Vote for Joe

Several entries back I wrote about an extremely alarming news report about the Netherlands allowing the killing of some new borns with serious physical maladies. Today in Irvington, Kentucky we met Ray Meredith whose daughter (who is a doctor in St. Louis) has adopted three children from other countries with physical and emotional disabilities. As an extension, Dr. Jennifer Ladage has established and directs the Foreign Adoption Clinic and Education Services (FACES) clinic in St. Louis. A team of doctors here provide medical help for foreign adopted children who are often plagued with malnutrition, dvelopmental problems, infectious diseases… Ray told us his daughter is a Christian and her desire to help primarily eminates from her spirituality. Note: At the Green Valley Restuarant in Irving there is a plaque on the wall that says: “Momma says there is not much to see in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it.”

Traveled south to Adams County, Ohio where I talked with Harlen Plummer. He was in the Service for 27 years, is a past Department Commander of the of the local DAV Chapter, and regularly goes to Washington to lobby for better veteran’s benefits. And the benefits he’d like to see most is: more comprehensive ones for veterans returning with MS, TB, cancer… He said some of the cancer, for instance, is being caused by “depleted uranium,” which is used to coat bullets, missiles and other armor piercing munitions. That is, the depleted uranium is radiocative and is not only a threat to the soldiers who are handling it; but to countless civilians in Iraq. At a seminar last year on this, I learned that once one of these “hot” bullets or missiles pierce, say, a tank — the tank becomes radiocative (practically forever, because of the tremendously extended half-life of the uranium). As a result, little children playing on the abandoned tanks in Iraq (as just one example) are exposed to significant doses of radiation. In turn, the cancer rate in Iraq has increased tremendously among the general populace since the first Gulf War when depleted uranium was first used, it was pointed out at the seminar. In addition, as a natural biological progression in the general populace, birth defects have also increased significantly. What a tragic irony: We are currently fighting in Iraq over “weapons of mass destruction” that weren’t there; using, of all things, insidiously slow, long-term versions of weapons of mass destruction.

We are readying to launch on a campaign tour of the Southeast to raise more awareness about the campaign and to look at rural poverty issues in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia… It will be a 6,000 mile trip. We are trying to raise campaign donations as soon as possible for this. If you can help, please consider it: Schriner Presidential Election Committee, P.O. Box 15, Bluffton, Ohio 45817. Thank you.

I interviewed Chicago’s Carmen Kinglsey today. She was a member of Mennonite Volunteer Service in Chicago, and worked with the organization “Play for Peace.” She explained Chicago is quite segregated, white sections, black sections, hispanic sections… Play for Peace would coordinate high school students from each of these sections to work as teams that would oversee play projects in elementary schools. That is, elementary students in these various segregated zones would come together and the high school students would help coordinate “circle games,” games of tag, sports, and so on. The intent: to break down barriers. And some of it worked, said Carmen. Note: We propose a U.S. Department of Peace. And under this umbrella, we would try to promote similar intitiatives in cities across the country. Because peace, ultimately, ‘begins at home.’

During Campaign 2004, I gave a talk to a sociology class at Bluffton College about part of my plan for: Jobs in America. I said I believed we needed to be looking at this issue through a “different lens.” And first off, we needed to assess how many people were feeling fulfilled in their jobs now, in relationship to the God-given talenst they’ve been given. (I suggested we use a “National Social Survey,” like the ones being used in a number of European countries at present, to help gauge this.) And two, we need to be looking at the nature of jobs in general in America through a “different lens” as well. Is, for instance, a particular job itself, “life support,” or not? California author Steve Gerdsmier told me he believes some 80% of the jobs in America (CPAs, tele-marketers, insurance agents, stock analysts…) don’t produce “life support.” That is, he said, these jobs consist, primarily, of just shuffling paper and don’t contribute much to the “necessary stuff of life.” What is necessary? Gerdsmier said it’s the basics around: food, shelter, medical, energy, education, transportation, clothing, communication… Gerdsmier quotes Buck Minster Fuller, who designed the geodesic dome and authored the book Critical Path, as saying many of these paper shuffling jobs have started up in the last century, and with them has come an economy geared to making money, but not common sense. (Fuller said these paper shuffling jobs have become so entrenched in American society, that we can’t see the forest for the trees at this point.) Gerdsmier added a shift to much more of a “life support” oreientation would have a lot more people back to the land on small organic farms, more people researching and developing non-polluting wind and solar energy for heating, cooling, transportation…, there would be more local interdependency, including some barter, more teachers (and much better student/teacher ratios), more skilled craftsmen (carpenters, metal workers…) doing more local projects for local people… What’s more, Gerdsmier said a change to a much more uncomplicated “life support” way will naturally lead individuals to live more simply, and with less. With people living with less, and with more people focused on the basic “stuff of life,” there would also naturally be more free time — for God, for family, for community.