I have never been much of an art lover but I am trying to do better.  This is one of those pictures I found that drew me in at the Pennsylvania State Museum last year.  I love the conceptual nature of the picture and how it seems to sum up, at least in my mind, what much of Pennsylvania is about. I should have recorded who the artist is… Continue reading Pennsylvania Art…

I wonder when the Trickle Down theory will ever be discounted in my GOP friends. Probably never….. they have tattooed it on their foreheads… Continue reading Trickle Down…

Please Rudy just go away…… :) Continue reading A Snippet Here, A Snippet There….

I know when most people think of New Jersey they think of two things, the staging area for NYC and the mafia. ;) The official tag for NJ is “The Garden State” and when you get to the central and southern part of the State it does become rural. Continue reading The Garden State…

I love America and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in the world. But I’m sure there are those out there that have a very different opinion  of me. Some who accidentally come across my blog here have flatly told me so.  They think I must not love my country because I say critical things about it. Sadly I’m pretty sure that is the mentality that prompted Rudy Giuliani to recently say our president doesn’t love America or anyone in it. I do not believe that the president loves America,” the former New York City mayor said Wednesday. “He doesn’t love you. … Continue reading I Love America, But…

This was a shot taken in NYC last summer.  I don’t recall exactly where it was but it sure is creative ;) Continue reading Creative….

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…

I must admit up front, before it becomes obvious, that I am a novice when it comes to YouTube. This is my first attempt at posting something there and also the first attempt at this new slideshow app. I’m sure there are plenty of mistakes but that’s how we learn isn’t it? Continue reading NYC… The Video

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….

I think all of us who spent much time in the corporate world had a dream like this one of drowning in paperwork. It could become overwhelming at times.  The foundation of this rendering was taken at the Grounds For Sculpture in Northern New Jersey.  It is a fascinating place to visit. Continue reading Drowning

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…

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

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…

There are many places in NYC where the sun just doesn’t shine or the gps don’t work. This pic was taken in June of last year. I suspect it looks quite different today.. Much whiter…  ;)   Continue reading Where The Sun Doesn't Shine

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

I think everyone knows that a significant part of the NRA are evangelical Christians. To me that association seems to be a Jekyll/Hide thing. How can you be so irrationally in favor of all guns without ANY restrictions and the resulting violence that it brings and be a follower of Jesus who was anything but a violent man?  It is hard for me to fathom that association but I have to accept that it is there. One thing that Evangelicals and NRA members hold very much in common is the idea of the “slippery slope”. It is very much engrained … Continue reading Evangelicals and the NRA

It is hard to realize all the diversity in flowers…. Continue reading Diversity

In this age of electronic banking the way to shut down any organization is to go after their access to money. It looks like that is just what is currently happening with North Korea at least to an extent. “We need to step up and target those financial institutions in Asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous North Korean regime.” When challenged by Royce about “a number of small banks” still doing business with North Korea and the need to choke off the country’s access to hard currency, Glaser replied: “That’s exactly what we are trying to … Continue reading Going After the Money…. We Can’t..

And we still got a year for others who think they would make a good president to join in…… Continue reading A Tisket, A Tasket….

 “Thank you.” A study from the University of California showed that those who feel appreciated by their partners are also more appreciative of their partners-so it goes both ways. The next time your husband does something thoughtful, even if it’s as tiny as remembering to put your wet beach towels in the wash instead of on the floor, say “thanks” instead of “Oh, good, you’re learning!” SOURCE:  9 Little Things Your Husband Never Gets Sick of Hearing | Love + Sex – Yahoo Shine. I am not going to bore you with all nine things men like to hear from … Continue reading Things Your Husband Never Gets Sick of Hearing…

  This building was found in the small town of Hardinsburg KY. I’m sure it was once a thriving business. Maybe a hardware store??   Continue reading A Once Thriving….

We spent the last two posts reviewing an article entitled “The Six Worst Things About American Christianity” from  href=”http://redletterchristians.com/”>RedLetterChristians by Steven Mattson. Now that I have had a few days to digest these words I want to turn the article’s six points around to imagine them as lessons we U.S. Christians should learn. Here they are: 1) We must realize that no one has an exclusive connection with God  —  Much of what we know about early Christianity is the result of  a scribe writing down Christian stories that had been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years and … Continue reading Six Lessons to Learn in U.S. Christianity….