For a school lesson yesterday, my son Jonathan, 9, and I looked up “eagles” in our World Book Encyclopedia. That’s right, we didn’t ‘Google’ it, we looked it up. And there it was, with big pictures of eagles and everything. One of the things the section noted was that some types of eagles were becoming endangered because the animals they eat are eating crops sprayed with toxic pesticides… In our campaign travels several years ago, I met with author David Orr who is also the head of the Environmental Studies Department at Oberlin College. He believes these toxic pesticides (herbicides, fertilizers…) are not only disrupting the food chain, they are entering our systems and creating “chemical cocktails” that are exploding into things like: cancer. In the face of this, our administration would lobby for a return to growing most food organically. It just makes sense, common sense. Note: While campaigning in Wisconsin awhile back, I told some potential supporters there that when I get to D.C. I’m also going to lobby to get the national symbol changed from the eagle to, that’s right: the badger. My wife keeps telling me I’ve got to quit saying that kind of stuff.
Batman …and addicted to violence
Some thoughts in the aftermath of the movie theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado, early this morning… It happened at a Batman movie titled: Dark Knight Rises. The real shooting erupted during a shooting scene in the movie. As of late this morning, 12 people had been killed, and 50 injured. Among the victims were some youth (ages 9, 11, 13…). President Obama’s response, in part, was: “…confronted by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one American family.” Acually in my estimation, the moments of ‘darkness’ have been coming for quite some time. These movies have been becoming more violent, and more violent, and yet even more violent… During a radio show on a campaign swing through northern California several years ago, I said we as a general viewing population have become addicted to the violence. And just like an alcoholic, the tolerance for more and more keeps increasing. Consequently, we become more and more conditioned by the violence, with more and more people these days now acting it out. (All you have to do is read the newspapers, daily.) And if that isn’t bad enough, we are now regularly allowing youth to be exposed to it — without hardly a spiritual thought. I’m also a former addictions counselor and know that when someone(s) is addicted they are also generally in denial and rationalize what they do. This often works until someone, well, hits bottom. You gotta wonder what the bottom is going to be on this violence thing, huh?
Laos, Iraq… aftermaths
There was an AP article today reporting that Hillary Clinton is in the country of Laos. In some foreign affairs research about Laos, I learned that we dropped two million tons of bombs on this country during the Vietnam War era. (Laos is a neighbor to Vietnam and was an ally to the North Vietnamese.) The amount of bombs we dropped on Laos was more than all the bombing we did throughout World War II! What’s more, with the cluster bombing, about one-third of the “bomblets” didn’t explode upon initial contact. But they have been exploding ever since. That is, when someone steps on one, or a hoe comes in contact with one… Some 20,000 people have been killed this way since the war ended, and scores of others have been seriously injured. For instance, one of the stories I read was about a little nine-year-old girl whose chest was seriously ripped open when her hoe struck one of the bomblets. Her brother and two friends had been recently killed by one of these as well… The AP article noted that Ms. Clinton was there to “…gauge whether a nation the U.S. pummeled, can evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia, to bolster the U.S. standing in a fast growing market.” Now the way I see it… Perhaps instead of worrying about gaining a foothold in the Laos market, we should be: DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO FIND AND DISPOSE OF THE REST OF THE BOMBLETTS SO OTHER LITTLE NINE-YEAR-OLDS DON’T HAVE TO DIE! I mean, we have the technology to find these things — oh yeah, and we have the moral obligation. Note: You know in a similar vein, I once went to a seminar where I learned we used depleted uranium munitions in Iraq. Uranium-tipped, bunker busting bombs and armor piercing bullets have left a significant amount of radiation behind. Cancer rates in that country have spiked tremendously, as have birth defects.
tornadoes, dorechos, warnings?
The year 2011 saw the most natural disasters worldwide in recorded history. And we’re on a tract to maybe best that this year… While record setting wildfires rage out in the West in this country, the Midwest and East Coast just got hit by a huge “derecho” storm, leaving a “massive trail of destruction,” according to the Washington Post. A storm originating in northern Illinois swept east with sustained wind gusts of 70 to 90 mph, “…one of the most destructive complexes of thunderstorms in memory,” noted the Post. Then there were the ‘huge’ (F-5) tornadoes that hit population centers like Joplin, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa… In our camapaign travels last year, we stopped in the small town of Cullman, Alabama. The tornado that hit Tuscaloosa, skipped across the state and also touched down in Cullman. The whole main street there looked like a completely bombed out war zone. Just before entering Alabama, we had sat in on a Wednesday night church service in Crestview, Florida. The pastor said he saw these massive tornadoes as God’s way of trying to get our attention. And the same could be said for this recent derecho storm. We in America have just crossed the 50 million abortion mark; we’re playing around with embryonic stem cell research and cloning; gay marriage is gaining significant traction, the disparity between the First World and the grinding poverty of the Third World is huge… Why wouldn’t God, conversely, send some ‘huge’ phenomenon to wake us up? Note: On the other hand (or in combination), our tremendously poor environmental stewardship could be part of the cause as well. After the derecho, a number of scientists said variations of: “This is what global warming looks like.”
new farm bill; corporate farms; organic growing…
The Senate is weighing a bill that would pull some subsidies from farmers, cutting about $5 billion from the Federal Budget annually. The genesis for farm subsidies came during the Great Depression and were safety nets for small farmers to help keep them on the land. Now a good deal of subsidies, under the same law, go to corporate mega-farms. We have traveled extensively looking at farming issues throughout the country over the years. With the pendulum swinging toward more and more of these huge farms, the small family farms are sadly diminishing in kind — as is a way of life that was once the backbone of our country, I told the Country Today News in Wisconsin during a previous campaign. Our agricultural policy proposes creating an environment that would make it favorable for the small family farm to make a big comeback. What’s more, we would also push to make it favorable for a return of organic growing, en mass. On a stop at Oberlin College several years ago to meet with David Orr, head of the Environmental Sciences Department there, he said modern toxic farm chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers…) are creating “chemical cocktails” in our systems that are exploding into things like cancer. Note: Statistics show that one in three Americans now get cancer in a lifetime. Common sense says that instead of just “Racing for a Cure;” maybe we should be looking at stopping using: THE THINGS THAT CAUSE CANCER IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; amniocentesis; gender-based abortions
We talked to a woman recently who said she and her husband adopted a baby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. It’s their only child, and she said the girl has been a tremendous blessing. She added that people will sometimes abort when there is early diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Down Syndrome, and the like. And in so doing, they will miss the tremendous blessing these children can bring. One form of this testing is called: amniocentesis. This procedure includes inserting a needle through the uterine wall to gather samples. Also now, there is a simple blood test to determine birth defects. Note: During a stop in North Carolina during an earlier campaign, we talked with a couple who adopted a baby girl from China. Because of the “One Child Policy” in China, girls are often aborted, or left to die in back alleys or isolated rice paddies. Note 2: The following is a AP lead to a May 31, 2012 story: WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday fell short in an effort to ban abortions based on the sex of the fetus as Republicans and Democrats made an election-year appeal for women’s votes. [Given China’s gender-based abortions, what does that say about our country?]
Re-drawing the line…
In our travels, we recently came across a Korean War veteran. He talked at length about his war expreiences there and was concerned about the mounting tension there now as well. It’s a complex situation geo-politcally. While doing some research, I learned that the arbitrary drafting of the “North Limit Line” gave the best fishing grounds in the Yellow Sea to South Korea, and that has been an ongoing point of contention. It’s also been a flashpoint. Two years ago, North Korea fired a deadly salvo into Yeonpyeong Island over the disputed boundary. However… In 1950, the U.N. Security Council designated the U.S. as the executive agent over establishment of where the line would be placed. In an op/ed piece for the New York Times, Selig Harrison proposes the U.S. help Seol and Pyongyang come to an equitable ‘meeting of the minds’ about where to re-establish the boundary line in the Yellow Sea. This makes sense. Common sense. Note: The farmers in North Korea are currently experiencing an extreme drought and I believe we would do well to help them.
downtown revitilization
The New York Times carried a piece on Chester, Vermont, recently. This small quaint town, like a number of small quaint towns in Vermont, is fighting a “Dollar Store” going in — because they’re worried about changing the character of the town. Our travels have taken us to Brattleboro, Vermont, and Plattville, Wisconsin, both small towns that have robustly undertaken downtown revitilization projects. (Plattville even has ongoing forums to educate the public about why it’s important to shop locally and support the local “Mom & Pop” businesses.) In addition, some of the store owners in Plattville have moved into apartments above their shops so Main St., in essence, has become their “front yard.” This makes them even that much more invested in fixing up the downtown. It’s a throw back to the “old days,” when a lot of storeowners lived above their shops.
hydro-fracking?
The New York Times carried an op-ed piece today on the questionable practice of “hydro-fracking” to extract natural gas. Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed new rules for drilling for natural gas on federal and Indian lands. The new rules are more stringent. Hydro-fracking, basically, is toxic chemical-laden water pumped into the ground at high pressure to force the natural gas out. There’s concern about contaminating the air, underground aquifers, etc. Some 3,400 wells are drilled on federal lands alone every year. Now, common sense says, for one: There’s going to be accidents. Ibid.: Chernobyl, Fukishima, Deep Water Horizon… We continue to move along at a breakneck pace on all this (nuclear, oil, natural gas…), but what kind of world are we leaving the next generation? Note: During a talk at the University of Notre Dame, I said our administration would place a tremendous premium on promoting: “good environmental stewardship.”
“old school” social security
I was talking to a minister today who noted that the year Social Security was enacted in this country in 1935, the average life span for a white American was 62.9 years. (You couldn’t collect Social Security until you were 62-years-old.) Needless to say, in the early years the Social Security Fund was quite buoyant. Now the average life span of a white American is 79 years, and you can still start collecting at age 62. The SS Fund is currently in trouble. A question: “Does anybody remember when ‘social security’ was about the family and community making sure the local elderly were “socially secure?” That is, the elderly often lived with their children or other extended family. And for those without family nearby, there are now non-profit organizations like: Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly. (We researched a chapter of this in Houghton, Michigan, during our travels.) Local volunteers, in effect, adopt an elderly person in the community. They meet socially with the elderly person on a regular basis, provide rides, help clean the person’s house, do other odd jobs… Note: Instead of myopically looking at just a one-dimensional fix to Social Security, we should be looking at a variety of creative local ways to help the elderly — like in the “old days.”