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.
Having My Say

My Evangelical Friend…

RJ Walters

I just went another short round with my radical right gun totting evangelical friend on helping those less fortunate than us.  Here are some of his words replying to a post I made on FaceBook. The root cause of most of our deficit problems is still those that work and produce must pay for the existence of all those that do not work or produce goods and services. Few functions in the government produce a good or service worthy of a salary. My conservative evangelical friend very very often shouts that there are just too many “free loaders” in our … Continue reading My Evangelical Friend…

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Monied Corporations…. Even Then….

RJ Walters

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.  — Thomas Jefferson These are powerful words for today and it is absolutely amazing that they were actually spoken more than two hundred years ago! It is no secret to those of us who are studied in American history that Thomas Jefferson was not a big fan of corporate interests. He believed in giving the power to the people; he was the first real Democrat in … Continue reading Monied Corporations…. Even Then….

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Is the Republican Party Insuring Its Own Demise??

RJ Walters

Is the Republican Party insuring its own demise by it continuing to focus on a narrower and narrower core group.  I want to believe this is the case as the alternative is that we as a country are now dominated by exclusion.  Being against things, particularly different groups of people, is what has been driving the Republican primaries lately. It has pushed their final candidate over to the extreme right of the political spectrum. Can the Republicans maintain a party that far off the center of American Politics? It seems like everyday the Republican party members alienate yet another group … Continue reading Is the Republican Party Insuring Its Own Demise??

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The Faiths of Our Fathers…..

RJ Walters

This is a post I did in March 2009 on my blog RedLetterLiving.net related to whether we are founded as a Christian nation as so many conservatives seem to say. I will finish it up next Sunday. There are a lot of different views of what the Founding Fathers of the United States believed when it came to God. Many evangelicals like to say that we were founded on Christian principles and that is what makes us so unique, some would say superior, but I definitely don’t buy into that. I found the book entitled The Faiths of Our Fathers, by … Continue reading The Faiths of Our Fathers…..

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The Passing of an Era…..

RJ Walters

Source: AT&T sheds directories, advertising business | Mobile – CNET News. The assets that AT&T is selling include the Yellow Pages directories… Things are in constant change now days. Sometime the pace is dizzying indeed.  Of course telecommunications is one of those things that is probably changing the fastest. In the 1960s you could find a public telephone booth on almost any city street. In the 1970s the Trimline telephone was being made at a rate of one million a week. Picture phones were available but at a $2,000 per month rate. In the 1980s almost every household finally had a … Continue reading The Passing of an Era…..

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‘My kid made a mistake’ …

RJ Walters

Source: Father: ‘My kid made a mistake’ in school – USATODAY.com. Authorities say the boy brought a .45-caliber handgun he got from his mother’s house to an elementary school in Bremerton on Wednesday, and the weapon discharged from inside his backpack just before classes let out, critically injuring Amina Kocer-Bowman. Have we come to the point in our gun laden country where we are now charging nine year olds with gun crimes.  The pitiful thing about this story is that there is no mention of holding any adults responsible for the nine year old having the weapon in his back pack! … Continue reading ‘My kid made a mistake’ …

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A Re-Purposed Category…

RJ Walters

I have been doing some investigating of what I have been posting lately and decided to re-purpose one of the blog categories.  Instead of Seniors Only you will now find Wisdom of.. I have come to realize that I really don’t have a lot of advice for other senior citizens about how to live their lives. I’m pretty much muddling along like everyone else, so I will leave the advice stuff to some of my blog friends who are much better at it that I ever was. Instead I am going to use this new category to  generally talk about … Continue reading A Re-Purposed Category…

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The ‘Gang of Six’ At It Again…

RJ Walters

source: Try, try again: Senate ‘Gang of Six’ hatching plan on US debt reduction – CSMonitor.com. Warner and his colleagues in the Gang of Six are putting the debt-reducing plan produced by the Simpson-Bowles commission into legislative language (some 800 pages and counting, by Warner’s estimate). That legislation should be in final form within the next six to eight weeks, Warner said. The bipartisan commission, chartered by President Obama, offered a widely commended path to financial balance but has yet to be actually put down in legislative form. In addition, Warner plans to spend some of his congressional recesses taking trips … Continue reading The ‘Gang of Six’ At It Again…

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Military Expenditures by Country…

RJ Walters

Here is a rather straight forward graph showing military spending by country. Are you like me and see a very basic problem here? If we look at is per citizen it is even more skewed. No wonder our budgets are in so much trouble. No wonder the world always comes to us to solve their problems. We are taking on massive debt to be the policemen of the world. When will it end???? Continue reading Military Expenditures by Country…

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The Number Two Business in the U.S….

RJ Walters

I think everyone knows that our number one business in the U.S. is  selling weapons systems and other means of destruction throughout the world. I suspect that almost every country in the world has at least a few of our $50 million military airplanes and some of our $1 million bombs to go with them.  The $50 million is of course for a second-hand airplane, if you want a newer one be prepared to fork over three times that cost. With a $600 billion annual budget for such things our military probably scrap these guys on a regular basis so there … Continue reading The Number Two Business in the U.S….

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No Free Lunch….

RJ Walters

Source:  Letters: To spare tax filers pain, phase out deductions – USATODAY.com. I guess you could call this a guest post in that I am going to leave the words of Michael Bugg as found in the source at USA Today pretty much stand as they are. No free lunches –I am tired of the large number of Americans who want the best country in the world, while clinging to the absurd notion that no one has to pay for it, or worse, who want a country like one in Europe in the Dark Ages! I am also tired of … Continue reading No Free Lunch….

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What Language Did Adam & Eve Speak??

RJ Walters

Some Christians believe that each and every word in the Bible is literally true and without error. I belonged to one of those churches at one time. I often asked embarrassing questions during our weekly bible study. Questions the clergy leader really didn’t care to try to answer.  Asking those questions is probably one of the reasons they tossed me out. I never got to ask the question in the title of this post but I would be very interested in knowing how they might answer it. According to the biblical account Adam & Eve were the first humans. They had a … Continue reading What Language Did Adam & Eve Speak??

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RJ’s Rules…..

RJ Walters

I remember a cop movie years ago starring Stacy Keach. It was about an old timer cop who had rules for every situation. I can’t remember the name of the movie but I want to do likewise.  I have lived quite a few years on this earth and have learned some valuable lessons from the time that I want to record for posterity so I am bringing up a new category here :) RJ’s Rule 39 — We should have no more military bases in a foreign country than that country has bases in ours. So let’s look at one country to see … Continue reading RJ’s Rules…..

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Being Happy….

RJ Walters

The Lord split knowledge up among his subjects about equal. The so-called ignorant is happy. You think he is happy because he knows any better, maybe he is happy because he knows enough to be happy. The smart one knows a lot, that makes him unhappy because he can’t impart it to his friends. Discontent comes in proportion to knowledge. — Will Rogers Intelligence and being happy I’m sure there is  some correlation but I am not so sure I would agree too much with Will’s assertion that if you are smart you are unhappy because your friends don’t know … Continue reading Being Happy….

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Betting against death

RJ Walters

Source: https://news.fidelity.com/news/article.jhtml?guid=/FidelityNewsPage/pages/secrets-of-social-security-2&topic=living-in-retirement On the other hand, some people advocate drawing Social Security benefits at the first opportunity. Doug Carey, who founded the financial planning software firm WealthTrace, says Social Security doesn’t see itself as an odds maker, but it does require you to bet on your longevity. He offers this chart as proof. It graphs the break-even point for a person who earned the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $70,000 per year for 35 years. If this person waits until 70 to claim Social Security and lives until at least age 90, he’ll accumulate almost $162,000 more in benefits than he would if … Continue reading Betting against death

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War and Peace….

RJ Walters

‎[War] won’t stop till there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war. – May 31, 1928  Will Rogers Here we are one world war and dozens of other wars later and still we can’t understand what Will was saying almost one hundred years ago.  Except for a brief period during the Clinton years we have been in constant wars throughout my sixty-some years on this earth. Our soldiers are getting way beyond weary as evidenced by the recent massacre in Afghanistan by a four tour American soldier. Our national debt … Continue reading War and Peace….

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On The Road – Omaha (Day 6) More on Boy’s Town…

RJ Walters

A rather  boring day today. We left Omaha about 10:00am and made almost 400 miles of Interstate driving before settling down near St. Charles MO. But given that there was little walking it was good for my aching knees. Tomorrow we will visit the picture puzzle super-store and then likely make a dash for home. Since not much happened today I thought I would give you a little more about Boys Town.  Here is the info on the sign in front of the history center. It does a pretty good job of providing a short-hand version of the history of … Continue reading On The Road – Omaha (Day 6) More on Boy’s Town…

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The Price of Oil….

RJ Walters

The big oil companies and their backers in congress insist that we must open up everything to drilling and give them billions of dollars a year to help them search for new oil. They say if we will open up all public land to oil production we can become less dependent on foreign oil. But what they don’t say is that, as far as the oil companies are concerned that doesn’t mean that the price at the pump will go down even a penny.  The above cartoon does a lot to explain why that is the case. The Republicans like … Continue reading The Price of Oil….

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On The Road – Omaha/Durnam Museum (Day 4)

RJ Walters

I want to say out front that I am very impressed with Omaha. It seems like the quint-essential city to me. It is probably the cleanest city we have visited during our twenty-six years of April road trips. Today, at least so far, we have browsed through the Old Market area and spent several hours at the Durham Museum. Here are some pictures  of that. The Old Market is perhaps twenty to thirty square blocks of very well restored buildings that contain restaurants and shops. Even though it was pretty chilly it was a very pleasant day of browsing through … Continue reading On The Road – Omaha/Durnam Museum (Day 4)