One of the most unusual places in the U.S. is the Great Salt Lake in Utah. In a surreal way, it is beautiful and deserves a 5Star rating.
Month: April 2017
Ignorance Outshines Wisdom
“I don’t suppose there ever was a time when everybody knew as little about what they were talking about as they do today.” – Will Rogers, 19 September 1933
I like this quote from Will Rogers so much that this is the second time I have used it here on RJsCorner. It just seems like “knowing so little” is in vogue today. Ignorance is almost topping out wisdom with far too many of us. The current Oval Office occupant prides himself on not reading books or anything else for that matter. He gets all his news from selected cable TV news programs even while he proclaims that they are all just “Fake News”. Don’t try to see any logic in that method as there isn’t any.
How does ignorance come to outshine wisdom? Of course, that is not true for all of us but the percentages seem to be drifting in that direction as our recent elections showed us. The religions of 81% of Evangelicals who put Trump in office requires all their members to proclaim that the earth is only 6,000 years old. They refuse to accept any scientific knowledge that says differently. Ignorance has trumped wisdom in their religious lives and it has bled into the rest of their lives. Ignorance outshines wisdom.
Far too many people only read things that they already agree with. Wisdom is not gained by hearing the same thing over and over again. Instead, it is gained by searching out the unfamiliar, looking for new information, new ways to solve old problems. Wisdom is gained through new experiences not just constantly reliving the old ones.
But finally, maybe ignorance is outshining wisdom for too many of us because becoming wise takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of tolerance to see things differently. Whereas, ignorance is easy peasy. Just latch on to something you are told and disregard everything else about the subject at hand.
Ignorance is easy, wisdom is hard. It might just come down to that fact.
South Dakota… Gallery
Let’s celebrate South Dakota in this post. I don’t know why there is a North and South Dakota, even together they make a very small State population wise. I’m sure it had something to do with politics. Yankton is one of my favorite small towns but I have also included a couple of others in this gallery.
I’m Taking Life More Personally Now…
With my brain trauma event, I seem to be taking life more personally now. After some deep reflections, I have decided that what might happen twenty years from now should not be on my radar screen. Even ten years is questionable as I will likely not be around even then. Why should I fret over a time when I won’t even exist, especially since I leave no heirs to suffer the consequences of these idiotic times.
I have been weaning myself off politics for a couple of months now and I am seriously thinking of simply pulling the plug on that topic. It is just getting too dirty for me and I simply don’t see a way out of that condition anytime soon. I will leave it to others to pull us back from the edge if that is even possible now. Summarizing, I won’t spend any of my remaining days fretting about things I have little control over.
My recent personal reflections are not all negative in nature. I have decided to take time each day to reflect on the good things that happened that day. I will thank the Lord for every day he gives me. Each one is considered precious in my mind now. How I spend those days is also changing. I won’t flitter them away waiting for better circumstances that will likely never happen. I will do my best to make something good happen every single day that I have left. I will proverbially stop and smell the roses.
How is this going to affect my blog here at RJsCorner? I know a large part of my viewership comes from my observations on politics. My hit count has already taken a serious decline, but that is ok. I will just have to take the thought that doing RJsCorner more for myself than for anything else. I will continue with some additional fervor my photography and travel posts. They are an important part of my life, especially now.
I also hope my creativity posts increase to take up some of the space left behind and of course I will continue “having my say” on non-political topics. If none of this interests you then it is time for you to delete my blog from your reading list. I do hope that there are some of you who stay around so that I am not totally talking to myself. 🙂
With my stats going down I may also need a little additional encouragement from those who continue to hang around RJsCorner. Life goes on a day at a time now…. at least for me.
Inside the Loony Bin Beltway – So. So.
I have to admit here that I am disengaging from the beltway loony bin more and more as each day passes. The cable news outlets are now erased from my satellite lists. I now get my network news totally from the PBS Newshour and the Sunday Fareed Sakara program. Yeah, I know he is on cable news but he is really different! He simply says things others don’t have the courage to say.
So, here goes on what I know about this last week. Finally, the dark side of Bill O’Rielly has taken him down. He is such a nasty person and now we find that he is also a sexual predator nasty person. Of course he will get his $25 million golden parachute, hopefully he will use it to buy some small island and we will never see him again. Hopefully…
I see they are again beating a dead horse with the GOP version of TrumpCare. Even if they can get a few of those holdout radcons to sign on it will never go anywhere in the Senate so let’s not get too worked up about it.
Other than these things it is totally saber rattling inside the beltway as far as I am concerned. Here we are approaching the 100-day mark of the Trump Administration and virtually nothing has been accomplished. But we all knew that he is pretty much all wind so that is not surprising. He wants to do taxes next but doesn’t want to show us how he managed to pay zero federal income taxes for the last decade or so. It is nice to hear even those on the Republican side say that he must show us his taxes before they will support him changing the rules.
Given that so little of anything resembling “meaningful” is happening inside the beltway I don’t know how often I will be making these loony bin reports. We will just play it by ear so to speak. If anyone wants to chime in with their thoughts go at it.. 🙂
Aspie Trait #4 – We Just Don’t Understand Body Language.
Understanding body language, things like facial expressions and tone of voice are important for social interactions. But many of us Aspies are just not very good at those type things. To us, it is a strange and mysterious thing so we often tend to misinterpret what is actually being communicated.
Without recognizing these things our response to some conversations seems inappropriate. We generally take many things literally and based on the facts in front of us instead of as they may be intended.
Of course, I have a more difficult time of tone of language than most Aspies since I don’t hear any tone. Being deaf makes that impossible and that is compounded when I am reading sign language as my primary input. While signing most often gets the basic point across, it just doesn’t help with nuances at all. One sign can often mean many different things and it is up to each of us to discern which meaning is the most appropriate for a given thought. That alone makes for some confusing dialogs. Put together it makes some social interactions almost impossible.
Easter Thrush..
I snapped this photo yesterday. The female was inside laying her eggs.
Beauty In Nature…
If you want proof of God, just look at the beauty in nature.
Inside The Loony Bin – Get Over It..
The title above seems to always be said by the winner in most circumstances, particularly the political ones. But of course, the opposite usually happens. The losers fixate on the loss and how it happened. They concentrate on revenge going forward and little else matters to them. Of course, that usually accomplishes nothing. Instead of revenge they should look to the future for opportunities to accomplish things that promote their foundation causes. In other words, they should just get over it!
This NOT getting over it is what has caused us to be where we are today inside the beltway loony bin and out. We become entrenched with defeating the bad guys, and bad guys are whoever disagrees with us on any particular subject. Compromise is just an ugly word to too many of us and is to be avoided in ALL circumstances.
Thinking about this, going forward I will try to live by what I just said. I know that Mr. Trump will likely be our president for the next four years so I will concentrate on what matters to me and leave all the ugliness and instability behind. I will celebrate his successes if there are any, but I will not do likewise with his failures. I will continue to put my faith in the checks and balances put into our system by its founders over two hundred years ago.
About the only thing that was accomplished inside the loony bin this last week was that the Supreme Court vacancy was finally filled. It was pretty obvious that Gorsuch was going to be the ninth justice but since the Democrats had not gotten over how the GOP stalled until they could put someone at least similar to Scalia as a replacement. It will be interesting to see just how he does in the coming months.
The sad part of all of this is that the way they went about it pretty much assured that all future supreme court members will be chosen via a very political process.
The final thing I wanted to talk about this week is the missile attack on the Syrian air base that was used to launch the latest chemical weapons Assad has used on this own people. This is one of those areas where I agree with Mr. Trump. It was an appropriate response. Of course, the loony bin insisted that he should have consulted them and then after a month or so of discussions maybe they would have allowed the missiles to go.
Overall it was a quiet week in the loony bin and that certainly was a good thing.
Aspie Trait #3 – We Are Good Writers But Not Good Speakers..
This week’s Aspie trait is one that is powerful for me. I have always been a good writer. In high school and college, I almost effortlessly got A’s in all my composition classes. Writing just came easily for me. If I add up all the posts I have written in the last ten years on the various blogs I have started, the number likely exceeds 10,000 posts. I discovered I have hyperlexia which means that my comprehension for reading, writing and typing far exceeds my verbal comprehension.
Public speaking is just difficult for me along with many other types of social interactions. Although I have managed to do a significant amount of public speaking, I am not very good at it. I am always approaching a panic mode, especially on topics I am not passionate about.
Getting back to writing, I am seldom satisfied with what I write the first time around. It never seems to have just the right words to adequately express what I want to say. I often go through several edits before I am satisfied with the words. That is just my nature that I have come to accept.
Wall Signs..
About the only wall signs you find anymore are those that have been uncovered with a building restoration. The creativity of those signs seem to have been lost now. This sign was found in the Galena business district a few years ago. We have been there several times now and never tire of visiting again.
Galleries – Great Sand Dunes NP
It has been a few years since I visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park so I thought it was time to finally bring up a full gallery of pictures from my visit. This park is located in southern Colorado.
Click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view.
Inside The Loony Bin – What About Truth?
This week’s Loony Bin report is about truth. To me, the very foundations of a person is that he speaks the truth. One who regularly lies is simply not to be trusted in any regard. Without truth, there is no meaning to much of life’s interactions. I don’t think I am unusual in this regard, but given the recent presidential election, I am questioning that belief.
Taking a drone level view of the Loony Bin, I don’t really see any permanent damage that the current executive branch can do to the country. What is done in the next four years can be undone in the years after that. As we are finding now, one executive order can easily overwrite another. A four-year pause in addressing global warming and other such things can be erased by future administrations.
But there is one thing that can do permanent damage and that is abandoning the idea of what truth means to the next generation. I pray that my words in the first paragraph above are what parents tell their young children about truth. But what happens when children see truth defined differently around them? What happens when the person occupying the highest office in the world is widely known to tell very untruthful things? This is kind of like the old saying “don’t do as I do, but do as I say”. The hypocrisy of that statement was not lost on many of my generation. Is the most damaging thing going on inside the beltway loony bin about truth. I kind of think it is.
To close on secondary topic, it seems that “beating a dead horse” is popular again inside the beltway. The recently pulled healthcare bill that had 17% support among our citizens is back in the works. They think that they have now blackmailed enough of the Radcons to be able to pass it in the house. I guess we will see in the coming weeks. But, of course, the Senate is another matter. I am not going to put this issue on my worry list just yet. Still a lot more saber rattling to be done by those yahoos yet.
A.B.C.D vs Q.I.U.T.G
Some people live their lives one way and some another. Some think that for today they need to do A.B.C.D and then tomorrow repeat that sequence and continuing to do that the rest of their days. And then there are others who think that for today they need to do W.Q.E.T.Y and then tomorrow H.P.I.Y and avoiding as many repeats as possible.
I don’t know what makes some people A.B.C.D and some the opposite, but I know that my wife is of the former type and I am at the other end. Most of the adventures we have been on in our 31 years of marriage she was originally opposed to doing but now, at least sometimes, she looks back on them with joy. Our extended stay in Mexico for my job was one of them. Another was our 4-year stay in New Jersey. A recent one that I almost forced her to go on was a week long stay at Disney World. She still says that was just utter agony.
I don’t know what makes her such an extreme homebody who insists on an A.B.C.D life? Within a year of the day we were married she said she had to quit her job as life was just too stressful. She then started out her A.B.C.D life and it continues today pretty much as it has been for thirty years.
I, on the other hand, just get bored when I am forced to do the same thing for very long. I did work for the same company for 30 years which enabled me to get a pretty good pension but that 30 years was basically in four very different fields. When I retired I spent six years making country furniture including reproduction Hoosier Cabinets. But after that period of time I was totally bored with the work. Part of this for me is probably my Asperger’s Syndrome. I need constant stimulation to feel I am accomplishing anything. Once I get good at something, it’s time to move on the next thing.
From her perspective I’m sure that living with an Aspie has been difficult, especially a deaf one. They say opposites attract and that is certainly true for us. For the most part we are happy and love each other but of course, our differences cause frequent conflicts.
Aspie Trait #2 – We are honest to a fault
We Aspies are usually brutally honest and speak our mind. Our allegiance is to the truth, not people’s feelings. Most people learn not to tell the truth all the time. Sometimes white lies need to be said so as not to hurt friends’ feelings. But white lies just seem immoral or at least illogical to many of us Aspies.
Of course, being brutally honest is not the way to make friends at least at a casual level so many of us lack those kinds of friendship growing up. I realize that I sometimes hurt people’s feeling here on RJsCorner by what I post. But usually, that is a secondary thought that only comes until after the post is written. Honesty to me is almost everything. I have come to realize that is one of the things that is making our current times, especially inside the Beltway Loony Bin almost intolerable to me. I just can’t fathom someone being celebrated for telling “alternative facts” that they know are untruthful.
One of those areas where being honest is lacking is in today’s religious establishments. I was asked to leave a Missouri Lutheran congregation because I openly said that I couldn’t accept that the earth is only 6,000 years old just because an old Jewish document written by hundreds, if not thousands of different people dated it with their counting the generations after the Adam and Eve story. That got me in trouble, but perhaps even more so that I just couldn’t make any sense of how current Christian practices changed so drastically from the words of their founder. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Being honest is considered an asset by most in our society, but not in every circumstance. That is the part we Aspies can’t understand…
