The ultimate sacrifice

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photo by Joe

A Bluffton police officer was killed in the line of duty this week. I spent part of the week reporting on the story. The officer, Dominic Francis, was putting up “stop sticks” on I-75 to stop a vehicle that was being pursued southbound out of Toledo. It was traveling at speeds up to 130 mph. Officer Francis was struck by the car and pronounced dead at the scene. Officer Francis, 41, was with the Bluffton Police nine years and left behind a wife and two children. Besides being a husband and father, he was a substitute teacher, a high school football and softball coach, a volunteer firefighter, and was even a school bus driver. Everything about him spelled: “service.” At a prayer vigil the evening after his death, one of the village pastors said Jesus laid down his life for us. And following that example, Officer Dominic (and all police) are willing to lay down their life for their neighbor/community. Note: I was interviewed by one of the Ohio TV news channels and conveyed to the reporter that while some circles clamor for “defunding the police,” conversely, these police are willing to pay the “ultimate price.” See our position on crime (and the police)…

Is earth a ‘strange planet’?

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strange planet…

I recently interviewed a local librarian who is the youth reading coordinator. She doe story time sessions at the library and at an elementary school (using books like the one pictured here). She has a master’s degree in Library Science. She noted that in this modern age of screen videos, and such, reading among youth is becoming more and more out of vogue. This can, indeed, be detrimental. That is, reading books, for instance, is akin to aerobics for the brain. One has to actively picture the plot line, the characters, the background scenes… With a video, well, the imagery, what the characters look like, etc., is all right there in front of your face. In adopting all this new technology, cart blanche, have we, indeed, made a mistake? An important question. Note: I also recently interviewed a local sociology professor who posited that technology actually drives culture in recent centuries, not the other way around. And he used the example of the Industrial Revolution. Steam power was initially harnessed, factories went up, mass production started happening… and people moved from the country to around these plants (which became “urban areas”). And many people traded a small farm, agrarian-based existence, for a much more fast-paced, crowded, polluted… existence. The professor said that unlike the Amish, who go through prayerful, studied discernment in regard to adopting a new technology, mainstream America usually just accepts the newest technology — and labels it: “progress.”

Gas prices on the rise… good!

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Gas prices are climbing amidst the Ukrainian War and subsequent sanctions. Many in America are bemoaning the higher prices, but our administration wouldn’t be. The higher the gas prices, the more motorist conservation measures (driving slower, inflating tires properly, bicycling, walking…) will be taken. Global warming gasses will decrease in kind, with new and better habits being developed in motorists. What’s more, this will make the country a lot more receptive to the sweeping change we promote in our position paper on transportation.

Conservation in the ‘balance’

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Nov. 2018 edition

Just finished reading the cover article… Excerpt: “Western lands have been a subject of intense dispute ever since the U.S. Government seized them from native tribes.” Who took over were homesteaders, railroads, livestock barons, ranchers, mining syndicates… with little thought of conservation/land- management. The “common good” eventually became a thing “…and the notion of public lands, managed in perpetuity by the federal government for the good of the nation” became more than just a concept when President Grant, in 1872, signed a bill creating Yellowstone National Park — the world’s first. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management eventually evolved for forests, grasslands, deserts… And the federal government, at present, owns 575 million acres across the west. Now… On the front end, we should have never initially “seized” (broken treaties, et Al) the land from the native tribes. And, frankly, we should give some of it back. Secondly, our administration would lean, considerably, toward preserving as much land as possible in its natural state, while not caving to financial interests that would want otherwise. We would place a premium on being good environmental stewardship. Note: During our research, we stopped in Rawlins, Wyoming, where we met with someone who worked for the Bureau of Land Management there. Part of that interview is inserted in our position paper on the environment. (*See section 13.)

Ukraine outreach; …and U.S. Dept. of Peace

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As I write this, the war in Ukraine is into its second week, and it is absolutely raging now. Meanwhile, the world looks on. While interviewing a couple volunteers at the used bookstore downtown, they said they couldn’t “…just look on.” They had to do something. So, they set up a Donation Center to funnel money to the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), which has an arm in Ukraine. They are on the ground providing food, coats, shelter… MCC is connected to an umbrella of non-violent “peace churches,” the Amish, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren… Their ethos is that, as soldiers are willing to die in a war for the cause, so, too, should Christian Peacekeepers be willing to die in a war for their cause as well… *Note: Our administration proposes a U.S. Department of Peace, as a supplement to the U.S. Defense Department. That is, we believe we should be as proactive as possible in employing pre-emptive strategies to build peace worldwide.

Build Back Better… Make America Great… Hardly!

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nuclear bomb explosion

I listened to Biden’s “State of the Union Address” last night. His overarching paradigm continues to be: “Build Back Better!” Trump’s overarching paradigm continues to be: “Make America Great!” My overarching paradigm continues to be: ” Repent America!” Mother Theresa once said America was the most “spiritually poor” country she had ever visited, never mind what CNN or FOX says. And what’s the basis for us being so “spiritually poor”? Look around. As generally mentioned in the previous post: Some 3,500 babies will be dismembered today in America. The spiritual insanity of “gender fluidity” is now accepted in many societal circles. America’s inner cities have become war zones, replete with decaying schools, extreme violence, drugs… and children abandoned in all this. Our mainstream media/entertainment is saturated with violence, sex — and Hollywood is exporting this spiritually corrosive filth all over the world. We are environmentally trashing the planet on multiple fronts. We continue on in our First World lifestyles in the face of so much potentially relievable suffering in the Third World… This is the real “State of the Union.” Was the message to Nineveh: “Build Back Better,” or “Make Nineveh Great Again”? No, it was: “REPENT!” Note: Also, as mentioned in the previous post, Mother Theresa said the sin of abortion alone could lead to nuclear war. And that’s not even factoring in all the other sins just mentioned.

Next stop: World War III

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Ukranian flag…

A summation of the geopolitics on the Ukraine/Russian conflict dynamics… In 1991, Ukraine became an independent state after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin, however, still sees Ukraine as part of its ‘sphere of influence,’ and Ukraine becoming a NATO country would be a red line for Putin. So, apparently, to pre-empt this, Putin (after already annexing the Crimea) is now mounting an incremental invasion, as I write this. An invasion that could, quite conceivably, ‘mushroom’ into World War III. But here’s what most everyone is missing: While Russia, NATO, and the UN play this high-stake geopolitical chess game, elsewhere on a spiritual plane, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing to “seers” all over the globe in the past 40 years, or so, warning that if mankind doesn’t stop “offending God,” there would be a WWIII as a punishment from God. And on the ‘offending God’ front? There’s now wholesale global slaughter of babies in the womb. So called “gender fluidity,” that is not only absolutely ludicrous, but totally flies in the face of God’s moral law. What’s more, there is sexual immorality in general that is absolutely off the charts at this point. Also, billions of people live in abject poverty in the Third World, while there is relative indifference as we continue on in our First World lifestyles. Addictions (drugs, alcohol, media-entertainment, gambling, sex, overeating…) are rampant. We’re trashing God’s planet with pollution, etc. And I’m just scratching the Babylonian surface, if you will. Note: At Fatima in 1917 (Catholic Church approved apparition), the Blessed Virgin Mary told the children that WWI would end. But if mankind didn’t stop “offending God” (there it is again), God would allow a second World War as a punishment to mankind. And, well, we know what happened with that. Point being, Hitler wasn’t at the root of World War II, it was mankind collectively. This time around, it’s not Putin who is the real problem here, it’s, once again, us.

‘light pollution’ is a significant problem

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…photo by Joe

I recently interviewed a local astronomist who said, these days, that we’re absolutely awash in “light pollution.” And yeah, light pollution diminishes night visibility for astronomers, and such, but it’s way more than that. According to www.darksky.org, about 15 million tons of carbon dioxide are emitted each year in America, just to power outdoor residential lights. That equates to the emissions of about three million autos and adds up to 40,000 tons of CO2 a day. (And this is just residential lighting. It doesn’t include business lighting.) The organization also explains to offset this amount of CO2, the U.S. would have to plant 600 million trees annually. As president, I’d advocate for a department that specifically dealt with light pollution, given what a big problem it’s becoming. For more about our position on energy, go to… Note: This astronomer told me that one of the biggest light wastes can be found in many of our municipalities’ street lighting. Instead of streetlights with “down-shine” fixtures just to train the light down, many streetlights (like the one in the photo above) disperse light sideways and up — neither of which is necessary — and a tremendous waste of energy.

nuclear madness in the south pacific

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I finished reading this book over the last weekend. As the cover explains, the genre is “historical fiction.” The book revolves around America’s first hydrogen bomb nuclear test at the Bikini atoll in the South Pacific. After reading the book, I did some more research on the subject. Between 1946 and 1962, our government conducted 105 atmospheric and under-water (not under-ground) nuclear weapon tests — many of which were extremely high yield. There was considerable nuclear fallout on many of the Marshall Islands, several of which were inhabited. What’s more, the Micronesian Bikini Atoll inhabitants were forced to leave a homeland that had been theirs for centuries. (The Marshall Islands is a UN “Trust Territory” administered by the USA — which gave America the jurisdiction to force the relocation and conduct the tests.) Tests that left some of the islands uninhabitable, significantly increased cancer rates, and such, on the islands, and decimated island and aquatic eco-systems. (The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 paid $750 million to Marshall Islanders.) Now here’s the thing… First of all, as president, I wouldn’t have been pursuing the development of a hydrogen bomb. Secondly, if this had already been developed before I became president, I would have just announced to the world that we had a bomb that was “…1,000 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Since the world already saw what the atom bomb could do (massive infra-structure destruction, 140,000 people dead in Hiroshima when the bomb hit, and another 66,000 deaths later), the world probably would have taken our word for it. And as for the nuclear physicists who developed the hydrogen bomb, there was probably a mathematical formula that told them that if so many atoms fuse together in, say, a certain size bomb, it will create x amount of energy.  And if there’s x amount of energy, x amount of square miles will be destroyed, and x amount of people (depending on population density) will be killed. (And let’s face it, Russian nuclear physicists, through spy networks to steal the plans, etc., also developed the hydrogen bomb.) So, we were at Cold War chess “stalemate” anyway. Why test the thing, and 105 times at that, out in the ocean with all the people, eco-systems, and such, in harm’s way?  Maybe those nuclear physicists (and American presidents for that matter) aren’t as smart as everyone thinks.

 

         

          

         

Humanitarian Aid Super-Power?

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I was re-reading part of this book the other night. At one point, the author proposes a major paradigm shift. For instance, he recommends we enlarge the CIA mission to gather “intelligence” about other nations, other cultures, in order to learn from them to put us in a better position to interact with people in foreign lands. Likewise, he proposes a shift in another part of the military complex. He proposes “weapons of war” be turned into “weapons for peace.” For instance, some U.S. tanks could be turned into road building machines for developing countries. Those making chemical warfare products could shift their focus to creating chemical fertilizers, and the like, Peck writes. Our position paper on a U.S. Department of Peace proposes this kind of shift as well. We propose America become a Humanitarian Aid Super-Power.