We have intersected with Rte 160, our last tour Route on the way back to Ohio. We connected with 160 at it’s beginning near Tuba City, Arizona, just outside of the Hopi Reservation. I stumped with a group of some mostly Native American Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts and their adult leaders. (They were doing a service project on the grounds of the Church of Latter Day Saints in Tuba City.) One of the leaders said: “Finally, this what I’ve been waiting for: an ‘average Joe’ for president.” Later that evening, I played in a pick-up game of basketball with some Native Americans at St. Jude’s Gymn. The man who organizes the games (three evenings a week), told me it was a good way “to keep some of the guys off the streets…” A good thing, apparently, because the streets in these parts, for one, are top heavy with drunk drivers, said Fr. Jerome Herff in Kayente, Arizona, where a majority of the populace is Navajo. Fr. Herff said in one week he did three funerals, all involving drunk driving incidence… Fr. Herff told me a professional counselor in his congregation did a documentary on transgenerational post traumatic stress in the Navajo Tribe as a result of colonialization. The theory being a beaten people (read: unconscienable “ethnic cleansing” of the Native Americans) internalize the anger, the shame, and turn it inward on themselves, their families. This, in turn, leads to heightenned levels of transgenerational depression, alcoholism, suicide… Fr. Herff also told me he supports the group: “Feminists for Life.” He said the group, which has chapters nationwide, goes into liberal universities like Brown (Ivy League), and so on, to educate young, impressionable students about Life issues — so they just aren’t getting all their information from Pro-Choice groups.
8/10/05
We continued down Highway 95, driving through more desert, more heat (temperatures around 100 today), and into Yuma, Arizona, near the Mexican border. This caps an almost 1,400 mile ‘Hard Ride of 95’ journey for us, and it was now time to head east on our last leg of this tour… In Gila Bend, Arizona later today, I met Chris Kouach. Kouach is from Stockton, California, and a quite active member of the Green Party. He, his wife and their young son had just been visiting San Luis, Arizona — the southern most point on Highway 95, about 20 miles south of Yuma. (Kouach’s wife’s parents live there.) Chris said he has just bought some land in San Luis — to build a library on. Kouach said he hadn’t traveled much in his life, and when he saw the poverty in San Luis (many new immigrants), he was quite moved, and wanted to help. So to help supplement education for new immigrants there, Kouach believed an additional library for the town would help tremendously. And with a Green Party twist, Chris said some of the library shelves will include sections on: the environment; organic farming; small, appropriate technologies…
8/9/05
I interviewed Dr. David Brooks in Blythe, California. He operates Salude (Health) Clinic here. A significant portion of the community here is poor and Dr. Brooks provides his services through Salude Clinic on purely a donation basis. (He established the clinic in 1969.) When asked his motivation, he said he believed it was his spiritual responsibility to help the poor. He’s Catholic.
8/8/05
A recent front page article in The New York Times described the current famine in the country of Niger. Because of drought last year in this country, the second poorest country in the world, one in five young children are currently dying of starvation there, in large part because of “world apathy,” according to the Times article. (The article was accompanied by a graphic, front page picture of a stick-thin, 16 month old child, “Baby Boy Saminou,” who had just succumbed to starvation.)… In Blythe, California, (still along Hwy 95) I interviewed Fr. Anthony from Nigeria, the next country south of Niger in Africa. Fr. Anthony said he has seen such incidence of famine over the years in that part of the world. And he said, perhaps, Americans just simply can’t relate. “If you have not traveled out of the country, your country can seem like the end of the world,” Fr. Anthony said… Note: I couldn’t help but think with modern media, the “Baby Boy Saminou’s” of these times are right at our “gate” — just like Lazarrus the beggar was right at the rich guy’s gate in the gospel parable. It didn’t fare well for the rich guy (read: Hell); and I wonder how it will fare for us Americans as we continue on with our rich (compared to much of the rest of the world) lifestyles — while meanwhile, these little Third World children continue to: die?
8/7/05
On the way to a conference on a “Nuclear Free World” at UNLV in Las Vegas, Nevada, we had to go along “the strip,” with all the casinos, electronic billboards with practically naked show girls, and so on… (Trying to get the kids not to look was getting, oh, a bit nuts after awhile — it was that pervasive, and perverse.) As coincidence would have it, the same day we were driving the Las Vegas Strip amidst all this, a story about our campaign ran in the Idaho County Free Press. Editor David Rauzi wrote: Schriner is concerned with continually declining moral (id, post_author, post_date, post_content, post_title, post_category, post_excerpt, post_status, comment_status, ping_status, post_password, post_name,to_ping, pinged, post_modified) VALUES portrayed in media that gradually influence and desensitize people until the abnormal is considered normal… Note: I couldn’t help but think the people in Vegas (L.A., Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland…) being exposed to all this on the street, day in and day out, have, indeed, lost their perspective and are simply accepting the whole thing as: “just a normal part of life.”
8/6/05
For the last three days, we’ve been at a conference on a “Nuclear Free World” at the University of Las Vegas. (Today is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima.) The atom bomb was experimented with at the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles northwest of here. And as a child growing up in Las Vegas, featured Conference speaker and peace activist Janet Chisolm said she would often go to designated locations aways off from the desert site (with sun glasses) — as did many in Las Vegas — to watch the above ground atomic explosions. She said the government had assured the population here that it was safe, and the local newspaper would run articles about various proposed tests, including maps about where to go to watch the expolosions. Note: And that was only the start of all this nuclear madness.
8/3/05
Yesterday we entered Nevada, still on Hwy 95. In McDermitt, just across the state line, I interviewed Chris Abbruzzesa, who is a local project coordinator for the Student Conservation Association. Abbruzzesa, two college interns and some local high school students doing a Service Learning Project, were all working on a prominent native plant display along the highway here. He said the naitve plants will be accompanied with descriptions written in English and in Shoshone. (The Parute-Shoshone Reservation is close by and some of the Native American high school students were collaborating as well.) McDermitt High School science teacher Mary Baird told me some of the tourist revenue generated from the display will go to financially help the reservation here… Today we drove through the desert to Fallon, Nevada where I was interviewed by the Lahontan Valley News. Reporter Burke Wasson asked me what my most “interesting” campaign stop in the past seven years had been. I said: Savannah, Georgia, but not for, oh, “traditional reasons.” I told Mr. Burke that while in Savannah seven years ago, I was walking down a downtown street with my then 3 and a half year old daugher, Sarah. We saw a homeless man sleeping on some steps. Sarah asked what was wrong. I said the man was homeless. Sarah then frantically tugged at my shirt, saying: “Daddy, Daddy… we have to find him a home.” From this, I developed part of my platform on dealing with the homeless: “Everyone become three and a half years old again.” Note: Speaking of homelessness… Last week in Weiser, Idaho, I learned about a church project to build rather nice homes for fairly large families in the Third World for: $2,000 a home. Then, on Hwy 95 in Oregon I was passed by a Lexus, that looked like it had all the options. The car probably cost some $60,000. If you do the math, $60,000 would house 30 homeless families in the Third World. The Lexus license plate said: “SPOILD2”. And I couldn’t help but think, yep — aren’t most of us in America. And I wondered: How many of us would be willing to sacrifice the new Lexus, Saturn, Honda… for a used, $1,000 or $2,000 car (or better yet, public transportation), and spend just a little bit more to get it running good enough — so that little homeless children in the Third World had a roof over their head (and adequate food, clothing, medicine…)? Mother Theresa once said America was the most materialistically rich, and most spiritually poor, country in the world. It’s not hard to see why.
8/2/05
Still on Hwy 95, we headed out of Idaho and into a vast corner of Oregon that can be best described as the proverbial: “No Man’s (or Woman’s) Land.” Hwy 95 through here spans some 230 miles and is dotted in four places with, not towns, but rather tiny “outposts.” Fascinatingly enough, in the first outpost: Jordan Valley, we stopped at a small Catholic Church where, wouldn’t you know, Bishop Robert Vasa was vacationing. (He is the Bishop for the Diocese of Baker, Oregon.) We talked late into the night about spirituality and the modern world… Today we headed further into “No Man’s Land,” stopping first in Rome, Oregon, where all there is is a small cafe, a gas pump and an apartment above the place. The mailbox on the other side of Hwy 95 reads: ROME. That’s it. Simply: ROME. I put a flyer on their wall, joked about probably being the only presidential candidate that will stop here this election cycle, or any election cycle, then headed on to Burns Junction (pop. a small cluster of trailers). There I met Julaine Wagner, who works in the cafe here and lives in “nearby” (30 miles away), Arock, Oregon. “How do you spell Arock?” I asked. She said: “Like: a rock.” Julaine told me her and her husband are also ranchers, and they got married four years ago — on horseback, in December. My son Joseph asked if it was cold. Julaine said it was… (If we don’t carry Rome and Burns Junction this Election, well, I’ll be surprised.)
7/31/05
The topic of embryonic stem cell research has been in the newspapers that past several days since Bill Frist announced he believes there should be federal funding for this. I don’t. Several years ago I attended a seminar in Michigan given by a professor of bio-ethics at Ave Maria College. He noted that science shows that life, indeed, begins at conception — with, for instance, the whole genetic code already being in place for that human being, not to mention the immortal soul. To take this life, no matter how benevolent the cause might seem, is simply: wrong… In New Meadows, Idaho, I read an article about local “Retro Ranchers” Debra and Steve Campbell who raise some of their cattle the old fashion “traditional way.” That is, these cattle are grass fed and they don’t use hormones or antibiotics to artificially stimulate quick growth. Hormones and antibiotics that can cause all sorts of problems in our systems as the next ones in the food chain.
7/30/05
We’ve headed further south along Hwy 95 to Grangeville, Idaho where I was interviewed by the editor of the Idaho County Free Press, David Rauzi. The last topic we talked about was the tremendous breakdown of the nuclear family in America (60% divorce rate now). Then, wouldn’t you know, in tiny Pine Hurst, Idaho we met Phillip and Julie Good who had a bumper sticker on their car that said: “Married for Life.” I asked. Turns out the Goods have been involved with the “University of the Family,” a Christian ministry out of Littleton, Colorado, since the late ’80s. And they have taught regular 12-week courses on building healthy marriages throughout the local area. Weekly subjects include: Praying Together as a Couple; Communication; Forgiveness… Julie said the number one reason for divorce, she believes, is “selfishness.” That is, the refrain(s) go: “He doesn’t do this… And she doesn’t do that…” Note: Coming out of Grangeville early this afternoon, it was 100 degrees when we descended into Hell’s Canyon. To cool off, we then went swimming in what the Native Americans in these parts call: “The River of No Return (Salmon River).” Hell’s Canyon. The River of No Return. Tell me Bill Frist, Hillary Clinton, or Ralph Nader for that matter… would be that brave!”