America Needs More Congressmen..

 I am feeling better today so I thought I would tackle a “Crayon Marks” post about one of your favorite topics, Congress.. :)  America needs more congressmen. Hundreds and hundreds more congressmen.  I love my friends over at The Week for regularly looking over the sides of our nationalist boxes for new solutions and this is one of them a few weeks ago.  Gerrymandering has skewed the representation of our country so that it is no longer about who gets the majority of votes and that takes power away from the people. It seems without the court skewing the vote will never … Continue reading America Needs More Congressmen..

My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 3

Before the surgery, I really had no idea who Dr. P was or what he looked like. (I am not using his full name here as I don’t have permission from him and don’t want to intrude on his privacy). Looking at him when he delivered the good post-surgery news I discovered he was a sixty-year-old or so guy with white hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He came in a couple more times that day to check on me. When my wife was not there to sign for me he always grabbed the paper and pencil to give me … Continue reading My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 3

Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 2 Off To The Operating Room

In the last post, I left off just before my consult with a brain surgeon. When the ER doctor told me I had a chronic brain bleed because of my fall that scared me more than I have been in a long time.  When the surgeon told me he needed to go in and fix it and to relieve the pressure, my life didn’t flash before my eyes but I was thinking this could be the end. After I agreed to the surgery I started thinking about what if these were my last hours? I told my wife I didn’t … Continue reading Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 2 Off To The Operating Room

My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma & The US Healthcare System- Part 1

It started out in the barnyard of my 2.5-acre homestead. The fence there is old and many of the posts were broken. Since the fence is no longer necessary and is only a hindrance to mowing now I decided I would remove it during these winter months. While I was doing that a couple of weeks ago. I as best as I can remember tried to pull done an already broken post. Long story short I ended on the ground with the post on top of me. That was mistake 1, don’t take any fall as nothing of consequence. Since … Continue reading My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma & The US Healthcare System- Part 1

I Am Back And It Was Quite An Adventure..

When I told you I was going to take some time off to re-think RJsCorner I had no idea of what was just ahead of me. The damage had already been done before I made the announcement so maybe that was a part of it.  I just returned from a three-day stay in the hospital for a “Subacute and Chronic Right Subdural Hematoma” otherwise know as a brain bleed and yes that meant brain surgery! It happened after a fall I took six days before while taking out some old barnyard fence at the homestead. More on that in tomorrow’s … Continue reading I Am Back And It Was Quite An Adventure..

Give Me A Break…

I am going to take off a few days  to consider a change here at RJ’s Corner. I can’t see being able to continue on as I have for four more years.  Maybe I need to shut down the “All I Know” category where I talk about the political happenings of the day. Maybe I need to get more focused on other areas of interest.  To do that I need to just shut down completely and look at my options. I don’t see the possibility of just stopping blogging, so this isn’t a permanent hiatus just a change in directions. … Continue reading Give Me A Break…

The Public Work Force?

This post is going to be about some uncomfortable facts for my GOP friends. It is about how the public workforce has shrunk and become more efficient than the private workforce. I’m sure that in the coming months all those department chiefs that CO3 has put in place and even CO3 himself will eventually come to realize that there are some very basic differences between public service and the private sector. Mr. Ryan has been putting out plans to dismantle our society’s safety net for years now. But he too often cloaks the facts with “improving” instead of eliminating. If … Continue reading The Public Work Force?

Beulah..

 We lost our beloved Beulah about three years ago now, but I still think of her quite often. She was always entangled in my feet on the couch for the occasional afternoon naps.  Whenever I said anything that even remotely sounded like “walk” she would get excited and rush to the door.   We decided not to replace her as a new canine member of the household would likely outlive us.  I have had pets all my life and although I do love Dexter, our cat, it is just not the same. I even got to admit that I kind of miss … Continue reading Beulah..

Follow Me On Facebook or Feedly

  A quick snippet here to give you a couple of different ways to follow my daily posts on RJsCorner. If you are a regular Facebook viewer you can now see my post there. Just click on the”Facebook Connect” block on the right edge of this post and hit the “Follow” button on the Facebook page. If you use Feedly, another way to make it easier to read me is to put me on your Feedly list. It is a great app that I use daily.  Just copy the URL here and then go to Feedly search box and paste it … Continue reading Follow Me On Facebook or Feedly

Someone Has To Pay..

No, this post is not going to talk about taking revenge or seeking vengeance. Instead, it is about the idea of getting free information on what is going on in the world and particularly our country today. I think the old saying “you get what you pay for” is true in many areas of life including this one. I must admit up front that I am probably like most of the people in that I get at least part of my news from Internet sources. I used to get agitated when I clicked on a news article only to have some words to … Continue reading Someone Has To Pay..

How accurate are your Blogger stats? – Not Very..

 This snippet is for all my fellow bloggers out there, everyone else can just ignore it.   I have been looking into my blog stats lately and have discovered some interesting things. I am on WordPress and the general consensus is that it gets less traffic than Blogger because the Google search engine gives priority to its own app. But, what I actually discovered is that Blogger includes all the spambot hits as well as search engines who roam through the blogsite as a visit count.  Sometimes that leads to some rather gross inaccuracies.  As it turns out I guess is … Continue reading How accurate are your Blogger stats? – Not Very..

When we Christians shun our responsibilities….

Jesus clearly told us to be our brother’s keeper but somewhere along the way we Christians unapologetically shunned that responsibility. During the first three centuries, Christians were very much their brother’s keeper. They often pooled their resources so that those neediest were taken care of. They not only cared for their own there is even documented evidence showing that they took care of those not even Christians.  But, of course, this is what Jesus did so they were just following his lead. The vast majority of Christian congregations today spend about 95% of what they gather on themselves or their … Continue reading When we Christians shun our responsibilities….

Letting Others Think For Us..

All of this conflicting rhetoric and division has many of us worried about the fate of our country but from the new “Quote of the Day” at the top of this blog, it sounds like that letting others think for us just might be the norm. I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.  –Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote the now infamous book “Democracy In America” was a Frenchman who traveled our country in 1835 trying to understand what made America what it … Continue reading Letting Others Think For Us..

Making Stuff So Rich People Will Spend Their Money…

   I am a car guy, a good part of my TV viewing is the Velocity Channel where they routinely make and auction $200,000 to up to $4,000,000 cars. It seems almost every time someone goes to my favorite car builder it is to “fill in their collection”. They have most of the 60’s Cameros but need another to fill a hole.  Another show is where a guy runs around the country trying to find cars that his clients need for their collections. Car shows are no longer about the average guy rebuilding an old car in his garage, or at … Continue reading Making Stuff So Rich People Will Spend Their Money…

What About The Soul??

With this post I am going to go deeply into philosophy and speculate on just what is life. I couldn’t decide if this post belongs in the “That’s Life” category or “Crayon Marks” so I put it in both.  :) Man has spent ages trying to figure out what happens after we end our life on earth.  For Christians, Jesus tells us that our spirit leaves our body and goes to what we decided to call heaven. He tells us that marriages don’t count in heaven and we will live in one of the rooms in his mansion.  I kind … Continue reading What About The Soul??

Mountains…

  One thing that Indiana simply doesn’t have are mountains. To me, there is just so much majesty in mountains. Sometimes I have brief glimpses of being a mountain man but I think that is probably just too much watching “Jeremiah Johnson” than anything approaching reality. :) So, this InSearchOfAmerica post gives you some of my favorite pictures of my travels out west in the last decade. Continue reading Mountains…

Not Everything…

  I may surprise you with this, but I am not against everything CO3 proposes. He wants to shake up things in Washington and so do I.  It is just that I wanted someone with the wisdom and tact necessary to do that job and he simply isn’t that person. One of the shakeups that I am adamantly for is term limits. I changed the quote in the header above to indicate that fact. Thomas Jefferson was well aware of those in the nation’s capital that stayed too long. Like everything else though, CO3 is all over the map on the … Continue reading Not Everything…

If Grace Is True

After many years of resistance and finally accepting God’s love I find it strange to believe that so many believe he is going to damn the vast majority of those he loves to an eternal anguish.  We spend less than a century on this earth in one degree of happiness or another and then billions, if not trillions of centuries in total misery and anguish. That is just not the God that I have come to know. I grew up in a very sheltered life in a small midwest town. There were no visible minorities there and there certainly were … Continue reading If Grace Is True

All About Blah, Blah, Blah

   I simply can no longer tolerate blah, blah, blah.  I don’t know if my age has anything to do with it, maybe it has been learned from my many hours on the Internet as Tom Friedman suggested in his book Thank You for Being Late. I will have much more to say about this book in a near future post but for now I want to limit my words about it to this current topic of blah, blah, blah. When I have to read something over 500 words or so I almost immediately start skipping. I didn’t used to … Continue reading All About Blah, Blah, Blah

About Deafness — Chapter 92

I realized that it has been quite some time since I put out a post primarily about deafness. But the title of “chapter 92” is kind of made up.  :)  This particular chapter is the result of an episode on the CBS News – Sunday Morning about being in an anechoic chamber. First off the program mentioned is not really about “news” but more of like On the Road with Charles Kuralt but with Indiana’s own Jane Pauley. Now I know I am dating myself with this reference but for those of you who don’t know about “On The Road..” check it out … Continue reading About Deafness — Chapter 92

San Francisco..

  In this weeks ISOA post I thought I would finish off my report about San Francisco. Of course the first view is the Golden Gate Bridge, second is The Wharf. Don’t miss the Aquarium, it is one of the best in the country. We must have roamed about 6 miles one day throughout the neighborhoods. Not bad for a couple of senior citizens. Regretfully we never managed to get a ride on a cable car. As usual click on any picture to bring up a larger slide show view Continue reading San Francisco..