Our family went Sunday to a gathering for Liberian refugees who were relocated to this Near Westside Cleveland area several years ago. This small enclave of Liberians are just a few of some 340,000 Liberians who have fled the Civil War in that country over the past 13 years. The refugees here have, in large part, been ‘adopted’ by St. Patrick’s Church. Church members have donated money for homes, food, clothing, furniture… In addition, the church has set up an after school tutoring program to help Liberian students integrate. And they have, indeed, become part of the community. St. Patrick Deacon Bill Merriman said at the gathering that these Liberian’s have been surrounded by violence. They have lived in extremely difficult conditions in refugee camps. And now it has been like “the Exodus,” said Merriman, with Cleveland becoming the “promised land.” [There’s a different take on Cleveland, huh.] Merriman added that the people at St. Patrick’s who have rallied around these refugees are deeply living the Gospel message about: “Welcoming strangers…” What’s more, Fr. Mark Denardo said that what is happening at St. Patrick’s should be a model for how we can build “one world,” in peace. Note: For more, see my column on this…
4/27/07
We just put up my wife Liz’s page on our site. It’s worth a look.
4/25/07
James Filiaggi was executed by lethal injection in Ohio yesterday. He was the 25th man to be executed in Ohio since 1999. In our research on the death penalty, I interviewed Connecticut author Annette Boscoe. She wrote the book Choosing Mercy. Her son and his wife were violently killed in Montana. Ms. Boscoe forgave the killer and lobbied for him in court. Instead of the death penalty, he received a life sentence. Some 12 years into that sentence, the man had a spiritual conversion and repented. Had he been killed prior, Ms. Boscoe said she wondered what would have happened to his soul. Good question, for all of us. Note: For more on our stance about the death penalty and “Life issues” in general, see…
4/23/07
We road our bicycles to “Earthfest” (2007 Climate Change Solutions) at the Cleveland Zoo yesterday. It is billed as “Ohio’s largest environmental education event.” Before the Welcoming Cermenonies, I talked with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. During the ceremony, Mr. Jackson said that global warming is forcing us to “change the way we do business” on a govermental level. And one of the things Cleveland has recently done is hire a full-time “Sustainability Coordinator.” This coordinator, Andrew Watterson, exhorted people to do things like bicycle, car pool or take the bus to work at least one day a week. This will cut someone’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 20% a week, he said. Mr. Watterson also said Cleveland is aiming at a 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2050… During the ceremony, our Sarah received a award for an essay she wrote about helping reverse climate change. Megan, a ninth grader from Midpark HS, also won an award for a poem she wrote on climate change. An excerpt reads: “A single tear falls… from the withered sky… And no one stops to realize… Our Mother Earth cries… As she’s ripped apart… And the sun beats down… On her half melted heart… Would you poison your child?…” Note: The irony is we are, indeed, poisoning our children. Our lifestyle choices are poisoning the environment (air born carcinogens, acid rain, greenhouse gases…). And in turn, these all will having significant ‘poisoning’ effects on our children. What kind of parents have we become? Note 2: I will be interviewed on: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/politicsone tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7 pm EST.
4/20/07
Yesterday Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper ran a front page, five column photo-spread and story about Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech during a gruesome shooting spree. On the other front page newspaper column, was a story about the Supreme Court upholding a partial birth abortion ban. The article said that this procedure accounted for 5,000 of 1.3 million abortions a year in the U.S. On Monday, 32 students were brutally killed in Virginia. On Monday, some 4,400 babies were brutally killed (dismembered in the womb) throughout America. We are absolutely aghast about Virginia Tech. Yet many of us don’t bat an eye about babies being killed and dismembered in the womb. What a tremendous spiritual disconnect. Note: I was jogging through a rather hardscrabble neighborhood in Cleveland recently. A neighborhood replete with “Beware of Dog” signs. At one point, I actually stopped and did a double take. A red sign in one front window read: “Beware of God.” And that’s something we need to be seriously thinking about with this abortion thing.
4/18/07
On the Virginia Tech shootings, the Nichols Mines Amish girls shootings, the Columbine shootings… It wouldn’t take a professor of Social Psychology to figure this out. We are awash in media/entertainment violence. It influences our pysches. If someone tips from, say, an emotional problem — they are now (in the year 2007) more apt to act out some of the violent imagery they’ve been watching. And here’s the rub: We are all responsible. Each time we watch a violent television show or movie, we are making a consumer choice. Those consumer choices translate to quantifiable viewing figures. Companies then weigh these figures and spend big money with the shows that get the most viewership. In other words, we are subsidizing a violent culture! Yet we won’t connect the dots on this thing, because we’re too addicted to watching the violence at this point. Note: Those consumer viewing choices also translate into: morally quantifiable figures.
4/16/07
I attended a talk by Joe Mueller at Cleveland’s Catholic Worker House. Mr. Mueller is a Christian Peacekeeper Team member who has been to Iraq twice. On his first trip, last year, the Peacekeeper Team that came in after his was abducted. One of the members, Tom Fox, was killed. In the face of such danger, Mr. Mueller went back because he said he believes in a “radical” interpretation of the Gospel message: “He who lays down his life for another…” He said Christian peace activists should be as committed to dying to prevent war, as soldiers are committed to dying in war. Mr. Mueller said fear is absolutely “pervasive” in Iraq now, with all the bombs, kidnappings and targetted assissinations… He said a general consensus among the Iraqis he’s talked to is that America is there to set themselves up in a strategic position to control the oil. “Why don’t they just take all the oil and leave,” Mr. Mueller said many Iraqis seem to be saying at this point. What’s more, he said America’s insatiable demand for oil is the crux of the problem. He also said that, in general, the U.S. has 5% of the world population and uses 30% of the resources (including oil). “We need addiction counselors. We live with such excess (in comparison to much of the world),” Mr. Mueller lamented. He added that a reason why more Americans aren’t taking to the streets to protest the war is because they have no “personal attachment” to the people in Iraq. And he added that it mystified him that with all the graphic footage of the carnage in Iraq, we can still remain so “apathetic.” Note: For our position paper on Iraq…
4/13/07
We have just updated our son Joseph’s page on our website.
4/11/07
Our daughter just won a Earth Day Coalition essay writing contest in Cleveland. She chose the topic of global warming within the context of something that is going on in the city here to help reverse it.
4/9/07
We have recently completed our about the family update for this site. It gives a much more in-depth look at us as a family and what our motivation is. And part of that motivation: is to win this thing.