Catching up on the last couple months… It’s been a whirlwind of stuff in between house painting, parenting, writing, working on the campaign… We, for instance, have done a number of Facebook “…from the ladder” segments about such topics as immigration, space travel, abortion, global warming… I note that with the mounting super-charged storms, climate refugees, increasing drought (all from climate change), we in the U.S. could well be viewed as: “climate terrorists.” During this period — appropriate enough — I also interviewed the CEO of “Energy One” in Findlay, Ohio, for a magazine article. The company is building three large wind turbines clustered together in Findlay that will be tied to a “Wind Campus” of businesses. Energy One also envisions school field trips out to the site so students can learn about the dynamics of wind energy “up close,” so to speak… During this time, I also interviewed two small, second-generation business owners (at a local glass company and a local optician). Both businesses were passed on by parents and the optician noted that her customers actually span three family generations. She said this kind of business family lineage has diminished in spades in this country — “…and that’s been sad.” Our position paper on the economy calls for a resurgence of small Mom & Pop stores throughout the country. These small stores, and small family farms, were once the backbone of this country. And they should be again. Note: During this time, I talked with a professor at Bluffton University who said her journalism class has a few students who are majoring in creative writing. The professor half smiled and said that she was forever saying “…it doesn’t matter how the air smelled at the time of the event, Mary!” As coincidence would have it, I had majored in journalism in college, and minored in creative writing. This got me to thinking. What about a new newspaper genre? “Press & Prose.” And you could call one of the newspapers: The Creative Chronicle “…Press & Prose for the People.”
green lawns, Syrian refugees, broccoli
I’ve gone to a series of Bible Studies at the local Lutheran Church the past month. The pastor, in referring to how crazy our spending in America has become, noted we spend $40 billion a year on lawn care — as an example. (This is more than the Gross Domestic Product of the country of Vietnam!) While we’re in the pursuit of that “perfect green lawn” — people are, say, starving to death in the Third World… ISIS attacked Paris this week, and now the U.S. House of Representatives, for instance, is voting to keep Syrian refugees out for the time being. These desperate people, including a lot of kids, are fleeing constant terror in their country. And we’re going to turn our back on them? Yeah I’m sure that’s how Jesus would respond, huh… And speaking of “terror,” we kill more than 4,000 babies every day in their mothers’ wombs. I once told the Range News in Wilcox, Arizona, that we have “become our own worst terrorists”… Note: With the turmoil in Iraq, and then subsequently Syria, a vacuum was created for the rise of ISIS. I was just reading part of a book that correlated modern day America to the Biblical town of Nineveh. That is we are growing more and more gluttonous, as an example (about everything). The author said that if Iraq’s main export had been broccoli (instead of oil), he doubted we’d have staged a preemptive strike in that country.
Russian and Chinese dissidents
I attended a talk at Bluffton University today that was, in part, about Russian dissidents. BU History Professor Perry Bush noted that scores of Soviet Union “dissidents” (artists, writers, teachers, Christians…) were killed under Stalin — or sent to “labor camps.” The same thing is happening in China today. Yet we continue to offer that country, for instance, “favored nation trading status.” We are, in effect, financially inter-dependent with China — and as a result it’s dwarfed our voice on human rights in that country. It’s a bad “trade” off.
El Nino shift; home church; reverse “white flight”; average Joe ‘low-tech’ wonk
With a shift in the El Nino pattern, things will be about 15 degrees warmer than normal in Ohio this next two weeks — which will afford me the opportunity to finish an outside painting job before winter sets in. That’s right. While the other candidates are jetting about the country, I’m trying to squeeze this last house in. And such is the populist lot of “…average Joe the painter.” And in between house painting this last week… I co-facilitated a junior high Religious Education class at our church Sunday. Part of it was on: “creating church in one’s home.” Phenomenally, only two kids (out of 15) said they did any kind of joint family prayer at home. A tremendous bellwether, it would seem, for the ongoing march of secular humanism in our society… On Wednesday night I went with a group from Ebenezer Mennonite Church to help serve a meal to youth at Rally Point, in a hardscrabble area of Lima, Ohio. Rally Point is an outreach of Youth for Christ. The director, Jared Diller, moved his family into this area several years ago to be “part of the solution.” Our platform calls for inspiring some in suburban and small town America to move back into our decaying cities to reverse “white flight” and help with real systemic, lasting change. [We moved our family into a hardscrabble area of Cleveland a number of years ago to do the same.] In addition, our platform calls for a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild and revitalize these areas… I also spent part of the week putting some finishing touches on our website. While other candidates have have Silicon Valley high-tech wonks to do the layout, photos, graphics, and such; well, it’s me and our part-time campaign staffer Elizabeth doing the whole thing. [I write the copy myself as well.] And thus is the lot of a populist “average Joe” presidential candidate…
Browns burgers; promise ya anything; marijuana; cheap motel…
Did some more traveling on Ohio’s back roads last weekend… In Lisbon, Ohio, I stumped at the Steel Car Trolley Diner. I also noticed the menu featured a Cleveland Browns Burger, as it featured a Ben Rothils’burger’ (Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback). Lisbon is about halfway between the Browns Stadium and Pittsburgh’s Stadium. So the restaurant proprietor seemed to be playing it both ways. Not unlike, well, many politicians. And speaking of politicians, the priest at St. George Church in Lisbon said during a Sunday homily that the predominant feature of modern politicians is to promise they’ll do something(s) for the voters. When, instead, he said sound spiritual principle is that the politicians should be exhorting the people to do something(s) for their country. I mean that seems the Gospel message, doesn’t it? After Mass, I told the priest our platform does just what he (and John Kennedy) was talking about… I also stopped at the McDonald’s in Upper Sandusky early Saturday morning. I approached what looked like the “brain trust” table (you know the one) and passed out some campaign cards. I also asked for particular concerns. One farmer said he was concerned about the vote this November to make Ohio the fifth state in the country to legalize the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. I said me too. Do we, for instance, want more impaired drivers, more impaired parents, more impaired people in general…? What’s more, the demand for drugs on this side of the fence drives a good deal of the cartel violence on the other side of the fence. So if we ramp up even more demand, there will probably be more violence. Also, people smoke to get “high.” There are few “social smokers,” if you will. Note: While in Lisbon, I stayed at the Travelers Motel on Old Rte. 30. It was 50 bucks a night. And as president, I’d stay at the Travelers Motel on Old Rte. 30 — and take the savings to spend down the national debt!
America ‘gasses’ the world…
On Tuesday, I attended a forum on “Climate Change” at nearby Bluffton University. [Having a small liberal arts college in our backyard has provided an absolute wealth of research information.] Toledo University Environmental Science Professor Andrew Jorgensen travels the country with a warning. The cliff note is that global warming is, indeed, real and that we’re approaching a dangerous stage. Perhaps his most eye-opening statistic was that three “countries” in the world (U.S., China and the EU) are responsible for half the carbon dioxide emissions. And per capita, Americans by far, generate the most. [In effect our lifestyles majorly responsible for: “gassing” the world — triggering drought, famine, rising sea levels, super-charged hurricanes…] Professor Jorgensen said Europe is proactively becoming greener, and we need to follow suit. He mentioned driving less, car pooling, bicycling, taking public transportation. He suggested insulating houses way better, and dialing back the heat and air conditioning. He suggested moving to way more LED lighting.
bicycling, national debt, prayer, square dancing (Not!)…
Traveled some on the back roads of Ohio this last week… I stopped at the National American Bicycle Museum in New Bremen, Ohio. [Our platform calls for a shift to much more bicycling and walking in America.] While stumping in Minster, Ohio, I passed on a campaign card to Luke Williamson. He just graduated from high school and was concerned about inheriting an astronomical national debt. [Our platform calls for someone in D.C.: WITH A CALCULATOR THAT WORKS!] In Osgood, Ohio (pop. 302) I tacked a campaign card to the bulletin board at the town post office. [I only used one tack — it continues to be a low budget campaign.] On Saturday evening, I joined with about 75 people in saying a “Patriotic Rosary” on a farm in Yorkshire, Ohio, at dusk. There are 50 states. There are 50 “Hail Mary” rosary beads. A prayer is offered for each state. Afterward I went to a barn square dance with the ‘Almost First Lady.’ Given how I square dance, there won’t be any of that at the Inaugural Balls! Note: Besides the back road stumping this last week, I painted part of a house, did some stuff for my wife’s magazines, worked on revamping the campaign website, cut the grass, trimmed the hedges… An “average Joe’s” lot.
“…feed the world.” Franciscan U.
I interviewed Greg Gerschutz recently. He joined the Peace Corps in the early ’70s and was sent to a rural village in the Philippines called Eastern Infanta (pop. 2,000). He worked with an extension agency there to help small farmers increase their high protein vegetable crop yields. He told me he was “…young, innocent and wanted to feed the world.” And for the impoverished people in the “world” of Eastern Infanta, he did. Our administration would push for incentives similar to what you get to join the armed services, for people joining the Peace Corp. — in order to help “make war” on poverty worldwide… We also traveled across the state to Franciscan University last week, where the students major in God, and minor in the other stuff. Seriously! You can’t take a math class at Franciscan without learning about God’s Natural Order for the universe, and how it ties in. As you can’t walk across campus without seeing a sea of spiritual t-shirts with such sayings as: “Holiness is not a spectator’s sport.” And true to the ethos of that, students here do spring breaks to Nicaragua and the Bronx to do outreach work. They join floors in dormitories they call “households.” And students in each household, each year, support each other practicing various “virtues.” In pursuing the sanctity of all human life, which Pope Francis recently told the U.S. Congress was important, students take their Saturdays to protest, and pray, in front of an abortion clinic in Pittsburgh. Holiness, indeed, is not a “spectator’s sport” at Franciscan. And wouldn’t it be refreshing if a whole lot more colleges saw it that way.
the polls; painting poles; robot oil; wind…
While the polls show our campaign is still a little behind (Go figure!), I continue on in, of all states: Ohio. Call it a hunch. Plus, it’s where we live… I recently stopped in Holgate (pop. 800), where I talked to a retired man who was painting some rusty downtown light poles. The city wouldn’t paint them. Ohio Edison wouldn’t paint them. So he was painting them, on his own, in light blue, his favorite color. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “It’s not what your country (or Ohio Edison) can do for you, but…” I also attended a talk by Ohio author Tobias Buckell. He writes futuristic science fiction. He said there is now ongoing actual talk in scientific fields about such “trans-humanism” ideas as downloading a person’s memories, brain patterns, speech characteristics… into a robot so the person could, in essence, become immortal. My wife said not to count on her oiling my robot’s parts… In our part of Ohio, we experienced some semi-high winds and a bit of snow from Hurricane Sandy’s outer bands. Many scientists, when they’re not focusing on the trans-human experiments and such, say these ongoing extreme weather patterns are the result of global warming. I’d tend to agree. And so our children don’t inherit a world of yet more climate chaos, our platform stresses energy conservation in tandem with a dramatic shift to renewable energy. For instance, we recently drove through the outskirts of Paulding, Ohio, where there are now 300 wind turbines, the biggest “wind farm” in Ohio. While we ‘can’t control the wind,’ we can sure as heck harness it.
parliamentary pondering; middle class blues; hunger, drugs and bullets
Buckeye Back Roads Tour cont… Stopped at the Spring Street Coffee House in St. Marys, Ohio. Owner Roger Beckett said he was a “moderate” when it came to politics. That is, he said he was basically a realist who believed in well-considered, “incremental fixes over time.” And one thing he said he wanted to see ‘fixed’ is: Congress. He said a good number of countries have a parliament with a certain percentage of seats for various political parties (often reflective of percentages of the populace who are involved with these various parties). Mr. Beckett said he’d like to see the same here. For instance, there would be seats for Green Party politicians, Constitution Party politicians, Libertarian Party politicians… He said as opposed to a sort of “winner take all” mentality, this would be a fairer, more balanced, approach in the U.S. I thanked him for the idea, put up a campaign card on the coffee house bulletin board (our answer to the SuperPac multi-million dollar TV ad strategies), and headed on… Or rather, back. I’d left some campaign material in Wapakoneta, so I headed the 12 miles back on Rte. 33, past, among other landmarks, Rte. 33 Brews & Blues Tavern. And it was Wapakoneta’s Joe Alexander who had the ‘blues,’ (sorry). He told me he was a retired Goodyear factory worker who had just found out some of his pension had been summarily cut. He said at the same time he found this out, a news service reported on the new list of the: “400 Richest Americans.” Mr. Alexander said the most astonishing part of the latter for him was that the accumulated wealth of these 400 people represented: 1/8th of the entire U.S. economy. Mr. Alexander added that with figures like this, it’s not hard to see why the middle class ranks are becoming smaller, and smaller… Note: To continue along these lines… the Economist Magazine recently reported that the top 20% of the country (socio-economically) owned 84% of the wealth; while the bottom 20% owned 0.1% of the wealth. In our touring, we have looked at this abject poverty in, say, the rural Black Belt Region of the South, in the inner cities of Chicago, LA, Cleveland… It is in these places that little kids are daily trying to dodge hunger, drugs and bullets. Shifting this around would be one of our administration’s top priorities.