Vote for Joe

All eyes this week are on “Artemis One” and the beginning of manned flights back to the moon, and eventually Mars. The NASA Program had been in relative limbo, in regard to these manned flights, until President Obama, channeling his best JFK in 2010, said it was time to get the rockets firing on these new goals. But it would be going back into space in a “smarter way,” he added. Trump and Biden have been ‘on board’ with this as well. As president, I wouldn’t be. We have pumped $90 billion, and counting, into the Artemis Program so far, to take ‘man’ to the moon and Mars — where there is no gravity, no breathable air, no water (to speak of), no soil to grow crops in… I mean, if God would have wanted us in these places, He would have made them, well: readily habitable. Meanwhile, on this planet, two billion people are food insecure; one billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water; one billion people live in deplorable slum conditions… What’s more, climate change catastrophe is everywhere now. As president, I’d take this money, and technological genius, and funnel it into projects to help our world become much more sustainable. Note: If one looks up at that rocket on the launch pad, and squints, he/she might even be able to see a version of the “Tower of Babel,” fueled, of course, by modern man’s tremendous hubris. Note 2: “But Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or without adequate shelter…?”

The big news this week is the persistent “heat dome” over America’s south, and record shattering high temperatures, wildfires, et. al, in Europe. I recall traveling during the summer in America’s south a number of years ago and seeing a marquee in front of a church in, I believe it was Alabama, that read: “You think it’s hot here!” Our First World energy gluttony (a sin, by the way) is, apparently, majorly fueling (no pun intended) what’s becoming catastrophic climate change. The Catholic Catechism says this type of gluttony is a sin against the 7th Commandment: “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” See, our use of natural resources, and such, according to the Catechism, should reflect “…concern for the quality of life of one’s neighbor — including generations to come.” Our, again, First World gluttony (central heat, central air conditioning, driving everywhere, etc…) is not only destroying the planet for future generations, but it is creating catastrophic havoc (much more drought, famine, super-charged storms…) for many living on the planet now. When is the last time a spiritual leader in America called their congregation on this? Probably not often, if at all, huh. Yet, ultimately, it’s this type of sin(s) that could end people up in a place, well, much hotter than here.

I just wrote a newspaper article about the St. Bernadette statue coming to one of our local area churches as part of a 40-town tour of the U.S. this summer. One of the volunteers at the church said that, not only did he help coordinate the event, but he made sure his four children were at the event as well. He said the cultural winds are getting more than a bit skewed. That is, abortion, gender fluidity, and so on, are totally antithetical to Catholic Church teaching, he said. What’s more, he continued, the society is practically deifying sports figures and Hollywood actors / actresses. Yet people like St. Bernadette (St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Joan of Arc…), who led tremendously heroic spiritual lives, are hardly recognized anymore, except within certain small circles.

I was reading some of this book this afternoon… After dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was set up by Congress. [There was already an Atomic Energy Commission.] These bodies oversaw such things as further development of atomic weapons and the development of atomic energy. The bulk of the uranium at the time was coming out of the Belgian Congo, where, frankly, it should have stayed. The development of atomic, later nuclear, energy was a big mistake from the start. The fission involved is too dangerous, period. What’s more, there are tremendously long, half-life isotopes from breached nuclear reactors. Read: Chernobyl; Fukushima… It’s way too dangerous a form of energy. And our mad rush to stockpile as many nuclear bombs, missiles, et. Al, helped set off a world wide nuclear arms race. Calmer, more spiritually centered, heads should have prevailed at the start of all this. But they didn’t.

I just wrote a newspaper article about Maysville, Ohio, pop.: not much. It’s just a small cluster of homes that are loosely configured around an intersection on Rte. 309 here. But Maysville wasn’t always like that. In the mid-1800s, it was a bustling town with two general stores, one shoe store, two blacksmith shops, two hotels, one small manufacturing plant… It was a day horse/buggy ride west of Lima, Ohio, and travelers would stop here for the night. What’s more, many were simply employed and lived here. It was, primarily, a good model of a decentralized community. Then the railroad came, and passenger trains bypassed the town, freight trains bypassed the town, and the town, incrementally, died — as did many other towns across the nation at the time. According to a book I’ve been recently reading (see photo), “…the railroad was warmly embraced by the American people almost from its inception. Its utility in unifying the nation and creating a strong national economy were apparent to nearly everyone.” Everyone except, of course, and apparently, the merchants in Maysville, Ohio.