More of “this & that” from North Dakota: North Dakota, we learned, has .02% of the population of the U.S. So we’ve decided to campaign heavily here. Who says we need a political stategist, huh… Interviewed “Captain” Tim Miller, who coordinates the Salvation Army operation in Jamestown, N.D. He said the store regularly donates clothes to churches for “garage sales,” and gives clothes to outreach projects to the Ukraine and Native American Reservations north of here. Yet with all this charity, they find themselves still continually making a profit. “You can’t out give God,” Miller said… Met with Sharon Maulding who started an extremely innovative: “Moral Positive Behaviors Kindle Success Forever and Beyond” program for schools in a 120 mile radius of Jamestown, N.D. The orientation is to move away from “punitive” discipline models, toward “positive” discipline in the classroom and at home. “If you want to help children, you have to help the family,” said Sharon… We then headed toward Bismark.
More summary stuff from the last week: Stood in solidarity with a group protesting and praying in front of the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota. While there, I also interviewed Allie Keller, 19, who is actively involved with the local chapter of “Collegians for Life”… We headed west to Valley City, North Dakota where they were having a 1960s high school reunion weekend. According to the town newspaper, one of the main weekend events include: “Recognizing each other (It’s been so long!)… In Jamestown, North Dakota, I interviewed agronomist Bob Hoffbeck. He said because of corporate agri-business efficiency on the big farms across the country, America pays the least for food of any Developed nation (8% of the average Americans weekly take home pay). I told a reporter for the Jamestown Sun newspaper that this is a “double-edged sword.” That is, the chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbacides used in this ultra-efficient process are leeching into the groundwater, then polluting major waterways everywhere. In addition, the chemicals that are accumulating in the plants are causing chemical time-bombs in our systems that are showing up as cancer, and so on. (Not to mention, I said, agri-business is pushing the small family farmer off the land.) I said to the reporter that common sense would say: The short term benefits of cheaper prices at the market are killing the eco-system — and us.
More vignettes from the last few days on the trail: While at the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, I was interviewed by Minnesota State University’s Martin Grindeland, who teaches Mass Communications. His class was doing a documentary on the Lake Itasca State Park. I noted that the Native Americans found it somewhat “amusing” that the European explorers were all rushing to “discover” the Mississippi headwaters when, well, the Indians already knew where it was… We then traveled west where we talked with Winona LaDuke on the White Earth Indian Reservation. (Ms. LaDuke ran as Ralph Nader’s vice presidential candidate in Campaign 2000.) Among other things, her White Earth Land Recovery Project includes a series of creative ways to purchase land back for the Ojibwe Tribe. She said people either donating their land, or selling it at a “bargain price,'” can be assured the land will be returned (as much as possible) to it’s natural state, because she feels we should be responsible for “seven generations ahead.” At the White Earth Project’s organic garden, Emma LeVine told me they have provided tilling and seeds for free to some 150 elderly on the Reservation who have wanted to put in organic gardens. Ms. LeVine, and several other White Earth Project staff, are also about to begin a “Local Food Challenge (see: www.slowfood.org).” That is, for the next year they will only eat food that comes from a 250 mile radius. (She believes in local production for local consumption, and is opposed to long distance shipping of food because of fossil fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, mega-farm operations that can undercut local farmers…) Note: Earlier in the week, we parked at the Rock Creek (MN) Road Cafe for the evening (Have I mentioned it’s a low budget campaign?). The next morning, from a distance, a woman noticed the “GOT JOE?” signage on the back of our vehicle, just a bit above a bumper sticker that says: “Joe Schriner for U.S. President 2008.” Not seeing the bumper sticker from that distance, and just seeing the: “GOT JOE?”, she asked: “Who is Joe?” I said me. She then asked: “What, do they forget you a lot?”
Summary of last few days: We crossed back over the Mississippi and started across northern Minnesota. Marianne Klaus in tiny McGrath, Minnesota (pop. 65) told me growing up in the ’30s her parents had 30 cows, some chickens and a garden. “You could get by on that then,” she said. “But no more.” In McGregor, Minnesota I met with Fr. John Fleischhacker who was a missionary in West Nguni for 19 years. He said the people there (who were hunter/gatherers) “didn’t know they were poor.” Then on the 4th of July, we took the kids to the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. While there, I interviewed Native American Joe LaGarde who is on the board of the White Earth Land Preservation Organization. He is currently helping spearhead a drive to preserve the natural integrity of wild rice in his area. LaGarde told me the Native Americans use wild rice in their ceremonies, but with the introduction of GMOs, they are worried the composition will be altered in a way that the “Creator” never intended. (Good concern.)
We traveled to Anathon Farm in Luck, Wisconsin (pop. 1,200). The sign coming in says: “You Are Now In Luck.” And we were. We researched an ultra-earth friendly farm (two-acre organic garden, solar shower, solar panels, straw-bale insulation, compost toilets…) The community members here are also ardent peace activists, including Jerry Berrigan. Jerry is the son of the famous Phil Berrigan. (Phil and his brother Daniel were known world-wide for speaking up for peace and social justice issues — and Jerry is carrying on the tradition.) With 15,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S., and thousands more around the world, Jerry said we totter on the brink of nuclear disaster. And in trying to head this off, “there is no more important work,” he said.
More summary updates from the last few days: In Winona, Minnesota I interviewed Paul and Sarah Freid who are live-in volunteers at a Catholic Worker house for the homeless there. Paul, who was a theology major in college, said the gospel message is pretty easy to figure out — “if you’re willing to suffer.” In Lake City, Minnesota (“birthplace of water skiing”), we passed out flyers in front of the Rythm & Brew Coffee Shop where the “hours of caffeination” are 8 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. After meeting with the editor of Lake City’s newspaper, I went inside the coffee shop. There is a reflection by Ghandi on the wall that includes things that lead to a: “Path of Destruction.” One is to have: “Pleasure without Conscience.” And it is “pleasure without conscience” which is becoming a problem along the Mississippi River Watershed Region, I told a reporter from the Red Wing (MN) Republican Eagle. I noted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Division is recommending much less hunting and boats with electric motors only in the back waters of the Mississippi. I said to the reporter I would concur with the restrictions. “It’s time we started sacrificing some of our ‘fun,’ for the health of the environment,” I said. Note: On the lighter side, I told the reporter that I wanted the “good people of Minnesota” to know that one of the first things I’d do when I got to D.C. was to push to replace the Statue of Liberty with: a Viking. A couple stops later, in New Richmond, Wisconsin, a newspaper editor there asked if I sometimes have a hard time getting people to take me seriously. I said: “sometimes.”
In the last few days… I was on WPVL radio in Platteville, Wisconsin, where I said our campaign was somewhat “retro.” That is, we’d like to see a time again when the streets were safe for kids, media was a lot more wholesome, there was less pollution… I then told the Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin newspaper that: “We ask the American public in general to consider cutting back on lifestyle and helping more with… Third World projects.” To underscore this, during an interview at the La Crosse Tribune newspaper, I said people think nothing of wearing $200 suits in this country, when $200 would feed a small village in the Third World — for a month. And yesterday during a whistle-stop event in Winona, Minnesota, I told a Winona Daily News reporter that with issues like mounting: Third World poverty, global warming, violence… “I don’t want to be sitting on my death bed looking my son Joseph in the eye and saying I knew all this stuff was going on, but I was too busy making money.”
The following is a summary of some of the other stops last week: During an interview with a reporter for The Monroe (WS) Times, I said our agricultural platform calls for much more organic farming because modern herbacides, pestacides and fertilizers are creating “chemical cocktails” in our systems, leading to things like cancer… I then interviewed Monroe’s George Schutte who has a quarter acre organic garden (he uses flour to dust his vegetables as a natural pesticide). Schutte’s license plate says: “17 kids.” Because, well, that’s how many he’s had… We then traveled west to Platteville, Wisconsin, where I interviewed Bob Metzger who is the president of this town’s Main Street Downtown Revitilization Program. He told me part of this rejuvination process is being driven by a group of shop owners who have moved in above their respective shops. (Metzger and his wife live above their “Badger Brothers Bagel & Coffee Shop” as an example.) He said for these store owners, the downtown becomes their “front yard” so they are very motivated to fix it up. In addition, Main Street Project coordinator Cheryl Smina told me the town has adopted a “4-Point Approach,” which includes putting on regular events downtown, recruiting businesses, publishing a newsletter, raising awareness about why it’s important to shop locally… Note: Outside Badger Brothers is a chalk board that displays different sayings. This week’s: “When the volume goes up; communication goes down.”
My wife Liz was two months pregnant with our fourth child when she had a miscarriage in La Crosse, Wisconsin Saturday night. As providence would have it, we were staying at the home of Martha and Kevin Helin at the time. (Martha is a nurse on the maternity ward of a hospital in La Crosse, and couldn’t have been more helpful.) The baby’s name is Mary Rose. Shortly after, a woman in Lacrosse said she had two miscarriages and at a Catholic Monestary there they have glass, engraved rectangles in a wall, with the names of babies who didn’t make it. She said she quite frequently goes there to run her hand across the names (as they do at the Vietnam Memorial) to remember these children. Our Sarah is designing a small, cardboard grave marker for Mary Rose.
In Beloit, Wisconsin, at Our Lady of Assumption Church, I came across a pamphlet called: “Sing a Little Louder.” It was written by a Christian woman who lived in Germany during the Holocaust. She wrote her church was on a railroad track and on Sunday mornings, often, during the middle of the service box cars filled with Jews screaming for their lives would pass by. The response by the Christians in the church? They’d sing louder to drown out the screams. And the German woman wrote we are doing the same thing in America now. The Holocaust of abortion goes on every day here (4,400 abortions a day in the U.S.). Yet for the most part, we frenetically rush about staying busy with work, with entertainment, with all sorts of extra-curricular activity… ‘Singing’ louder and louder — as the silent screams of these little babies continue.