I Need More Balance…

RJ Walters

Hdr Nov10I need more balance in my life and especially in my blogging. Part of my base character that is associated with my Asperger’s traits is I tend to become obsessively focused on something and everything else just falls by the wayside.  The day-to-day insanity coming from the Oval Office along with the now weekly mass killings is putting me over the edge.  I have to force myself to greatly diminish my attention to these subjects.

To do that I am now going to try to broaden the scope of coverage here at RJsCorner. As you can see from the header above I plan on giving my attention to seven different areas, one day at a time. Another change is that I am bringing back my photo activity back to RJsCorner.  After 3+ months of attempting to move it off to a dedicated site, it is clear that there just isn’t enough interest for it to stand alone.

Here are the topics for each day of the week:

Monday – Government/Politics

Monday is reserved for “Inside The Beltway” issues. You likely know where I come from on these issues. 

Tuesday – This Land Is Your Land

This topic will primarily encompass a photo journal of my travels across America.

Wednesday – Having My Say

This one is a potpourri of topics that just don’t fit anywhere else but I have something to say about it.  Some of that will include stories from my life, some about my lessons learned, and some just about things I have been thinking about or just plain bug me.

Thursday – American Heroes

The principal person in this category is Will Rogers. I already have an abundance of posts of Will’s quotes in the archives. Jefferson and other founding fathers will also be prominent here. Many current day people who inspire me in one area or another will also share this space.  

Friday – Why?? (Question Everything)

I have lived with the “why” word all my life. Many seem to outgrow it after childhood but not me.  Questioning Everything is at my core! I am just not one to accept “that is the way it is..” and this category will illustrate that. A big part of Friday posts will be busting long-established myths.

Saturday – Artsy/Creative/Surreal

This category is where my creativity and craziness is unleashed on you. 🙂 

Sunday – God/Religion/Spiritual

After my rather intense spiritual studies of about a decade ago, I have come to have I have come to develop several different views on this broad subject matter.  

I don’t necessarily plan on posting every day here but I will stick this agenda schedule for when I do post. I hope you like the new directions for RJsCorner. If you have any ideas for new topics and such let me know. I welcome any input you might want to provide and look forward to delving into my more complete view of the world with you.

Drinking the Kool-aid, Etal…

RJ Walters

Tomorrow is perhaps the most important election of my lifetime.  It will determine if an extreme narcissist, habitual liar, con man continues to have free reign to do whatever he wants. Yeah, the tax cuts that the Republican party passed are having a temporary effect and the destruction of the regulations needed to prevent another meltdown have added a couple of bucks to the paycheck, but given our extreme deficits and underfunded infrastructure improvement that will end soon.

What befuddles me about our current times are those who have eagerly gulped down this guy’s kool-aid. Can’t they look beyond the end of their nose to see what is coming down the road?  Why are some people so naively gullible to his constant lies?  Most of his “base” live in rural areas and from personal experiences that is where educational opportunities are the most lacking.  Did they miss out on what the purpose of government is and how it is funded in a democracy? Is it the lack of basic information that impedes their understanding? I kinda suspect it is just intellectual laziness.

2018-11-01_09-49-33.pngI could go on and on about the possibilities but that is not a condition that can be quickly resolved nor is this the purpose of this post. Tomorrow is election day and unless those of us who can counter this group turn out they could give the current Oval Office occupant an unfettered final two years in office to accomplish his hateful and divisive agenda. We know that these Kool-aid folks are a minority but if the rest of us don’t do our job and vote tomorrow they could again have the say on what we will become as a nation.

There is estimated to be 100 million eligible voters who will not cast a ballot tomorrow!! How can a democracy survive without an informed and engaged populace? I voted early a couple of weeks ago, so I have done my part. It’s time for you to do yours. Your present or future children and grandchildren will thank you for that. Morality still matters… even if he says it doesn’t.

 

Myths Americans Need to Unlearn…

RJ Walters

Umair Haque over at Medium.com certainly gives me much to think about lately. His recent blog post about the myths Americans need to unlearn will be the centerpiece in coming posts here are RJsCorner. I want to start out this series with the end of his post.

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Source:  Eight Myths Americans Need to Unlearn About America

I certainly get my share of those screamers who call me names and tell me if I don’t love this country then I should GET OUT!!! Some think I am a bleeding heart liberal and others, believe it or not, think I am a Trumpster? They evidently feel so threatened by what I have to say to get them to attack me for one reason or another. I, like Umair, want to pronounce here that I am no threat to them. I am just an old guy who is primarily an observer of life with no power whatsoever to change what I am observing other than my single vote at the ballot box. Yeah, I have some loyal readers who might be swayed to a very small degree but that is about it.  You don’t need to feel that I am threatening to you. Now on to the topic at hand.

2018-10-28_11-02-50.png“We don’t need to listen to people who are critical of America! They’ll never help us!!” Some people consider progress and particularly the change almost always associated with it to be a bad thing. I do believe that the last couple of years are the most tumultuous of my life as far as social things are concerned.  We seem to have lost our ability to tolerate anyone with different views than ours.  The second most agonizing period that I have lived through was the 1960s but I was much younger then so I could tolerate it better than I do now. More than 50,000 of my generation lost their lives in a seemingly meaningless war.  There were riots in many major cities, soldiers killing kids on a college campus, African-Americans being attacked by police dogs and high power fire hoses. Some were dragged through the streets by white supremacists all because they were demanding their civil rights.  If ever there were a period where people were critical of America, it was during those years.

But look what came out of that same period and see many great accomplishments.  More on that in a near future post.

Benefit Of The Doubt… Wrong!!

RJ Walters

There are many people who I have come across in my life that I give the benefit of the doubt to what they say.  For those who might be a little fuzzy on that term, here is an explanation:

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Even though I am a skeptic at heart I trust them to be telling me the truth. For the most part, they have earned my respect by their previous actions. One person who has had the exact opposite effect on me is the current Oval Office occupant (#CO3).  My modus operandi for him is to take whatever he says as being false until it is proven to be true.  I have been critical of past presidents but never to the degree of this one.

Part of my distrust and maybe even animosity toward #CO3 is my personal association with another extreme narcissist who was for limited times in my life my mother. Even at a young age, I realized that she often said things that I knew to be not true.  Most of her lies, like #CO3’s, centered around making herself the center of attention. I also came to realize later in life that she probably believed the lies she was telling.  I also came to realize that much of this was due to an inferiority complex.  She claimed she was a nurse even though she never likely graduated from high school.  Later in life being a nurse was not enough, she then claimed to be a doctor.

From these experiences, I have come to have a deep distrust of anything #CO3 says. I realize that when the attention is taken away from him he will do anything to get it back.  Absolutely everything HAS to be about him.  How we ever allowed such a person to occupy the highest office in the land is totally shocking to me!

I only pray that the coming election stifles any further damage he is doing to our democracy. Let him rule during his last two years if he is not impeached before then with strong checks and balances from the legislative branch.

 

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Blame Is Not A Solution

RJ Walters

It seems that everyone is trying to put the blame on others for our current dark times.  The current Oval Office occupant (#CO3) says that he is blaming the media and calling them the enemy of the people because they are blaming him.  Republicans are blaming Democrats and the other way around.  Blaming is easy, solving the problems is the hard part.

I am praying that the beginning of this hard part is coming next Tuesday. I am praying that those who have chosen to put their heads in the sand pull them out and vote for change. The status quo simply is not working.  Be part of the solution…

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Our Last Best Hope??

RJ Walters

2018-10-25_16-30-59.pngThere just seems to be one bad thing after another happening in America today. It is hard to stay optimistic about our future. Our current Oval Office occupant is inciting hatred and ignorance among his “followers” so now they are trying to kill the people he does not like.  Some seem to have gulped down the cool-aid he is serving by the gallon! It just seems to get worse and worse as each day passes.   I am a very strong advocate of Thomas Jefferson’s quote “Hope is sweeter than despair” so I look for hope especially during these trying times. I know basic change, even when it appears rather suddenly,  will take time to overcome especially when the wackos seem to control everything.  But I have latched onto a reason for hope.  To understand that read the excerpts below, and I would encourage you to read the whole source if you have the time:

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Source: Does America Have a Future? – Eudaimonia and Co

Unfortunately, I have pretty much lost all personal contact with the younger generations. I am without children and grandchildren so I can’t just call, or text one for their opinions even if they cared to respond. I have to take what I hear in the social realm as evidence and that evidence continues to tell me that the Millennials will eventually invoke change much like we baby-boomers did in the 1960s and 70s.

Since I was born in 1946 I was at the head of the baby-boomers so I was in college during the 1960s when we started protesting the Vietnam war. We were tired of being told to go die for our country for what we saw as not being worth it. It was a stupid war caused by the proud egos of those in power. We had the courage to rise up and do something about it and I fully believe that the current generation is about to do the same.