Vote for Joe

On the way to my kid’s soccer game near Toledo the other night, I stopped in Van Buren, Ohio (pop. 461). There’s a small post office there that had fall schedules for the local high school team. I, strategically, laid a Joe campaign card on top of the schedule with, as you can see: “Go Black Knights.” Okay, okay… so my kid’s team plays them as well, and I’ll probably not be hollering — “Go Black Knights!” — the night of the game, but… Whose going to know, right? Oops. Note: The wildfires continue almost unabated in 12 states out west now, the 2nd hurricane in two weeks is churning in the Gulf of Mexico, civil unrest in our cities is almost off the charts now… It is, indeed, a “Black Night” for our country. And there could well be a reason all this is happening. And, yeah, climate change might be one. But more to a systemic, spiritual point, sin is also off-the-charts in this country at this time, and it wouldn’t take an Old Testament prophet to see that. Just an “average Jonah” from the Midwest — just getting out of an “Uber whale” who is announcing that maybe God is trying to wake us up.

Catching up on the last couple weeks… I’m pictured here at the Pilot Travel Center in Beaverdam, Ohio, where I stopped to stump. Think about it. You’ve got people from all over the country stopping at these kinds of places. So if you can get the campaign cards into just the right hands… Well, it’s either this or millions of dollars in advertising… I covered the Ada Village Council meeting the other night for the newspaper. The fiscal officer reported that, surprisingly, Ada was only 6% below projections for village tax collection, even with the pandemic. While acknowledging this, indeed, was optimistic, one councilmember cautioned that there was still need for prudence in spending because things still could go south, so to speak. It’s this kind of small town fiscal common sense that we need with economic matters in D.C... I also did a feature story about a local Bluffton bicycle story owner. He said the shop has been going gangbusters since the pandemic hit. He said families are opting for semi- “staycations” in the form of day long, weekend, etc., bicycle trips, and such. [Never let a crisis go to waste.] Way less plane, bus, train… travel. Way less pollution, global warming gases, and so on. And it took a pandemic for us to realign and start doing more of the right thing. Hmm… Note: At my son Jonathan’s soccer match the other night at Elida (Ohio) High School, the booth announcer, after the perfunctory sportsmanship and social distancing warnings, then asked that people refrain from “talking politics” in the stands as well. Have we actually gotten to that point? Wow.

On my recent campaign tour down Old Rte. 30, I stumped in Cairo, Ohio. (Something I’ve done in hundreds and hundreds of towns over the years.) Cairo is a small, rural town made up, primarily, of working class folks. I also captured this sunset that evening. Meanwhile, across the country in California, the sky looks somewhat like this as well in many parts. But this orangish red is from flames. California is on fire. As I type this, 2 million acres have already burned, which is a record — and the state is just now moving into the main part of the fire season. The confluence of natural elements: extended drought, drier air, higher than normal temperatures, more Santa Anna winds than usual, a phenomenal 11,000 lightening strikes in just a couple day period to spark a lot of the fires… Pictures coming out of California make it look like, well, Hell. Question(s): Global warming? Yeah, to an extent, sure. But also, is it God’s warning? California, which often sets the trends for the rest of the country, over time, is now steeped in progressiveness that’s allowing for whole sale abortion, anything goes queer lifestyles, off the charts immodest dress, drugs… This stuff, all of it, is tremendously antithetical to what’s taught in God’s Bible. And to continue in all this is a ticket to a place that’s even hotter than California, for eternity. Wouldn’t you think God would step in to try to get peoples’ attention, before it’s too late? I do. Note: In fact, I believe God might be giving all of America a Nineveh Moment, before it’s too late.

This week I wrote a piece for the newspaper on a Youth For Christ (YFC) outreach in a hardscrabble area of Lima, Ohio. This place, as you see here (pre-pandemic), is usually bustling with youth activity, especially with it being a “safe space” in the neighborhood. However, it closed for awhile. And now only 10 youth are allowed in the building at a time. The director told me they recently got a grant for some nice outdoor picnic tables, umbrellas, plants… for a court yard. Kids now do Bible studies, art projects, homework, board games… at the tables. And Rally Point is currently trying to solicit a local volunteer electrician(s) to put some flood lights up so the youth can stay later in the evenings. The director said incidence of youth depression, drug use, suicides… are up since the pandemic hit. And places like Rally Point are scrambling to try to help. Note: Rally Point also has a fence-enclosed, outside basketball court. And a couple years ago, my son Jonathan (who plays on the Bluffton High School basketball team) undertook fundraising efforts, then joined with a master electrician who volunteered his time to put up a flood light for the court. It all went well. Note 2: Several years back, we intentionally moved to a hardscrabble area of Cleveland (the poorest city in the country at the time) to join with a Catholic Worker group to do regular outreach into the neighborhood. We saw, first hand, how desperate some kids can become in atmospheres like this. Trump never lived in this type of environment. And for all his “working class Joe” Scranton rhetoric, most likely Biden never lived in this type of desperate environment either.

What’s starting to dot towns around the area is what’s called: “blue line flags.” I just wrote a story for one of the local newspapers about this. The flag is meant as a show of solidarity with the police all over the country. And the blue line is symbolic of the “thin blue line” between law abiding citizenry, and lawlessness/chaos. While there are, indeed, a few bad police, as there are a few bad people in virtually every profession, overall police are, not only upstanding, but a tremendous benefit to the community. But now they feel like they’re constantly under a microscope, often have their hands tied when responding, and so on. And given all this, how many are simply going to get out of the profession, and how many younger people are not going to want to get into the profession? A climate of lawlessness is growing in our metropolitan areas, and the next venues will be suburbia and rural America. If I were president, I’d step in to immediately quell this — through a number of different, and assertive, channels.