“Simplify” is my current theme for living. I don’t need complicated at this point in my life. So, for this artsy Saturday, I want to give you a very simple scene. It was taken several years ago at my favorite Shaker village near Lexington Kentucky. What could be simpler than showing the very basics of Shaker life. Continue reading Simplify
I regret to tell you that the Snow White team recently had a death among its members. Sneezy, after years of sneezing, had a heart attack. His system just could no longer take the stress. But the good news is Snow White has already found a replacement. The new member is, like the other six, is a little man but he has the illusions of being a giant. He also doesn’t seem to have the ability to tell the truth about much of anything. We don’t know if his untruthful ways are the result of just plain ignorance or maybe some … Continue reading The Passing of Sneezy…
I don’t know why I seem to be so fixated on sounds lately let alone poultry stuff. My daily and weekly posts here are RJsCorner are now named after sounds (cackle and squawk) that chickens make. I need to get to the underlying reason for this. :) I lost my hearing thirty years ago, and since then my brain has forgotten what many sounds sound like. Sadly one of those areas is musical instruments. I used to play the guitar, not terribly well but to my own satisfaction, and I really enjoyed that pleasure. Now when I see a musical instrument … Continue reading A Lot Of Noise Goin On…
Skeptical is one of my favorite words, I have been using it more and more in the last year or so. Just do a search for that word here on RJsCorner, and you will probably find a couple dozen posts using it. I think most of you know the meaning of the word but just to be sure I will present it here. I guess my “Question Everything” stand is the source of my fascination for this word. I am skeptical about most things, but one thing I am perpetually skeptical about is what comes out of the mouth of the … Continue reading Skeptical
I am a person who almost demands constant change. Doing the same thing over and over again is very boring to me. Maybe I am different from most in that regard? I recently saw a TV show where an old person proudly proclaimed that he still lives in the house he was born in. My first thought was that he certainly lives in a tiny world. To never venture outside what may be comfortable to you is to stagnate as far as I am concerned. I can’t imagine remaining in one place for my whole life! I know in my … Continue reading For Some, The World Is Very Small Place
Ok, I will admit it for at least the argument of this post, I am old. I don’t mean to get morbid but I am likely in the last decade of my life. Being old, besides all the aches and pains, is kind of freeing. We just don’t care as much about what people think of us than we used to. Our image is pretty much set in stone at this point in our lives so making a fool of ourselves now it not a big thing. One of the things at the new RJsCorner I plan on doing pretty … Continue reading I Am Old…
I got to say immediately that no I am not declaring that I am gay. Instead, I am openly declaring here and on my personal Facebook page that I am a liberal/progressive in my social and political leanings. Many of my high school friends are likely pretty hardcore conservatives who watch Fox News on a 24/7 and most likely voted for the #CO3 (current Oval Office occupant). I have avoided putting my blog posts on Facebook because I didn’t want to make any of you uncomfortable. Each of my daily posts here at RJsCorner will now proudly rest on my personal Facebook page. If any … Continue reading To My High School Friends – I’m Coming Out Of The Closet
I want to finish up on the preliminaries of the new format here on RJsCorner. As I told you a few posts ago cackles are about laying eggs. I want to assure you that the eggs I lay are free-range. My thoughts that are generated into posts weren’t pinned up in some dark place before or after they were laid. They come fresh out of my mind onto virtual paper. But like all children, my posts must be nurtured and fed to be worthy of your purview. So they sit around in my chicken coop (better known as the Draft … Continue reading Free Range Cackles
A regular part of RJsCorner is going to be looking at Will Rogers quotes and seeing how they apply in today’s world. So, this is the first of many in that area. Even 80 years ago it seems that there were more than a few who thought religions did more damage than they helped. I think what Will was saying is that “Bible thumpers,” and whatever they are called in the other religions, are the most intolerant of differences of faith. They are just convinced that they are the only one who has got it right. This is what gets … Continue reading Will Rogers – About Religious Beliefs
For this morning’s cackle, I want to talk about Will Rogers. He is the reason I started RJsCorner 8 years ago. I have been reading him since I was a kid. For all you people that don’t know anything about what happened before 1980, I want to give you a little snort of Will and his words. Will was born way back in 1879 in Indian territory now known as Oklahoma. His roots were in the Cherokee nation. He started out in Vaudeville doing rope tricks in the Ziegfeld Follies but became world famous for his writing and his radio … Continue reading Will Rogers – My Hero
I gotta admit that I was a hippie during the 1960s. Maybe not to the degree that I wanted but still a hippie. I had to work a full-time job, had college classes and the studying that goes with it, so that didn’t allow much time for anything else. But at least I was a hippie at heart. It’s good to hear that the students in the most recent school shooting are becoming avid activists for gun control and the rest of the kids in the nation are now joining them. Before long you might even be seeing campus demonstrations. Who knows. I see the kids in Great Britain are getting into it to support them. I have heard talk that one of … Continue reading My Kind Of Generation…
Welcome to the new and improved RJsCorner. Before I get into anything serious, you may think it’s kinda strange for me to now call my daily posts “Morning Cackles”? I got a reason for my madness. First off, for you city folks, a cackle is a short and abrupt sound that hens make after they lay eggs. My morning posts going forward will be short (250 words or less) and to the point. Paying respect to my poultry friends is one of the reasons for the name of my posts. But I gotta admit that the main reason is that the … Continue reading Why are the posts now called cackles??
I have decided it’s time for a new chapter here at RJsCorner. It’s time to shake things up. I am putting out too much gloom and doom lately. Who wants more of that in their lives? I want to make my posts a regular part of your daily life. To do that they need to be more concise so you can read them in under two minutes (one minute if you are a fast reader :) ). My decision to move InSearchOfAmerica photos and most corresponding stories to Flickr albums also affected this change. At an even more basic level, I need to … Continue reading It’s Time For A New Chapter @ RJsCorner…
I came across the story below and it amazed me that less than 8% of students in the cited survey knew that the Civil War was fought to preserve slavery. Here is a little bit about that: Just a third of students correctly identified the law that officially ended slavery, the 13th Amendment, and fewer than half knew of the Middle Passage. Most alarming, though, were the results to this question: Which was the reason the South seceded from the Union? a. To preserve states’ rights b. To preserve slavery c. To protest taxes on imported goods d. To avoid … Continue reading Hard History
Because I am deaf I have a game I play quite often when I am around people, especially those I don’t know. In my early years of deafness before closed-captioned TV was widely available is when this thing started. Since there was no sound to what I was seeing I made up my own storyline. It would have been interesting to discover how closely my story matched up with the writer’s version but of course, I never was able to discover that. Getting slightly off the subject for just a little while, I never used to think that I was a … Continue reading Imagining Their Stories…
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 