Talked with Meagan Kresge today on Cleveland’s near westside. She is a staunch anti-nuclear activist who traveled to Japan last year to participate in an International Walk for Peace in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombs being dropped there. Meagan said she and her fellow marchers were overwhelmed by some of the rally speakers’ graphic, first hand accounts of the bomb’s aftermath in Japan. And it moved her into a much stronger activist stance as a result. “We just can’t let this (nuclear proliferation) continue,” said Meagan. [Our campaign calls for unilateral nuclear disarmament, not necessarily on the part of Iran; but rather on the part of the: U.S. “What if we let the weapons inspectors into, say, Montana? What would they find (in the silos) there?” I posed to an ABC News reporter in Findlay, Ohio during a peace march — just before the bombs started falling on Iraq.]
5/3/05
Played baseball with our Joseph, 7, in a rather wide alley near our place close to Cleveland’s inner city. While throwing him some grounders, the ball skirted over broken glass and took all kinds of hops on the gravel. Joseph, being a good sport, said he really liked how each grounder “acted different.” Meanwhile in a suburb not more than 12 miles east, or west, of here, another dad was throwing his kid grounders over a nicely manicured infield. Joseph and I made the best of ‘our field’; but I couldn’t help but think of all the dads down here who: just stop showing up at the ‘field’ after awhile.
5/2/05
Talked with archtect Paul Kapczuk Jr. about “affordable housing” initiatives in Cleveland. Mr. Kapczuk said the Cuyahoga Count Community Land Trust buys properties throughout the city, helps rehab them, then offers them at affordable prices to relatively low income people on 15 year leases, with the option to buy.
4/29/05
According to an Associated Press article today, climate scientists agree global warming is happening and believe that if carbond dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions continue to grow, as expected, things could spin “out of our control.” So what do we do? We shift dramatically to non-polluting wind and solar applications across the board. We walk, bicycle and invest in solar and electric vehicles. We cut down on consumerism tremendously. (The less manufactured goods, the less fossil fuel burning to make them.) In other words, we: cut back, read: sacrifice… for future generations. Question: If our gluttonous patterns now, lead to the death of people in the future, will we be held spiritually accountable?
4/28/05
Was doing some research in the book Bread for the World tonight. It said in the early ’60s President John F. Kennedy made two far reaching goals: 1) To land a person on the moon by the end of the decade. 2) To end world hunger “in our lifetime.” So I’m thinking… If we’d pumped all the billions that we’ve pumped into the Space Program into programs to help people in the Third World become sustainable — wouldn’t we be a lot closer to ending world hunger? What a tragic irony, and tremendously misplaced sense of priorities.
4/23/05
Met with Jim Stevenson who is the assistant to the Director of Cleveland’s “Department on Aging.” He said the Department has recently developed a “Senior Strides Program” for people over 55 who are looking for work. And that’s a good number in Cleveland these days. (Cleveland has recently been rated the “poorest city” in America.) The program helps seniors learn to do resume writing, there is coaching to hone interview skills, and so on. Mr. Stevenson also told me about the Department’s SHAP (Senior Housing Assistance Program) initiative. Seniors, who are eligible because of low income, can apply for assistance in home repair. And, there is also an Elder Abuse wing. Mr. Stevenson said one of the biggest problems in this category is youth stealing their parent’s, or grandparent’s, social security checks. Note: Our platform calls for much more help for the elderly, both through programs like these, and initiatives like “Little Brothers and Sisters.” This is a program we researched in the Upper Penininsula of Michigan (although it’s in a number of locations around the country). A non-profit, the agency matches people in the community who, in essence, become friends with an elderly citizen in the community. This friendship includes weekly visits, rides to the store, help with house cleaning… “Social security” should not just be about a Federal fund, it should be about all of us reaching out so all elderly feel “secure” in their community.
4/22/05
Earth Day. A Cleveland National Public Radio show today featured a representative of the Ohio EPA, and a couple other guests, to talk about the ‘environmental state of Ohio.’ At one point, it was explained one of the biggest sources of “non-point” pollution were Ohio farms. One guest suggested farmers be assessed a fee (to help subsidize OEPA efforts) in relation to how much pollution each farm generates. I called in and said that idea is like: “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” Farmers these days are pumping exorbitant amounts of chemicals into their land, which is destroying valuable top soil and leaching into groundwater, which in turn is eventually polluting waterways, not only all over Ohio, but the country. What should be done, I said, is the inspiring of a tremendously stepped up program to encourage organic farming, across the board, in Ohio. I said as a parent, it’s unconscionable to think we’re leaving this environmental mess for our children. [My prayer this morning at Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Cleveland was that on this Earth Day, we start to look at the environment as, not just a social issue — but a moral one.]
4/18/05
Our family toured the Catholic Worker House on the near west side of Cleveland today. Four volunteers live in community with 15 people who would otherwise be: homeless. They live in a converted convent on St. Patrick Church property here and take Jesus’s continual exhortation to help the poor in a meaningful way: seriously. One volunteer, Chris Knestrick, said living together, and sharing most everything in kind, has made it affordable enough that many people in the community work only part time. Consequently, there is much more time for active community building within the members. He added that in our modern, fast paced society, we seldom take time (in the family, in church communities…) to work on developing deeper, quality relationships. Author M. Scott Peck, who wrote a book on community building, called: A Different Drum, wrote that these quasi relationships, if you will, mean we live most of our lives in “psuedo community,” not deep, lasting community. The kind of community God apparently intended for us.
4/15/05
Met this week with Bob McCauliff who is the volunteer coordinator for a project to turn an old, vacant convent on Cleveland’s near west side into a long-term living facility for those recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. If it works, said McCauliff, it could be used as a model across the country. The building has room for about 24 people, including live in volunteers to supervise. In addition, laisons are being set up to some area businesses to help find residents work and so on. In addition, there will be tutoring programs and other supplemental help from the community. McCauliff added the community has accepted the facility with “open arms” and it should be open within the next month.
4/14/05
My wife Liz and our daughter Sarah helped with an after-school tutoring program with a group of Liberian refugee children who have recently come to Cleveland. Liz, who home schools our children, worked one on one with one of the Liberian youth, a 4th grader. They worked on math fractions. Meanwhile, our Sarah, 9, helped with some of the younger children on basic reading skills. A number of other parishioners at St. Patrick’s on Cleveland’s near west side, meet twice a week to volunteer with these Liberian youth for tutoring sessions in the church’s Rectory. Without this supplemental help, assimilation into the school system would be extremely hard, at best.