Our heritage and its symbols are a two-sided sword. On one side it is the things that make us great, on the other side it is the things that perpetuates our problems. Approaching heritage from a pragmatic view means knowing the difference and throwing off the bad side while keeping the good. I’m sure you, like I, can come up with dozens of examples of … Continue reading Clinging To Our Heritage
I don’t know about you but network TV just seems to be getting worse and worse, especially during these summer months. Everyone says network TV demise is imminent now so maybe this is the first signs. Yeah, there are still some quality shows around but for the most part it is getting junkier by the month. And those that are of a decent quality are … Continue reading Losing My Patience With Network TV & Slow Internet Connections
I am going to give you my answer up front for this post. All the above pretty much come from the same place. Racism looks like hate, but hate is only one manifestation. Privilege says that you deserve things that other don’t. Ignorance shows that you don’t care about anyone but yourself and maybe not even yourself since you have stopped learning. Apathy says you … Continue reading Racism, Hate, Privilege, Ignorance, Apathy – Which Is Worse?
I know it seems like I have more bad stuff to say about the U.S. than good but that is only because I want it to be better and better. A couple of the things I most admire about my country is its principle of “Freedom of Religion” or maybe more as Jefferson intended “Freedom from Religion”. We simply will not tolerate one religion forcing … Continue reading Freedom From Religion & Land Grabs
I can see in the not too distant future a revolution coming that will make what us Baby Boomers created seem minuscule in comparison. Yeah, we had our days but now we seem to be more a source of the problems than solutions. Just look at our “Senators and Congressmen” who are stifling any possible change to keep our planet healthy or to live up … Continue reading For The Times, They Are A Changin…
I bet you thought about the chains that bind all of us? I like this answer better 🤣 Continue reading I Will Never Be Free…
A couple in Hollywood got divorced. Then they got remarried. The divorce just didn’t work out. Take My Wife, Please! – Henney Youngman’s Giant Book of Jokes My wife and I are almost complete opposites, and we are getting worse as the years go by. Sometimes I am amazed that we are still together 34 after year! A part of the answer to that question … Continue reading Take My Wife – It Just Didn’t Work Out.
I have always been proud to call myself a Baby Boomer. In fact, I am at the head of that herd. I have always been proud that we made changes to our nation that made America a better place to live. We created massive protests to get us out of a war on the other side of the world were we simply didn’t belong. We … Continue reading Tainting The Baby Boomer Brand!
I know I am using a dated phrase when I say “Pitchforks at the castle”, but I imagine you get the idea. It is when we serfs are fed up with the actions of the landed aristocracy and demand change. If they don’t get it they burn down the castle. I kinda feel that we are about at that stage again. The top 1% control … Continue reading Pitchforks At The Castle… It’s About Time.
Let’s start out with a little history lesson here. In 1935 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt along with a Democratic congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act which resulted in the Work Progress Administration (WPA). That organization employed millions of job-seekers during the Great Depression to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. Part of the WPA that I am … Continue reading National Service… WPA Style
I HATE WAR!! I wanted to say that up front in this post. If anything shows the potential for the extinction of the human species it is war. I am a lifelong reader of history and it is obvious that most of recorded history is about one war or another. The Roman Empire didn’t start the idea of war, but they took it to an … Continue reading I Hate War!! …
I just need to step away from the idiocy in the Oval Office and the pandemic for a while. Starting today I’m going “off the reservation” for probably the next month or so here at RJsCorner. What you will see during this period will sometimes be quite different from my usual posts. What you won’t see is anything to do with the incompetent in the … Continue reading Going Off The Reservation…
I don’t know why this particular photo attracted me, but it was taken in Ft. Wayne Indiana during the Prohibition years of the 1930s. Working guys were denied their “legal” beer between 1919 and 1933 when the 18th Amendment was finally repealed. I can’t imagine being without beer for over 13 years!! But, of course, they had the bathtub version. 🤣 Continue reading We Want Beer
It’s funny how some images and stories stick in your mind forever. That is what this post is all about. I remember where we lived but not particularly how old I was then this story happened. I think it happened when I was about ten years old. Mom had just abandoned us so that left dad as a single parent. He was still in his … Continue reading Just Stories – A Cheese Sandwich
I thought I would double-down on yesterday’s post and hit #CO3 again. After all, he won’t be around that much longer, (thank God). But this post is actually about extreme wealth and how it distorts those who are cursed with it. 🙄 The Trump clan like many multi-millionaire families has some pretty severe family issues. Wealth does to that people, especially inherited wealth. I think … Continue reading The Damaging Effects Of Extreme Wealth
Just a quick snippet of good news. Finally, more retail establishments are requiring masks to enter their stores. Starting Monday all the stores I might visit on my weekly trip away from home are eliminating the mindless minefield of maskless people. That’s good news I couldn’t wait to share. Continue reading It’s About Time
I always get a good chuckle when I read about conspiracy theories. In most of them they give the conspirator much more intelligence that they would ever have. In that light I am giving you my conspiracy theory on how the current Oval Office occupant (#CO3) plans to change the world. Until now I couldn’t imagine why #CO3 is so enamored with Putin. He simply … Continue reading MAGA Master Conspiracy
I think I need to explain “Being” a little better than how I left it at on yesterday’s post. When someone asks you “What do you do?” I suspect that most often you identify with your “Earning” years. I would have said I am an engineer who develops software apps for an engineering division. While that may describe the final segment of my earning years, … Continue reading A Little More About “Being”
I think of myself as among other things an amateur philosopher, psychologist, and altruist. I don’t mind putting my thoughts out there alongside the deep thinkers in these areas. This post is about what I have come to realize are the three basic areas of a person’s life, or at least my life as far as it has played out so far. But, I kinda … Continue reading The Trimesters Of Life – according to RJ
This is the introduction to a three part series on “Being”. To lay the foundation for this series I want to give you a brief look at Abraham Maslow’s theories of self-actualization. The last two posts will be about discovering who you are destined to “Be” as your self-actualized self. I spent several years in the 1970s trying to figure out just who I was. … Continue reading Maslow – The Psychology Of Being…
It seems that people are always dreaming of finding their true companion in life. But there are so many angles that are played, it’s hard to figure out just how to do that. Take my wife…. please Seriously though, my wife and I are almost exact opposites except for one thing. We each have an extremely excessive share of orneriness. I think part of that … Continue reading Take My Wife – We Were Meant To Be Together
I found this guy sitting on a post in my backyard recently. He told me he, along with several of his friends, is on his way to clean up the mess in Washington DC come this November 4th. Yeah, I’m a Vulture Whisperer. 😳 Continue reading On His Way To DC To Clean Up The Mess
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have to run through a minefield on a daily basis. They say there are still thousands of unidentified mines around Vietnam that maim people today. I remember a PBS broadcast some time ago where a journalist went to Cambodia and talked to people whose children were killed by fifty year old mines. It touched on … Continue reading Mindless Mines In The Fields Of Life
This is the end of this seven post series of looking at America from my personal perspective. It has been quite a story. This final episode will be speculating where we might be long after I am gone from this earth. As I have said before in this series, I am not predicting that anything I say here will actually happen. But, I am saying … Continue reading Into The Looking Glass – 2035 And Beyond Part 2
Here we are at the final “Into The Looking Glass” episode. But…in order to maintain my 500-word limit on my posts it will be in two parts. Tomorrow will be the last post on this insightful series. This period proves to be the most challenging for me in that I will try to give you some possible future for 2035 and beyond. I have been … Continue reading Into The Looking Glass – 2035 And Beyond Part 1
I have reached my tipping point with the current Oval Office occupant (#CO3). Maybe it is his 20,000th lie, I don’t know. I simply cannot stand to even see a picture of him now. I thought I could tough it out for four years. I was wrong!! But I did make it almost 90% of the way there. I guess I should be proud of … Continue reading Tipping Point, Breaking Point… Whatever You Call It
With this post I want to start out with a biology lesson. I kinda think that the word symbiosis will be much more common in the 21st century. After all that is the real basis for COVID-19. It is an organism that came from nature and interacts in a negative way with us humans. As the population of our planet grows and we infringe upon … Continue reading Symbiosis: The Art of Living Together
I’ve been married 34 years now, so I have lots of stories about my wife that I want to tell here. So, that is going to be one of the topics on “Chill Out Weekends”. It will be entitled “Take My Wife”. That might seem like a weird title? But, we are a weird couple so that makes sense. But those words do have some … Continue reading Take My Wife… Please
We made it to another 4th of July… Thank you Lord… I am holding off on all any celebrations until we have a reason to do so. Yeah, the pandemic has put a shadow on this day, but the current Oval Office occupant #CO3 has me wondering just how many more 4ths we will get if he has his way. I just dream of the … Continue reading The 4th…
All my life I have been a dreamer. To this day I continue to sit out on a starry night and think about the future and imagine how it can be so much better than the past. The picture above, and the song about it, has been a driving force in my life all these years. To that end, I now dream about January 21, … Continue reading I’m Still A Dreamer… A Big Dreamer
I have been living by this mantra for most of my life, always dreaming that my life will get better if I really want it too. But, since I have lived on this earth for more than seventy years and likely only have a handful left, maybe I should accept that the best is past. Given the pandemic and all the anxiety that it has … Continue reading The Best Is Yet To Come?
I did some looking-forward in the last Looking Glass post in order to guess what the coming six months will look like. But this is the first post to go full-forward in that regard. Being the amateur futurist that I am I can see lots of changes during this fourteen-year period. Since I am also an optimist most of my predictions will be progressive and … Continue reading In To The Looking Glass – 2021-2035
RJ's Corner 