1923 I hear your words Will but I have trouble putting them into practice. I know that life is the little things that happen while we are waiting for something else. I try … Continue reading Being Contented…..
The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that’s now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health; 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. Millennials got so many participation trophies growing up that a recent study showed that 40% believe they … Continue reading The Me Generation….
I want to apologize to those of you who read this blog. It seems I have just lost the energy to continue to post here on a regular basis. The futility of convincing some to look at Jesus’ words in a different light has simply become too exhausting for me. Convincing people to concentrate on “being” a Christian as apposed to just believing certain things … Continue reading Lost Energy….
I don’t know but I kind of think we are just too connected in the country. “Stop and Smell the Roses” Continue reading Too Connected????
Three years ago, Liu wrote a best-selling book called China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age. In his hawkish tome, Liu explained that China needed a strong, martial leader and offered advice for his resurgent nation: “When China is threatened, it has no choice but to use war to protect its right to rise, to break through America’s … Continue reading China’s Place in the World….
Two members of the liberal group Progress Kentucky have been identified as the secret recorders of a strategy session for the reelection campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the Senate. The Feb. 2 audio recording, which was leaked to Mother Jones magazine and posted online Tuesday, revealed plans by the McConnell campaign to go after actress Ashley Judd over … Continue reading It’s Time For You To Leave…..
America’s hospitals have been growing. The bigger they get, the more power they have — to set prices and force insurers to pay more. Patients foot the bill via higher premiums, copays, and deductibles. It’s one factor behind the nation’s increasing health care costs…. According to an audited financial statement, UPMC made $948 million in profits from 2011-2012. And while tax returns show it spends … Continue reading Nonprofit hospital makes billions…
I seem to talk about boredom pretty frequently on this blog but I have never tried to specify just what that means to me. So let’s do a little of that for this post. As usual we will go to Wikipedia; here are some bits and pieces: Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do… The first recorded use … Continue reading Just What Is Boredom….
The title of this post is a quote from a not very famous person but it has some deep meaning for me. Actually it is something I wrote in my personal journal about a year ago. 🙂 I often times like to look back to what I wrote about the previous year just to compare to where I am now. Last year I was just … Continue reading A Bored Mind Is A Moody Mind….
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1, ESV The Bible is not the “Word of God.” It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It contains words of God. It even talks about the Word of God… but it is still not THE Word of God. The Word of God is actually Jesus … Continue reading Mislabeling the Word of God – Red Letter Christians
A handful of Democratic and Republican senators are considering a rewrite of 60 of the most consequential words to ever pass through Congress. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, and provides the legal cornerstone for the so-called US “war on terror”. Only one brave Congress member opposed it. It allows the US government to wage … Continue reading Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war….
A hospital in Livingston, N.J., charged $70,712 on average to implant a pacemaker, while a hospital in nearby Rahway, N.J., charged $101,945.In Saint Augustine, Fla., one hospital typically billed nearly $40,000 to remove a gallbladder using minimally invasive surgery, while one in Orange Park, Fla., charged $91,000. In one hospital in Dallas, the average bill for treating simple pneumonia was $14,610, while another there charged … Continue reading Hospital Billing Varies Wildly….
Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering. The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three … Continue reading The Tipping Point…..
Nobody wants to be called Common People, especially common people.” – Will Rogers, 21 June 1925 Let’s face it, no one likes to think that they are common. We all like to see ourselves as different from everyone else. As teenagers we spend an inordinate amount to time to make ourselves different. So much so that teenagers all end up being pretty common. 🙂 … Continue reading Common People….
Here are the five greatest reasons parents “lose” their children from Christianity: 1) Falling into the temptation of using religion to control their children through guilt and shame. — “Jesus is watching you!” Even the best parents can find themselves wanting some divine backup in a conflict with their children. However, using God for intimidation in a conflict with children has two major issues. First, it … Continue reading Five Reasons Christian Parents “Lose” Their Children
Jesus says some stuff in the inaugural speech of his ministry that really upsets the status quo of both the religious and non-religious. In essence, he says, “If you are to follow me as King of this newly inaugurated Kingdom of God, you will need to start loving your enemies as much as yourself. You will need to start getting creative in how you deal … Continue reading Jesus Was A Radical…..
China’s leaders never tire of saying it: Asian giants India and Chin What would happen if countries in the same region started to trust each other? What would happen if they made in a priority to do business together and to act in their self interests? What would happen if they decided to try to solve the regions problem among them selves? Those are questions … Continue reading Being Made Irrelevant….
“We are just here for a spell and pass on. . . so get a few laughs, do the best you can. . . Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead – Will Rogers, 5 July 1931 Since I have been trying to chill out more lately I have been going back to a source of mental stability in my life … Continue reading For Just A Spell….
We spent the last two posts reviewing an article entitled “The Six Worst Things About American Christianity” from RedLetterChristians by Steven Mattson. Now that I have had a few days to digest these words I want to turn the article’s six points around to imagine them as lessons we U.S. Christians should learn. Here they are: 1) We must realize that no one has an … Continue reading Six Lessons to Learn in U.S. Christianity….
I often wonder how our government survives, let alone efficiently, doing the people’s business. In the engineering world where I spent thirty years of my life there was an old saying “Design By Committee”. All of us engineers knew that the more people you have involved in solving a problem the less likely that you would come up with a good answer. Design by committee … Continue reading I Often Wonder…..
RJ's Corner 