The nature of our Milky Way Galaxy is reexamined from an eclectic point of view. Evidence for a central bar, for example, is not reflected in the distribution of RR Lyrae variables in the central bulge [4,5], and it is not clear if either a 2-armed or 4-armed spiral pattern is appropriate for the spiral arms. Radial velocity mapping of the Galaxy using radio H I, H II, or CO observations is compromised by the assumptions adopted for simple Galactic rotation. The Suns local standard of rest (LSR) velocity is $sim 14$ km s$^{-1}$ rather than 20 km s$^{-1}$, the local circular velocity is $251 pm 9$ km s$^{-1}$ rather than 220 km s$^{-1}$, and young groups of stars exhibit a 10--20 km s$^{-1}$ kick relative to what is expected from Galactic rotation. By implication, the same may be true for star-forming gas clouds affected by the Galaxys spiral density wave, raising concerns about their use for mapping spiral arms. Proper motion data in conjunction with the newly-estimated velocity components for the Suns motion imply a distance to the Galactic centre of $R_0=8.34pm0.27$ kpc, consistent with recent estimates which average $8.24pm0.09$ kpc. A cosinusoidal Galactic potential is not ruled out by observations of open star clusters. The planetary nebula cluster Bica 6, for example, has a near-escape orbit for a Newtonian potential, but a near-normal orbit in a cosinusoidal potential field. The nearby cluster Collinder 464 also displays unusually large tidal effects consistent with those expected for a cosinusoidal potential. A standard Newtonian version of the Virial Theorem for star clusters yields very reasonable masses ($sim 3 times 10^{11}M_{odot}$ and $sim 4 times 10^{11}M_{odot}$) for the Milky Way and M31 subgroups of the Local Group, respectively. A cosinusoidal relation should yield identical results.
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