This week I’ve been in touch with a representative from one of America’s newest political Parties, the Christian Democratic Party. Headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, their literature explains that: “Chrisitan democracy” is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. In other words, in our current society that would look like a mix of conservative and liberal philosophy. From the “conservative” side, for instance, they are against abortion and gay marriage. Yet, in what would seem “liberal” to many, they are strong on social justice and environmental stewardship. A quote: “Regardless of whether one believes in global warming or not, we maintain that caring for the environment is a great personal virtue… We wholeheartedly support environmentally friendly policies.” The Party’s platform is not only balanced, it’s a good reflection, I believe, of how the gospel message would relate to each contemporary issue of our times. For more, see: www.cdpunitedstates.webs.com. Note: To stay with the environment a minute… We have traveled the country extensively researching alternative energy applications: wind projects in North Dakota; geothermal heating in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; solar projects in New Mexico… During a talk at the University of Notre Dame, I said that if global warming is real and we sacrifice, and also ramp up renewables, we save the planet for our children. If global warming turns out to be not real, and we sacrifice, and ramp up renewables, for our children’s sake: BIG DEAL! In other words, the world gets a little greener — and we grow spiritually from the whole thing.
Unincorporated Territories, a huge explosion, a four-year-old
I’ve been doing research this week on the Unincorporated Territories, and former Unincorporated Territories, of the U.S. One of the former ones is the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear detonations. The Atomic Energy Commission regarded the Marshall Islands as “…by far the most contaminated place in the world.” One of those tests was the “Castle Bravo” hydrogen bomb detonation. It was 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It contaminated more than 7,000 square miles of the surrounding Pacific, including some of the inhabited Marshall Islands. Reports of birth defects, cancer, and so on, in the area spiked quite measurably in the following years there. A question: After seeing what happened with the radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how could we possibly justify detonating a hydrogen bomb(s) in an area where there’s people — or, well, anywhere? Given factors like, oh I don’t know, maybe the: wind. Note: During a campaign tour down Rte. 95 in the West several years ago, we attended a “Nuclear Weapons Free World Conference” at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. There was a Japanese man who did a one-act-play recounting the day we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He re-enacted it as a four-year-old, because he was there that day as a four-year-old. The same day his mother and father and siblings all died.
Cuba
During the Republican presidential debate last night, there was talk of positions toward Cuba. Cuba currently remains closed to American investments as a result of a 50 year travel and trade embargo. The Obama administration, like administrations before, have chastised Communist Cuba for it’s human rights violations, but at the same time Obama has loosened restrictions on Cuban/American travel. And American businesses are now looking at Cuba as a future market. This is, indeed, a complex geo-political issue. Yet, fundamentally, I don’t believe tourism or business profits should trump human rights violations. With Raul Castro continuing in the same vein of his brother Fidel’s “iron fist” rule, scattered pockets of protest are emerging throughout that country. It’s too early to tell whether there will be a ‘Cuban Spring,’ but let’s hope the Obama administration (or whatever administration is to come) helps support the possible congealing of this movement on as many strategic fronts as possible.
hobbling; robust Space Program (not); way out of this world…
I’ve been hobbling around town the last few days with a torn calf muscle. (Whenever I put on my basketball shoes, I think I’m 18-years-old again.) I’ve used the time to do some more research for the National Debates (call me an optomist). One of the things I’ve been looking at is NASA. And as coincidence would have it (and, well, because it was staged in Florida), that topic came up last night in the Republican Debate. Each candidate, more or less, said they were committed to a robust Space Program. President Obama has echoed that as well. During a talk at Notre Dame University several years ago, I said all the great minds coming out of Stanford, MIT, etc., were developing these ultra-expensive, ultra-complex spacecraft — to take us to places where: “We can’t breathe the air. There is no gravity. And there is no food. Wouldn’t that be, oh, A LITTLE HINT GOD DIDN’T WANT US THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!” My research notes that NASA spent $209 billion alone on the 30 year Shuttle Program, which just ended. Ya gotta wonder, wouldn’t that money have been better spent on the poor in our inner cities and the scores of people starving to death worldwide — ON THIS PLANET?! Note: A Science News Magazine recently reported scientists believe they have found a red dwarf star that may be habitable, with temperatures that could range from 14 to 24 degrees (Spring in Barrow, Alaska). Only problem is: It would currently take 200 years to get there. Now I know that wouldn’t be for me. I have a hard time getting Liz to agree to a weekend away campaigning by myself. And anyway, if you really wanted that experience — why wouldn’t you just go to Barrow and take a side trip to look at the pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, or something?
homeschool basketball; polarized; Obamacare; contraception…
Liz and I attended our kids’ Homeschool Basketball League games last night in Harrod, Ohio. Both Sarah and Joseph’s games were quite spirited. Afterward one of the other parents approached me and wanted to talk politics out in the hall. He said he was torn about who to back in the Republican Primaries. I said I was torn too. (Just kidding.) He said he, like many others, wondered if any of these candidates could beat President Obama. I said the whole thing, it seemed to me, was getting way too polarized. For instance no matter what President Obama does, the Republican knee-jerk response seems to be that it’s “all wrong.” I mean, is there an “adult in the room”? Common sense says he’s done some good things and some not so good things, and there’s been all sorts of complex shades of grey inbetween. Just like with any of us. For instance, the spirit of his healthcare plan seems to be helping get healthcare insurance to those on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. And I believe that sentiment is good (although I disagree with the type of approach). However a decidedly ‘not so good thing’ in the shades of grey in Obamacare, I believe, is that the L.A. Times today reported that Catholic hospitals, universities and other religious institutions are “mandated” to offer health plans that provide contraception benefits at no cost to their members. The Times said the American Catholic Bishops were infuriated and this was a direct attack on religion and First Amendment rights. I’d have to agree. No matter what one feels about artificial contraception, the Catholic Church teaches it is counter to God’s Natural Law, and a “serious sin.” Thus, it’s my belief the “conscience clause” should, indeed, be applied here.
Chihua Chihua, Border Tours, NAFTA problems
I talked with Matt Arnold today. He and his family were missionaries in Chihua Chihua, Mexico, for 17 years. They worked with indigenous people in the rural areas there. He said it’s not “African poverty,” but the poverty there is significant — and just one poor growing season away from major problems. In fact, because of an unexpected cold snap that came through Chihua Chihua last year, Arnold said come harvest time there there may well be some dire needs. (For more on Mr. Arnold and his mission go to ntm.org.) During our conversation, Mr. Arnold also alluded to the escalating violence across Mexico. On a campaign “Border Tour” a number of years ago, our family went to Juarez, Mexico (billed as the “Murder Capital of Mexico”). Some 200,000 people there live in slums with no running water, no sewers, no electricity… What’s more, many work in multi-national plants there making $3 a shift, not an hour, a shift. Note: With the passing of NAFTA in 1994, it opened the door for more and more ‘sweat shop’ situations throughout Mexico and Latin America.
The Great Debaters, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mom’s Restaurant…
For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I watched the movie The Great Debaters with our children. It’s about the debate team at Texas’s Wily College in the 1930s in a segregated South. Based on a true story, this Black debate team, in a precedent setting event, debated Harvard’s debate team, and won. The debate topic at Harvard (at least in the movie) was on the pros and cons of civil disobedience, something Dr. King used quite effectively… In our travels, we have traced the “Voting Rights March” from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. We looked at Black (and White) rural poverty in the Black Belt region of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. We moved into the inner city of Cleveland to look at, and help impact, Black inner city poverty, something Dr. King was also quite outspoken about. Toward the end of his life, Dr. King had moved his family to the projects in Chicago to focus attention on this poverty. Note: While back in Cleveland recently, a friend of mine, Dan Dragony, and I went to Mom’s Restaurant in a hardscrabble area of the city. It was clean and kind of homey, had an old black and white picture of the Cleveland Indians, and the food was not only good, it was relatively inexpensive. It is these old ‘Mom’ and Pop restaurants that used to be the hubs of our neighborhoods (before the McDonald’s, Burger King phenomenon). And it’s my belief they should be again.
Wooly Bears, and such
We drove to Cleveland this week from Northwest, Ohio. On the way in, I put up campaign literature on bulletin boards in Fairview Park, Ohio, and Vermilion, Ohio. (Our answer to the big money campaigns.) I was traveling with the family and told the kids that Vermilion was the home of the annual Wooly Bear Festival. Both our teenagers rolled their eyes, in unison. (They’re getting pretty good at that.) In response, I said: “Well, it’s a big deal to people who like Wooly bears (“caterpillars,” for the uninitiated),” I smiled. They didn’t…
a water fund; a New Year’s resolution; and a “monster” problem
Catching up on the last couple weeks: For Christmas, our family’s gift to Jesus was a donation to a Third World clean water fund. Some one billion people worldwide don’t have access to clean water… For New Years, I made a resolution to: win the presidency. Well, it was either that or lose weight… Also, for the last couple weeks inbetween work, kids basketball league stuff and doing some chores for Liz around the house — I’ve been boning up on contemporary affairs, expanding our positions, and so on… (This running for president is taking a little more time than I thought it was going to take.) Anyway, some data: A recent AP article said there has been a “monster” (6%) increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the last recorded year. It is higher than the “worst case scenario” outlined by climate experts just four years ago. (As I type this, it was 62 degrees yesterday in northern Ohio: on Jan. 6!)… A recent Newsweek article noted environmentalists argue that we can achieve energy independence by “cutting demand and ramping up renewables.” Translated: In the short term, at least, we have to: sacrifice. They did it during World War II to help with the war effort. And I mean c’mmon, this is a ‘war on the environment.’ I recently gave a talk at the University of Notre Dame. At one point, I brought our seven-year-old Jonathan up to recite a short poem: “The sky is blue… The earth is green… With lots of fresh air sandwiched in between.” Right behind Jonathan was a big picture of factory smoke stacks pumping huge amounts of global warming gasses into the air. How can we all go on with our lifestyles in this country, knowing little Jonathan is destined for a world of climate chaos? How? Note: How about America’s New Year’s resolution being: To transform from a “society of consumers” to a “society of conservers.”
“senior (driving) tsunami;” Go Packers!
Our motor home got hit last week. It was parked on a quiet side street and an 82-year-old woman, in broad daylight (at a slow speed), swerved and hit the back corner. The next day (Are you ready for this?), the local Lima News ran a front page feature story about the growing problem of older people driving too long. The article noted that 10,000 people turn 65 every day in the U.S. now, a trend that will continue for the next: 19 years. In fact, the article pointed out that in the next 10 years one in four drivers will be over 65. “We call it the senior tsunami that’s coming,” Elin Schold-Davis said. (She is the coordinator for the American Occupational Therapy Association’s Older Driver Inititiative.) For many seniors, driving is a form of independence. It is also increasingly representative of how much the extended family has geographically split apart in the country. That is, in the “old days” there were usually relatives nearby (or in the same house for that matter), who could drive an elderly relative wherever they needed to go. So… Do we need an “Older Driver Initiative,” or, well, do we need people starting to move back home? Note: I recently campaigned in several small towns in Northwest Ohio. In one of them, Elida, I spoke with one of the owners of the Green Bay Packers football team. Steve Hedrick, who used to live in Green Bay, owns one share of stock (purchased this year for $250) in the team. The Green Bay Packers are the only co-op in football. That is, all the other teams are owned by one owner, whereas the Packers are owned by a whole lot of average fans, if you will. Green Bay is also the smallest market in football, but could well have the most enthusiastic fans. That’s what partial ownership does for you, and should be a paradigm used a lot more in businesses across the country. See our economic postion paper…