Corydon IN – Barn One of my primary hobbies is to take pictures of all the old barns I run across during my travels. This one will probably not be standing much longer and that part of our heritage will disappear. Continue reading Corydon Barn…
The Republican leaders really didn’t want Roosevelt as President. As a young Bull Moose Republican in politics, TR had angered top GOP honchos by refusing to appoint Republicans to bureaucratic positions. Party bosses Mark Hanna and Thomas Platt were able to “kick Roosevelt upstairs” as the vice presidential nominee in 1900 for the incumbent President, William McKinley. Roosevelt agreed because he was thinking of running … Continue reading Republicans & President Theodore Roosevelt
This shot was taken in the Youngstown Historical Center a while back. Whenever I look at it I seem to zero in on the face I circled for this post. I don’t know why but I would like to see more about him…. Continue reading A Particular Face…
Please Rudy just go away…… 🙂 Continue reading A Snippet Here, A Snippet There….
Small towns like Orleans in Orange County Indiana were once thriving towns. I can imagine that the domed top of this building was the major attraction in the area. Like most building of this era some of the windows have been bricked over and are no longer occupied. Continue reading Small Town America…
Let me start out with the theme for this post. The Internet is a double-edged sword. It allows the free flow of massive amounts of information but it also allow the free flow of massive amounts of mis-information. The crux of the interview that the PBS Newshour quote below comes from is about how people pick and choose which science to believe. Lets face it much … Continue reading Filter Bubbles, Rabbit Holes, and Echo Chambers…
While being shown around, Uyanwah asked Hawking which human shortcoming he would most like to change, and which trait he’d enhance. Hawking chose aggression and warned that a nuclear war could end civilization and possibly the human race. We need to replace aggression with empathy, which “brings us together in a peaceful loving state,” he said. SOURCE: Stephen Hawking Warns That Aggression Could ‘Destroy Us All’. … Continue reading Our Most Deadly Trait…
Sometimes I see the elegance in the simplicity. This is one of those times…. Continue reading Simplicity
Let’s delve a little more into Scott Walker’s comments on the most recent personal attack on President Obama. Here are some words from Mark Ambinder over at the Week. When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) told a reporter that he did not know whether President Obama is a Christian, he revealed himself to have a pretty jaded view of his own party’s base voters — … Continue reading Scott Walker’s warped view of his own party
I know when most people think of New Jersey they think of two things, the staging area for NYC and the mafia. 😉 The official tag for NJ is “The Garden State” and when you get to the central and southern part of the State it does become rural. Continue reading The Garden State…
I love America and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in the world. But I’m sure there are those out there that have a very different opinion of me. Some who accidentally come across my blog here have flatly told me so. They think I must not love my country because I say critical things about it. Sadly I’m pretty sure that is the mentality that prompted … Continue reading I Love America, But…
Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah along with GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan have put together a replacement for ObamaCare. And while neither their supporters nor detractors are likely to admit it, the plan bears a striking resemblance to, well, ObamaCare. Health-care markets present a particular set of problems, with a limited range of possible solutions. So all … Continue reading The GOP Healthcare Plan??
This was a shot taken in NYC last summer. I don’t recall exactly where it was but it sure is creative 😉 Continue reading Creative….
I find myself yet again using words from Stehpen Mattson over at Red Letter Christians as a source for one of my Sunday posts. He just seems to say what needs to be said. This time it is about how we Christians are becoming so tainted by bad evangelism. We let the crazies among us control the chicken house so to speak. The problem with … Continue reading Too Much Bad Evangelism…
The one thing that will sink the GOP’s chances of taking the White House is their sense of priority. Let’s face it most people just don’t give a hoot about what the GOP screams the loudest about… and of course Texas, as usual, is screaming the loudest of the loudest… Continue reading A Snippet….
O-Bannon State Park IN – Winter on the farm This picture was taken during a recent visit to an Indiana State Park near the Ohio River. It was a very interesting day and I will soon be putting up a Travelogue post about it. This old guy was later hooked up to a press that was one of the first to compact hay into bails. It … Continue reading Winter on the Farm…
I have a separate category in my photo library for boxes, signs, and such. A box can tell you much about our history. Here is one of my favorite box pics. Shaker seeds were thought to be the best of the best in their day. Continue reading Boxes…
I must admit up front, before it becomes obvious, that I am a novice when it comes to YouTube. This is my first attempt at posting something there and also the first attempt at this new slideshow app. I’m sure there are plenty of mistakes but that’s how we learn isn’t it? Continue reading NYC… The Video
Despite a loud minority, most of the U.S. has moved on. Last year, seven states accounted for 80 percent of all executions. And it is even more evident when you look at counties. More than half of death penalty convictions originate in 2 percent of the counties in the U.S. More and more Christians are troubled that 85 percent of executions take place in the Bible Belt. A … Continue reading Despite the Loud Minority…
By adding this book to my right side blog page I think I have made it abundantly clear how it has influenced me during my life. I read this book soon after it was published in 1962 and have re-read it about a half-dozen times since then. In 1962 I was in the middle of my high school years . That was the time when I … Continue reading Travels with Charley
Why is one bandwidth-hungry town building its own 1Gbps fiber network for its citizens when AT&T already offers them 6Mbps DSL? That’s the question AT&T would like to ask city leaders in Chanute, Kansas, a small town of roughly 9,000 people that is petitioning the state to allow it to offer greater access to the high-speed fiber network that it built to support town utility operations. SOURCE: AT&T … Continue reading Doing Something About It….
I think all of us who spent much time in the corporate world had a dream like this one of drowning in paperwork. It could become overwhelming at times. The foundation of this rendering was taken at the Grounds For Sculpture in Northern New Jersey. It is a fascinating place to visit. Continue reading Drowning
With this post I am starting another series which will be cataloged as American Aristocracy. The basic foundation for this series is that if nothing in done to prevent it our nation will likely move from a democracy to an aristocracy in the coming decades, maybe even years. The first installment in this new category is about the “Death Tax” The quote above … Continue reading Adam Smith… and the Death Tax…
JEFFREY BROWN: But couldn’t you make the argument that it would be better if we all spoke the same language, that we all understood each other? There would be — well, there would be more understanding in the world. BOB HOLMAN: Well, I love that argument, and it makes so much sense, until you understand what understanding is. You know, language is much more than … Continue reading Its All About Communications….
The people of NYC simple love everything about Teddy Roosevelt. He is truly one of their native-sons. He was the police commissioner there in the late 1800s. To me he is most famous for taking on the “robber barons” of his time. From currently reading is biography I know that Teddy never did anything half way. Too bad President Obama couldn’t have used him as … Continue reading Oh Teddy, My Hero….
House On The Rock in southern Wisconsin is a very unique and strange place to visit. There are rooms after rooms of things that spike the imagination. It is definitely an “out of the box”, “over the wall” or whatever you want to call it place… 🙂 Continue reading House On The Rock…
These won’t get teens into college, but will make them better people 1. Write a letter. An actual letter that does not begin with “Hey” and is written, in handwriting, on real paper. 2. Learn to cook a good meal that can feed the entire family, no matter what size family you have. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the average American household has 2.58 … Continue reading 10 Things Teens Really Need to Know Before They Leave Home
But by the time I was in grade school, my parents [who were both pastors] were becoming increasingly convinced that Sunday-morning Evangelicalism just wasn’t enough. No matter how nice the community was, they yearned to be part of a radical fellowship of Christ-followers, learning how to be disciples in their everyday lives. They wanted to live in solidarity with those who are most marginalized in … Continue reading I Celebrate Post-Evanglism…
There are many places in NYC where the sun just doesn’t shine or the gps don’t work. This pic was taken in June of last year. I suspect it looks quite different today.. Much whiter… 😉 Continue reading Where The Sun Doesn't Shine
New York City, NY I’m an old country boy so the longer I stayed in NYC the more people-overdosed I became. I can’t imagine living my life with millions of others within walking distance of my abode. Continue reading Oh The Humanity….
Minneapolis, MN – Mayowood Mansion The Maywood Mansion outside Minneapolis is an interesting place to visit. It is opulent but not exceedingly so as I expect, like Edison, the owners spent most of their time at their clinic. The Mayo Clinic, like the Cleveland Clinic, are the biggest successes in our healthcare system. It is too bad that we can’t envision this type of single-payer system … Continue reading Mayowood
It’s healthy to question expertise, but we need actual experts. The brilliance of the Fox News motto, “We report, you decide,” is that it encourages our vanity that we can know as much as anyone else, we can be experts, given a stream of carefully curated facts and opinion. MSNBC, which has a similar business/editorial model, is stuck with the less-empowering “Lean Forward.” There are … Continue reading America doesn’t trust its experts anymore
I am one of those who are very much attracted to symmetry. It just seems to calm my mind in this very chaotic and unsymmetrical world. This one was found in the Kentucky State House a few years ago. Continue reading Symmetry …
I think everyone knows that a significant part of the NRA are evangelical Christians. To me that association seems to be a Jekyll/Hide thing. How can you be so irrationally in favor of all guns without ANY restrictions and the resulting violence that it brings and be a follower of Jesus who was anything but a violent man? It is hard for me to fathom … Continue reading Evangelicals and the NRA
It is hard to realize all the diversity in flowers…. Continue reading Diversity
In this age of electronic banking the way to shut down any organization is to go after their access to money. It looks like that is just what is currently happening with North Korea at least to an extent. “We need to step up and target those financial institutions in Asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous North Korean regime.” When challenged … Continue reading Going After the Money…. We Can’t..
RJ's Corner 