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…
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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.]
6/28/06
I’m just finishing the update on our position paper on “the Environment.” In it I mention meeting with David Orr, one of the top environmentalists in the country and the head of Oberlin College’s Environmental Science Department. He told me it was his belief many in America are: “biophobic.” That is, nature has become an “enemy” to be tamed. We now, for the most part, live “comfortably” in temperature controlled homes, businesses, motor vehicles… The closest people actually come to weather anymore is, well, the Weather Channel. We are, in effect, afraid (read: biophobic) of such conditions as: cold, hot, wet, muddy… And if we look at nature as the “enemy,” we aren’t very apt to want to save it. And so the environmental cancers of urban sprawl, global warming, acid rain, ozone holes… march on.
6/26/06
The Cleveland Plain Dealer Religion section ran a story about Northeast Ohio’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). They referred to the CYO sports league of some 11,000 4th to 8th graders as a landmark program that puts Catholic (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 ahead of winning…” The first program of it’s kind in the country, the CYO has recently established guaranteed-playing-time-rules. It’s colloqially called: “No Child Left on the Bench.” For instance, on basketball teams of 10 or less (which is the great majority of squads) each player must play at least half the game for fourth to sixth graders. Seventh and eighth graders must play at least one quarter, the article noted… On the inner city rec. league baseball team I’m coaching this summer, not only is each youth required to play each game, but it is also suggested that there be a “rotation.” That is just like in volley ball, after each batter, the players in the field move to the next position (first to second base, left field to center field…) so each youth (ages 8 to 13) get a chance to see where they play best… Note: During Campaign 2000, we came across a ‘Field of Dreams,’ if you will, in tiny Arthur, Illinois, that best epitomizes trading off some competition for character development and community building.
6/23/06
Cleveland — Persistent rains battered the region yesterday… started a Plain Dealer article today. In 24 hours, the area had an average rainfall of about 5 inches. In Kenya, it only rains 9 inches, a year. In Tanzania sometimes, it’s even less. At a campaign stop in Hibbings, Minnesota, several years ago, I interviewed Sheila Arimond who went on a mission trip to Tanzania. She told me that every day she would walk to a dry creek bed with some rural villagers to dig for water. Sometimes they’d find water, sometimes they wouldn’t. And if they didn’t, these people would go thirsty that day… Returning to America, Sheila (who lives in a modest, one-story ranch style home) told me the Tanzanian experience made her reflect on the “opulence” of her life… “I’d feel guilty turning on the water,” she said. Note: In the Environmental Position Paper I continue to update this week, I talk about this Third World water scarcity and what Americans can do to help. At the very least, we can, indeed, feel guilty about our excessive water use (in comparison to the Third World), and we can, for instance, take “GI showers” or share bath water — and funnel the hot water heating savings to humanitarian aid efforts into Tanzania, Kenya… And that’s just a couple of a multitude of conservation strategies to help people in the Third World… And they will ask: “But Lord, when did we see you thirsty?”
6/22/06
A front page story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper today said gas prices may go as high as $3.25 a gallon this summer. Good. That will mean some people will drive less. And if they drive less, there will be less global warming gases. And in all this, we might also move a step (excuse the pun) or two toward a more “decentralized” society. A vignette from our Back Road to the White House book about Campaign 2000: In tiny Sea Level on North Carolina’s east coast, I talked with James Styron, 61. When he grew up here, there were several oyster factories, a couple restaurants, a General Store where the “old guys” played checkers around a pot belly stove and the youth in the town listened to their life stories. “Everyone was close,” Styron said. Then Styron’s grandfather became the first in town to get a Model T., the first affordable car for the “average Joe” in America. The grandfather started to drive out of town a bit, then a bit more. Others in town followed suit in their new Model Ts. With this increased mobility, not only was there more global warming gases, but bigger stores started to go up in more central locations (read: “centralism”) between these small towns. Because the stores were bigger, they could carry items at bigger volume. And because of this volume, the stores could also sell at cheaper prices. This meant that the small downtown establishments in towns like Sea Level started going out of business. (At the far end of the continuum these days, read: Wal Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot…) As the small stores started going out of business, the downtown shopping and gathering places started to evaporate, in kind, leaving only a trace, if that, of an echo of the ‘old guys’ voices. Mr. Styron told me about the grandfather’s Model T. with a touch of pride. Then in the next breath said he was at a loss for what went wrong in the town — and why people “weren’t that close” anymore… I take what I said back at the beginning of this entry. Maybe it would be better if gasoline went to $6.25 a gallon this summer… There goes a few more votes, huh.