Author: RJ Walters

I am an Independent thinking, highly functional person who is deaf and has some unique views and challenges in life. Like all of us, I am a person who is composed of all my life experiences and that is what I write about here.
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The GOP Healthcare Plan??

RJ Walters

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 realistic proposals for reform are going to have some basic structural similarities. The differences arise in what policymakers prioritize within those bounds. That’s what really divides the left from the right on this issue. And … Continue reading The GOP Healthcare Plan??

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Too Much Bad Evangelism…

RJ Walters

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 many modern Christians is that we’ve seen and experienced too much bad evangelism: the crazy street preachers shouting at strangers, the late-night televangelists peddling for money, The Westboro Baptists picketing funerals, the corrupt pastors who … Continue reading Too Much Bad Evangelism…

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Despite the Loud Minority…

RJ Walters

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 2014 poll showed that millennial Christians are overwhelmingly against the death penalty, and only 5 percent of Americans think Jesus would favor it….. It feels like we have death-fatigue. Perhaps it is no surprise that … Continue reading Despite the Loud Minority…

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Doing Something About It….

RJ Walters

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 wants to know why a town is building a 1Gbps network when it already offers 6Mbps DSL. Starting this post I will admit that I spent a very large chunk of my time in the corporate … Continue reading Doing Something About It….

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Adam Smith… and the Death Tax…

RJ Walters

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 came from Adam Smith. His book entitled “The Wealth of Nations” written in 1753 is considered the bedrock modern economics.  Here is a little of what Wikipedia says about him: Smith laid the foundations of … Continue reading Adam Smith… and the Death Tax…

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Its All About Communications….

RJ Walters

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 communication. When we talk about it on the surface, that’s what it is. But language is the way we think. And it’s the way it’s been handed down through generations. If you begin to think … Continue reading Its All About Communications….

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10 Things Teens Really Need to Know Before They Leave Home

RJ Walters

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 people. One nice chicken roasted on a bed of vegetables might even provide leftovers. 3. Hold down an unpleasant job that makes you hate your parents a little bit because they won’t let you quit. … Continue reading 10 Things Teens Really Need to Know Before They Leave Home

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I Celebrate Post-Evanglism…

RJ Walters

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 our society. With increasing urgency, they felt that God was calling them to be in relationship with those whom the mainstream culture had taught them to fear…. We’re in the midst of a tidal wave of … Continue reading I Celebrate Post-Evanglism…

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Mayowood

RJ Walters

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 throughout our healthcare industry. Continue reading Mayowood

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America doesn’t trust its experts anymore

RJ Walters

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 a number of ways forward for expertise in America. We can become increasingly mistrustful of scientists, doctors, professors, bureaucrats, bankers, and other experts in their fields; or we can find a better way to filter … Continue reading America doesn’t trust its experts anymore