“average JoeOhio Tour” cont: I gave a talk at Sacred Heart Church in Fremont today. The reading during the Mass was about the Isrealites of old worshipping false gods, like “Baahl.” I said our modern day false gods are: excessive entertainment, like prime time shows; extraneous activity, like too many sports and hobbies; work addiction, like 50 hour (plus drive time) work weeks… while meanwhile little unborn babies go to their slaughter every day with few to protest, some 24,000 people starve to death in the Third World every day, with few to care; and little kids daily dodge hunger, needles and bullets in our own inner cities, with few to see… Note: We then drove back to Cleveland through a driving rainstorm and high water on the roads everywhere. As there were pans almost everywhere in the motor home — under a bunch of leaks. Do you think Gulliani’s campaign vehicle(s) leak? And that is why we’re the “peoples’ candidate.” My wife Liz would say, after such a comment, that I’m “all wet” — and she’d be right in this case! (Sorry.)
8/19/07
I heard one of the best talks in all our travels. It was given by Rev. Daniel Orr at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fremont, Ohio. He was talking about God’s word being like “fire.” That is, it sears to the very heart of the matter. And in the year 2007, the ‘matter(s)’ include, said Rev: Daniel: We (Americans) are plenty responsible for a lot of oppression and innocent blood. The gloss hides the migrant laborers who pick our food for a pittance; the young people in China who live in barracks and make our shirts, shoes, dresses; the laborers in Guatemala who pick our bananas with no EPA to regulate what is sprayed. The gloss is thick. And we help keep it that way. We seem to be able to justify great expense on one of our own family members — presents, camps, lessons, toys, parties… We have an unspoken preoccupation with those closest to us — our families and friends. If we have any energy left over, or any change, then that goes to those who need it. Where is the justice in that?” Afterwards, Rev. Orr asked me to say a few words. I said our platform called for people to sacrifice in as many ways as possible — so there was, indeed, justice. That is, many of us could easily go to housesharing, old Volkwagon Beetles, less clothes, less dining out, no air conditioning… Yet we are so focused on our own comfort, while people go without just the basics in shelter, food, medicine…
8/18/07
We stumped at the Farmer’s Market in downtown Fremont. I passed out a lot of flyers, including one to a high school Government teacher from Springfield, Ohio (he was up visiting relatives). He affirmed our efforts and said he includes teaching about independents in his class. The guy playing guitar and singing at the Market brought up independent candidates as well. In between songs, he said he was totally turned off at this point by the two major parties and exhorted those at the Market to consider independent candidates. I gave him a flyer… Our platform calls for people to support local farmers, and to that end we bought some peppers and corn at the Market. We ate the corn raw, a new culinary experience for me. Note: I interviewed Pattee Kuzma at her home in Fremont. Her son Keith has Downs Syndrome and is autistic. Pattee and her husband John are absolutely wonderful parents who have done practically everything to help their son. (Among many other things, Pattee has facilitated a “Special Needs Group” through her church.) What’s more, the state has helped too. Through Ohio’s Passport Program (for the severely disabled), the Kuzmas are given so much a month to pay for eight hours of in-home health care a day for Keith. This has been a tremendous help, said Pattee.
8/17/07
“average JoeOhio” our cont: We traveled to Clyde, Ohio, where we were introduced at Mass at St. Mary’s Church. We then headed to Green Springs, Ohio (pop. 1,000), where we stumped in the downtown area. I got in a discussion with a group of guys at a motorcyle shop there. Ron Conn told me that while he laments the big box stores like Wal Mart driving the small town businesses out; he sympathizes with those who shop at Wal Mart because many jobs these days don’t pay that much anymore. “It’s a Catch 22,” he said. We walked about Green Springs passing out campaign information and putting up flyers in all the stores, that were left… We then headed to Fremont where there was a small concert on the Village Green. I walked about passing out more flyers, then the kids and I got into a nearby pick-up football game. Our Jonathon, 4, racked up ‘minus 12 yards’ on his three rather improvised runs. And while the statistic looked bad (the Cleveland Brown’s running backs’ statistics notwithstanding) — Jonathon had a tremendous amount of fun doing it.
8/16/07
“average JoeOhio Tour cont: We’ve headed west into Ohio stopping in Norwalk. A man-on-the-street, Harold, told me he found it amazing (and scandalous) how much better our lifestyles in America were in comparison to those in the Third World. He said to try and make things more equitable, he regularly donates to the international aid agency: Food for the Poor… We then did a whistle-stop event in downtown Norwalk where a reporter from the Norwalk Reflector asked me about my biggest issues. I said with global warming and nuclear proliferation, in either case, our kids might not have a world to grow up in. And with abortion, some kids never make it into the world at large in the first place… We then stopped at Sheri’s Coffee Shop (excellent place) in Norwalk where I sat in on part of a Bible Study. I said what Harold (mentioned earlier) was doing to help the poor could very well diminish the ranks of Al Quaida. That is, the more youth in the Third World see a way out of abject poverty, the less apt they’d be to join a terrorist cell (often a Third World version of a gang).
8/15/07
We spent the past five days in Cleveland catching up on paper work. To earn some personal income while we were back home, I also scraped a house up the street in preparation for painting. Some of it was lead paint, and I had to take a lot of precautions with a respirator mask and in the disposal of the paint chips themselves. Like has happened so often in our “Industrial Age,” we have sped ahead with the lates innovation (lead, DDT, carbon dioxide emission…), only to find — in tragic retrospect — that these ‘innovations’ are tremendously toxic. We would do well to follow the Amish of giving things time and prayerful discernment (not to mention much more thorough testing) before we adopted the latest ‘innovation.’ Note: Along these lines… We are forever ‘racing for a cure.’ Wouldn’t it make sense, common sense, to: stop using stuff that causes cancer in the first place!?
8/10/07
I did a two hour blog talk radio debate the other night with two other candidates vying for the the Green Party nomination. Go to the site, scroll down and click on the words: “Green Party Presidential Candidate Debate. Note: We are earnestly seeking donations for our next couple tour legs. And in the immediate, we have to do work on two of our campaign vehicles. Please help, if you can: Schriner Presidential Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113
8/9/09
Average JoeOhio Tour cont: We went to Conneaut in the Northeast tip of Ohio. I gave a talk at St. Francis Cabrini Church after mass, exhorting the congregation to get more involved with Pro-life work. “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing,” I quoted… I then took the boys to watch part of a Conneaut High School football practice on a quite muggy morning… From here we went to WOWW Radio where Marty Landon not only remembered me from the last stop here some three years ago, but he still had our button! “I wrote you in (Campaign 2004),” he said. We assured him we were going to get on the ballot this time… From here, we did a whistle stop event on the corner of Broad St. and Rte. 20. Reporter Mark Todd of the Ashtabula Star Beacon asked me what our plans were for Ohio. I said we wanted to win Ohio. “Wouldn’t that be the feel good story of Campaign 2008,” he smiled. A reporter (“Pastor Trudy”) for Conneaut’s The Courrier newsaper was also at the event. I told her our campaign hinged on common sense and gospel values… After the event, I took the staff (our family) to the nearby State Street Diner. Great food and even better stuff on the wall. Between all kinds of ’50s memorabilia, was a plaque that said: “Teenagers! Tired of being hassled by your stupid parents? Act Now! Move out. Get a job. Pay your own bills. While you still know everything.” The diner’s owner, Mark, said he’d put a bumper sticker on his car “…as long as you are Pro-Life.” I told him I was and he immediately went to the parking lot… I then talked to Mike Morgan, who owns a pizza place in town. He said he is concerned about mounting home heating costs and wondered if there wasn’t a way to harvest some of the thousands of tons of fallen material on forest floors across America. His ideas is to compost this and turn it into slow burning pellets for home heating. (While I wouldn’t agree with this for old growth forests, because the composting of this material rejuvinates the soil; I wouldn’t be opposed to a pilot project to harvest some (let’s say one-third) of this material from tree farms. Tree farms that our administration would promote nationwide to provide domestic lumber and more foilage to help curb global warming… Heading out of Conneaut, we stopped to talk to an older couple from New Hampshire who were on a tandem. They had just finished a 270 mile bicycle tour of an Underground Railroad route as part of an Adventure Cycle Tour. On our last campaign tour, we had followed an Underground Railroad Route from Georgia to Ohio… We then headed into Cleveland where we stood in solidarity with the “Missionaries to the Pre-Born.” They were in the middle of a tour of Ohio and stand at street corners holding tremendously graphic (and big) signs of close-up pictures of dismembered, aborted babies. Their literature says that because modern media won’t show this horrific truth, there has to be some way for the American people to see, graphically, what abortion really is. One woman brushed by me as I tried to hand her some literature. She said: “It’s more complex than this.” What’s more complex, I believe, is the set of sophisticated rationalizations we’ve developed to justify what is simply barbaric. ‘A picture(s) is worth a thousand words’ on this one. The event wound down about 6 p.m. after rush hour. Our Sarah went on with the group to protest at another site, and I took the rest of the family back to our apartment in Cleveland to update this site and take care of some household stuff… And another day in the life of an independent presidential candidate from Cleveland came to an end about 9:30. Note: I had joked (sort of) earlier in the day, that running for president was taking, oh, a little more time than we thought it would.
8/7/07
We did a whistle-stop during a driving rainstorm in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania. A city with a bunch of big, bright frog sculptures around town. (I didn’t ask.) A reporter with the Erie-Times News asked why I was running for president. I said I was a ‘concerned parent’ who was worried about our kids not inheriting a world because of climate change, nuclear proliferation… In the wake of the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima — I shudder at what our world currently stands at the brink of, with all this advanced nuclear weaponry. What’s more, while we pump more and more money into nuclear protection for ourselves — some 24,000 people starve to death every day in the world (U.N. figures). A woman at St. George Church in Erie today told me this is nothing short of a tremendous social justice travesty. And when you think about it, it’s as if a limited nuclear explosion happens with these starving people, every day.
8/4/07
“average JoeOhio Tour” cont.: We traveled north to Ashtabula, Ohio, where we met with Jane and Margo Stuart who own “Silver Sands” assisted living home for the elderly. It is an assisted living home with a twist, or rather a discount. St. Joseph’s Church here has leased an old convent to Jane and Margo for the past 20 years. The cost per month to residents is about half of what an average assisted living facility would cost, said Jane. What’s more, the care is ultra personal. There are four full-time staff, several part-time staff ,and a number of people from St. Josephs who volunteer in various ways. Another reason the cost is so reasonable is because Jane and Margo don’t take a salary, they look at it more as a ministry. What’s more, they hospice the dying residents on site as well. “We try to wrap them in love,” said Jane… We then stopped in for a cup of coffee at “His Cup Cafe,” a Christian coffee house. Rev. Jim Ekensten said he sees his coffee shop (and adjacent “Healing Room”) as a ministry. People come from all over town for prayer, for coffee, for Bible studies… Rev. Ekensten said people come for prayer with drug and alcohol problems, with depression problems, with physical ailments… In turn, they are prayed over, connected with area churches, and so on. Rev. Ekensten said people were healed in the New Testament, and there is no where in the Bible where it said that this wouldn’t continue to happen in the future. Note: This day at His Cup Cafe, I got into a conversation with youth leader Joe Ford of the First Baptist Church in Ashtabula. He said he was Pro-Life and questioned the rationale of being able to kill a baby in the womb. He said this is no different than being able to “walk into my house and ‘off’ my eight-year-old.”