The New START Treaty has been ratified in the U.S. (still has to be ratified in Russia as well). The treaty will limit each country’s strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. I’m sorry, but this seems to me like ‘…rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.’ Our last campaign tour took us through South Dakota where we stopped at an old missile silo headquarters run now by the National Park System. A display board there noted it takes approximately 30 minutes for a nuclear missile to travel to Moscow. Ok, some average Joe math: 1,550 nuclear missiles (‘down from 2,200 nuclear missiles) would still blow the world up a whole lot of times over. (And I didn’t even need to work at Los Alamos to know that.) What’s more, for the Treaty to have passed, there was a provision added that $85 billion (that’s right, billion, as with a b) would be allocated for nuclear weapons upkeep and modernization. Meanwhile, 24,000 people starved to death today in the world. None other than former President (and Army general) Dwight Eisenhower once said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired… signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed…” Some more “average Joe” math: $85 billion dollars could buy a whole lot of food for people starving in the Third World now. An “average Joe” analysis: I wonder how God would look at people who put their own safety above the desperate, imploring eyes of a little Ethiopian child in the throes of the last stage of starving to death — as her mother looks on helplessly? Note: Bumper sticker sighting in Atlanta, Georgia, today: When Jesus said love your enemies, I doubt if that meant kill your enemies. I wonder how nuclear missiles would square with this?
He’s dead.
Our family is volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, Georgia, this winter. The Open Door is an outreach to the homeless. The last couple nights, because of frigid temperatures here, we have become a temporary night shelter. Part of what prompted this was that the first night the temperatures were in single digits (with the wind chill factor), someone died on the streets of exposure. There are some 10,000 homeless people in the greater Atlanta region. Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine just noted that the top 20% of Americans own 84% of the wealth of this nation. And the bottom 20% own 0.1% of the wealth. The guy who froze to death was in the latter category. On our last campaign tour, I told the Amarillo Globe News that my administration would have some of the guys on the street: living in the Lincoln Bedroom. I mean, I don’t think Lincoln would mind. He’s dead. The room’s open.
‘culture of narcissism’ and global warming
Ok, time to call a spade a spade… During our prayer time this morning, I was reading the kids some writings of Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement). At one point, she wrote that people in this society often grow up quite selfish, continually expecting things. (A ‘culture of narcissism,’ if you will.) Thus, if you have a majority of people who are are selfish, then it makes for a country that is, well, selfish. In the face of rapidly evolving global warming that is already causing lethal droughts and flooding, super-charged hurricanes, super-charged typhoons… America is dragging it’s feet (particularly the Republicans) on dramatic (and quick ) cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Why? Because selfish people don’t like to sacrifice. As an example, they don’t want to be warm in the summer (lose the air-conditioning), colder in the winter (cut back the thermostat), while we’re phasing in more and more clean, renewable alternative energy technology. So those involved with the Climate Conference last week in Cancun, Mexico, had to settle for secondary (and far less impacting) responses to global warming. Does this make us in the U.S. (even narcissistic initials, huh) morally culpable for the climate deaths happening around the world now, and in the future? Well, sure.
An ounce of prevention…
We’re currently volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, while looking at urban poverty issues. The Open Door is an outreach to the homeless that includes some beds, meals, showers… The Open Door also has a health clinic on Wednesday nights. Several of the volunteers for this are medical students at nearby Emory University. I recently talked at length with one of the students, Gretchen Snoyenbus. She said she is currently taking a class on health care issues for seniors. Ms. Snoyenbus said one of the problems, the way she sees it, is insurance companies generally only allow for 15 minutes with the doctor per: visit, yet seniors often times have a cornucopia of health issues that need longer attention and considered discussion about medication, nutrition, and so on… If this doesn’t happen at that point, then long term there’s a much better chance the senior will end up in the hospital, including health care expenses rising exponentially at this point. Ms. Snoyenbus said common sense would be that insurance companies should make provisions for covering longer visits for seniors at the outset to, in turn, cut down on extensive health care expenses on the other end of the continuum. Or put an old-fashion way: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Note: At the climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, a frustrated Bolivian president, Evo Morales, said dragging feet on this issue is akin to “ecocide.” It’s been my experience that the Green Party has, by far, the best platform when it comes to reversing global warming.
subtraction vs. addition
The national debt is now $13.7 trillion. The interest on it is approximately $387 billion, a day. The package that was just tentatively approved in D.C. will cost about $900 billion more over the next two years — to be financed entirely by adding to the national debt, according to a New York Times article. Ok, I mean it wouldn’t take a Ph.d from MIT to figure out that, oh, we might want to subtract from the national debt at this point. On a campaign stop in Delphos, Ohio, I told the Delphos News it is our belief that we should have “someone in D.C. with a calculator that works.” Given this latest development, prior to even using the calculator, it might be good to have someone in D.C.: who understands the difference between subtraction and addition. Note: The $387 billion in interest each day means our urban war zones are being tremendously shorted help; our environmental programs (to reverse imminent threats like global warming) are being tremendously shorted; people starving to death, dying of malaria, etc., in the developing countries are being tremendously shorted… We, most of us, should be tightening our belts and paying this national debt off as quickly as possible.
‘Tao of Traffic’
The Oct. 23 edition of Science Magazine noted that Germany is experimenting with a new type of traffic light system. Sensors are placed in approaches to traffic lights (from both sides). The light then responds, not automatically like they normally do, but rather to the incoming and outgoing traffic flows. In a test of the system in Dresden, it was estimated waiting in traffic was reduced by 9%. Just the next phase in keeping traffic going, and going… faster, and faster… Meanwhile, in America 33,000 people were killed on the roads last year. (That’s like half an airliner going down, every day.) And even more people are maimed each year on the road. For instance, I was talking to a man in Atlanta recently whose son was paralyzed for life from a car accident on a highway in New Mexico… Common sense would say, instead of continuing to speed things up out there on the roads, maybe we should be (Are you ready for this?) slowing things down. In the middle part of last century, the speed limit on the highways was 40 mph. The speed limit in the residential areas was 25 mph. At those speeds, a whole lot less people were getting killed, and a whole lot less people were being maimed. Call me “retro,” but wouldn’t we be much better off with a slower ‘Tao of Traffic’? Note: I just heard a country song about the “old days.” A time when if someone said they were “down with that,” it meant they had the flu.
Could we be sacrificing way more?
We’ve stopped at the Open Door Community in Atlanta. This is a Catholic Worker House that does outreach to the homeless. Liz and I will be on staff here for several months, while also looking at urban poverty issues and interviewing a wide variety of people who come here from all over the nation to volunteer… One of my first discussions here was with Brian Schaap, 24, who came from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to volunteer for a couple weeks. Several years ago, Mr. Schaap had volunteered for a year in Tanzania through the Mennonite Church’s SALT (Serving And Learning Together) Program. He helped set up a community garden at a church there. He said the poverty was staggering. What’s more, he said there was a particular tension there in regard to teaching small scale sustainable agriculture vs. importing large scale agricultural impliments which could, in the long run, push many small subsistence farmers off their land as corporate farms start to take over — as has happened in the U.S. Note: Mr. Schaap said experiencing Third World poverty first-hand tremendously impacted him and got him to question, much more, American lifestyles (including his own) by comparison. One of the things he began questioning is: Could we be sacrificing way more to help those in dire straights worldwide? It is a question our campaign poses regularly.
the guy with the orange hair
After Belmont Abbey College, we headed out of North Carolina, through the northwest tip of South Carolina and crossed the border into Georgia at Lavonia (pop. 1,845). And all (well, most ) of the 1,845 residents were on the downtown streets for a town Halloween celebration. And if there was ever a time for some average Joe campaigning, it would be now. So while the kids played some basketball at a local park, I walked up town — amidst witches and goblins — dressed in my costume. I was dressed as (You guessed it.) a: presidential candidate. Original, huh. I eventually stood on a heavily foot trafficked corner and passed out campaign cards. (I probably would have done better passing out Tootsie Rolls.) After a time, I walked about a bit continuing to pass out cards. It was then I came across a full grown man with bright orange hair standing straight up, a rubbery kind of ghoulish-looking mask and some clothes with odd looking patches. I gave him a card and said I was looking for a vice-presidential candidate. He said he’d think about it. I then turned and came face to face with a woman wearing a t-shirt that read: “Yet despite the look on my face, you’re still talking!” And from the actual look on her face, I could tell the t-shirt wasn’t part of a costume. Note: After Lavonia, we headed west into Atlanta traffic — which is often described anecdotally as a “stream of ants at an anthill.” And boy was it.
Got Monks?
We headed south through North Carolina on Rte. 77, stopping in Statesville, Mooresville, Huntersville and Charlotte. We then started to head southwest, stopping in Belmont, North Carolina. Belmont is the home of Belmont Abbey College. The kids and I walked about campus, finally stopping in “Holy Grounds Coffee Shop.” At a table of about eight students, I approached and said: “I know this is going to be coming, oh, a bit out of the blue, but I’m running for president as an independent candidate.” They let out variations of a collective: “Cool!” I passed out some campaign cards, then got some coffee. I mean, how many times are you going to get a chance to try some “holy grounds.” Note: There is also a rather big Abbey on the grounds of the college. A bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot read: “Got Monks?”
good old-fashion frugality
Still in Mt Airy, North Carolina (aka Mayberry ): The boys and I walked about downtown here looking at Andy Griffith Show memorabilia and passing out campaign cards. We came across three older women gathered around a park bench. I passed out some cards and one of the women, who was a retired school teacher, said rather tongue-in-cheek: “I know, when you get to D.C. you’re going to lower our taxes.” I responded: “Not exactly.” I said the current debt is almost $13 trillion dollars and I didn’t want our seven-year-old son inheriting it. I also said I just read that there are currently some 173 different types of tax breaks written into the tax code. And if a number of these were eliminated, we could actually balance the budget in a relatively short time. I then added that we were in “Mayberry.” And one of the attributes “Mayberry” represents is good-old- fashion frugality. So wouldn’t this frugality mean we should tighten our collective belts in America, do without some of these tax breaks, and (Are you ready for this?) actually pay the debt off. Note: I learned all three of these women were retired school teachers from Cumberland County, North Carolina. One of them, Leigh Furmage, was a science teacher who regularly spent her own money on lab equipment, and so on, to get things the school budget didn’t allow for.