I want to close out this years post with another InSearchOfAmerica gallery. This one is of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. We visited there in April and I became fascinated with the place. How could such a huge pile of sand end up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains? They say it is because of the specific wind and water … Continue reading Sand Dunes of America..
Here it is the end of another year and time to look back to how I spent it. So here goes: Blog wise I made a decision about mid year to start things over again. It might not have been too obvious to some of my readers here but I abandoned my old blog of five years and moved it here in order to start … Continue reading Looking Back…
I was astounded when I heard that a Supreme Court Justice made the type of comments shown above during a Supreme Court hearing recently. Yes, I know it was Scalia and he is anything but for affirmative action or minority rights but still… Maybe the Supreme Court is just not “supreme” right now? Kind of like the “Dred Scott” period… What scares me the most … Continue reading So Much for the “Supreme” Court..
It used to be that the voters would pick their representatives; but nowadays the representatives pick their voters. As we saw in Florida, some districts are drawn with purely partisan motivations so that if a candidate wins the primary they essentially win the seat. Florida is not an isolated case and there are districts around the country that are so irrationally drawn (just look at … Continue reading Nowadays Representatives Pick Their Voters..
After some serious adjustments in my thinking I kind of find myself frequently asking what day it is. Without the job to define my life, each day seems to fold into the next. Holidays are just another day to us retired folks, especially those of us without any children or grandchildren for visits…. I am generally one of those who struggle to get through this … Continue reading Never Get A Day Off…
Just outside of Lexington Kentucky is my favorite historical village called “Pleasant Hill Shaker Village”. I simply can’t get enough of that place. Whenever I start feeling tension for whatever reason I think of escaping there for a few days. I think I have been there about a half a dozen times now but have really lost count. Staying in the actual rooms where Shakers … Continue reading Pleasant Hill — Revisited (again_
I have always been a U.S. history reader since my first years of exposure to it from a gruffy old farmer/teacher in the public school system. He taught me that if you want to really understand something you need to get as close to the source as you can. Learn what the founders thought. During the years since that time I have read extensively about … Continue reading Redemptive Violence…
My prayer for this holiday season is that all the religions of the world finally agree to coexist with one another and not try to force their individual beliefs and dogma on the rest of us. If only we could all quit killing each other in the name of our particular version of God this alone would go a LONG ways toward world peace that … Continue reading My Prayer For the Season…
We spent a couple of days in Branson Missouri this past week to get us in the holiday spirit. It is on the list as the third most celebrated Christmas in the country. Silver Dollar City which is a theme park near Branson was advertised as have over 5 million Christmas tree lights and they were impressive indeed! Almost worth all the hassle to get … Continue reading Branson Christmas
I want to spend some time this Christmas season talking about Jesus. After all, as the old saying goes, “Jesus is the reason for the season” at least for us Chrisitans. I have said more than once on this blog that I am spiritual but not currently aligned with any particular religious organization. At the same time I try to be a faithful follower of … Continue reading This Christmas Season…
Let’s spend the next couple of days forgetting about our political situation and look exclusively at other things…. I know I am probably showing my age here but when I thought of the phrase in the title above I thought of Bing Crosby’s 1943 song about soldiers in WWII dreaming of Christmas. But when I put the phrase to Wiki I discovered that it now … Continue reading If Only In My Dreams…
Saudi Arabia’s justice ministry plans to sue a Twitter user who compared the death sentence handed down on Friday to a Palestinian poet to the punishments meted out by Islamic State, a major government-aligned newspaper reported on Wednesday…. In January, liberal writer Raif Badawi was flogged 50 times after he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy last year, prompting … Continue reading Poet’s death sentence ‘ISIS-like’
A healthy society needs to provide people with health care coverage, retirement income, unemployment insurance, and paid time off, among other things. For a long time now, America has relied on employers to pony up many of these benefits on their own. But there’s increasing pressure throughout the economy to break that link, and allow more flexibility into the contracts and relationships between employers and … Continue reading Its Called The Government..
Biblical literalism as an interpretative method can be traced back to Martin Luther’s denunciation of the Catholic Church and his use of scripture to undermine their authority. Martin Luther’s democratic mission later combined with the tenets of the scientific revolution and fundamentalist politics to produce biblical literalism, the idea that the Bible is a series of testable assertions that can be proven or disproven and … Continue reading Weaponizing The Bible…
N It is interesting to see that even the Peanuts gallery can see that the vast majority of wars in my lifetime are religious in nature. Of course the Middle East is the hotbed for many of them. Maybe Lucy needs to open an office on Capital Hill… Continue reading Rethinking the Whole Religious Thing…
Is ISIL a Muslim Organization? Is the KKK a Christian Organization? The first question came up during a recent Obama press conference in Turkey after the Paris terrorist attacks. Yeah, I watched the entire thing. President Obama sure can talk 🙂 At near the end of the 50 minutes or so of questions he made the comment that one thing the mainstream Muslim community needs … Continue reading ISIS and the KKK… Whose Responsibility??
This editorial cartoon sums it up for me. I’m not crazy about Hillary but she certainly beats all the GOP alternatives right now. Continue reading The Latest GOP Debate
I want to re-visit an institution in Omaha Nebraska that we visited in 2012. This time with a focus on the many bronzes they have throughout the museum. The building was originally the passenger train depot for the city and all the bronzes show the activity as it probably was 80 years ago. Click on any of the pictures below to see an enlarged slideshow … Continue reading Life in Bronze…
Thanks Gary Varel for making my morning…LOL… Continue reading Merging Two Media Events…. Halarious
Just a quick post to give you a shot of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. We visited there in the Spring. One of my regrets for that vacation is that we didn’t spend the night there to see the Milky Way. It is supposed to be fantastic. Continue reading Great Sand Dunes NP
As mentioned in the text on Wiki about House on the Rock, it probably is not well known outside of the Midwest. I have visited there on two occasions years apart and was equally amazed by the place each time. Here is a little about the story of its creator the house. The House on the Rock, originally opened in 1959, is a complex of … Continue reading House On The Rock…
I was browsing through my photo archive and decided to pull out some pics from my Guadalajara Mexico trip of twenty years ago. (how could it be that long ago!!; seems almost like yesterday). I spent quite a lot of time there in the 1990s on business. The “America” in the category is not just the United States but also includes Canada and Mexico. I … Continue reading GDL…
A lot of Americans believe quite deeply that many of our societal and economic ills can be traced back to the crumbling institution of marriage. But even if you take that as an article of faith, “fixing” marriage is a problem with no ready solution…. Source: Can America really ‘strengthen marriage’?. I admit I was drawn more to this article because of the graphic above … Continue reading Strengthening marriage?
Before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the angels proclaimed “peace on earth, good will to all people.” We imagine the scene as a silent night–all calm, all bright. But Matthew’s gospel tells a different story. A paranoid puppet king commit outrageous acts of terror when he heard rumors of Jesus’ birth. A hit was put out on every boy under the age of two. In … Continue reading The Christmas Story…. Of Fear
I love the colorful circles outside the planetarium in Des Moines. They are very creative. But I am most attracted to architectural features like the inside of the dome. There is just something about architectural symmetry that draws me in. Continue reading Des Moines Creativity
When I came across the quote above I knew nothing of Alan W. Watts. But, as usual I got on Wiki to learn more. This guy was quite a character in life. It just seemed that once he was doing something for any extended period of time he got bored with it an moved on to something else. It seems he re-invented himself a dozen … Continue reading Making Sense of Change…
Since the second world war, British foreign policy has been built on its so-called special relationship with the United States, which emerged from that conflict as the world’s most powerful nation. This week, London showed it was attempting to build another special relationship, with China, the world’s fast-rising power that is on its way to challenge US dominance in global affairs…. Britain is known for … Continue reading British Pragmatism…
I saw a short snippet on the PBS Newshour a while ago about a drive to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name for several Princeton building because of his not rejecting racism strongly enough in his times. This is very much in line with my latest favorite words found in the title of this post. It is easy to look to the past with the wisdom of … Continue reading Judging The Past By The Criteria Of The Present..
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg??” has been the question of the day for as long as I remember. But I have a different version now. Which came first a ranting populace or radical right radio?? Lets look at that question some in this post. I know that Rush Limbaugh has been around a long time now. He has made millions of bucks … Continue reading Which Came First??
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” LaPierre and gun-rights advocates point to research that supports this argument, chiefly a 1994 study by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist. Based on a telephone survey of about 6,000 people, Kleck concluded that guns are used defensively to stop a range of crimes, from … Continue reading Good Guys With Guns???
Danforth’s new book argues that religion does have a place in politics, but in a different manner than we’ve seen in recent years. What’s missing in the modern political world, Danforth writes, is “the commitment to look beyond the self and serve the public good” — something encouraged by religion. Source: The positive role religion can play in politics | Minnesota Public Radio News For … Continue reading Looking Beyond Self…
The epidemic of gun violence in America has become the new normal. We can’t just blame it on the brokenness of the world, pray for peace, and move on, worried that anything more will be seen as politicizing tragedy. What is tragic is that those who have the ability to DO something about this crisis refuse to offer more than simplistic sentiments on Twitter before … Continue reading When Is ENOUGH, ENOUGH
A threat by the nation’s largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry’s growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say. UnitedHealthcare’s warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president’s signature … Continue reading Why Are We Crippling Obamacare with Private Insurance Companies When Medicare Can Do The Job??
The billionaire Facebook founder and chief executive and his physician wife pledged to give away 99% of Facebook shares in their lifetime, currently worth about $45 billion, in a letter to their newborn daughter Max posted on Facebook on Tuesday, the national day of giving known as #GivingTuesday. SOURCE: Mark Zuckerberg has baby girl, pledges to give away 99% of Facebook shares. I know you … Continue reading Nothing Makes a Man More Broad-minded Like Adversity – Will Rogers
RJ's Corner 