Gave a talk at St. Joseph’s Church in Modesto, California, about Pro-Life issues today. I said in Nazi Germany during World War II trains would come down the tracks Sunday mornings carrying screaming Jewish children and their wailing parents. The Christian response in many of the churches near the tracks — was to turn the music up and sing a little louder. The year 2006: Some 4,400 unborn babies are coming down metaphoric tracks on metaphoric trains — every day in America. However, we busy ourselves with entertainment, with sports, with shopping and all sorts of other extra-curriculars… metaphorically: ‘singing louder.’ In Hitler’s Germany, to protest might well have meant death. We, on the other hand, are at liberty to protest, loudly. Yet tragically, many of us who say we are Pro-Life, don’t… While at St. Joseph’s, I also interviewed Malissa Souza, who is on the Pastoral Council here and very active with social justice issues in general. She explained St. Joseph’s has a sister-parish in Bladvistok, Russia. In 2003, Ms. Souza and a number of other St. Joseph parishioners visited the parish at Bladvistok. The Russian parish has an outreach to a nearby orphanage and Ms. Souza volunteered there several times during her stay. She said she was prohibited from visiting a couple of the floors in the orphanage, but one day on her own clandestinely ventured into one of the “off limits” wards. Ms. Souza said there she found infants from birth to three-years-old quietly lying in tiny beds in their own urine. “They were there to die (because there wasn’t enough care, financial resources… to go around),” she lamented. “There is a mortuary just across the street.” (Several years ago, I’d read an article that explained infants with virtually no care in these types of places — eventually stop crying, even whimpering. Simply, and tragically, because there is no response. They, in effect, shut down emotionally if there is no care shown them, no bonding.) Ms. Souza said it only takes 20 American dollars to provide enough formula to feed a baby: for a year in Russia. And St. Joseph’s here continually does fundraising to try to get as much help to their sister parish and the orphanage. (Ms. Souza was so affected by the conditions in Russsia, that last year she donated 40% of her income ($45,000) to Russian causes.) To donate write to: St. Joseph Parish, 1813 Oakdale Road, Modesto, California 95355; phone: 209-551-4973 / www.saintjosephs-modesto.org Note: Our administration would push for a “U.S. Department of Peace.” For several years now (as a Department of Peace initiative), I’ve proposed a plan for American cities and churches to set up sister cities and sister churches with Russia. Small rural towns and parishes could match up with small rural Russian towns and parishes. Intermediate sized towns and metropolitan areas could do the same. The strategy could include both cultural exchanges and monetary help to Russia (“To Russia With Love.”) The Russian people stand at a precipice. The transition to democracy and free-market economy has been extremely difficult there and they need help to stay bouyant. People are hungry. (Modesto’s Ms. Souza said she saw scores of youth, and adults, sleeping over sewer pipe lines on the streets to stay warm at night.) We, as Americans, have an excellent opportunity for a tremendous grassroots outporing of help to our brothers and sisters there. For years during the Cold War, we would have relished this change in Russia — and this opportunity to help. And here it is… By the way, America doesn’t have to wait for us to be in office, and the U.S. Department of Peace to be underway, for this Russian project to take off in a major way. It can happen now… one town, one church, at a time.
3/20/06
Met David “Laughing Horse” Robinson. During the 2003 Recall Election in California, he was one of 130 people who ran for Governor (which Arnold Schwarzenegger eventually won). Robinson said he is the head of the Kawaiisu Tribe here and is also an Art Instructor at UCLA. He came in 15th place in the Governor’s race. Robinson said figures showed the top 30 finishers (except for him) each spent at least $1 million on their respective campaigns. He said he spent $1,000… I interviewed Orville Brum, who used to manage one of the biggest dairy farms in the San Joaquin Valley. (It was near Maderna, CA.) He said dairy farms these days are going the way of Wal Mart and all the other big chains [read (my emphasis): going the way of greed]. And this is incrementally driving the small dairy farmers out of business… The National Agriculture Museum in Tulare, California, is — for the most part — a celebration of the evolution to mega farming in this country. And I was aghast at how skewed our paradigm about agriculture has become. The kids and I viewed a brief film on mega dairy confinement farms. Thousands of cows squeezed into small pens and on small, dirt and excrement filled feed lots. (As opposed to grazing free on acres grass.) We’ve seen these confinement farms all over the country and the conditions are deplorable. What’s more, many of these farms are using toxic, artificial hormones to increase cow size and milk production… Yet the film. amazingly — and with a good deal of propoganda spin — made one of these confinement farms in the Valley here look like it was ‘Cow Paradise.’ Note: The Catholic Rural Life Association has come out with a statement saying establishing a confinement farm (for cows, chickens…) is cruelty to animals and serious sin. Connecting the dots: consuming milk, eggs, meat… that come from these farms must be: sin, too. The answer: To buy, for instance, organic milk from farms where the cows are free range and grass fed. And to stand in solidarity with protests against these confinement farms at every turn (letters to the editor, letters to legislators, getting involved with rural actions to block these farms…)
3/16/06 thru 3/18/06
We went to the dusty, farm town of Arvin, California, which is chock full of farm workers, tiny houses and delapidated trailers. Although a relatively small town, it is now the “most crowded” town, per capita, in California. A typical residential scenario for Arvin was recently reported in a Mother Jones Magazine article: “Isabel, a single mother of three, can’t pack anyone else into the 300-square-foot house. Two of her sons share bunk beds and her oldest sleeps in the car; four other relatives sleep on the floor, and she stays on the couch.” [And this isn’t unusual here.]… There are some 75 less human beings in Bakersfield this week… The family and I stood in solidarity with a group of some 50 people praying the Rosary in the rain outside a “Family Planning Center” (read: abortion mill) in Bakersfield. Halfway through the Rosary, a small white truck pulled up and picked up a medium size cooler box. Terri Palmquist, co-chairperson of Life Saver’s Ministries (a Crisis Pregnancy Center just across the street), told me the box holds the remains of the unborn babies. She said estimates are about 75 of these babies are killed on Mondays and Tuesdays every week here. “THOSE ARE THE REMAINS OF LITTLE BABIES’ BODIES THAT WERE TORN APART. TREAT THEM WITH RESPECT!” Mrs. Palmquist yelled out to the workers getting in the truck. And in the background “…pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death, amen.” The next night my wife Liz and I talked about Pro-Life issues to a prayer group in Tulare, California. Liz mentioned the box we’d seen the day before, then said. “This (abortion and “…the right to choose.”) is not about Women’s Rights; it’s about murder.” Note: A group of youth were milling about the church where the prayer group was conducted. One of the youth had on a t-shirt that read: “SHHHHH… I’M TRYING TO HIDE FROM THE FLYING MONKEES!” Ahhh… only in California.
3/13 thru 3/15/06
We’ve spent the last week in the San Joaquin Valley in California campaigning and looking at farm worker issues… In Keene, California, we stopped at the National Ceaser Chavez Center. I met with Douglas Blaylock who administers the Robrt F. Kennedy Farm Workers Medical Plan. While a good plan (medical, dental, vision, prescription drugs…), Mr. Blaylock said only 2% of the farm workers (some 5,500 people) are insured under the plan. Among the top medical issues for farm workers are asthma and cancer from being exposed to all the toxic chemicals (herbacides, pestacides…) currently being applied to the fields. Mr. Blaylock said “cancer clusters” were being found among farm workers and their families in various places throughout the Valley. Another excellent reason to “grow organic…” In Arvin, California, a dusty farm town just south of Bakersfield, we learned a good number of farm worker families live two or three families to quite tiny houses and trailers — as farmers scrape to get a foothold in this country, or scrimp in order to send money back to relatives living in abject poverty in Mexico. While in Arvin, I met with Fr. Lucas Azpericueda who is personal friends with Vincente Fox, the current leader of Mexico. Prior to becoming president of Mexico, Fox was the head of the Mexican State of Guanaguata. Fr. Lucas said Fox helped transform this State to one where there were many jobs, good education, adequate housing… Fr. Lucas said a key to immigration issues here is to help each state in Mexico become as sustainable as possible. Common sense is most people don’t want to leave family, neighborhood, culture… unless, of course: because their children are hungry and there is no hope where they are… While in Bakersfield, the Bakersfield Californian newspaper ran a piece about some students from Loyola Marymount, a small, private Catholic college in Los Angeles, spending their Spring break in nearby Lamont, California. The students stayed in small homes with farm worker host families and spent some time working in the fields. The article explained one day the students went to an orange grove where they picked part of the day, then knocked off early. They were exhausted, according to the article. Yvonne Garcia, a 20-year-old political science major said she was troubled knowing the host family had to keep picking, not only that day, but into the future. “That brought up the question of why them and not us, and what’s the difference,” Garcia said, then trailed off: “I don’t know…” Note: I, on the other hand, believe I do know ‘what’s the difference.’ That is, these Loyola Marymount students probably grew up, for the most part, in quite a lot of privelege out in the suburbs. Their parents, most likely, weren’t willing to sacrifice their comfort much to bring real social justice, and solid systemic change, to help these farm workers have every advantage possible. (The parents, for the most part, just bought the oranges at the cheapest price possible in the grocery stores, and maybe kicked in a few bucks for the poor at church every once in awhile.) As a result, these children probably grew up without any real social justice models to speak of. Coming out of this insular suburban mileau, of course the youth are going to be perplexed about the deplorable conditions and causes when they see abject poverty up close for the first time. Being uninformed about this is not necessarily their fault. However, once they know. And for that matter, once we all know, then we become spiritually charged, not to so much to spend a lot of time philisophically ruminating about the ‘us vs. them’ question in the cloister of our suburban comfort, as to tangibly mobilize (and sacrifice) to do as many things as possible to help the farm workers (and all the other marginalized)– including changing the system… Ways to help immediately would be, for instance, to go to the The Ceasar E Chavez Foundation or Chavez National Center websites to find out ways to donate, or get involved on other activist levels… Another suggestion would be to, say, put aside an extra $10, $20, $50… every week you buy produce. Then donate it, for instance, to a church in the San Joaquin Valley that’s doing outreach to help the migrant farm workers here.
3/13/06
Snowbound in sunny southern California… We had planned on leaving Tehachapi (some 4,00 ft. above sea level) before the weekend. But a series of events unfolded to keep us here… After giving a talk at St. Malachy’s Church, Pat Rogers approached me and asked if we needed anything done to our vehicle. It’s a ’71, so I said: “Oh, there’s probably a few things…” Two new front tires, a new relay to the cylinoid, new battery wires (and eight greasy hours later), Pat — who is an excellent self-taught mechanic and firefighter at Edward’s Air Force Base — was finished. It was evening and Pat suggested that we stay at their place for the night. That night it snowed, a lot. Since we couldn’t get out the next day (the Rogers live on a short road that has an 8%, or more, grade), we stayed. In turn (or better yet, in a sort of ‘Turin’), our children and the Rogers children, transformed the street into, well: a bobsled run. At one point our Joseph, hanging 10 (or rather: “hanging boot”) on a snowboard, hit a top speed (I’m guessing) of 40 mph — just before he hit the snow bank at the end of the culde-sac. It wasn’t pretty… In Tehachapi, I also attended a prayer group led by Christopher Zehnder. Zehnder, who formerly taught theology at a Catholic school in Connecticut, exhorted people to consider practicing focusing on God throughout the entire day. Each one of us shooting to be more of a “mystic,” if you will. I couldn’t help but think how hard that is in our modern culture, with the constant cacophony of sights and sounds coming at us all day. One of the biggest modern distractions, I believe, is television. The Zehnder home doesn’t have a television. Note: I spent the weekend (when I wasn’t wincing watching Joseph), updating our position paper on Taxes. It should be up on the site sometime this week. Stay tuned.
3/10/06
Recap of the last couple days in the Tehachapi Mountains of California… I gave a talk at St. Malachy Church here and said there is the story of a woman in the Third World who drowned two of her children in the sea — so she didn’t have to watch them slowly starve to death with her. I told the congregation that in the face of this (staggering Third World hunger), to go on with our quite well-off American lifestyles unaffected is a tragic mistake — that could well have eternal ramifications… I also interviewed Tehachapi’s Kelly Rogers for a position paper I’m updating on taxes in the U.S. Rogers has a degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkley. She said the prevailing paradigm in America today is “it’s all about me.” So the politicians develop platforms that reflect: “it’s all about you,” she continued. As a result, lawmakers propose multitudes of tax loopholes and exemptions to benefit their (often already well-off) constituents. Rogers said it should be viewed as a privilege to fund Government services to help the poor and disadvantaged, to help the environment, and so on. And she exhorts people to consider forgoing all the loopholes and exemptions… Another problem that has arisen out of all this legislation is the current almost mind-boggling complexity of the Tax Code. The Tax Law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913 to 7 million words today! There are at least 480 different tax forms. And even the easiest form, the 1040E, has 33 pages of instructions — all in fine print. What’s more, American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with Federal taxes each year. Note: In downtown Tehachapi there’s a German bakery that sells a t-shirt that reads: “A grouchy German is a Saur Kraut.” And contemplating the absolute leviathan the Tax Code has become, it is enough to make anyone grouchy. (Sorry.)
3/8/06
I was interviewed by Christopher Zehnder, who is the editor of Faith and Mission newspapers. Faith is the Bay area lay Catholic newspaper and Mission is a lay Catholic newspaper in the Los Angeles area. (Zehnder works out of a home office in Tehachapi, California, where we are currently campaigning.) The newspapers report on such topics as: social justice, environmental stewardship, politics, pro-life… A Zehnder article, for instance, took George W. Bush’s “pro-life” stance to task. In the article, Judie Brown of the American Life League noted that President Bush believes in abortion in the case of rape, incest, threat to the mother’s life, or fetal deformity. What’s more, during the 2003 recall election in California, the White House endorsed pro-abortion Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of pro-life Tom McClintock… In line with Catholic Church teaching, our stance is abortion is never an option. In the mid-1900s, Ginna Molla, an Italian physician, was told that to have her baby would mean almost certain death for her. She had the baby. Dr. Molla died a couple weeks later. Pope John Paul II canonized her a saint… I told editor Carol Holmes of the Tehachapi News today that not only were we opposed to abortion, we were admantly calling for pro-life people to take to the streets of their town en mass to step up the protest against this “Holocaust.” Note: When the Bush Administration backed Schwarzenegger, as mentioned in the Zehnder article, they were backing a voice for abortion. If someone knows abortion is murder and they get behind a pro-choice candidate, does that person become an accomplice in murder? Likewise if someone knows abortion is murder and they do nothing to try to stop it, do they become complicit in their silence?
3/7/06
We’re in Tehachapi, California, some 4,000 ft above sea level in the Tehachapi Mountains. Today while out jogging on Hwy 202, I was stopped by the scene of a white cross and some flowers by the side of the road. On the cross it said: “Daddy.” Below was a stick-on heart with the words: “I had a good Valentine’s Day this year Dad. I’m thinking about you…” Apparently this girl comes here to where her Dad was killed on the road to leave him regular messages about the events of her life. How tragic that we’ve set up a transportation system in America that is so dangerous (33,000 deaths a year on American roads). I couldn’t help but wonder how many children are growing up without ‘Daddys,’ without ‘Mommys,’ to share the moments of their lives because we’ve, without a lot of prayerful thought or discernment, simply wanted to be more mobile. And we often drive by these roadside crosses with hardly a thought — unless of course it’s happened to one of our ‘Daddys,’ or relatives, or friends… Note: Interesting timing… a bicycling enthusiast from Louisville, Kentucky, had e-mailed me yesterday. He liked that we advocate for much more bicycling in the country and he wrote that for him personally bicycling was good for his health, good for the environment, a more responsible, and frugal, purchase… What’s more, with greenhouse gas and carcinongen emissions from cars, the potential for fatal accidents, and so on… this man wondered: W.W.J.D.? That is: “What Would Jesus Drive?”… And more interesting (and tragic) timing… The day after I wrote all this, the Tehachapi News carried a front page article reporting that not more than a quarter mile from the accident site I’d just written about, there had just been another auto accident that claimed two lives and left three others critically injured. Nancy Ramirez (according to the California Highway Patrol) drifted a bit right onto the road’s shoulder, then corrected too far to the left and struck a Caltrans truck head on. Mrs. Ramirez’s 10-year-old daughter was ejected from the car and a third car struck her. She died. The driver of the Caltrans truck, Jackie Ray Aldridge, 51, was pinned behind his steering wheel. He died. Mrs. Ramirez is in critical condition. And her other daughter, Roquel, 6, broke both her legs and suffered a spine injury… Soon, most likely, another cross with another “Daddy” will go up near the accident site. If Mrs. Ramirez doesn’t make it, there will be a cross that says “Mommy.” And yet another that says “Daughter”… Both these accidents happened near the intersection of Hwy 202 and Schout Road. And maybe it’s time we, collectively, ‘SHOUT’ to change the motor vehicle transportation system (to “Walkable Communities,” horse drawn buggies, bicycles, walking…) that is killing us — One Daddy, or Mommy, or daughter… at a time. Note 2: As I mentioned all this during an interview with Carol Holmes, editor of the Tehachapi News, she replied that several days after this last accident — there was yet another vehicular accident in that same location that had involved two children and left one adult, a grandmother, in critical condition.
3/6/06
I gave four talks at churches in Rosamond and Mojave, California, over the weekend. At St. Mary’s of the Desert I talked about Pro-Life issues. Afterward, a nurse came up and said that besides abortion, another thing many people will be called on spiritually at Judgement is: sterilization. Actually, you have to wonder: If God intends for a couple to have, say, five children, but they use birth control to stop at two children — in the scheme of God’s plan, have those other three children, in a sense, been ‘aborted?’… At a Religious Education Class, I took questions. One woman asked my take on our Welfare System. I said just the day before, I talked with Rosamond’s Sue Macisaac, who said in the ‘old days,’ most Christian Church members gave 10% of their income. As a result, many of the poor and disadvantaged received a considerable amount of help from their local churches. (I noted a couple journal entries back, that the average American Protestant now tithes 2.6% of their income and the average Catholic now tithes 1.2% of their income — with a lot of this going to administrative costs, building funds, and the like). Ms. Macisaac said as a result of all this, it’s as if we now tithe to the government. I explained to the class that this tax money gets funneled through a rather large bureaucratic system, with a significantly decreased amount then coming back (in a rather antiseptic fashion) to those in need through social programs like Welfare. While I don’t think all social programs are bad, I do believe we have abdicated way too much charitable giving (in the form of money and personal hands on help to the disadvantaged) to the Federal Government. And that, I believe, is spiritually skewed… At St. Mary’s of the Desert on Sunday, I said there are 24,000 people in the Third World who starve to death every day. I then referred to a couple lines of the opening song in this particular Sunday Mass. “In these days of Lenten journey… we open our eyes to the hungry.” I said I would hope that that was more than just empty lyrics for those of us who sang them… And finally, I talked at a “Four Square” church in Rosamond about Pro-Life issues as well. Note: Prior to the talk at the Four Square church, “Brother Bill,” a former split-end for the University of Las Vegas at Nevada, shared a brief Bible teaching. Without knowing I was going to talk about Pro-Life issues, he said he’d been inspired by the Holy Spirit to talk about the following Biblical passage: “Delivery has passed. The baby is born. Observe a new place, a new horizon. The child must be brought forth…” I couldn’t have asked for a better lead in, huh.
3/4/06
As we move into Lent, I heard a homily by Fr. Jim Kudilil at St. Francis Church in Mojave, California, that was right on the mark (in my opinion) when it comes to the true nature of “fasting.” Fr. Jim cited Isaah 58: 1-9. From the Living Bible: “…the kind of fast I want is that you stop oppressing those who work for you and treat them fairly… I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your homes those who are helpless, poor and desolate. Clothe those who are cold…” Fr. Jim said it is on these kinds of things that people will be judged by God… In a talk after Mass, I elaborated on this theme by saying our platform called for “Preferential Option for the Poor.” And I exhorted the congregation members to “fast” their lifestyles in America (way less purchases, way less driving, way less energy use…), and funnel the savings into the Third World where there are millions of people living in continual hunger, without adequate shelter, clothes, medicine… (All the things the Isaah passage talks about.) I ended by saying I seriously doubted whether God, at the Final Judgement, was going to be all that concerned about whether we gave up chocolate for Lent or not. Note: Our campaign continually asks Americans to use way less energy in the form of (heat, air-conditioning, unecessary lighting…). Most Americans are tremendously gluttonous in this area. Our belief is that we should dramatically decrease our energy demand and provide for the rest of our energy needs with clean, renewable sources like sun, water (wave action) and wind. Driving to the church tonight on Hwy 14, we went by a series of large “wind farms” with hundreds of wind turbines that generate some of this clean energy. Later tonight I read the following in an Associated Press article: “Reversing decades of U.S. policy, President George W. Bush ushered India into the world’s exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with this energy-starved nation…” Our “Energy Policy” position paper notes we are adamantly against the use of nuclear power. For instance, the paper cites that the explosion at the Chernobyle Nuclear Power Plant in the former USSR released radiation comprable to: the detenation of all nuclear tests, ever. This is according to Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko, who is the former head of the Ukranian Academy of Science and lead investigator to the Chernobyl Clean-Up. The radioactive fall-out spread through Russia and much of Europe. And it’s anybody’s guess how much cancer, new born deformity, and so on, will result over the generations. (America came dangerously close to the same thing with Three Mile Island. And we are still sorting through all the pysiological ripples to the “Hanford Down Winders” caused by “controlled releases” of radiation from the Hanford Nuclear Power Plant in the state of Washington in the 1950s and 60s.) Coupled with all this, we are about to bury huge amounts of high level radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada — for future generations to have to worry about… As concisely as possible, this is: ‘nuclear madness.’ What I believe we should be doing is sharing our expertise with India (and a whole lot of other countries) around developing wind turbine farms, and the like. I mean when it comes to environmental stewardship, it just makes way more sense, common sense.