I wrote a letter to the editor of several rural Ohio newspapers this week explaining about a “church farm” that we’d researched in Neola, Iowa, during Campaign 2000. An area farmer there left his 400-acre farm to St. Patrick’s Church. Every year farmers, and other members of St. Pat’s, pitch in to farm the land (complete with a Fall Harvest Party). The profits go to the church, and to the area needy. The profit the year we were there was approximately $73,000. In an essay for Farming Magazine, I wrote this is truly “a gift that keeps on giving.” For more on our agriculture position in general… Note: Speaking of letters to the editor… We are asking people to send supportive letters-to-the-editor of Ohio newspapers about the campaign, if you would.
11/15/06
I gave a talk to a prayer group at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Cuyahoga Falls last night. During the talk, I shared the following: While in the border town of Juarez, Mexico, we toured a slum that had 200,000 people living in cobbled together shacks with no running water, no electricity, little food… Kids were dying. Across the border was El Paso. It looked like heaven and hell, and El Paso isn’t even that affluent. I asked the American priest who was giving us the tour about his take on immigration policy. He pointed to Juarez. Then he pointed to El Paso. Then he pointed to the fence: “What do you think Jesus would do with the fence?” He asked. Note: For more on our position on Hispanic immigration….
11/14/06
I stumped at Donut Land in Brunswick, Ohio, yesterday. Brunswick’s Louann Keith noted that youth today are tremendously over-stimulated with cable television, with computer games… She said that growing up it wasn’t unusual for her and her friends to play a three-day running board game at someone’s home over a weekend. [Oh, where have you gone Norman Rockwell?]
11/13/06
On a campaign stop in Brecksville, Ohio, over the weekend, I talked with Rosemary and Norman Hannibal. Each year Norman celebrates his Birthday, as well as his: ‘Lifeday.’ Norman, who is extremely Pro-Life, said nine months before his Birthday every year — he celebrates this Lifeday. For years he worked at a blue collar position, but on this day he’d wear a tie that many would ask him about. In turn, it gave him the chance to explain.
11/11/06
Due to a computer glitch, we have lost the past four months of campaign entries on this blog. Undaunted (sort of), we continue to press on…
Hello world!
Welcome to Joe’s blog!
7/3/06
I just wrote a letter-to-the-editor of our diocesan Catholic newspaper in Cleveland. It follows: Should the social justice onus for not having a higher minimum wage in America simply be on legislators, or should we all share the blame? In your recent “Just Speaking” column, Dennis Sadowski notes that getting paid $5.15 an hour (prevailing minimum wage) equates to $10,712 a year. That puts a family of three, for instance, at the lower margin of the poverty line. And Mr. Sadowski writes: “It’s a moral outrage to think that most of our elected representatives have abandoned the poor.” And it is. But we, too, have abandoned the poor… A reading at church Sunday was from 2 Corinthians where Paul is exhorting the early church: “…but as a matter of equality, your abundance at the present time should supply their (those less well off) needs.” So, I wonder, what would keep a Cleveland suburbanite family who enjoys “abundance at this present time” from turning off the air conditioning, gettting a bus pass to go to work in the city, foregoing the large screen TV, nixing the dinners at Applebies… finding a family of three living on minimum wage — and giving them the savings, each year? Answer: Selfishness. Note: Tomorrow we celebrate our “freedom.” What that means to me, in it’s essence, is that we have ‘freedom’ to follow God’s will, or not. That is, for example, we have freedom to follow the 2 Corinthians passage (the way it’s written), or not. Note 2: Our family will boycott the fireworks tomorrow. I just read where Independence, Ohio, had to cancel their fireworks this year because they couldn’t raise the $30,000 that’s needed for the display. And, I would imagine, that sum is fairly typical for most intermediate sized towns across America… Scores of little children starving to death daily in the Third World and we’re spending millions of dollars on our 20 minutes of entertainment tomorrow night? Again, we have the ‘freedom’ to do God’s will, or not: Millions on fireworks? Food for starving children? Does anyone really think God would opt for the fireworks. Note 3: Speaking of money, we continue to ask for campaign donations to help get this message out farther: Schriner Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113.
7/1/06
I’ve spent part of the week painting the porch of a young couple’s place in Cleveland. In their bathroom is a daily calender with thoughts from around the world. The June 27th entry was a Ugandan proverb: “Before you throw the knife, look for the needle.” The analogy in Christian circles would be (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘Before you endeavor to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye, remove the plank from your own eye.’ Now, onward to North Korea… This country has one long-range Taepondong 2 missile fueled and ready, perhaps, for a test launch. One missile. A ‘needle,’ metaphorically. Or a ‘splinter,’ metaphorically… Meanwhile back in Montana, we have 2,000 long-range nuclear missiles aimed — all over the world. 2,000 missiles. A ‘knife,’ metaphorically. A ‘plank,’ metaphorically. Average Joe Zen-like question: What’s up with this!? Note: On a Campaign 2000 tour leg, I interviewed Fr. Tom McAslin, who was the Social Action Coordinator for the Omaha Diocese in Nebraska. He told me he believed ‘removing the plank from our (America’s) own eye,’ collectively, meant nothing short of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Nebraska proverb: “You do the right thing, and then trust God,” said Fr. McAslin.
6/29/06
For prayer time yesterday, I read the family part of a front page NY Times article about the desperate conditions in the Congo. According to the article, in less than a decade more than 400 million people have died there. It has been the deadliest conflict since World War II. Militias continually drive people out of their villages and into the surrounding jungle to fend for themselves. People are dying of starvation, of disease… The article focused on the small, rural town of Aveba, where some of the refugees are currently arriving. Typical of their state, one single mother and her five children arrived in Aveba with a metal bowl, what little food they had, and a few cooking implements. (Next time you’re in Wal-Mart about to purchase yet another thing you don’t need, you might want to think hard about this mother and her children in Aveba.) Doctors Without Borders is in this area of Africa, but they need way more medical supplies… After the reading, our family passed around an envelope to contribute money to Doctors Without Borders. (Next time you’re about to contribute to your local church’s Building Fund to get the new air-coniditioning system, the new dishwasher for the social hall, the new church addition…, you might want to, again, think hard about the mother and her children in Aveba.) We’ll be judged on this stuff. …Our American consumer culture is so seductive.
6/29/06
I’m coaching an inner city Little League baseball team this summer. After our practice last night, I gathered the youth together and told them I expected them to practice some more between now and the first game. One boy, from a cluster of Black youth who hang out together, approached me and asked: “Can we borrow a ball so we can practice?” Note: During Campaign 2000 we did a stop in Keene, New Hampshire, where I learned about some dialogue between an inner city child in this state and his teacher. The teacher asked the child what he had eaten for breakfast that day. The child replied: “It wasn’t my turn to eat.” …I told the Keene Sentinel newspaper that we were asking suburban Americans to cut back considerably on their lifestyles — so these little inner city kids can eat breakfast, regularly — [and have a ball to throw around.]