What could be more American than the small rural county fair? I have had the pleasure of living in one of the smallest population wise counties in Indiana for almost two decades now. While I don’t go to all the … Continue reading The County Fair
David Brooks from the New York Times and the PBS Newshour recently used a word I haven’t heard in a long time. That word is the title of this post and here is the definition. This word just seems soooo appropriate for someone we all know. I don’t even have to mention his name. If there is any single word that can possibly contain who this guy is, bluster is it. He is certainly loud, totally aggressive, as indignant as anyone I could ever imagine. He refuses to believe in facts other than the ones he made up. But I … Continue reading Bluster…
Shane Claiborne is one of my favorite Christian authors. He definitely lives the words of Jesus and he is not bashful when it comes to telling others that Talk is cheap and actions are where you demonstrate your beliefs. At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, “I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ.” A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here … Continue reading What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff
For this “Outside the Box” Saturday I give you a picture of when I was attacked by a giant spider! Well, not really, but it was a 30 ft or should I say a 10-meter high sculpture of a spider. This photo was taken in Ottawa Canada when we visited there a few years ago. The sculpture is called Maman and is located at the National Gallery of Canada. There are so many sites in Ottawa to see. We spent four days there but that really wasn’t enough. Continue reading Spider Attack!!
Since I have lived the largest part of my life as a scientist I have thoroughly come to believe that when facts clash seriously with beliefs then beliefs need to be modified. I know the current Oval Office occupant doesn’t believe in facts, to him everything he doubts must be fake news and sadly his loyal base blindly accepts that line. That is one of the scariest things for me about these times. But that is not the main point of this post. Here are some words to ponder: They are facts. Nothing more and nothing less. Just facts. It … Continue reading Between Fact and Belief…
I want to kick off this re-formatted “Seeking Wisdom” category here on RJsCorner with Thomas Jefferson. He is one of my primary sources of wisdom. He was an idealistic rebel of his times. Even by his compatriots, he was considered a writer for the ages. He was a young man when he was drafted to write the Declaration of Independence. Some believed him to be just too much of an idealist and too inexperienced to write it, but looking back that is exactly the type of person needed for the job then and maybe even more so now. He was … Continue reading Thomas Jefferson, American Hero
In a recent post, I declared myself as living a joyous life of a nuanced skeptic. This post will flesh out that description as to make you even more confused. :) Now in my old age, I am convinced that it takes almost a lifetime to determine just what your personal essence is. We can all describe ourselves at various points in our lives but to find the essence of you is much more difficult. Maybe the difficult part is to do it in just a few words. I have been playing with the words above for several weeks now. … Continue reading My Essence Statement – Who I Am
With this post, I am instituting a new post category called Snippet. This is where I send you a short note about what I have been doing. With this snippet, I wanted to tell you I just added a new gallery over at MyViewOfTheWorld Photo site. I think you just might like it. It is from my 2011 month long trip up the St. Lawrence Seaway. There is some absolutely beautify scenery up there. Continue reading Snippet – Canadian Countryside @ MyView…
I know a good portion of my readership are seniors like me. So, I imagine that they know what the title is all about. But for my younger readers, Studebaker was one of the few carriage makers who successfully transformed into an automobile maker in the early 1900s. It seemed that most of them just wanted to throw an engine on the carriages in place of horses. 😎 Studebaker was located in the rather small town of South Bend Indiana from 1852 until 1967. Many of their cars have become fashionable icons since those days. Even in the 1960s when … Continue reading Studebaker…
Crystal Bridges is an art museum in Bentonville Arkansas created by the Walton Foundation. It gets 3 million visitors a year and is free admissions. It is a celebration of American artists including significant contributions from Native Americans. For this … Continue reading Crystal Bridges
Let’s face it, we can’t simply ignore the problems and hope they go away. That seems to have worked for a long time but in reality, it has just allowed the problems to fester and get worse. America is collapsing and if we don’t do something about it soon, it just may be too late. Just because we have gone-to-the-edge before and survived doesn’t mean it will happen again. Here is the myth for today that we need to unlearn: Myth: America isn’t collapsing!!! Life expectancy is falling, the vast majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, they can’t raise … Continue reading More Myths Americans Need to Unlearn About America
For this “Seeking-Wisdom” post, I want to try and bust a few bubbles before diving into this category much further. We all must recognize that the inspirational figures in our lives are for the most part like all of us in that they are multifaceted. They have characteristics beyond those that inspire us. For instance, Thomas Jefferson is one of my top sources of seeking wisdom. Even today, 200+ years after they were written, his writing and insight simply astound me! But then there is the fact that he was a slaveholder who likely fathered several children from his “visits” … Continue reading Seeing Them For Who They Are…
Like most of us, people often ask me who I am? When we are in our employment years we often answer with our current occupation. For me, that was an IT/Database developer. Depending on who is asking we sometimes give a different answer. But in reality, it takes years and often an entire lifetime to determine who we really are. Throughout our lives, we struggle with one thing or another and those struggles are a big part of what forms who we are. They say that diversity builds character and I can certainly attest to that fact. Living in poverty … Continue reading Who Are You??
I wanted to visit Greenfield Village once more before we close out another year. This visit is a gallery that shows no evidence of the 21st century. That is one thing I truly enjoy about Mackinac Island, no cars allowed). Nantucket is a great place to visit but it is kinda ruined by all the cars that have flooded the island. Anyway, here is my version of Greenfield of the 20th century: Continue reading Greenfield Village Re-visited…
For my winter 2018/2019 project, I have decided to study the topics of philosophy and spirituality and how they intermingle. I am starting out this study by reading a book entitled “Belief without Borders” by Linda A. Mercadante. I will be putting out numerous Sunday posts about it in the coming weeks. Associated with that study, I have also been visiting some of my more than 500 posts over at one of my other blogs at RedLetterLiving.net This post was originally written on February 18, 2013. ======================================================= All of this makes me wonder if pews are misleading in churches. They trick people … Continue reading Churches Are Misleading….
For this Artsy Saturday, I want to present to you the tag banner that will be used for future Artsy Saturday posts. I have had an artistic tsunami this week so I now have graphics for each type of post going forward. :) My header above shows the seven daily topics going forward here at RJsCorner. I am trying to diversify my neighborhood so it doesn’t fixate on all the madness inside the beltway. I made a promise to you that I would do more to offer hope in these trying times and that is what this new diversification is … Continue reading Be Artsy
We in America have a pretty inflated belief that we are the best in the world at everything we do. Why else would we stick our noses into so many other countries’ affairs? We have military bases in over 50 countries in the world. How many other countries’ bases are in the US? We think and maybe at one time we actually did have the best technology, the best engineering and the best software talent in the world. Part of the reason for that is that we recruited talent from the rest of the world. But, as we close our … Continue reading Myths Americans Need to Unlearn #2
I am still refining my new format for RJsCorner and that will probably be an on-going process for months to come. :) When I first set up the weekly post categories I deemed Thursday as American Heroes but pretty quickly decided that was just too confining for what I intended. After a couple of days of contemplation, I decided to make Thursday the day I post about the people and things that inspire me. Being that I obsessively search for just the right phrase, I want to give you my definition of Inspiration. So, for this first Thursday Inspiration … Continue reading Inspiration
I am bound and determined to not give up hope here on RJsCorner. I will just not let the current times and the occupant of the Oval Office and his cronies deprive me of hope. But, offering hope is a hard sell, especially now. I have seen so many of my blogging friends who have gotten totally negative about the world today. They, and sometimes I, just want to roll up in a cocoon and let the world pass by. Plainly speaking we are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and who can blame us!! Some seem to … Continue reading Offering Hope Is A Hard Sell…
Last Saturday’s “Artsy” post gave you a snapshot of our trip to Cleveland earlier this year. This post will put some flesh on those bones. :) Our first extended visit to Cleveland was in 2013. We were visiting a couple of my high school classmates of fifty years ago. We took in the downtown area and most of the usual tourist places during that trip. The trip this Spring was a two-day pass-through one and I was determined to see a different view of the city. As mentioned Saturday, we stayed at the Aloft Hotel on the Cuyahoga River a … Continue reading Cleveland – A Different View
For the first “Artsy Saturday” post at the reformatted RJsCorner, I chose the Coastal Taco in downtown Cleveland Ohio. The picture was taken just after sunset from our room at the very eclectic Aloft Hotel. As you can see the restaurant was under a very large bridge going across the Cuyahoga River near Lake Erie. The food was pretty good and the inside atmosphere was delicious. :) Continue reading Coastal Taco – Cleveland
RJ's Corner 