Pleasant Hill Shaker Village – Lexington KY Lets put up a new post about Pleasant Hill early this new year. It is perhaps my favorite place to visit and the Shakers, especially their furniture, is very much a part of … Continue reading Pleasant Hill…
I have always been fascinated by science generated computer art. I hope to be able to do something similar to this one day. Continue reading Physics Is Beautiful
Trenton, NJ — Crossing the Delaware The picture above hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The victory at Trenton signaled a new life for the War for Independence. Likewise it signals a new direction for this … Continue reading A New Start…
Happy New Years…. May this year bring you peace and enjoyment and fulfill all your expectations. Continue reading Happy New Year…
Washington DC – Resigning His commission Lets finish up this year with the famous picture as described below. It hang in one of the many galleries in DC. Here is what the government website says about it:13 The painting General … Continue reading The Resignation…
Out With The Old, In With The New May you get a little fruit of the Spirit in 2015 Continue reading Wishing you a Happy New Years….
Indianapolis, IN — The Canal It was a long time coming but my birth city of Indianapolis has finally cleaned up much of the downtown area. My favorite place there is the Indiana Historical Society from which this picture was … Continue reading Indy…
This is terrorism’s sick genius. Terrorists invite us — seduce us — to share their Manichaean worldview, to respond to savagery with savagery, to join them in madness. “Make us safe!” Americans demanded. And so our elected leaders launched two wars, saw WMD where there were none, launched surveillance programs with virtually no limits, and embraced “enhanced interrogation.” As justification, the White House and the CIA joined Machiavelli, Marx, and Stalin in insisting that the end justifies the means. Lots of individuals bear responsibility for the horrors detailed in the Senate committee’s torture report. But if we are honest, that … Continue reading How we went to the Dark Side…
Cape May, NJ Many of those affluent folks who didn’t spend their summers at Atlantic City spent them at Cape May. There are literally hundreds of Victorian mansions there as evidence. Continue reading The Jersey Shore…
I don’t think I am the only one who notices all those new superheroes TV shows starting to flood the airways. I must admit that I am currently watching a couple of them. Gotham and Flash are now on my regular view list. It is nice to be able to escape reality once in a while. It is also nice that these new shows are replacing the “reality” shows that have dominated so many networks. It didn’t take much for me to be filled up with that genre. They were anything but reality to me. Yeah they were cheap to … Continue reading About Those Super Heroes…
Nova Scotia, Canada I wanted to show you a picture of an old friend I made on our 2011 visit to our neighbors to the north. For some reason I connected with this old guy. Continue reading An Old Friend..
I’m not sure if religion is the opiate of the masses, but I’m convinced that indifference is the opiate of the privileged. We turn to it when overwhelmed by the discomfort we feel about our complicity in an oppressed person’s reality. To anesthetize ourselves against their reality, we willfully ingest this opiate and use it as a coping mechanism. After years of the westernized church ingesting unhealthy amounts of indifference, we now experience delusional thoughts which blame the victims of injustice for their suffering. We have contorted scripture to please our ears. Ignoring the words and life of Christ, disregarding the narrative of Israel, … Continue reading Against Indifference….
I am going to put my vanity aside here and post a selfie. This was taken in January of 1999 right before we visited the Windows to the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center for the last time. It was taken at Battery Park on a chilly afternoon. This is one of the photos of myself I kind of like. It makes me look like a real author that I always dreamed of being. Thanks to the Internet I have at least at a minimal level accomplished that dream. :) Continue reading A Selfie…
One of the solutions to those tanking profits? Shrinking menu sizes. “Our intent is to have a cleaner menu board that is easier for customers to absorb,” spokeswoman Lisa McComb said in a statement to The Huffington Post. To do so, McComb said McDonald’s will be “simplifying our current menu.” SOURCE: McDonald’s Set To Phase Out Some Of Your Favorite Items. Wean Yourselves Now.. I know I will probably hear from some of you about my eating at McDonald’s but that is what I do sometimes when I am in a hurry. I am just a person who generally eats to … Continue reading McDonald’s Set To Phase Out Some….
On this particular morning, I was faced with a photo of a food stamp with a note to “those on welfare” who “don’t work” and “milk the system.” The post was calling for “accountability.” I just shook my head in disappointment. While most political comments don’t hit me very hard (we all have a right to our opinion), I have a difficult time with those that group any set of people into a section and blame and berate them… You may not agree with me and that’s okay; we don’t have to. But I will still show you respect, not … Continue reading How It Feels to Be a Kid on Welfare
The 78-year-old screen legend has been bankrupted by a string of poor business decisions…. The 78-year old actor was one of Hollywood’s greatest stars in the 1970s, but a string of poor business decisions have bankrupted him and already forced him to sell several of his homes… SOURCE: Burt Reynolds Is Auctioning His Belongings to Tackle Financial Woes | TIME. Burt Reynolds was not one of my favorite actors but some of his movies were entertaining at least at a gut level. Burt was a “guy’s guy” so his level of acting didn’t really matter much. Kind of like Schwarzenegger even John Wayne. … Continue reading It Is Never Enough….
Lancaster County, PA – Amish Country This is a pic of a postcard we bought there. There are many things about the Amish that I admire but their shunning is not one of them.They should not feel so insecure about … Continue reading Being Amish….
Philadelphia public schools are in trouble. Not enough money. Overflowing classrooms. And the unkindest cut of all, more than one-third of its students, 70,000, are in charter schools, which Philadelphia has to pay for, but doesn’t control…. individuals are choosing away from us, simply because they don’t think that our schools are meeting the needs of our children…. So what we want to do is to become a part of that choice. Our survival depends on our ability to innovate, to think differently about how children are educated…. Some teachers might have given a lecture on brain development, but that’s not … Continue reading The Least Common Denominator…. And the Charter Schools….
Fingerlakes Region, NY Before California began to dominate the American wine scene the finger lakes region of New York was the premiere place for that beverage. It is also one of the most picturesque sceneries in the Northeast. This picture … Continue reading Wine Country….
Surprisingly, many people don’t reject Christianity because they’ve given up on God. Instead, they’ve given up on the people and things that represent God. They don’t hate Jesus, they just become tired of not finding Him within Christian culture. As Christians, we sometimes mistakenly try to compensate for God by presenting our faith as easier than it really is. We cover up the ugliness and hardship of authentic faith.But while following Christ is beautiful and worthwhile, disappointment, pain, suffering, betrayal and hurt are also a part of life, and Christians aren’t immune or excluded from these horrors. Contrary to a … Continue reading Christianity is Harder Than We Pretend it is….
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 